How To Promote Your Book Online?

How To Promote Your Book Online?

Booknet daily advertises its authors through social media and major search engines. Their promotional materials are not limited to commercial authors either but also those who do not sell their books on the site yet. If you noticed a drastic increase in the number of readers of one of your books, then it is likely that Booknet is advertising that story. 

They do however suggest that you promote your stories through outside sources as well. 

So how is this done?

SOCIAL MEDIA - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Website.

All great ways to get the word out about your stories. 

FACEBOOK- 

1. Create an Author Page- Since you'll be attracting fans to your reading you'll want to have an author page where they can reach you. It's also a great place to advertise your stories, updates, and special announcements. Do not use your personal page for this. You can easily create a separate page by clicking the + sign next to your name and clicking on Page. Follow the instructions and set up an Author page.

2. Join Groups- Booknet also has a Spanish language version. If you are bilingual you may wish to follow these pages as well as Booknet's Official page on Facebook. If you are a commercial writer and can get your book translated into Spanish, then you could sell your books on 2 sites instead of just one. 

Booknet Official - https://www.facebook.com/Booknet.official

Booknet Español - https://www.facebook.com/BooknetEspanol/

Booknet also has a group where authors can advertise their stories called Booknet Home. Booknet Home is a fan-based group where readers can see what their writers are up to. You can leave links to your stories, letting people know about updates, promotional sales and discounts, giveaways, and so forth. 

Booknet Home- https://www.facebook.com/groups/1158094807878940

And there are few unofficial groups you should consider:

Booknet Authors - Started a year ago when authors said they saw a need for writers to have a community page and Booknet agreed. So they approached me to run it. We took it a step further and created a group called The Writers Club which is a private group for Booknet Authors only. We wanted to create a safe space that writers to go to, to discuss ideas, get help, give and get tips, and have fun connecting with other writers. 

It is currently run by myself and 5 moderators. 

MODERATORS:

Goodness Shadrach

AnnaRCase

Emma Swan

HypGothic

Roza Csergo

And I am Admin  - Ruechari

There are many benefits to joining this community as you can connect with other authors who can follow you. We offer reviews of novels, short stories, and poetry once or twice a month by your peers (THE BOOK NOOK and BY THE BOOK) and those that participate in our group are often chosen to be interviewed by Emma or HypGothic for our Author's Spotlight. We have weekday posts on the main page you can share links to your stories to advertise. MANIC MONDAY, TELL ME TUESDAY, WINNING WEDNESDAY, and SHAMELESS THURSDAY.

We do not permit self-promotion in the group, but we do ask for WEEK HIGHLIGHTS where you can share your story or someone else's you believe should be getting more attention. We provide tips, prompts, and give advice if you need it on all things writing. If you would like to join. Go to:

Booknet Authors - https://www.facebook.com/booknetAuthors

Select - Groups and then click on THE WRITERS CLUB - Emma Swan handles new members, so she will need to verify you're a Booknet author before allowing you into the group, but once that is established you are in. 

Another FB Group you should consider joining is Booknet Promos a fan page and group run by Ashleh Queen and S. N. Nina Arthur. Here you can promote to fans directly. They have over 1000 readers following. Your posts will have to be approved by the moderators before they will post to the group. To join go to:

Booknet Promos https://www.facebook.com/groups/4147619401978258 

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INSTAGRAM

Instagram is great if you are going to make a quick, catchy posts, about your story, characters, or updates. Also, for advertising your promos if you are commercial and you have a giveaway or discounts you are offering on a book you have for sale. 

Instagram is image-based, so a program like Canva Pro is a big help in putting things together with pictures and text to show off your stories. And I'm sure there are many other apps you can use to help you. 

INSTAGRAM SITES TO FOLLOW:

Booknet Official - https://www.instagram.com/booknet.official/

Booknet Espanol - https://www.instagram.com/booknet_espanol/

Booknet Authors - https://www.instagram.com/booknetauthors/

Booknet Promos - https://www.instagram.com/booknet_promos/

You can also find many of us authors that you know on Instagram so be sure to look us up as well. 

TIP:

Also, remember with all social media, advertise your book among readers of that book's genre, Booknet has noticed that the percentage of people reading the book after clicking on an advertisement drops significantly when the book is advertised to a wider (vague) audience base. Be sure your tags target the audience you wish to reach. 

Also, Very Important! Try to structure your posts in a way that leads the readers to the book’s page on Booknet, and not to the first page of the text of the book. Experience shows that the percentage of so-called "refusals" is noticeably higher when directed to the text page, and not the book’s page with the cover and the abstract. So make sure the URL you copy is to the book's landing page, not the first chapter. 

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TWITTER

Twitter is also another way to promote your book. Twitter however takes a lot of content to really get a following going, you have to post every day some times several times a day. I haven't found much success with it but perhaps a writer who has will share their experiences in the comments or in their own blog on how to best utilize this platform. 

Booknet Official - https://twitter.com/booknetofficial

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PINTEREST 

These are fun add-ons as far as social media where you can collect ideas for stories. Pictures of how you think your characters may look, settings, and so forth. Pinterest also lets you create lists where you can add links to all your books, so they can be found and show up under searches for those genres. A great tool to get the word out there. 

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WEBSITE

Now many of you may not be at the stage where you need a website, but for those of you who are more established a website is a good idea. Many offer ways for you to blog, advertise, and again give readers a way to reach you. It also looks more professional if your goal is to be a professional writer. You don't have to pay a lot to get a website up and running, in fact, you don't have to pay anything at all if you use a hosting site like WIX. 

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YouTube

I have seen writers use this platform for their book trailers but also for their song playlists that readers could tap into if they are enjoying a chapter and would like to know what music inspired you while writing it. If you're not camera-shy you can make posts talking about your book and there are reviewers on YouTube who would review your stories as well. 

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The thing to remember about all Social Media is that you are trying to create a presence for yourself. Get your name out there and recognized by the search engines so people can find you and find your stories. You are ultimately trying to drive traffic to your books. So try and stay consistent among these accounts. You want to think of it like you are developing a Brand. So use the same profile image for all your social media, as well as banners, you want people just upon seeing it to recognize it as your FB page, or your Twitter Feed, or Your Website. The more you put yourself out there more, the more likely you are to be found. 

Well, I hope this helps some of you who are looking for other avenues to promote yourself and your books. 

Best of luck to you, 

Ruechari 

P.S. Since blogs can quickly get buried depending on the number of people posting in a day. I will be archiving all of these Blog Posts in a book called BOOKNET FAQ on my profile so you can easily find and reference them again.