Regardless of what you write, you should be comfortable using social media. Authors of fiction and nonfiction are expected to do a lot of their own marketing, and social media is a great (and free) way to accomplish this. It's also a quick, easy way to build an author platform and show your potential agent and editor who you are, because they will definitely Google you. 

After your book is picked up for publication, you can do a lot, including cover reveals, unboxings, or ARC giveaways, to promote your book, but what do you do while you're still drafting your novel or looking for an agent? 

5 Posts Aspiring Writers Can (and Should) Make on Social Media

​Years back, another WDW director, Brian A. Klems, was gearing up for the release of his first book — a humorous guide for fathers called OH BOY, YOU’RE HAVING A GIRL: A DAD’S SURVIVAL GUIDE TO RAISING DAUGHTERS (Adams Media).

So I found myself as a cheerleader for my writing buddy — trying to do what I could to help as his release date approached. I realized I can help in two ways: 1) I use my own experience of writing and publishing books to share advice on what he can expect and plan for; and 2) I simply do whatever little things I can that help in any way.

This last part brings up an important point: Anyone can support an author’s book release by doing different things to help the book sell and get noticed. So, in no particular order, here are 11 things — some big, some small — that you can do to support a writer friend when their book comes out:

1. Buy their book. An obvious point, sure, but important nonetheless. Naturally, we must buy new copies of books, not used copies, for the sale to “count” and the author to get a royalty. So buy new. Heck, consider pre-ordering the book. Publishers pay attention to pre-orders to help get a sense of what titles are getting buzz and attention. Impressive pre-orders help the author.

(In this post, I'm using a blog as a social media example, but this advice can be used for any kind of account, including TikTok, newsletters, podcasts, etc.)

Most writers’ blogs forever linger in obscurity. These sites never receive a number of page views that would be considered noteworthy (500 a day, for instance) or help them sell thousands of books over time.

If you’re just blogging for fun and don’t care about how many hits you get, that’s one thing. But if you’re using a blog as a means to build your writing network and author platform, you’re probably curious about why some social media accounts succeed while others crash and burn and what you can do to attract a bigger readership. I can tell you how to do just that.

WHAT SEPARATES SUCCESSFUL FROM UNSUCCESSFUL?

What separates the small percentage of larger, successful blogs from the rest of the herd? This is a question I’ve studied for many years while building my previous corporate blog and this blog as well as when I’ve reviewed other writers’ sites.

Let’s say you have a book out and want to promote it. So you contact a website and offer to write a free guest post (or several) for them. (The example below follows blogging, but you can also use these patterns for video, podcast, etc.)

In exchange for providing the free content, you have some requests:

• You want your column(s) to be accompanied by your book cover
• You want your column(s) to be accompanied by your headshot
• You want your 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