5 Tips for Promoting Your Book

If there is one  thing, writers hate to do, it is promote themselves.  No matter how good a salesperson we might be for others and their books, we don't like to do it for ourselves.  But as I've been told over and over, it's a necessary thing.  In these days of easily available social media it should be much easier. But still we don't like subjecting our friends over and over to a sales pitch on Facebook.

But that doesn't mean you can't try other methods of selling yourself on social media. We've all been told about most of these, but they remain valuable. Here are reminders of five different ways to get yourself out there on social media.

1. Write a Blog.  Yes, I'm sure you've been told that before. The question is what do you write in a blog? Well, you can always post blogs about how your story is coming along or pose a question to readers to engage them.  Use  your research and post a picture of a location you're working on. Offer a prize for commenters, whether it's a book or tickets to a museum. 

2. Post a video.  These are growing much more popular.  The best thing about doing a video, either about your book, or something special that you're writing about or even a location for your book, can be noticed by lots of people who might not normally be your readers.

3.  Don't forget Pinterest.  For some reason I am always getting likes or re-pins of things from my board.  The biggest hit appears to be the gargoyles I dig up.  I'm always on the look out for interesting gargoyle pictures because I am writing a story about a gargoyle who comes to life to protect his true love. But  I also get lots of visits for the Mustang pictures I post.  My first five cars were all Mustangs -- starting with a 1964 `1/2 model. The last three were convertibles.  Ah, yes, I still love them and look for pictures of Mustangs of all ages. People come to my page and while they might come for the Mustang, they must see my books as well.

4.   Try Tweeting or Re-tweeting.   Tweet about things that are not all about you and your books. Re-tweet other tweets that appeal to you. I always look for interesting tweets as I am going through my feed, and if I see something interesting, I will re-tweet. It is simple to do. I don't re-tweet political or show biz things. I figure that is too easy for people to ignore because they can see that information too many other places.

5.  Remember your Website.  This is an established place where people can always come back and get information about you.  Keep it up to date. 

I still need to do a lot of work on my postings, but we all need to promote and often it's easier doing it from a keyboard than doing it in front of a group of people.