Social Media
If used effectively, social media can be a great way to get the word out about your book. It can come in handy not only when your book is finished and ready for sale, but even during the drafting process to help build up interest in your book and expand your “followers.” According to your comfort level, we encourage you to use social media to promote your book. It’s a great way for you to help us help you! All social media sites have similar requirements: a profile photo, a website link, and a biography. For the sake of consistency, and to save yourself some time and effort, use the same profile image on each site. This also helps people realize that you are the same person on each site. We are happy to provide digital images of your book cover in various formats to use for marketing purposes. We can also provide you with graphics about your book to use on your social media platforms, such as a banner image or 3D book jacket. TIP: With social media, the possibilities are endless. But don’t tire yourself out by trying to work on too many platforms at once. Just pick one or two that you feel the most comfortable undertaking, and become an expert at marketing your book within that site.
Email is the original social media platform, and your email account is a great tool to use to promote your book. Start building a list of email addresses of friends, family members, and colleagues. You can use this contact list to send out announcements about your book’s publication, along with a link to your product page on our website so that your contacts can purchase it for yourself. Your email signature is also a great tool to promoting your book, because it’s visible by every person you email. Once you’ve received your book’s product page, include a link to it in your email signature, along with a note that you wrote it. While most of your friends and family know already that you are publishing a book soon, this link will help get the word out further.
Social media platforms
Facebook: You might already have a personal page on Facebook, but you can create a public-facing page for your book as well. Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/create to get started on your page.
- Read: Go to https://www.facebook.com/business/build to learn how to create a Facebook page. Here you’ll find additional setup resources, such as how to set up your page’s header image.
- Join: Once you have signed up, locate any groups and pages that relate to the topic of your book. To do this, type the topic of your book into the search bar at the top of the Facebook page. Then join or like pertinent groups or pages.
- Links: One goal of a Facebook page is to increase the amount of “likes” you have. A like represents an individual user who has clicked a like button somewhere on your page—essentially, by doing this, they have registered themselves as a member and will receive your updates. Invite your friends to like and share your page.
- Discuss: It is never too early to do this! Our Facebook is actively used by authors for discussion. As a result, our authors continually have a growing list of fans. Please become a fan of Arcadia Publishing and the History Press comment on some of the posts, as well as connect with other AP/THP authors who live near you or write about the same topics.
- Build: Remember that building a Facebook page takes time.
Twitter is a platform that allows users to share messages shorter than 140 characters. A “tweet” is a 140-character message viewable by all of your followers.
Pinterest is a photo and idea-sharing website that enables users to create and manage images by theme. Pinterest is one way to get in front of many people who are visually oriented and will most like to see images that their friends post (or “pin” in Pinterest terminology). If you have permission, use some of the photographs from your book to create pins that lead back to your personal website or your book’s product page on our website. In fact, pin any photos that are interesting or relevant to the era/topic/region of your book—images from Wikimedia Commons are free and a great place to start. Be sure to give credit where it’s due.
Instagram is a smartphone app that allows users to share photos and add filters to these photos.
LinkedIn can be described as “Facebook for business”—a social networking site designed to help working professionals connect with one another. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a good fit for marketing. Far from it! LinkedIn can be a great networking site for authors and a good way to share your work with colleagues. Also, search for Arcadia Publishing or The History Press and add us to your professional circle on the site.
Blogs and personal sites Blogs are made up of individual entries called posts. Usually, blogs revolve around a specific topic or idea and are updated often. Now that you are an expert on your topic, you may want to create a blog that continues your research or includes information you weren’t able to fit into your book. (NOTE: Authors are fully responsible for funding this unique type of marketing effort.) A personal website that promotes your book is another marketing tool authors can utilize. Authors who already have a website can add information about their book, upcoming author events, and much more. Your marketing specialist can provide you with a link to your book’s product page on the Arcadia Publishing and The History Press website, as well as digital images from the book to include on your own site. If you already have a blog, remember to keep it regularly updated and link to other, relevant blogs. If you don’t have your own blog, but are interested in starting one, WordPress is one of the easiest platforms. On our blog, we offer news, insights, and stories about our books and authors. If you’re looking for some examples of how to craft a blog post, our blog is a great place to start.