Completing a novel is truly a wonderful feeling, right? But as a writer, you know that there is no greater pleasure than watching your books fly off shelves and land into the palms of avid readers. The biggest milestone that transforms a writer to an author is the one that involves sales and promotion of their book. Today, authors have the freedom to express themselves via numerous methods, and one of the most powerful platforms is social media. Among the many online tools authors must utilise, social media giants like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have become central to all things marketable. Facebook leads the race as the most sought after marketing tool. As an author, having an online presence is crucial for your marketing needs, but the trick lies in using the resources at hand smartly. If you want to make the most of Facebook for marketing and promoting your novel, here are some of the best practices that every author must follow.

Setting targets

Your Facebook page should be treated the same way as the story of your novel.

What are the various elements? When do certain events occur? What is the theme of the novel? What should be the central focus? All of these questions will be answered if you have a strategy. Here are a couple of things you should consider before setting up your Facebook page.

• • Target Audience– You’ve written the book with a certain type of reader in mind. When setting up your Facebook page, it is important to determine who will able to view your posts. Facebook has a cool feature that lets you filter your audience down to niche levels; this ensures that your posts always appear on your audience’s feed.

• Post frequency- It is impossible to sit in front of Facebook for a whole day and dish out post after post, and your audience isn’t going to do the same either. Analyse your audience’s active times on Facebook and schedule a post accordingly. For the number of posts, it is best to start with a bang till you find out what type of post works the best. Then, start using the theme behind your posts with one presentation style.

• Post theme- The safest thing to do is to follow the theme you have used in your novel in the Facebook posts. When you post articles or creatives that tease what is to be expected in your final novel, you will surely garner interest about your book among avid readers.
• Page type- Facebook lets users create either a personal profile or a “page” on their site. Personal profiles are best suited for you as an author when you have established a strong reputation, while pages double as a portfolio for your work.
• Ultimate goal- This is something that has to be decided at the very beginning of your Facebook journey. There are many ways the platform can be used as a marketing tool, what matter is how you use it. Do you have an end goal in mind? If so, resolve all of your marketing efforts to reach that goal.

Posting

Posting creative content that hints or directly promotes your novel is one of the hardest things to do. Like any other viral piece of content you see today, getting those likes and shares depends entirely on how well your audience react to your posts. The best part about using social media is that you are not at a complete loss if certain types of posts don’t work; there is always a new and an available way of being creative for use and reuse.

• Introduce yourself- Social media is, in its most basic form, a communication tool, and like all great instances of a conversation, it all begins with an introduction. So when you are promoting on Facebook, don’t start by promoting your book or the post you have created; start by promoting yourself, the page you have created that will play house to all the posts.

• Follow trends- Posting trends in Facebook evolve and change in the blink of an eye, so make sure to always keep a lookout for what’s buzzing about in the social media space. Ever present creatives like memes, gifs and DIY videos are the biggest lot of posts you must focus on, while other industry related and festival related posts help keep things fresh.

• Post what you’re good at- When you’ve gathered some steam, start making things more interesting for your followers by posting stuff you are good at. You may have a blog or another hobby apart from writing that is shareable. Doing this helps break the ice between you and your followers and help them understand you better on a personal level.  
• Share- Your followers are keen to know what’s been going on with you, but at the same time, they will be eager to check out other things happening in the writing world. Sharing content is necessary especially in the starting stages of your page, as you won’t have just about enough to post for an entire month. Liking and sharing relevant content or mentioning credits will give you page more exposure and support from the third party resources whose content you shared.

Promoting

Facebook uses a “pay-to-view” promoting algorithm, so if you are financially prepared to promote your work but still way short on budget for traditional promotions, you can choose to use the Facebook business management tool. The tool is rather simple to understand but very hard to master.

Here’s a quick guide to setting up Facebook Business Manager:

• In the “Settings” panel, click on “Business Manager Settings”
• Go to the “People and Assets” Tab and select “Ad Account”
• Then click on the option “Request Access to an Ad Account”
• Click on the “Payments” Tab and then on “Ad Payment Method” to save your payment information
• Set a spending budget and use the money saved in the wallet to promote your novel

Tracking

Even after the launch of your book, you will get that tingling feeling, which is typical of any author, to tell more stories. You can’t be an author with just one book to show, so you’ll start creating plans to write a book series. This is where the thinking process gets more complex because now you have feedback and reviews from your first book; use his feedback as a reference point to see how you can improve your standards as an author for book two. Similarly, Facebook lets you glance at how well your promotion techniques have performed, giving you a chance to try something new regularly.

• Likes, comments and shares- If you notice carefully, a lot of videos and posts today prompt viewers in the end to like, comment and share. Facebook uses likes, comments and shares to judge the quality of a page and its many posts. You can check out the total likes, shares and comments on your page in the ads manager.

• Reach- The more the number of fans you have following you, the great the reach of your posts will be. Facebook will give you a rundown of all the areas to which your post has reached, through organic and inorganic methods as well. Knowing how far your posts have reached will help you settle on a post type that is working its magic.
• Page views- If your story has many interesting plot points and is paced correctly, you should expect readers to turn page after page fully engrossed in the novel. Similarly, if your posts are great, it will reflect on the increasing number of page likes and views.

Famous authors who use Facebook

• JK Rowling- JK Rowling’s Facebook page is unique because it doesn’t explicitly talk about the author’s literary achievements. The page is reserved for general discussions and Rowling’s personal life.

• EL James– The author of the popular erotic fiction started her promotional journey on Facebook under a different alias. When the book started gaining media attention, she revealed her true self and began aggressively marketing her book across several channels.
• Dan Brown– An intellectual author in every sense, Dan Brown’s Facebook is regularly updated with the latest news and updates on current affairs and his books.

Remember to use Facebook as your default online marketing tool, and don’t get bogged down by a slow start. If you stick to a consistent marketing strategy and avoid common blunders on social media, your book should easily be able to get the publicity it requires. You can also take inspiration from Indian authors who have a strong social media presence. If you need a little assistance in getting your marketing strategies sorted out, feel free to contact Notion Press– one of the leading self-publishing agencies in India and Singapore.