The Benefits of Social Media for Books

[Paul Whybrow]

After warning of the intrusion of social media in several threads, I've been deciding a strategy for how to use it to promote my writing career.

(It's always made me smile that the word career also means to stagger about...which certainly describes my erratic work history!)

Some social media sites are hot for a while, good places for marketing a service or product, including books, while others are considered to be a waste of time if you're looking for profit from what you do. Facebook is currently taking a lot of flak as a sales venue.

At the moment, I'm noting praise and dismissal of Instagram as a way of selling books, while many writing gurus are recommending Pinterest:

What's New to Pinterest for Writers?

Mark Williams, of The New Publishing Standard, writes in praise of Instagram, revealing some startling sales figures:

While some publishers see social media as the enemy, others understand Instagram = instabooks = instaprofits - The New Publishing Standard

I'm going to post on Pinterest and Instagram and run a Facebook business page. I should do something to my profile on LinkedIn, which has sat dormant for six years, largely because I can't fathom how having a presence there as an author would work. I think it's more likely to attract the attention of members selling marketing and editing services.

Where are you on social media as a writer?

 

[Nikky Lee]

I'm on Facebook and Twitter. I tried instagram for a while but threw in the towel at the chunkiness of the platform. It wouldn't cross post to my Facebook business page and had very limited functions when using the desktop version (typing out descriptions on a phone is painful, especially if they are long-ish).

That said, I've seen other authors have a lot of success on instagram (I feel like I might have mentioned this somewhere on here before). I might return to it later, but for now I'm choosing to concentrate on doing two platforms well, rather than spreading myself too thin and half-arsing them. Twitter was the platform that came as the biggest surprise. I got onto it reluctantly and with a fair bit of grumbling, but found it to be my best performing channel in terms of engagement and networking. Facebook has been excellent for networking via its Groups—and I've had work published thanks to the connections I've made through them, so they do work. (Plug: for anyone who is an Aussie/Kiwi spec fic writer, I highly recommend the Australian Speculative Fiction Group.)

As for Pintrest, I'm seeing more agents create "wish list" pinterest boards. Which is both interesting and useful for seeing if our tastes match. I haven't seen many authors use it. But I'm not on there a whole lot so perhaps I haven't found them yet!

Re LinkedIn, I'm with you @Paul Whybrow I'm not really sure how best to use it for my creative work. I keep it mostly for my professional writing instead as I feel I'm far more likely to connect to businesses and individuals who need web copy and blogs. That said, I do occasionally share my blog posts to LinkedIn if I feel there is a strong crossover potential that might interest business professionals (e.g. communicating strange/complex ideas or my editing hacks post).

 

[RK Wallis]

I'm mainly on Twitter. I do have a Facebook page, Insta page and Pinterest page. I haven't really got anything to promote ATM, but I just interact when I can.

I'll check out that page @Nmlee