By Chip R. Bell
Your network includes people who will not only buy your book
but recommend it to friends. So, how do
you grow a network? Do book
readings. Get on local media. Get on social media networks. Reach out to others to invite them to join
you on these networks. Send out content
to your followers regularly. Some
authors, for example, send out tweets several times a day. There are programs that enable you to plan
scores of tweets (now up to 280 characters each) and blogs in advance,
programming them to appear precisely when you elect. Add a ClickToTweet link to your blog posts to
make it easy for others to share it. Set
up your own YouTube channel and post short videos about your book.
Help other authors be successful. When you get a tweet, retweet it to your
network. When you read a blog that you
like, send it to your followers. By
growing your following, you are in a position to borrow other’s network by
asking them to post a guest blog on their website. Remember Emerson! Give away books, especially to those who can
promote, review, or encourage others to purchase your new book.
Young Al Hopkins watched his friends every summer set up a
lemonade stand on a street corner in his hometown and wait for a passerby to
make a sale. He decided there was a
better way. On Friday afternoon, he
delivered to every house in town a flyer promising “amazing blue lemonade
coming to your door on Saturday.”
Saturday morning, he loaded up his red wagon with blue-colored lemonade
his mom helped him make and went door-to-door knocking on doors. He made enough money that summer to buy a
Schwinn bicycle with a light and a bell.
Make your book unique and take it “on the road” instead of waiting on a
street corner hoping for a sale!
Chip R. Bell is the author of nine national and
international best-selling books that have won numerous book awards. His newest book is Book Mark: How to Be an Author
available through the Georgia Writers Museum (www.georgiawritersmuseum.com). He can be reached at chipbell.com.
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