The 'Author Underground' has officially opened! Make Sure to Sign Up Today!
FREE Training Module
How to take control of your book's future by becoming the producer, publisher, and promoter of your next best-seller.
All Your Information is Protected When You Sign Up
How Social Media and Public Relations Help Authors Grow Audience to Sell More Books
That is a lengthy title to tell you social media can be your friend and agent in helping you to grow your business as a published author. There are a few clues that you might want to follow:

PR Three Months Before the Book
Start your PR campaign on social media three months before the actual publication date of your book. By promoting ahead of the book release, you create an excitement and expectation for what is coming rather than waiting until after the book is released and the excitement is over.

Building Your Audience Before the Release Date
By building up excitement and expectation on social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, as well as other platforms you may be on, you will also grow your audience. Everyone wants to be in on the latest and being there before it is even released does create excitement.

Create Awareness
One of the values of having a large following on social media is to create awareness within the publishing market – in this case, the local newspaper, television and so on. 

Grow Your Social Media Numbers
What is the correct number of followers to have? There is no magic number but consider 3 – 5,000 followers will get you attention, particularly if your following is rapidly growing. If you have 500 followers, you probably won’t get much attention from the media so try to grow that number. 

Use Local TV
Most communities have local TV stations that do early morning or afternoon talk shows about what is going on in the area. Try to get on there as a local interest person, announcing the soon release of your book and where the book signing will be. Be sure you have your website and email address available for the TV station to post on the bottom of the screen. 

"Coming soon... Save the date"
What to post on social media? “Coming soon…save the date” posts are always fun. Get a definite release date for your book and then begin to leak a little bit about it. What type of book is it: mystery, romance, spiritual…slowly leak that information out to your audience. Offer a discount when buying from you – in person – if they’ve added people to your mailing list. How would you know? Ask them to bring that person(s) complete mailing information with you to the book signing.
Bookstores and Book Signing
Announce a signing date. Signing dates are always fun – who doesn’t like an autographed copy of a book? Go to your local bookstore and ask them if they will allow you to have a book signing on such and such a date – hopefully your release date. Then be sure to have enough copies of your book with you to sign for your anticipated crowd. The bookstore may ask for a small revenue but maybe not. Just getting more people into their store is usually enough, and it might even make them decide to carry your book.

Grow Your Social Media Audience
Don’t despair if your social media audience isn’t large. You have time to grow it by posting at least three times a week. I know that can sound like a lot, especially if this isn’t your gig, but there are agencies as well as individuals that you can hire to do the posting for you. If you do this, it would be good if you write the verbiage for the postings as you know your product far better than they ever will. You can write a month’s worth of postings (3 x 4 = 12) in about an hour of concentrated effort. And you’ll save money by writing the postings yourself. Tell the person doing it how often and what time of day- morning is best – to post the tease; this will leave you free to continue with your work. 

Mimicking Successful Authors
Again, we can’t tell you often enough to watch authors that you know are successful – see how they are doing. Sign up to receive their postings and you’ll learn a lot. Most likely, they aren’t doing the posting themselves, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is what you’ll learn from their platforms. While you are at it, click on their books on Amazon and peruse their blurbs, comments, etc. 

Post Post Post
Posting isn’t hard. It is a matter of habit. We’ve told you about this before and we want to encourage you to consider your options. Hiring someone to do it for you may be your best bet. If so, don’t overlook the kid next door or down the street – they probably know more about social media than you do. It doesn’t really matter as long as you hire someone that is trustworthy. Good posting! 


Remember, "We make publishing easy and we are here to help."

About the Authors: Daniel J. Mawhinney & Darlene Shortridge

Dan & Darlene have a passion and a heart for helping independent authors to successfully publish and market their stories worth telling and messages worth sharing.
40 Day Media LLC, PO Box 950794, Oklahoma City, OK 73195
Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved
Powered By ClickFunnels.com