» Posted by Alissa on Jun 24, 2010 in Uncategorized | 4 comments

Today I am welcoming writer Jeff Widmer who shares his knowledge about how to use social media to promote your book. Jeff Widmer is a writer, editor and mentor. The author of The Spirit of Swiftwater, he works for marketing agency swb&r in Bethlehem, Pa. Jeff and I will be panelists together along with author Gloria Mallette at the Monroe County Book Expo.

The strange case of book promotion

by Jeff Widmer

For many writers, the publishing business resembles the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: It presents ahandsome face during creation and a monster after that. Once we’ve experienced the passion of writing, the rest seems like a slog through the dark alleys of Edinburgh.

The rest, of course, is called marketing.

Some people believe the latter has gotten easier with the advent of social networks. But a Twitter account is like a handbill in an alley at night: if you can’t drive traffic to it, few people will see the message, let alone pass it on to others.

That means whether the work is published by you, a university or a commercial house, marketing is still a challenge that requires a dose of strategy, a lot of time and a bit of luck. With apologies to Robert Louis Stevenson for the liberty I’ve taken with his theme, here are three areas to consider when tacking the job.

Traditional networks
By far the best way to promote your work is to take charge of the process. Consider yourself a business and marketing an essential part. Create a plan and a budget. Then you can:

· Work with your publisher’s publicity department. Help write the release. Go on tour with other writers.
· Hire your own publicist. It’s expensive but might pay if the publicist can put you on TV.
· Do it yourself. Distribute releases, schedule signings and submit articles to trade publications. Make presentations to professional and civic organizations. Position yourself as an expert source in your field. Sign up for Help a Reporter Out. HARO connects journalists with sources. Register for free daily e-mail messages.

Digital networks
Create a brand for you and your work by creating:

· A website with your name as the domain name.
· A blog on that site. A cheaper alternative: create a blog with free software like WordPress.
· Video interviews for your own YouTube channel.
· Book-related photos for sites like Flickr.

Social networks
According to consumer measurement service Nielsen, social networks and blogs now account for one in every four-and-a-half minutes online. And three of the world’s most popular brands online are social-media related—Facebook, YouTube and Wikipedia. (The most popular? Google.)

Joining the conversation has become de rigueur for writers. Unfortunately, establishing an account on Twitter and Facebook doesn’t guarantee followers. You have to cross-promote your brand, using one network—traditional, digital or social—to promote the others.

Some suggestions:

· Post updates about your writing process, your characters or your life to all of your sites—blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut, Tumblr, Flickr, YouTube and others.
· Post interviews with authors on your blog.
· Invite other writers to guest-post on your blog, and ask them to return the favor.
· Comment on websites and blogs and link comments to website or blog.
· Establish a community on a free site like Live Journal or a paid site like Ning and encourage visitors to post their own material.
· Use a service like Twitterfeed to automatically feed your blog posts to Twitter.
· Use applications that port your Twitter feed to Facebook and LinkedIn.
· Use a dashboard like TweetDeck to monitor social media from a single screen.

That should help you keep Mr. Hyde in harness.