Authors Need to Use Social Media Too

Later this week I'm speaking at the 20th annual Mendocino Coast Writers Conference in Ft. Bragg, CA. Over 100 authors convene to attend intensive writing workshops with well known, award winning authors. They also have panel discussions with agents and publishers and me...speaking about online marketing. The big headliner at this year's conference is Luis Rodriguez a widely respected, multi-award winning author, former gang member...and blogger!

I'm going to talk to the authors about blogging and social media.

While preparing my presentation, I took a tour of the blogosphere, checking out the sites and blogs of the authors who are on the Conference faculty.

Blogs were in short supply and most that I did find were hosted on Blogger. All the blogs I found were author blogs vs. book blogs.

I tried to find Facebook fan pages and was unsuccessful, though I may have missed them if any of the authors have book pages vs. author page.

I found Luiz Rodrigez on twitter, but there had been no updates for over a month (I also discovered that we're practically neighbors and I look forward to meeting Mr. Rodriguez at the conference!).

What's this all mean? I have no doubt that all the faculty authors are fantastic and I have no idea how many books they actually sell. Most have very little online visibility which could certainly boost awareness and attract more fans and readers. If that's what they want.

A great model is what Paul Chaney is doing for his soon-to-be-released book The Digital Handshake. He's got a book blog and a Fan page on Facebook. When I checked the book on Amazon, I didn't see his blog, and I believe you can import blog posts into your Amazon sales page so you can more intimately connect with readers. Also, there's no video, yet.

You can see how Dave Lakhani uses video on his Amazon page for his new bestseller, How to Sell When Nobody's Buying.

I'm looking forward to connecting with so many creative people this week and showing them how they can boost their online visibility so they can attract more raving fans and make more sales!

Resources:

13 Mistakes Authors Make on Their Blogs

Becoming an Online Bestseller - report and teleseminar from Kathleen Gage

An Interesting Book Promo Offer - blog post by Chris Brogan

Comments

[Paul Chaney]

Word to the wise is sufficient Denise. I've not even considered importing posts to Amazon, but will thanks to your heads-up. Not sure about how I go about getting video in there, but will certainly look into it.

As to authors selling books, I think most of us suck at it. I think we expect the books to sell themselves.

In my case, I'm doing all that I can to promote it, but am also depending on the good graces of others (like you) to lend some influence. For that, social media is a dream come true because it incites word of mouth and gives the person something to refer to other than an Amazon link.

Thank you for including a reference to me and my book in this post. You are as you always have been, a very gracious lady, one for whom I have the utmost respect and admiration.

[Elizabeth H. Cottrell]

Excellent post, Denise. As always, what I appreciate about your content is that it gives the big picture and then zeros in to provide specifics and "how-to" information. I've posted to my Twitter following, my writing groups on Linked-In and Facebook and am going to try to figure out a way to share with my fellow members in the International Association of Writers.