How to Leverage Social Media

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Statistics have proven how important social media networks are for a business:

• 8 out of 10 internet users are reached by social media sites and blogs.
• 87% of small businesses claim that social media has helped their business.
• Marketers saw an increase of 74% in website traffic after devoting just 6 hours per week in social media.
• 85% of business-decision makers believe that at least having one social media channel is very important for technology purchase decisionsHowever, there’s much more to just creating a Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Pinterest account and expecting success to follow writes the Search-Engine-Journal. Understand which platforms work best for your brand and where your audience spends most of their time. Don’t forget Goodreads, where readers are searching actively for interesting books!

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Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually.

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More info about Social Media Networks and how to use them:

6 Social Media Sites that are Important for Writers
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/6-social-media-sites-essential-for-writers/

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Brands with great GooglePlus pages
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2013/10/18/10-brands-with-great-google-plus-pages/

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Social Media Facts 
http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/01/17/20-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2014/

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How to Get More Followers
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/01/22/how-to-get-more-followers-on-your-social-media-sites/

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If you would like to get more support in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites – or to learn how you can make yourself a name as an author through content writing: We offer all this and more for only $179 for three months – or less than $2 per day! Learn more about this customized Online Seminar / Consulting for writers: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 1,100 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.
Thanks a lot for following:

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http://www.111publishing.com
http://www.e-Book-PR.com/
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How to Create Your Author Platform

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Platform, a buzz word these days… “What’s Your Author’ Platform”?  THE famous question you will be asked by agents and publishers before they even consider to read your query or manuscript. As they spend almost all of their marketing dollars for bestseller authors, publishing houses nowadays expect authors to do their own book marketing. To ensure, the author brings his or her own audience and lots of potential readers and book buyers, agents and publishers want to see lots of followers and friends on Social Media sites and how an author appears on these sites. They want to see a solid number of blog subscribers/web visitors and the authors ability to present themselves to an audience.
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So, What Are the Essentials of a Platform?
In short:, platform is the visibility, the authority of the author, a proven reach, as well as a far reaching audience.

• A Quality Blog / Website with a Large Readership
• Guest blogging to successful websites, blog, magazines, and other media
• Public speaking – the bigger the better, however at least at your local library
• Smart connected social media presences (Google+, Twitter, FB, LinkedIn etc.)
• Forum memberships, starting with Goodreads, Bibliophil, Wattpad …
• Media appearances/interviews online and in print, TV, radio
• and …. more than one book!

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Building an Author Platform
is not something you can do overnight, or in a month. The best time to start working on your platform is long before you start writing your book. Even if your book is excellent, has received great reviews, a marvelous cover – if readers don’t know about it, you are stuck. And if you go with a major publisher and they would receive – within three months from your books’ launch – lots of unsold copies returned by the bookstores, they would never publish anything from you again. That’s why they ask, “how will you market your book” or “what’s your platform.”

You might think, this is the publishers job – and you might be right. But not even for famous authors they will do all the blogging or social media part, they only advertise celebrities way more than unknown writers and pay for exposed space in bookstores, or send these authors on book signing tours.
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That’s all Publishers will Do:

• editing, transforming a good manuscript to a great one
• design the book (layout) and its cover
• organize the printing process / e-book formatting
• distribute your book in stores, speciality retailers and online
• carry out all the necessary book keeping with retailers and your royalty payments

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Publishing houses laid off a huge amount of their staff within the last years. Remaining, over-worked publicists are not able to give your book’s marketing the attention it needs.
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“When is it Time to Start Building your Author Platform?”
Alan Rinzler, former editor for some of the “Big Five” explains in detail the Do’s and Don’ts “What writers need to know” and gives detailed examples – a must-read for every author.  He reminds authors: “A cardinal rule of the new author platform is never to actually ask people to buy your book (and my advise: never to motion people to like / follow you on FB or Twitter). Rather promulgate your work by making an enduring connection. Establish an authentic online personality, offer valuable information, analysis, opinion, and inspiring entertainment.”

Jane Friedman, e-media professor and former publisher of Writer’s Digest brought it to the point: “Getting a book published does not equate to readership. You must cultivate a readership every day – and start today. Audience development doesn’t happen overnight, or in six months or a year. It continues for as long as you want to have people read your books.” Read also Kristen Lamb’s blog article “When is it Time to Start Building your Author Platform?” Read the blog post about bestseller author Trey Ratcliff, mentioned in a former article.
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Without having a clear idea of which methods of promoting yourself and your work are really worth the investment of time, you might be tempted to avoid the subject entirely. But in today’s publishing world, neglecting your platform, even before you have a book deal, can be a precarious mistake. The most successful authors are those who have created ways of finding lasting fans – and of reaching out to new ones every day.
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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/Seminars
Or visit http://www.international-ebooks.com/book-promo to advertise your new book, specials or KDP Select Free Days.

Please check out all previous posts of this blog (there are more than 900 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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100-plus Ways to Promote Your Book for FREE

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You might have read and saved already almost a hundred websites to announce your book for FREE from these reader communities and blogs*:

https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/50-web-links-to-let-your-book-go-viral/
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/part-2-45-more-websites-to-promote-your-book/

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However, there are even more possibilities to promote your book without incurring costs:

1. Show off your cover image
To submit a cover image of your book including a description / link – if it is an outstanding and creative book cover, show it here for free:

http://pinterest.com/111publishing/books-worth-reading/
http://bookcoversanonymous.blogspot.ca/
http://bookcoverarchive.com/
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2. Use photo-sharing sites to show your cover image
http://Flickr.com
http://500px.com/
http://DeviantArt.com
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3. Participate in a cover image contest
E-book Cover Design Awards by Joel Friedlander, for example this one here: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2013/08/e-book-cover-design-awards-july-2013/
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4. Show your book trailer everywhere
Upload your trailer not only on your website and blog, but also on Goodreads, Amazon, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and FB, but also on more than twenty major sharing sites, starting with YouTube and TubeMogul. Add a link to each of them on your website or wherever your book is sold.

See also an extensive list of video sharing sites for your book trailer in this guide book:
“111 Tips to Create Your Book Trailer”.
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5. Google+ and its communities
There are dozens of reader communities alone on Google+ (for example ours http://bit.ly/VmtVAS) and you can access them from your main Google+ page. On all Google+ sites, images of your book’s cover can be shown, along with lengthy descriptions – several times a day on your own time line, however, on communities better only once in a while, not to be perceived as spammer.
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Don’t forget the Basics!
Use your free author pages, that are provided from Amazon, Goodreads, Pinterest, Google+, FB, LinkedIn, and certainly your own webpage and your blog, where you can show a variety of your book’s cover and images from the content.
Why I mention this?  Too many authors don’t take advantage of these free webpages, they get from online retailers and at their social media sites and where they can show and describe their books to lots of potential readers … 

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* These blog posts are officially copyright registered. To link to our blog posts, and let your own readers know about these websites, please use the RE-BLOG link on top of this page. Thanks! Please learn more about re-blogging here:
https://savvybookwriters.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/re-blogging-vs-copyright-infringement/

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If you would like to get help in all things publishing, have your book intensively promoted and learn how to navigate social media sites: We offer all this and more for only $ 159 for 3 months. Learn more about this individual book marketing help: http://www.111Publishing.com/ Once you are on this website, click on Seminar to register.

Please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are 840+ of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and to StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing
http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

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The Foundation for Your Publishing Success

Platform wikimedia.org

When building a house, no one would start with the walls or the roof.  The first step is in preparing the ground and building the foundation that carries the home. Same with your publishing endeavor, you start from scratch to build a platform.

Platform, a buzz word these days… “What’s Your Author’ Platform”? the famous question you will be asked by agents and publishers before they even consider to read your query or manuscript.

Read the blog post about Bestseller author Trey Ratcliff,  mentioned in a former article

“I am sitting in a nice restaurant in San Francisco with all these executives of a major publishing house. It’s one of these power dinners of lore. We are to discuss the upcoming launch of my book, and I’ll never forget what happened. They asked me, “OK, Trey, what are you going to do to market this book?”  You could have knocked me over with a feather.  My young publishing life flashed in front of my eyes…  I ended up putting together a robust launch campaign. Luckily I already had thousands of people who came to my blog every month, a healthy Twitter following (this is before Google+) and a great network of people to help. I did everything, including….”

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So, what are the essentials of a platform?

• Blog / website with a large readership
• Guest blogging to successful websites, blog, magazines, and other media 
• Public speaking – the bigger the better, however at least at your local library 
• Smart connected social media presences (Google+, Twitter, FB, LinkedIn etc.) 
• Forum memberships, starting with Goodreads, Bibliophil, Wattpad … 
• Media appearances/interviews online and in print, TV, radio
• and …. more than one book!

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Even if your book is excellent, has received great reviews, a marvelous cover – if readers don’t know about it, you are stuck.

And if you go with a major publisher and they would receive – within three month from your books’ launch – lots of unsold copies returned by the bookstores, they would never publish anything from you again. That’s why they ask, “how will you market your book” or “what’s your platform.”
You might think, this is the publishers job. Not even for very famous authors they will do the blogging or social media part, they only advertise celebrities way more than unknown writers and pay for exposed space in bookstores, or send these authors on book signing tours.
.

Publishers will do:
– editing, transforming a good manuscript to a great one
– design the book (layout) and its cover
– organize the printing process / e-book formatting
– distribute your book in stores, speciality retailers and online
– carry out all the necessary book keeping with retailers and your royalty payments
.

Publishing houses laid off a huge amount of their staff within the last years. Remaining over-worked publicists are not able to give your book’s marketing the attention it needs.
.

Jane Friedman, e-media professor and former publisher of Writer’s Digest brought it to the point: “Getting a book published does not equate to readership. You must cultivate a readership every day – and start today. Audience development doesn’t happen overnight, or in six months or a year. It continues for as long as you want to have people read your books.”
.

Without having a clear idea of which methods of promoting yourself and your work are really worth the investment of time, you might be tempted to avoid the subject entirely. But in today’s publishing world, neglecting your platform, even before you have a book deal, can be a precarious mistake. The most successful authors are those who have created ways of finding lasting fans – and of reaching out to new ones every day.
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Spend less time promoting – and more time writing.
Most writers are not marketing specialists by trade, so if you need help and assistance in building a platform, read all our former blog posts or book us for a while  (it’s just $98 for 3 months) to get all the individual support for your book and the knowledge, necessary to continue on your own.  We studied for years e-publishing and book marketing, so that YOU don’t have to.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts (there are almost 700 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.  Feel free to re-blog on your own WordPress blog

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://pinterest.com/111publishing/

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK

http://bit.ly/VmtVAS      = 111Publishing @ Google+

Don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks

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Related articles

• The Seven (Deadly) Sins to Avoid When Marketing Your Book (barefootbasics.com)
• Drive Successful Content Marketing with a 3-Part Media Plan (contentmarketinginstitute.com)

 

6 Social Media Sites, Essential for Writers

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Going through my list of tweets for the day, I paused at this one:
1. Why engage in yet another social media when I am already on Twitter, Pinterest & Facebook ?
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It reminded me of other statements from new writers, I hear on a daily basis:
2. None of my friends is on Google+ …
3. I have a website, why should I additionally have a blog?
4. Writing my book, I don’t have time for all these Social Media…

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Answer for question 1 and 2 – Google+
This says it all: Google+ = Google, the famous Search Engine… You don’t join Google+ to meet your friends and family as you do on Facebook!  You join to improve your Search Engine Ranking: As the main search engine, Google indexes and ranks its own site much higher than any other content. Google+ posts – with a main keyword in the first sentence / title – will rank well in Google search and often show up on the first page, for a long time.  And now Google+ outranks Twitter as no. 2 social network, having more active users than Twitter!

On Google+ authors can create a separate page for each of their books. You have immense space to show images, such as your books cover, even if it has 36 MB and you can show your book as often as you want. More reasons to be on Google+ can be found in a former article: “7 Reasons Why Google+ is Perfect for Writers”

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Answer to question 3 – Why should I have a blog?
Your website is something very static. You usually don’t do many changes or new content writing. A blog – either on your website – which would increase SEO – or on WordPress or BlogSpot is adding constantly new content. This means search engines index your blog site higher.
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Writing is fun – why else would you have written this novel!  As a writer, it is only a matter of minutes to write a blog post.  And you don’t need much fantasy to come up with topics. You can write about, well, writing, your writers life, the publishing process, what you have learned about marketing your book… the subjects you can write about are endless.

An important reason for a blog is that you can use snippets from the content to fill your social media sites. For sample: use one sentence and a link to your blog and post it as a tweet.  Readers see your post and click on your blog or website – and voila! they learn about your book. Here are two samples from the blog page you are just reading:

Author of “The Wolf’s Moon” Patrick Jones, in an Interview, talking about the characters in his book http://wp.me/p1uIFg-1il

9 Compelling Reasons to Get Marketing Help, Boosting Your Books Success
bit.ly/X3rwul
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Readers and fans have a reason to come back to your blog, as often as you write a new post, and will re-tweet your blogs and spread the message about your book. Plug-ins and share buttons automatically send your blog posts to all your social media sites.
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Answer to statement 4:
What you are just reading here, was automatically send to Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Stumbleupon, Tumblr, Reddit, Triberr, Yahoo and Goodreads – at the same moment I hit the “publish” button! I don’t need to go to all these sites to fill them with content. What more could you wish for? Writing one blog post, it can be as short as 300 – 500 words an it will be found all over the internet! You certainly can add more Social Media sites to your blogs sharing button, to spread the word even more.

Your post is yet sent more often among Social Media sites:

• Google+ can send your post automatically to Facebook and Twitter, I wrote in December how authors can set up this function. 
• Twitter gets feeds from Google+ and Pinterest, among others
• Facebook for sample gets feeds from Pinterest and Goodreads and your blog
• Pinterest feeds Twitter and Facebook

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SUMMARY: To have maximum exposure for your book and you, as an author, and to save lots of time, join: 

• Google+
• Twitter
• Goodreads
• Facebook
• Pinterest
• Write a blog.

How to get more followers on your social media sites is explained in one of last months’ blogs, and also at How to Get More Followers on Google+
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Be very selective when choosing followers:
You want READERS and REVIEWERS as followers. NOT your friends. Type into the search functions on top of these pages: readers, book lovers, book worms, reading, love to read etc. to find the right people as your following.
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One last tip: Set up a second page on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest – only for your book. Separate it from your existing private presence.
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Part of our Book Marketing package we offer, is dedicated to help you to create or improve your reader community platform, such as:

• create an attractive media presence
• increase the amount of followers
• learn how to connect all these sites 
• and how to save time on Social Media

Find out how else we can help you to have more success  for your books and more fun in marketing.

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If you enjoyed this blog post, please feel free to check out all previous posts of this blog (there are almost 700 of them : ) if you haven’t already. Why not sign up to receive them regularly by email? Just click on “Follow” in the upper line on each page – and then on “LIKE” next to it. There is also the “SHARE” button underneath each article where you can submit the article to Pinterest, Google+, Twitter, Chime.in, Facebook, Tumblr and StumpleUpon.

Thanks a lot for following:

@111publishing

http://on.fb.me/TvqDaK
http://bit.ly/VmtVAS 111Publishing @ Google+

Don’t forget to spread the word on other social networking sites of your choice for other writers who might also enjoy this blog and find it useful. Thanks

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