Marketing: The author platform

 

In 7 Reasons Books Fail to Sell the number #2 reasons aside from the book itself and the cover is the author platform or lack thereof. It basically helps with book marketing when we have an established author platform to achieve that with. I know an author who recently published who has no social media and no blog at all. And they want to know where to go from that point. And that does make it difficult from the get-go. Which is why common book marketing sites will tell people to start the author platform well before the book is released. Or even written.

How frustrating is that? But a book doesn’t sell itself. Not with the thousands of other books out there you are competing with.

My dilemma is the fact I do not have a large author platform. So it is less using that platform to advertise and more trying to develop that platform.

To which end I think so far that is essentially:

Post regularly on Twitter and Facebook

And create regular content on your author blog

SEO the hell out of your blog

I have been doing a little bit of book marketing and work on my author platform every day now. It is a slow process. And I know that because my health-related blog has a very consistent platform that I have worked some time on developing. I wish my author platform was that healthy! But I didn’t put consistent effort into it. And that is what it will take. Consistent effort. Maybe set aside 10 minutes every day for some work on your author platform and marketing.

I have done a few things that are good ideas:

• Look at your blog design and see if you can make any changes to it. I recently changed my template and header. Then I made a header for Facebook and Twitter based on the same imagery. Also, make a page on your blog per book. I put some reviews on those pages as well.
• Check out your covers and see if they can be improved. Now, I design my own due to lack of money, and that there is a significant problem to overcome. However, I did review the designs and upgraded them
• Share and post regularly on social media. Follow anyone that interests you. Hell, every day choose people to follow. Some of those will follow you back.
• And post regular content on your blog. Hard to get readers to your social media and blog without regular content. Always make a post about a new review. Every review is definitely something important for promotion.
• Read posts on marketing and SEO to figure out more things you can do. It will definitely give you some ideas.
• Utilize Pinterest. So far this hasn’t done much for me, but it is much more useful than people think it is. So make pinnable posts and have a Pinterest account in your author name.
• And obviously, promote your work. If you do not promote it then hard to get new readers. And find different and interesting ways to do that.
• Learn a bit about SEO

And I have been creating promotional images for my books. Get the word out there in different ways. Here are the ones for White Witch

A gif that might draw the eyes

An image with a review on it.

A general image with short excerpt

 

That is all I have picked up so far and am still figuring out. It isn’t easy. Book marketing isn’t our forte. Witing the book is where we rock. All this other stuff we have to pick up along the way. And learn as we go what works and what doesn’t work. But establishing a healthy author platform is really one positive step. However, it takes continous effort.