Social Media For Authors: Choose Your Poison

I discovered something about authors and social media this week — at least if my writers group in Palm Beach is anything to go by:  A) Every author knows he/she must have some sort of presence on social media. B) Some authors have a social media presence, engage with it and enjoy it. C) Most simply don’t know what to do with the social media accounts they have signed up for.

That became glaringly apparent at this month’s Palm Beach Writers Group lunch when Cathy Helowicz (pictured) the group’s executive director, social media expert and founder of Concierge Computer Consulting addressed a group of approximately 40 writers and authors. After her 90-minute presentation, the unanimous vote was for an additional workshop during which she will delve into more detail on the individual platforms, how to sign up for them, and how to use them beneficially as an author.

Facing the Social Media Beast

According to Cathy, there are two main reasons for authors to come to terms with the beast of social media:

If you are not yet published, but are looking for an agent and/or publisher, or someone to pick up a movie option on your book, you need to show that “you are out there and marketable.”

As a published author/writer “you need to build your fanbase” for current and possible future works. Even if you are traditionally published, a traditional publisher will only do so much around launch time (if you are not one of its bestselling authors), — and more than six months down the road after publication, a traditional publisher will have moved on to more recent published works and authors.

Building Your Fanbase

The way to build your fanbase? Well, it’s not about selling books per se. “It’s about selling you,” said Cathy. “You need to get out there so that people know who you are — and that you have a book.”

Selling yourself maybe anathema to most authors. Jonathan Franzen is vociferously against it. He probably has a point. If you think about it, if we, authors, wanted to be in the public eye, we’d be doing stand-up comedy in a Manhattan after-hours club. Most big-time bestselling authors employ others to run their social media, websites, Twitter feeds and Facebook Author pages. But, either way, it’s a well known fact that readers want to know about authors whose books they plan to read.

Pick One, For Heaven’s Sake!

 

Cathy’s advice even to the most reluctant social media user: “Be on something. Pick one.” The most popular are the Facebook Author Page, Twitter and Amazon’s Author Page.

Facebook Author Page is one that an author can create after setting up a personal page. “There are lots of ways to protect your privacy on an Author Page,” says Cathy, “but people like to see personal snippets, they want to see photos of your baby, and your dog. That’s what makes them connect with you.”

She is right. For example, when I interviewed author J.D Barker on this website about his breakout thriller, The Fourth Monkey, he pointed to his use of Twitter to build a fan base for the thriller. When I looked at his Twitter feed, it was obvious that his most popular tweets were photos of his gorgeous dog.

Best Social Media For Authors

According to Cathy Helowicz, the best social media site depends on the audience you are trying to target. If your books are geared towards an older audience, Facebook is your friend; a younger audience responds better to Instagram and Twitter.

Facebook’s Author or Business Page may be linked to an author’s personal page so he/she may share his book news, events calendar, book signings to his/her personal page which in turn may be liked by the author’s hundreds of family and friends which means your author post will be seen 300 or 400 times exponentially.

“Social media platforms are free so you are advertising your book signings and author events for free on Facebook.”

Equally important, said Cathy, is to set up an Amazon Author Page — which any published author (self or traditional) can do by accessing AuthorCentral.Amazon.com, logging into their Amazon account — and creating your biography.

Other social media sites

Twitter and Instagram accounts are easy to set up and use. Tweets are limited to 280 characters and Instagram is all about photos. “Social media is all about virility” (as in viral rather than masculine) said Cathy, “the more you post, the more you click, the more you’re out there — and you can tie all your platforms together.”

And, last, but not least, Goodreads is the website/platform for authors, “You should be commenting on other books and building relationships with readers and bookbloggers,” said Cathy.

Personal Preferences

In the interest of full disclosure, I should add here that I heard this whole spiel from Cathy several years ago when I met with her as a consultant and she gave me the lowdown on using social media. At the time, I had only just returned to writing fiction, and to my horror learned what is expected of authors these days.

Today, I am somewhat comfortable with turning out a weekly blog on this website, and using Twitter and Goodreads to put myself out there for agents, publishers, readers and book bloggers. Personally, I like and use Twitter as my go-to social medium for the reasons I listed here. And, to my good and seriously funny writer friend (from the Algonkian author workshop), Doug Spak, who wrote on his blog about the challenges of social media, I have this to say: Doug, you don’t need to go to Home Depot to build your author platform!!!!!