Marketing Yourself as an Author

You have finally written your book. You have poured over pages, rewritten plot holes, killed off beloved characters, and now you are ready to show off your work to the world. The question is, does the world know who you are?

The truth is that many people think that marketing is an easy task. It seems easy enough to share some book quotes or post a cute photo of the book cover, which should do the trick. Right?

Unfortunately not.

What I didn’t know about publishing my first novel is that I needed to be marketing and promoting myself long before I had finished my book. Here I was with this great book I had poured my heart and soul into, and I maybe sold 300 copies. (No joke) Talk about a bit of a letdown.

When you picture marketing yourself, you need to remember something. No one is going to see your work unless you put it right in front of them. Now I’m not saying you need to be posting ‘buy my book ‘ every hour of the day, but there are smart ways to keep people’s interest in you without drowning them in buy my book posts.

1. Create Social Media Accounts as an Author

You will want to create a Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, and whatever else you think is relevant in author accounts. When creating these things, make sure you have the following to make yourself look professional (you want people to take you seriously).

• A professional photo

• An email separate from your personal account

• Photos of your projects

Once you have created these, posting regularly is important to giving followers a reason to keep following you.

2. Create a Plan of Attack

You are already writing, so why not keep up the practice and write about topics that interest you? One of the best ways you can do this is with a blog. I personally set up a calendar and plan out my blog posts to know what I will write and when I will post it. Once you do this, you do the work and then apply them to your social media accounts for your followers to see. Posting things consistently lets people know your still around, and it won’t be odd when you randomly post that your project is done and ready for sale.

3. Start Early

One of the things I regret most about my first book was that I didn’t let people know about it further back. I literally posted it the day it showed on Amazon. Me, “So I wrote a book! Exciting! You can get it here!” and this was about it. Yes, I had Facebook, Twitter, and some word of mouth; however, it could have gotten much more buzz had people known more about it earlier.

You will want to talk about your writing process as you go, give hints about your favorite characters, and give sneak peeks. This enables your audience to build anticipation and longing for your book.

Becoming an author takes dedication and hard work. The more books you put out, the more readers you will gain. The more that you post on social media, the more connections you make. It's all-important and it takes time. You got this!

Now, I hope that this post can help you get ahead of the game and get your book the attention it deserves. It is hard and consistent work but definitely worth it.