For any self-published authors out there – I have blogged on Off The Shelf Book Promotions about publicising your book on Twitter.
Debbie’s book Sell Your Books aims to help self-published authors market their books. It is concise, well-written and chockablock with useful tips, from identifying your target market, planning your strategy to getting media coverage. While it is a must-buy for those who have published their own books, it also contains plenty of tips for those who are working with a publisher.
As Debbie says,
‘If you think that a publisher’s profit from producing your book should cover its marketing costs, think again… Promoting a book is very, very time-consuming, involving many hours of work with no guarantee of success… It’s not even all about money – because a publishing company doesn’t exist that could field a person more passionate about your writing than you’.
Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to put all that newfound knowledge into practice…
Authors are often told that they should use Twitter to publicise their work. This advice is given to both self-published authors, and those working with a publisher. Twitter is easily accessible, has no barriers or borders, and costs nothing but time.
I hear you shout, ‘But I don’t have the time, I need to WRITE!’
That is what this post is about – ensuring that you get the very best out of Twitter in the time you can afford to invest.
Get Started
Take a day or two before you start tweeting to organise your set-up. Doing this ensures that every tweet you send reaches your target audience.
Pep up your profile
Your profile is your shop window. It consists of:
- Header – the rectangular box
- A profile photo – lose the egg. The generic profile picture is a sign of a Twitter newbie. Be brave and put a picture of yourself as your avatar as people tend to respond better to a face than a picture of a dust jacket.
- Your Twitter name and your user name (the @name). Make it easy for people to find you by sticking as close to your author name as possible.
- A short bio – You have 160 characters of space on your profile to provide a snapshot of your personality. Use them wisely, but don’t go overboard with self-promotion.
- Your location – make this as vague or exact as you like
- Link to website or blog
- Header photo – lots of people don’t bother doing anything with it, but it is a good way of visually linking to your website, using similar colours or patterns
…. read the rest of the article here
