How to promote your book online without getting 'un-friended'

‘We choose to be writers because we don’t want to talk.’ – Gloria Steinem 

You know how you read something that someone else has written and you go ‘Hang on, that’s so me! How could she have known?’ Yeah, that was precisely my response when I stumbled upon this quote on Twitter recently. But I think what Gloria Steinem has done is make a tiny tear in my tightly-sealed box of Things I Don’t Want to Do.  

See, I grew up in the pre-social-networking era. Okay, it was the pre-Internet era, when authors were only slightly more real than the Loch Ness Monster. You heard of them, read about them when they won awards, and that was that. This was the era when owning an author-signed copy of a book actually meant something. So you see, I’m wired to believe that it is uncool to talk about yourself or your own work.

Except, I also come from an advertising background. Which means, I only know too well, that it doesn’t matter how fantastic your product is if people don’t know it exists. When my debut novel – 'Two Fates: The Story of My Divorce' – showed all the signs of becoming a bestseller even before its release (one retailer ordered our entire first print run), I smugly told myself: See? You don’t have to shamelessly scream for attention in order to sell.

Author Judy Balan

But the reality check came in bits and pieces when my second novel – 'Sophie Says' - was out. 'Two Fates' sold itself because it was the parody of a book whose author was extremely visible, always interacting with his audience on Twitter and almost always in the news.  It also helped that he was India’s highest-selling author. So after a long spell of Oh-I-must-be-a-terrible-writer-nobody-loves-me-I-must-stop-writing-and-just-surrender-to-this-urge-to-consume-everything-that’s-in-the-fridge-and-DIE, I decided to pull myself together and came up with a promo plan for my third novel for tweens, teens and overgrown teens – How to Stop Your Grownup From Making Bad Decisions - that should be out in stores this week.

'Two Fates: The Story of My Divorce' and 'Sophie Says: Memoirs of a Breakup Coach'

And given my natural conflict (between the need to be visible to my audience and the need to completely disappear from the face of the earth after saying anything on social media that sounds remotely self-promotional), I’ve come up with some sly ways in which you can promote your work and yourself as an author online. Without, you know, causing anyone to un-friend you.

Here is how it goes:

1. Get your butt on Goodreads: Since this is a social network for self-confessed bookworms and authors, you would be expected to talk about your work and just that. What’s more, Goodreads allows you to host 'Giveaways', which gets the word about your book out and to the right circles even before your book is officially released. When people notice their friends adding a book to their shelf or to their ‘to-read’ list, they do the same. That’s how book recommendations work! You want to know what your friends are reading and decide if you want to pick up the book for yourself.

But if that’s not enough, there is a ‘Recommend a book’ option as well. Now if you’re too shy to recommend your own book to people, fret not. The people who’ve read your book and loved it, will take care of that. Then there are ratings and reviews that make a huge difference to a book’s popularity, so you might want to gently nudge the people who’ve read your book to leave a review. And that won’t make you look desperate, promise.

If you have a budget for ads (and I recommend you do), targeting on Goodreads is a joy. You can target people based on genre preference, author preference and lists they follow, apart from the standard stuff like location, age and gender.

Now, when all this is done and you have people discussing and reviewing your book, go and mingle! I didn’t do this for my first book and it was such a blunder. Readers are always pleasantly surprised when the author says hello. Do it. And stay in touch with your readers (if, like me, you have a problem with the word ‘fans’). That’s how you build a community. There’s tons more you can do on Goodreads, so the best way to go about it is to just get there and explore away. 

2. Build a circle: Speaking of building a community, make sure you identify your loyal readers/supporters – people who’ve followed your journey, volunteered to help with promotions, faithfully showed up at your launches – and send out personal emails to each of them, telling them about your new book and ask if they’d like to help you spread the word. You’d be surprised just how many people are more than happy to step in. 

3. Tweet, Tweet: There is no escape. If you’re a writer, you want to get those witty observations, compelling arguments, moving 140 character speeches – basically, whatever’s your thing – out there. Being interesting on Twitter is probably one of the easiest ways to get people to read your books. This is, of course, more easily said than done if you’re like me and struggle with an award-winning attention span that makes you better at long copy. 

4. Let your hair down on FB: Engage, engage, engage. What is the theme of your book? Zombies? True love? Smart-ass tweens? Crime? Whatever it is, build content around the theme of your book. This is not difficult. What do you share on Facebook: Memes? Interesting articles? News clips? Videos? Do that. Create your own funny/intriguing memes. Post engaging content from the book  - quotes, maybe. Most importantly, know your audience and speak their language. My latest book is for tweens and teens and I’ve made #YOLO a part of my vocabulary. I even watch teen shows like Awkward to get in on the lingo. It’s a different matter that I end up getting addicted. And, err, I hope you have an author page on Facebook. I’m kind of assuming that. Oh, and hire a designer for three months. Please do not attempt to make these posts yourself unless you’re a professional designer. You don’t want people judging your book based on the quality of your design (and that happens). 

Using social media to promote your work

5. Invest in a fab book trailer: This is tricky. Most of the book trailers out there are DIY and hear me – IT SHOWS. If you have the budget, invest in a professionally-created book trailer. If they are made well, they get shared easily and who knows, might even go viral. But if you don’t have the budget for a trailer, just scratch it off your list altogether. Or it might end up making your book – and you, by extension – look tacky. 

6. Say it in pictures: I’m very new to Instagram myself, but again, this is where my new audience is: tweens and teens. So I choose to suck it up and learn the fine art of hashtagging instead of dissing what I do not know. Again, it’s about having a clearly-defined online persona, so you attract the right audience and post content targeting that audience. 

In the end, it’s about how you look at it. It’s easy when you make it all about the science of audience engagement as opposed to shameless self-promotion. I even started taking selfies and told myself that I’m just being relevant to my young audience. It’s not about me. And guess what, I didn’t even cringe once while at it, so there is hope. 

Judy Balan is the author of the bestselling 'Two Fates: The Story of My Divorce' (Westland), 'Sophie Says: Memoirs of a Breakup Coach' (Westland) and 'How to Stop Your Grownup From Making Bad Decisions' (Harper Collins) and is the Creative Director at Raising iBrows, an Audience Engagement Agency.