The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part Two – by Michael Allen

Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen
Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen

Back in the beginning of January, Michael Allen provided us with an intense post about Facebook pages.  If you missed it, you can read it here.

Today we welcome Michael back with the second installment of his “Power of Facebook for Writers” post.  We’re going to pick up where he left off, after you’ve created your page…

Now, you want to promote your book page. One very effective strategy is to have a giveaway.  Let rafflecopter.com handle that for you. Start a giveaway and make it worth someone’s time.

I’d say an autographed copy of your book would make a great first prize.  But, you can have other gifts as well. Cafepress.com makes it easy for you to offer coffee cups, tee shirts, hats, bags and much more. Putting your book’s cover on a coffee cup or a tee shirt makes a handy gift for a giveaway. Continue reading “The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part Two – by Michael Allen”

The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part One – by Michael Allen

Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen
Author/Screenwriter Michael Allen

Facebook can be very powerful if you know how to use it. But, I’ve talked to plenty of indie authors who simply don’t see the effectiveness Facebook can have on an online marketing campaign. If they only knew a few things about what Facebook can do, they just might have a better time using this extremely powerful social media platform.

First of all, there is a personal profile and then there are pages that you can create. A personal profile can only have 5,000 friends. That’s why I suggest you make that into information about who you are as a person, not a book page. Provide information about your work and education. Highlight your interests. Add friends that you really know and even indicate who is in your family. In other words, be real. That is your real profile and it should be only about you.

Of course, you would mention that you are a writer and list all your books. That’s perfectly fine. So, then create a page for each book. Some writers find this a little too much. But remember, the Facebook experience is for you to define. So if you don’t want a page for each book, then simply create an author page where you can list all of your books. Continue reading “The Power of Facebook for Writers – Part One – by Michael Allen”

Custom Facebook URLs

Wow.  One of the most common…flubs, for lack of a better word…that I see is a Facebook author page with a discombobulated URL.  I must see at least one or two a day.  “Come check out my page!” they’ll say to me, presenting me with a link that looks like “http://www.facebook.com/pages/Judy-the-author/260458930631195”   Hey, Judy, guess what?  No one’s going to remember how to get to your author page with a link like that.

Don’t feel badly, authors aren’t the only ones who fall into this — lots of folks with “Business” and other kinds of pages do as well.   And guess what?  There is something you can do about it.

Continue reading “Custom Facebook URLs”