Advice for writers

Hand selling books with social media

hand-sell-blur

As you know I am an author. My first novel came out January 2012, published by Harper Collins.

So why do I do all this stuff on social media, BooksGoSocial etc etc?

I believe we are in a new age of hand selling or screen selling (screlling?). I have heard it said that one of the main benefits of a good bookstore is that you can have good books recommended to you. You can also meet authors when they come to the shop to sign their books.

But social media allows me to meet and greet individual buyers and answer their questions. We get about 1000 hits a day between this site, my social media for authors site and BooksGoSocial.com.

The main benefits of screlling are:

* You can meet people from all over the world and communicate with them.

* You can engage long term with readers, answering different questions over time and building up relationships.

* You can keep a track of people’s names or identities so you can tell them when your new book comes out.

* You don’t have to waste time and money travelling around and you won’t get wet if it’s raining.

The downsides are:

* You mightn’t make make strong connections with people, as you don’t get to meet people personally. However, I believe it takes more than one physical meeting to make friends with people any way. Multiple meetings and shared interests are just the start. And long term social media friendships can be meaningful too. I know this is true. I meet people who contact me on Twitter.

* You don’t get to see the cool sunsets from a different town if you go on a book tour.

And that’s it, is it?

Ok, here’s your challenge. Can you tell me your experience of hand selling books with social media?

Thanks! I hope you enjoy these posts and I hope you can  tell me about other downsides I may have missed too in the comments.

If you’d like to know more about our service, which sells books through social media, click here.

 

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10 thoughts on “Hand selling books with social media

  1. Hand selling books on line is a bit challenging since you don’t get to have give or receive that classic handshake. I find people giving me a lot of “Likes” and “RT’s” but I am having a problem converting them into the sales I know my book deserves. Social Media is a great place to meet & greet new people with common interests.

  2. the downside is “how the hell do I get 2000 hits a day?”. I only agree with you theoretically, from my point of view. It’s a very hard slog trying to be heard above all the noise.

    • DA – start with 100 hits a day. If you write a short post (300 words) about your experiences with social media, its frustrations for instance, and I post it on my blog with a link back to your site you will get hits – because I will promote your post to my 125,000+ followers. It’s about 1) creating short posts/articles that people will like to read and 2) posting them on sites like this where writers can collaborate.

      Take the first step! Create!

  3. The big drawback is that the more Social Media activities I follow, the less time I have to write. As a mother of three, I only got the mornings when the kids are in school even if I neglect my household, and since I’m in Germany that’s the time when Americans sleep. I do SM but don’t expect the results to be overwhelming.

  4. I think social media is very efficient, especially for new authors. With a little research, you find bloggers who offers spots for interviews, guest blogs, cover reveals and reasonably priced advertising. It takes a little time, but you can reach many more potential readers that way. With so many people reading ebooks these days, online promotion makes a lot of sense. The trick is to avoid getting overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Like you said in the comment above, sticking to a few tools is better than trying to be everywhere.

  5. Quite right! Just a few years ago the options for a first time author like me were pretty limited – book signings, lit fests and so on. Now we also have social media – which means I get to sell books, in small numbers, to readers all over the world. I used to be an unknown author in the UK – now I’m unknown all over the world!

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