This is all new to me!
At the risk of sounding incredibly old, creating an online presence is a bit tricky. I’m not entirely sure what to do.
But that’s ridiculous. I have an eReader myself, needing to save space and carry lots of books about at once. I’ve been on MySpace and Facebook for as long as they’ve been about. I look up celebs online, using Wikipedia or Twitter. I’ve even communicated with a few of my favourite authors through tweets, (Hi @DjangoWexler!) Which clearly shows that I know having an online presence is important.
But where do you start?
Three things that I have gathered from my research: Blog, Facebook and Twitter.
I got most of my research from Chuck Sambuchino’s 2014 article How to Market Yourself as an Author Before You Have a Book to Sell. It is so much work, how do writers find time to write when they’re working on marketing? But here I am, having a go. I have a full time job and I’m a mum so fitting it all in is tricky.
I obviously started a blog, and here it is! The thing is, blogs can’t only document your time writing, they also have to cover information about your subject. This is where I’m not so good as I’m mainly covering writing but some articles about sci fi and fantasy to come soon.
Also, including excerpts from the book are good, but as I’m only really on my first drafts, I’m not really ready to share parts of the book yet. Coming soon!
You can find me on Facebook! I have just created an author page. It was quite humbling creating an author page. I am a writer at the moment but obviously not yet a published one.
Things that should appear on your Facebook are book release dates, things that would interest your readers such as Patrick Ruthfuss posts a lot about Worldbuilders and JK Rowling posts about her charity Lumos as well as information about Fantastic Beasts. Posts could include articles that link to your genre/s, for example I posed a humourous quote about how you can’t cross a chicken and an octopus, which is relevant as one of my recent completed novels looks at hybrid human-aliens.
I’ve been on Twitter for about 6 months now. I started my author Twitter account because when I submitted my manuscript to a publisher, they asked for my online presence. I didn’t have one at the time, so I started this blog and my Twitter account.
As per advice I Googled, I am following people who are related to the genres I’m writing in, and other authors I like myself. I am just starting out so I doubt I get it right all the time, but I am working hard.
Other ways to raise your profile
There is writing for free or cheap. When I’ve actually finished a WIP (it would be nice to actually finish something) I’m going to write some short stories that I intend to release for cheap if not for free.
You can also contact a website to offer to write for them for free, as long as (Chuck says)
- You want the column(s) to be accompanied by your book cover
- You want the column(s) to be accompanied by your headshot
- You want the column(s) to be accompanied by your bio, with a link in the bio that will redirect readers to a buy page for the book — Amazon or IndieBound or whatever you ask
I’m not sure I yet have the confidence to ask someone
In conclusion
Get yourself out there. It’s good advice for myself really. I am beginning to increase my online presence.
And good luck!
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