1. Developing Your Social Media and Internet Presence
Presented by Rita Boehm
author Rita Boehm

2. DISCLAIMER I am not an expert Meet your support staff: Google You Tube
Anything you need to learn, you can find via a Google search, and/or on a You Tube video.

3. Social Media/Internet – a free marketing platform
Author Central

4. Pictures are Important!
If you have a smart-phone, the process of uploading photos is simplified.
Different approaches -
- Take a picture (edit/crop with phone’s software)
Share/ picture to yourself
Save to your Desktop (or to a folder)
Upload to various internet or social media accounts
- Take a picture
Share it directly to your Facebook page and/or other locations (depending on your phone)
- Copy and paste a photo (such as a picture of your book cover from Amazon) to your desktop, upload as needed to other sites.

5. Author Central Free author page - Easy to set up - Keep page updated
Go to:
Add biography, photos & videos
Add blog links,
List Events,
- Keep page updated
- Share your Author page URL to Facebook & Twitter and add to your signature

6. Amazon Author Page - sample
Notes: “Events” is a perfect place to add the WLOV Expo, book signings, etc.
“Blogs” A blog must be linked to this page before it is released if you want that blog to be connected to Author page

7. Amazon Author Page – Cindy Brandner - Successful Indie Author

8. Goodreads Mission: to help people find and share books they love.
What is it? An On-line book cataloguing company with over 20 million members
Owned by Amazon – automatically links to Amazon but reviews are not shared
The world’s largest site for readers and book recommendations.
Goodreads Mission: to help people find and share books they love.
sign up at

9. Why is goodreads important for authors?
The Goodreads Author Program is a free feature designed to help authors reach their target audience — passionate readers.
Set up a dynamic author profile:
- Add a picture and bio.
- Share your list of favorite books and books recently read
- Write a blog – or share from your blog or website - and generate a band of followers.
- Publicize upcoming events, such as book signings and speaking engagements.
- Share book excerpts
- Write a quiz about your book or a related topic.
- Post videos.

10. Goodreads Author Dashboard - sample
Note: I have much work to do to better utilize the potential Goodreads offers

11. Goodreads Giveaway Program
Over 300,000 print books were given away last year.
Goodreads runs the program at no cost to authors
Author provides info about the book, the number of books to give away, and the time frame
Goodreads collects interest in the book and selects winners. Their algorithm uses member data to match interested members with each book
Authors are given the list of winners and are responsible for prompt shipping of books (within 2 weeks)
There doesn’t seem to be agreement on the best approach to take.
Goodreads recommendation:
Give away as many copies as possible. “Since nearly 60 percent of giveaway winners review the books they win, the more books you offer, the more reviews you are likely to get.”
Run your giveaway for two weeks to a month. “Give aways less than two weeks run the risk of not getting enough entries.”

12. Goodreads Giveaway Program
ALTERNATE APPROACH:
There are some who believe in an alternate approach: Give away a small number of books over a short period of time.
Note: I just started my first Giveaway. I offered 3 books over two weeks beginning 5/1/17.
Check out a variety of blogs on the subject of the Giveaway Program including:
Ebooks: GiveAway program was just expanded to include Ebooks
Ebook giveaway program cost to authors is $119.
Is it worth it? Author saves the cost of purchasing and shipping books, so that may be a trade off.

13. - A glimpse into a writer’s life
Why set up an author page?
- Gain name recognition
- Grow readership
Drive traffic to your blog or website
Advertising
What are readers looking for?
- A glimpse into a writer’s life
- Inside scoops on new releases/upcoming events
- Access to author

14. Facebook Author Page First step:
If you are new to Facebook, establish a Facebook account and a personal timeline at
Next steps:
Once you have your account/timeline
- Click on the triangle in upper right of screen on your timeline page
Select ‘Create Page’ from drop down menu
Select “Artist, Band, or Public Figure”
Click on Choose a Category - select “Author”
Voila! From this point you can build your page

15. Sample Facebook Author Page
- Add info about yourself and your books
- Add biography
- Add website and Twitter info
- Add Profile Picture
- Add Cover Photo
Note: Author Page is separate from but will always be linked to your personal timeline.

16. Facebook Author Page Once author page is finished – Marketing uses:
- click on ‘invite friends’ to LIKE the page
FB will send an invitation. Your friends become the base of your followers.
Marketing uses:
add your FB author page information to
book jackets,
address,
book marks/ business cards,
website,
Twitter account, etc

17. Facebook Author Page
MANAGE THE PAGE:
Add content on a regular basis (preferably weekly)
- Pithy commentary or sayings (with pictures)
- Book reviews of your favorite books (include book cover photo from Amazon)
- Info about your new or upcoming books
- Questions for your followers (ask them to help pick a cover, for example)
- Funny anecdotes about your writing process
- Add automatic tie in to your blog releases

18. Facebook- Other Approaches
Notes:
Use the same steps to set up a fan page or a page devoted specifically to a book or series of books – or both.
Example: Cindy Brandner’s FB page includes her name and the name of her book series --“Cindy Brandner – Exit Unicorns”
Why not just use your personal timeline as your author page?
You can. However, your author page is intended to be a public page. Most people choose to limit access to their personal time line for privacy reasons since it include personal family information, photos, etc..
Some sites for help with setting up your author page:
Website:
You-Tube:

19. Facebook – As Marketing Tool
Facebook will encourage you to “boost” a posting
This is an inexpensive way to advertise
You can select your audience
You can select budget and duration

20. Hometown READS.com What is it?
A ‘Read Local’ movement - Currently 50 cities covered - New phase is in progress: adding book stores and libraries - Each author can include up to 4 books on their author page
- local Hometown Reads Facebook pages have been set up to create community and ambassadors

21. Hometown Reads Go to WWW.Hometownreads.com-
- Click on “Join” (top of page to the right)
- Click on “Authors” button
- Fill out simple form

22. Hometown Reads -Biographical information What is needed to join:
-Head shot photo
-Info for each book (up to four books total)
-Picture of book cover, synopsis, ISBN# --
-Specific link to Amazon
(you can get this link by accessing your book on Amazon note: only include up to the last forward slash –
Example: Boehm-ebook/dp/B01MFAR01S/ is the link for one of my books
- Your website info (if you have a website)

23. Hometown Reads – The Villages
This is the first page from The Villages section.
Note: only one book per author will show up on this page.
Go to the author’s page to see their other books

24. Hometown Reads – Sample Author Page

25. Hometown Reads - Ambassador Program
Hometown Reads has limited staff
Ambassadors role: to help spread the word
- Contact libraries
- Contact book stores
- Provide ‘feet on the street’ to expand the site’s reach
Note: Becky Robinson has a webinar every couple of weeks to bring people together and garner ideas to make the site successful

26. Hometown Reads – Tuesday Author Tips http://hometownauthors.com/
My blog about the SELF-e for Authors program was recently published on Hometown Reads providing a platform for expanded blog reach (This blog is also at

27. Authors submit books on a royalty-free basis
The SELF-e program was developed by the Library Journal to provide a way for libraries to incorporate ebooks by indie authors
The Library Journal reviews the books that have been submitted and determines which ones will be accepted into their national, curated, library- available collection
Those books not accepted into the national collection will be available on a state-wide level
Authors submit books on a royalty-free basis

28. SELF-e for Authors To submit your books Go to:
follow the directions to ‘Submit Your Book’

29. SELF-E for Authors – Comments
This is a new program - not all library systems have signed up (Sumter County has, Lake County hasn’t)
Frequently asked questions are answered at:
Library Journal staff may be significantly behind in reviewing books for the national collection
Library staffs, and library patrons, are not yet familiar with SELF-e
Future: This is an excellent opportunity for indie authors to promote and share their books with library patrons and gain name recognition – especially once libraries are fully on board

30. SELF-e and Biblioboard
Readers gain access to books by logging on to a site called Biblioboard at
Set up a free account – Browse or search for authors
example: search result for Lawrence Martin results in -

31. SELF-e and Biblioboard
Click on ‘Read This’ and the book will be downloaded to your computer, to newer versions of Kindle, and to some smart phones

32. Go to: https://www. twitter
Go to: to sign up Example from AARP: Note: I am a new Twitter user – I’m still developing a presence and followers As with Facebook, the key is to develop followers.

33. Twitter lingo
Tweet - a single message of 140 or fewer characters Pictures are not included in the 140 characters Hashtag – The hashtag symbol (#) is used before a relevant keyword or phrase in a Tweet to categorize the Tweet and allow it to show up more easily in a Twitter search. See: Symbol - Type the symbol before the username(s) when addressing a particular person/account or to give attribution when you are retweeting someone else’s tweet.

34. Twitter Tips Comments from a site that provides tips for authors:
tips-for-authors.html
- Don’t try to sell anything Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions
- Write each word like it matters, because it does Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Don’t waste words Don’t follow more people than you can handle.
- Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community, reach out and be a part of it Send out interesting, funny, resourceful and insightful tweets. This will earn you more followers

35. Summary
Social media and the internet provide significant opportunities for authors to market their books. New opportunities continue to present themselves. For example: for insightful information about Kindle Unlimited, how to sell more books on Amazon, and how to promote books on Written Word Media’s Bargain Booksy and Freebooksy sites, check out the following: GOOD LUCK! ENJOY THE JOURNEY. SHARE WHAT YOU LEARN.