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Marketing

Pinterest for authors

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This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Marketing: social media

Pinterest is the popular new kid in town when it comes to social media. It’s referring a huge amount of traffic to other websites, quickly becoming one of the most popular social media sites and sites to send traffic on to other sites—like, maybe, yours. Since I also write a craft blog, my co-bloggers/sisters and I have been members of Pinterest since spring/summer 2011 (yes, friends, 18 months! An eternity in Internet-dom!). You can see my Pinterest profile here.

What’s Pinterest?

Pinterest is a visual “pin board” of whatever you love, they claim. You can “pin” an image from almost any site, which is like saving it to a public, digital scrapbook (although Pinterest did finally add private boards recently). You can have several boards arranged by topic/genre (many people have dozens). Also, you can create shared boards, where multiple users (your friends, critique group, whomever) can add pins.

You don’t have to discover everything you add to your scrapbook yourself. You can also browse the feeds of friends that you follow (found via Facebook or Twitter—just click on the Pinterest logo at the top of the site) or all Pinterest members (click on the Pinterest logo, then select “Everything”) or by category.

Feel free to “repin” anything that catches your eye. You can also “like” pins and share comments on them. Hover your mouse over any pin, and the buttons for all these options show up.

You can also follow other Pinterest members whose pins you like—or even just a single board of another member, if that’s all that interests you.

Pinterest is a natural fit for anyone who interested in visuals—anything from crafts to cooking to fashion to interior design. But can it work for authors?

How to use Pinterest as an author

Pinterest is interesting among social media sites in that the emphasis is less on the networking and more on the content. Naturally, having more followers can lead to more repins, more views and more clicks, but for me, anyway, I care less about who pinned something as long as it’s awesome.

Use Pinterest like a person

Using Pinterest to try to market your book constantly and exclusively, as with all other social media sites, is a sure way to turn people off.

Instead of focusing on what you’re going to get out of it as someone with a book to sell or a blog to attract visitors, use Pinterest like it was intended. Maybe you’re a knitter or a baker or into home design. Maybe you like inspirational photos or infographics. If there’s something out there with pictures that you like, you can use Pinterest—and guess what? Even writing has pictures.

While the focus on Pinterest is on the content itself, that doesn’t mean you should focus only on pinning your own things. Connect with your friends—make new ones—through following, repinning and commenting.

Well, what do I pin?

We’ve talked before about using Pinterest as an “inspiration” board for a novel. As a reader, I love to see authors’ inspiration images, whether for character, settings or just milieu.

In addition to any other visual interests you might have (yes, PLEASE pin things other than books!), book-related pins are a great fit for an author’s Pinterest account. A few ideas:

  • Books you’ve read and loved—Books Worth Reading is one of the default boards on Pinterest
  • Your to-be-read pile (I have a TBR board here)
  • Informational articles on writing, publishing or marketing (Got it!)
  • Motivational articles, pictures or quotes
  • Inspirational pictures—settings, characters, events, even clothing your characters wear or just the general feeling of your novel (Yep, done that, too)

Beautiful writing spaces, gorgeous home libraries and all more are all great writing-related pins.

How & where to put your books on Pinterest

Although there’s some disagreement on this, I’m of the opinion that you can pin your own books, with the following caveats:

  • Be upfront that this is your book. Don’t pretend like it’s just this book you loved.
  • Consider putting all the books you’ve written onto one pin board. You keep them together and get to put the “I wrote this” disclaimer at the top of the page.
  • Don’t let your account be all and only your books. As above, use Pinterest as a real user would.
  • I recommend pinning the page for the book on your website—as long as your purchase links are easy to find—or perhaps the Amazon listing.

On the other hand, pinning every helpful article you’ve written on your own site is much less okay.

A few good examples

One of my writing friends who does this all well is Chantele Sedgwick. She has a pin board for books she’s written (one currently out), as well as inspiration boards for several of her books/WIPs, and a general writing inspiration board with interesting images, infographics, quotations on writing and more.

Another friend who does this well is Canda Mortensen. She has book related boards that include “In My Library” and “Plot & Book Ideas” (though honestly, I’m most glad I follow her because of her food pins!).

Finally, I love Cathy Witbeck’s organization. Her writing-related boards include:

Note that all of these ladies also have many other boards dedicated to food, crafts, humor, organization and more. Also note that my examples are ladies—the Pinterest audience skews heavily female.

Incorporating Pinterest to your website or blog

If you have social media buttons on your site, be sure to add one for Pinterest. I recently did this up at the top of my blog.

You can also add a “Pin this” button to the individual articles. Personally, I think it’s more useful to put this only on post pages rather than the homepage—I hate clicking through on a pin of a pretty sweater, delicious recipe or other inspiration only to be taken to the blog’s main page to search through the archives to try to find it myself. If you pin from an article (instead of the main blog page), it links back directly to the article, making it easier for you and others to find the material again.

If you have a blog or informational articles on your website, I hope you’re already using pictures in your articles. However, using graphics designed to let people know what your article is about in an engaging way. This can be a cool picture, but should definitely involve engaging text. There’s a big difference between a picture of a dog with “Learn how to make really effective first chapters and introduce all your characters” vs. a picture of a baited hook with “Hook your readers fast!” Jami Gold does this well on her blog, including related, engaging graphics on each article with her web address.

Advanced Pinterest tips and tricks

Want to know what other people are pinning from your site? Check out http://pinterest.com/source/yourURLwithNOwww.com/ (replace “yourURLwithNOwww” with your URL without the www. part). Here’s what it shows for my craft blog:

Repins, likes and comments all help the visibility of a pin, whether that’s something you’ve pinned or a pin from your site. Personally, I think it’s okay to comment on or repin when someone else has pinned something from your site, especially when that person has just put your content in front of a lot of followers.

Rather than following all of a friend’s pins, you can choose to follow only the boards you’re most interested in. Conversely, you can follow a friend, but unfollow any of their individual boards—not interested in interior design or organizational tips, and your friend’s on a pinning spree? Go to their profile page, click on the Boards view and click on the “Unfollow” button below their organization board. (You can also Unfollow All at the top of the page.)

You can customize your own profile page by dragging and dropping your boards into an arrangement you like and setting a picture as the “cover” for each of your boards. You can also customize individual boards by categorizing them (which is usually required when creating a new board these days) and entering a description, which is visible on the board page.

You can “embed” a pin on your blog—click on the pin and look to the right. There’s an Embed <> button.

Set the size of the image and copy the code into the HTML tab of your blog post—voila:

 

You can pin from almost any website easily by adding the Pinterest bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark bar. Just follow the directions on the Pinterest goodies page. Then just click that bookmark and it gives you a choice of all the “pinnable” pictures on the page (you’ll enter the description in a popup after selecting a picture). The Pinterest goodies page also features Pinterest buttons for your website.

Is Pinterest worth it?

As with most online marketing, it’s going to be pretty tough to definitively tie a sale to any one activity. Pinterest can help you get your books in front of more eyes—but as with all social media, if that’s all you’re looking for, you’re kind of missing the point.

The biggest drawback to Pinterest? If you thought Facebook and Twitter were time drains, look out!

More resources

A few how-tos I enjoyed while researching Pinterest for authors, from:

What do you think? What authors do you see on Pinterest? How do you use Pinterest? Come join the conversation!

Push pin photo by Emilian Robert Vicol

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Marketing

Twitter for Authors

This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Marketing: social media

Ah, The Twitter. Maybe you’re there with hundreds of followers, or maybe you’re not sure you want to “tweet,” but the micro-blogging site is definitely a popular Internet hangout. And it could be a great way to connect with your readers, too!

In other news, how’s your Nano going? Come tell me, I want to hear!

How to jump into Twitter

Although I’ve been on Twitter for four or five years (I used to work in Internet marketing, and Twitter was shiny and new back then, so I had to do it!), I don’t really feel like enough of an expert to offer an intro to Twitter. I’ve also always been the type who wants to figure things out for herself. However, if you need a basic introduction to Twitter shorthand and etiquette, here’s a good place to start.

Now, once you’re familiar with how Twitter works, you’ll need to figure out how it will work for you—because if it doesn’t work for you, you’re not going to want to use it, right?

We’ve talked about this pattern before, but the first thing you’ll want to do is observe. Watch how people use Twitter, both for marketing purposes and for personal purposes. You’ll note that on Twitter—as on many other platforms (and in person)—constantly talking about yourself and your book is generally considered bad form, and it’s a turn off for many people.

You’ll also see how people form friendships and connections on the site, and hopefully jump in and form them as well, moving into a connect phase. With social media, it’s usually the personal connections that count the most—something I hope you’ll see if you observe 😉 . These personal connections can be the most important part of your strategy. Look for people who are part of your audience, whom you would actually like to talk/Tweet to. Their Tweet streams look interesting, and they’re having conversations you’re interested in. You can also use site features like Lists (or groups on other sites) to look for people with similar interests, and watch how they converse with one another, then connect with them as well.

Remember: we’re talking about building real connections, not just saying, “I’m going to target you because you are in my audience! Now I will address you as an audience but will never actually respond if you happen to acknowledge me! Prepare to be spammed!”

Ahem.

Putting Twitter to good use

Once you’ve observed and connected, you’ll want to implement your observations. Maybe you saw someone with clever Tweets about their characters, or who retweeted good reviews in an interesting way, or whose site you checked out just because s/he was so friendly and helpful.

Naturally, you’ll also want to highlight your USP, your unique selling proposition, when it’s appropriate—perhaps in a quick reference in your Twitter profile. (Note that there, it’s less obtrusive—you’re kind of supposed to talk about yourself on your profile, after all.) For me, I often blog about writing craft because it’s something I’m passionate about. When I have time, I also like to share great articles on writing craft and marketing through my Twitter. So I mention writing craft in my Twitter profile—trying to highlight a benefit of following me, and show people what to expect.

The best uses of Twitter are to:

  1. build your brand, and
  2. connect with your readers

Twitter can become a part of your overall brand message. My friend Ali Cross has been doing a great series on author branding, which I highly recommend, to help you discover your brand and put it to use in defining your social media presence.

Twitter’s also a great place to connect with your current readers. Maybe they’ll @ you or DM when they read your book, or maybe you’ll discover them by searching for your name or your book’s title. (If you use a client like TweetDeck, you can even set up a whole column devoted to that search, so whenever you check it, you see the latest results.) No matter how you find them, you can use that opportunity to say thank you for reading (not to argue with negative feedback, please!), and hopefully build a relationship, become friends with that person.

I cannot say I’ve ever come across an author on Twitter and decided I simply must read their next novel because they Tweeted about it 16 times or were just so witty I couldn’t help it. On the other hand, I have decided to buy novels by people that I’ve become friends with via Twitter. I’ve also read novels based on recommendations by friends and fellow authors on Twitter.

As always, you’ll want to promote your Twitter profile on your website or blog, since it can be such a great way to connect. An easy way to do this is with a Twitter button.

However, there are also a few things to avoid on Twitter.

Twitter No-nos

Unless it’s an important part of your brand, I strongly advise against saying anything about politics, etc., on Twitter. Remember that it’s public, and it’s archived. I can’t tell you how many people I have unfollowed, decided not to follow, or even thought twice about working with in a professional capacity because of the attitudes on their Twitter feeds. Even if I agree with you, I produce more than enough vitriol to fill my life’s quota all by myself; I don’t want yours. (It’s been a loooong election season.)

Another major turn off is using a program or website to automatically send a Direct Message (DM) to new followers encouraging them to “Check out my book TITLE here amazonlink!” Remember that someone following you on Twitter is an invitation to connect, but not an invitation to spam, and that’s exactly what this feels like. I have unfollowed actual, real-life friends over this. Yep.

As with all forms of marketing, becoming a 24-hour infomerical for you and your books is probably not the best way to attract new readers. In fact, I’m not convinced Twitter is a great way to find new readers, but I do think it’s a great way to find your current readers and connect with them. But they definitely don’t need constant reminders about the book they just read!

What do you think? What authors do you enjoy following on Twitter? Why? How do you think an author can best put Twitter to use? And how’s Nano going? (I hit 50,000 words Saturday!) Come join the conversation!

Image credits: Twitter; connections by Matthew Anderson, Montage Communications

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Marketing

Marketing: finding new readers online

This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series Marketing: social media

The Internet has become a great place to find new readers and potential book customers. A lot of the time, we think about marketing messages that we get to send out on our own platforms: our blogs, our Twitter accounts, our Facebook pages. And that’s a great way to interact with your readers and keep them engaged, but it probably won’t do much to help you find new readers.

Say what? Aren’t new readers supposed to see how awesome we are on the Interwebz and then come to us?

When is the last time that you, as a reader, came to an author’s books through his/her website, blog, Facebook or Twitter? It happens, but it’s extremely rare. So how do you go hunting for these elusive new readers?

Well, the answer is, sort of, you don’t. You have to approach it from a different mindset. You’re not hunting for victims to wrest away their dollars on your book—you’d probably have more luck picking pockets! Instead, we’re building relationships with people who love the same kinds of books we do. If you’re going to go into a community of readers with the attitude of burn and conquer, you’ll crash and burn, and quick.

It’s that darn sincerity thing again

People can see a shill a mile off, and they won’t stand for it. If we come into a reader community looking to take advantage of the people there, it will come through in every post you make, and you’ll be making the opposite of friends.

Please say it with me: don’t join a readers’ community to push your books. Don’t join a readers’ community to push your books. Don’t join a readers’ community to push your books.

But . . . you said . . .

Yes, I know, I said you can find new readers in readers’ communities. But that doesn’t mean you should respond to every “What should I read next?” post with “MY BOOK HEREAREEIGHTY-SEVENPURCHASELINKSHAVEACOUPON!!!!”

Social media—like readers’ communities—is about being social. It’s built on relationships—and not the buyer/seller relationship. Like I also said before, when we approach a readers’ community, it’s with the attitude of building relationships with people who love the same kinds of books we do.

You do read in your genre, don’t you? Your genre is one of your favorites, right? Then you’ve got all the credentials you need to hang out with other people who read in your genre.

Not. Being. Pushy.

In case I haven’t hammered this home yet, let me reiterate that aggressively pushing your book will not sell it. This is true in all media—just like constantly blogging or Tweeting or Facebooking “BUY MY BOOK HEREAREEIGHTY-SEVENPURCHASELINKSHAVEACOUPON!!!!“, attacking a readers’ community and carpetbombing it with coupons is not an effective marketing strategy.

So, then, what can you do?

  • Look around to see how other authors interact. Figure out if you want to mimic their styles, see what works for them, figure out the best way to interact with people here.
  • Mention your book in your post signature—but again, don’t be pushy. The title, the tagline, the cover image, and genre, maybe.
  • Do reply to and acknowledge people who ask you about your book directly.

You might also consider offering a coupon to members of the community (if you have that capability, such as via self-publishing on Smashwords) or other incentive—but only after you’ve made a good, consistent effort to build those genuine relationships and get to know the community.

Reader Community Etiquette

Again, the best first step is to observe the community first. If there are any other authors there, pay special attention to them, how they mention their books, how they approach relationships there. They might not be good examples, but you might learn even more effectively from bad examples.

A few blanket caveats:

  • Do not engage with trolls (belligerent and abusive people) at any time or any place.
  • Choose your battles—and better yet, walk away.
  • Do NOT argue with people who didn’t like your book. Publishing is subjective. You haven’t loved everything you’ve ever read, have you?
  • Even if they get the facts wrong, DO NOT ARGUE WITH PEOPLE ABOUT YOUR BOOK.
  • Never, never, never attack someone for disagreeing with you—especially not about your book.
  • In fact, if there’s a discussion on your book, unless you’re invited to join, it might be best to stay away.

I’ve had this post written for over a month, but I’ve been sick and tired. Sorry about the delay! I hope we’ll be getting back to a more regular posting schedule as I pull out my “gearing up for NaNoWriMo” posts, as well as inspirational posts to help us through everyone’s favorite month!

So, what do you think? Where do you hang out as a reader? What kind of online behaviors from an author have you seen that you like or don’t like? Are you doing Nano?

Photo credits: salesman—Pete Simon; Salesmen seen by appointment only—John

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