Clean Up your Image for Better Book Promotions
Book promotions are an essential part of publishing a new book. After all, you can write the best book in the world but its message is meaningless if people are not reading it. You’ll find all sorts of book promotion sites on the web. Some work while others don’t, but we’re not here to talk about that. We are going to look at the one thing that so many authors take for granted.
You see, as writers we have devoted so much time and energy to our book. We know that the cover is catchy, the title is good, and the book reads on a professional level. We’ve spent countless hours working on our book but we forget that our image is just as important.
Spiff up Your Image for Better Book Promotions
The first rule of thumb is that your reputation is foremost based on the people you associate yourself with. I don’t care how amazing of a writer you are, if your best friend is posting drunken images of you all around social media, then your business image is going to suffer. In today’s world, online reputation is everything. It’s even used by employers to determine whether or not they hire you.
Reviews are the backbone of your book’s success but if you want to take it to the next level and build an audience, then you need to reach out to influencers. Start surrounding yourself with people who are in the same niche.
What you can do is agree to contribute to influential blogs and then invite these people to contribute to your blog. There are no guarantees here, but if you can get just one influential expert to contribute then your reputation will improve.
Clean up your social media image, including your personal profile. While these are not generally used for promotions, readers might look you up. When they do, you want what they see to be somewhat professional. You can certainly be casual with your personal profile, but try not posting anything too far out there.
Show that you are an authority in the niche you are writing about. Use your blog as a way to get other people to come in and contribute. Engage with experts in specific topics, even if neither of you agree on the issue. Healthy debates are going to be quite helpful because it shows that you are an authority.
As an author, you need an account on Goodreads. Then try to get reviews on that account since it accumulates all reviews across all books. It is probably the most powerful reputation tool for writers.
You should also establish yourself as an authority on social media. This is done through paid advertising in the beginning.
Final Thoughts
Writers who do not market their books are never going to achieve a high level of success. I don’t care how good the book might be, if it’s not getting in front of the right audience, then it’s going to flat-line on the sales chart.
It takes a much different mindset to sell a book than it does to write it. You need to develop both if you want to experience long-term success.