Once you get past the truth that becoming a writer whose books get read requires you to market yourself, the question then becomes how.
There are many ways but some are less costly than others.
And since the starving artist isn’t a cliché for nothing, it might be worth looking into marketing that doesn’t require any monetary investment.
Even if you’re a writer who has a well-paying day job, it’s still nice to engage in marketing efforts that don’t lighten the pocket. The most popular inexpensive way to market yourself is to join social media.
Be warned though, it’s as they say: Nothing in life is really free.
Using social media to put yourself and your writing out there is a form of marketing that merely consumes your time instead of your money.
If the prospect of trading your time for others’ attention is distasteful to you, then you’re better off researching other methods of marketing your work. If, on the other hand, you can accept this truth right off the bat and decide you’re okay with this, then I encourage you to read on.
This article is aimed at helping you find ways to make the process as enjoyable as possible and to hopefully help you cut that time commitment in half.
Stick with what you know
One of the most time-consuming aspects of using social media for marketing is figuring out what to post. When deciding on what type of content you’ll be posting, it’s generally good practice to stick with what you know. If you’re a business book writer, you might post about business tips and innovative technology that helps people scale their businesses. If you’re a fantasy book writer you might post about fantasy characters you’re currently enamored with or how you’re going about world-building for your up-and-coming novel. The key is to make sure your content fits the interests of the niche-audience you’re looking for. That’s not to say you shouldn’t branch out to adjacent topics sometimes or explore different posting styles (Ex. informative posts vs. skit-type videos), but if you’re posting about things unrelated to your niche market that will confuse people and most likely drive them away. Additionally, your goal is to position yourself as an authority in your field not to post random things you find yourself interested in. You’ll have to treat it a little differently than a strictly personal page.
2. Avoid buy-my-book spam
If you’re engaging with social media to drum up a wider audience then it of course makes sense to post about your book sometimes – key word being “sometimes.” If all you post is buy-my-book type content then people will view your page as a boring, spammy place and you will get very little interaction, never mind sales. It's crucial to post interesting and helpful content that doesn’t directly lead back to requests to check out your work. In fact, a 80% fun content to 20% buy-my-book content ratio is probably prudent. This will make people interested in you as a person/brand and ensure they’re not annoyed at you because you’re always reaching for their purse strings. Think about how other brands/influencers get your attention without lobbing a sales pitch at you.
3. Train yourself to capture ideas right away
It’s easy to run out of ideas of what to talk about on social media, especially if you’re not used to curating content in the first place. As you consistently sit down to intentionally come up with content, ideas will come to you more and more naturally even when you’re not sitting down to write it. However, every now and then the inspiration well will run dry. Take advantage of those times sparks of ideas do occur to you by writing them down as soon as you get them, even if that’s just into the notes app on your phone. That way, the next time you sit down to post you’ll already have ideas queued up, dried up inspiration well or not. This strategy will help lessen the time it takes to produce content and reduce creative pressure.
4. Imitate others
There’s no better way to come up with new content ideas than seeing what others are up to. I don’t mean you should copy other content creators’ content exactly mind you, but if you see something you like or catches your attention, ask yourself what you liked about it. There’s a good chance others liked it for the same reason. From there you can create a piece of content that mimics the style or format. As a writer, I’m sure you’ve already done versions of this with your writing. Whether intentionally or unintentionally you’ve absorbed the styles of authors you’ve read and developed your own voice from there. Do likewise with your social media content.
5. Schedule your content
Don’t want to be a slave to your social media page? Set aside just one or two days where you produce content and then schedule it to be posted later. This will not only help you post content with regularity (which stimulates user trust and engagement) but allows you to protect yourself from burnout.
There are many applications that will help you do this, from Meta’s own scheduling features in Instagram and Facebook, to Hootsuite, which will help you post things across several unaffiliated platforms. Many an introverted or social media averse writer has saved themselves irritation by setting and forgetting content so they don’t feel like a social media slave 5 days a week.
6. Reserve content-writing time (~5-10% of your regular writing time)
That being said, even if you’re going to pre-write content, you’ll have to come to terms with the fact that you may have to reserve some of your normal writing time and dedicate it to content-writing for your social media page or writer blog. If the idea of cutting into your already limited writing time sends you waves of dread, you’ll still have to take that time out of somewhere. Take 30 minutes at lunch or before going to bed to curate content and keep your author page alive. Content will not create itself.
7. Create a series
One way to make sure you’re ready to drop content at regular intervals is to plan a series. No need to be something fancy like a professionally developed course. It could be something as simple as a Writer Meme of the Week post every Friday. Series are a way of semi-planning content so you don’t spend as much time tapping metaphorical pencil to lip as you think about what to talk about. The predictability will comfort both you and your audience as long as the content you’re producing is valuable.
8. Overlap communities
Creating community on social media is nothing but online networking. Like in-person networking, it’s very beneficial to get to know the right people so you can not only gain new friends but gain access to new social circles. Some ways of doing this are re-posting (which gives a shout out to someone else’s content) or guest-posting (which proposes you write an article on someone's profile or blog).
Make sure the people you collaborate with have a similar audience as you so you’re more likely to gain more eyes on your own content. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people. The worst they can do is say no, in which case you can just go befriend someone else. Go put in that elbow grease and rub some elbows!
9. Drum up engagement
If you want the people reading the content on your page to really feel valued, show them their input is welcome. Ask for their opinion on a hot topic, ask them to share examples of their own work, tell people to comment their own experiences, post a poll for people to vote on, or simply ask them to like your post if they relate to what you’re talking about. Not only is engagement good for a lot of social media algorithms, but it helps your audience feel more connected to you.
10. Engage with engagement
One huge mistake a lot of people make after asking for engagement online is ignoring the feedback lovely people took the time to share. If one of your end goals in creating a writer page is to get people to read your work, the least you could do is reciprocate a bit by reading their heartfelt comments. You don’t have to like or reply to every single comment or message, but making it a habit to respond to engagement during at least the first half hour of a new post going live is a good rule of thumb. You never know what collaboration opportunities you might miss if you wait too long to respond to someone.
11. Proofread
Remember, part of creating your online presence is to prove to people you’ve got writing worth reading. This will not be the message people get if your posts are rife with typos. Take the time to proofread your content before posting.
It can be especially helpful to step away from the writing for at least an hour before returning for a proofread.
This gives your mind the chance to truly look at it with fresh eyes and catch those sneaky things like like double words. 😉
12. Know when to step away
Engaging with social media can quickly become exhausting when you’re a content creator, so it’s important to know when to take a step back. Whether it’s the chatter of trolls or just content creation fatigue, taking a break will be the key to long-term success. This could look like “fasting” from social media for an entire month or just committing to not pressuring yourself to post while on vacation. Burnout is real. Don’t let yourself get there.
Pro tip: It can be easier to take a planned break from social media if you schedule content to be posted in the interim. This way you won’t feel like you’re breaking your posting streak or letting your followers down.
If you’ve read up to this point and everything has started to sound too exhausting to commit to, you may need to implement a marketing strategy that does put at least a little pain in your pocket.
Lighten the load of social media marketing by hiring a virtual assistant. They can help do the work of scheduling content, proofreading, and even giving you ideas for new posts. Just make sure to still be the one writing content and engaging with comments if you want to create an authentic experience for your followers and readers.
If you want to learn more about whether curating an author web page is even worth it,
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