What I’ve learned about building a platform and/or marketing your book online.By Judith Marshall
After you’ve set up you blog or website, you need to join and participate in online communities — and I mean participate, so don’t over-extend yourself. I started with the usual Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, but I’ve now found several sites that cater to readers and authors. Here are a few I belong to:
http://www.shewrites.com/ This site is specifically for women writers. You can invite friends, customize a page and add content. There’s a group asking “What Did You Blog About Today,” where you can direct people to your site.
A place to share thoughts about writing, publishing or marketing books
http://www.aarp.org/community/groups/searchGroups.bt?categoryId=3 If you’re over 50 (or even if you’re not) join Book Talk or one of the other book groups on AARP.
http://www.classmates.com/community/groups/groupHome?communityId=120 There are 13,862 members of the Books group on Classmates and over 60,000 posts – and its free to join
http://www.bloggerlinkup.com/ A free service that will allow you to ask for or offer guest posts. This is great when you want another point of view or you’re just burned out from blogging and can’t think of another thing to say.
http://tagmybookonamazon.wordpress.com/ This is a new site that offers to tag your book on Amazon. Authors submit their books for tagging and tag each other’s books so they move up on the list. You must participate in the tagging process or you’ll be cut — seems only fair.
Anyway, the point is there are numerous ways to have a presence online for free. Even if you’ve written the next great American novel, it won’t matter if not one knows about it. We authors need all the help we can get. Best of luck!
Regards,
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