Social Media Marketing and Solicitation of Written Works

Some advice for Novelists and other Entrepreneurs alike: 

Books: 

First thing’s first: Get a brand. For example, my brand is the Little Political Italian Girl from Philly. This is my identifier and it works in my favor; people remember who I am which bodes well for the purchasing of my books.

Now, onto the nitty-gritty: I see a lot of unfitting behavior by authors (and other entrepreneurs); enough to warrant this post in the hopes that I may help a few of you navigate the minefield of selling your projects online. 

As far as authors are concerned, many don’t get it: Our Novels are our offspring. We nurture them - we spend a lot of time researching and learning to get them just right. We sit with them all night long, losing sleep so that we may birth them just right so that they are ready to go out into the world and (hopefully) be enjoyed by others when we decide to share our soul.

It’s hard getting others to understand this, so forget about that.
Having said that, onto bad reviews: When you receive a bad review, don’t use Facebook or any other social media platform to complain about it. Leave it alone and don’t shout it to the world!

Firstly, use that less than illustrious review as a wake-up call to instruct you to self-improve. After all, we’re always self-improving, otherwise, we remain stagnant.

And DO NOT – I repeat, DO NOT -- use your pages to criticize your readers, accusing them of “being too stupid” to understand the meaning and context or your book!

Yes! I’ve seen this and much worse! I’ve seen Facebook pages rife with post after post of a Novelist whining resentfully that their readers are much too illiterate, uninformed, and ignorant to understand their novel. After seeing such accusations, I took it upon myself to read a chapter or two of these particular books, and I can tell you, the writing/stories were in fact not good. Usually these books come from “authors” who produce book after book: One cannot churn out book after book and expect to create a masterpiece. That’s not how it works.

So best case scenario when complaining publicly about a bad review and the audience who’ve read it? The author may be guaranteed they will not receive any further reviews. Worst case scenario? Readers will shun an author’s books all together; nobody wants to buy books from an author who refers to their readers as “idiots”, and behaves poorly, unable to handle a little constructive criticism. It’s amateurish.
Also, you should be using Instagram, Twitter, Facebook Live, and even the dreaded Snapchat (see below under Entrepreneurs on how to maximize your Insta-posts). You can also use Goodreads as a way to give books away via contests, but I’ve since given up on those – the winners rarely post reviews or read your book.

Entrepreneurs:

Now, onto my other various entrepreneur friends. I’ve seen many of you complain on Facebook (just like authors) that no one is buying your products. You do not want to do this! If potential buyers suspect that no one is interested in your wares you can probably count on the fact that customers will not be lining up to purchase what you have. You may get a few pity buyers who generally happen to be friends, but you will scare away a theoretically budding lucrative base of clients who might otherwise be interested in your merchandise.

You want to jettison the complaints of unmoved merchandise all together and simply post pictures and descriptions of the merchandise, explaining the value in buying it. There is no reason to let others onto the fact that no one is buying your goods. As mentioned, if no one is buying, it’s a turn off to potential buyers.

Some social media advice: Forget Facebook (all right, not entirely; use Facebook for what it’s worth), and hop onto Instagram using colorful headlines that are sure to grab peoples’ attention, and be sure to use hashtags that fit your merchandise as well as tagging purveyors and other vendors – this could potentially help get you noticed.

You should also invest in a website, and every time you post a pic and description of your work be sure to list your website as well (that goes for your too, authors!)

Hope this helps! If you should have any other questions, please do ask, but I must say that I’ve mapped everything out here for you. Good luck!

www.nicolemdixonauthor.com

@NMDixonAuthor