14 Effective Ways to Launch a Book with Social Media

You can use social media to launch your book into the world to reach more readers, build your audience and make more money.

As I finalize the paperback, eBook and audiobook versions of my eighth book, I’ve been busy working on my social media strategy.

Let me share with you 14 virtually FREE ways you can launch your book through social media based on my experience bringing five of my previous books to No. 1 on Amazon in their categories.

14 Effective Ways to Launch a Book with Social Media

Contact radio shows. All members of our program here at www.whatisocialmediatoday.com have access to our forum which includes a long list of radio shows and podcasts. You could easily spend well over $3,000 for a similar list, but I’ve been saving my contacts over time and am happy to share this list with members of our program. When I reach out to potential hosts, I explain that I have a well-established social media presence and can help promote their show. Once the radio shows and podcasts have been broadcast, I put links to the interviews up on my media page, blog about them and share them all over my social media. This is win-win for the host and helps to expand the reach of the show.
Send out an email newsletter about the book. I plan on publishing a newsletter through Constant Contact to let my raving fans know about my new book. Through social share, I will schedule the newsletter to be shared multiple times throughout the month in my social network. If you have a Facebook business page you can get people to sign up for your newsletter. This is a great way to integrate social media with an email newsletter. You can see how I get people to sign up for my newsletter at this link.
Launch on Twitter. My Amazon No. 1 marketing genius Denise Cassino will launch the book to her 100,000 Twitter followers and take over my two Twitter accounts which now have a total of over 31,500 followers. I didn’t build my Twitter following yesterday. Part of an effective social media strategy is to start building your platform well before you need it. If you haven’t had the privilege of working with Denise, run, don’t walk to become her client.
Goodreads giveaway. I’ll do a Goodreads giveaway. This is one of the few places I’ll spend actual money on marketing. Goodreads is the largest social media network in the world for readers and authors. I run one giveaway after another there at an estimated cost of about $100 per giveaway taking into account the cost of the paperback and media mail to the continental U.S. By running continuous giveaways, I have built my followers on Goodreads to 265 and my list of friends to 2,144. In this way, I let more and more people know not just about the book I’m currently launching but my previous seven books.
Corral your Facebook and Twitter friends. Before the launch on Sept. 14 with Denise Cassino, I will contact my Facebook and Twitter friends and ask them to share about my book to their friends and followers. In my view, everybody is a social media influencer because each of us knows many other people.
Communicate with your raving fans. I plan to email people who have written positive reviews of my other books on Amazon. I will offer to send them a FREE e-book and ask them to share the book to their networks. People who have already written reviews could be classified as your raving fans. Just like rock stars reward their most avid listeners, as an author you want to stay in touch with the people who already love your books.
Sell copies in person. I’ve already begun to sell copies to my clients and yoga students and ask them to spread the news. Although this is offline activity, the more people who can tell people they know about your work the better off you will be.
Blog to spread the great news. On the day of the release, Sept. 14, I will publish a blog about the book. In addition, I plan on taking content from the book – in this case, 41 yoga exercises with photographs and directions – and publish a blog about each one and include a link to the book in those blogs. In this way, my readers at www.unlimitedenergynow.com will be constantly reminded about my new book.
Publicly thank through social media all the people who created the book. Other people put their heart and soul into creating a book so I will give them public kudos. Recently another author asked me to write a forward for her book. I spent at least 10 hours coaching, advising and encouraging her. When the book came out, she did not thank me publicly and asked me if I had purchased a copy of her book. This was a major mistake on her part. I treat my book team members like the talented rockstars they are in their own right. I celebrate their contributions. In so doing, I believe the people who help me are proud to contribute to my books and are thereby eager to let others know about our collective good work.
Use Spark.adobe.com to create FREE images to share through social media. You can’t beat FREE! In social media, images with captivating quotes get shared all over the place. I plan on taking quotes from the book and using this free service to create graphics to share on Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, etc.
Share your book directly from Amazon. If you look just above the “Buy New” box on Amazon, you will see social share buttons. By clicking on the buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, you can post a link and cover of your book directly to your social networks.
Create an online course based on your book. I’m already working on an online course with my fellow yogi Suzanne Dulin who presented to ww.whatisocialmediatoday.com. It’s crucial to partner with people who have skills that you don’t. In this case, Suzanne has the skills to create online courses and an online yoga catalogue and I have the content. Once our course is complete I will share it throughout the social media.
Offer to give a free book to anyone who will write a review of the book on their blog and share it throughout the social media. I plan on announcing this fact in my Facebook groups. By connecting with like-minded people, you can dial in to their networks.
Create a one-minute video about the book to share on Goodreads, Facebook, Youtube and throughout the social media. You’ve heard that the average American now has the attention span of a goldfish. The average social media video gets watched for about 6 seconds. So I’ll create a short video – one minute – in hopes I’ll grab their attention long enough to hear how great the book is. Creating videos is easy – either get a friend to film you with your smart phone or use a video teleconference service like Zoom.us to record.

Is this a lot of work? Absolutely!

But hey, if you as an author do absolutely nothing to market your book, guess what, nothing will happen, nobody will hear about it and you won’t sell any books. So what’s the point of all the hard work you put in to write the damn book anyway!

Want to learn how you can win the Game of Social Media?