If I told you there was an event happening right now where a large number of your target readers were, alongside other authors, industry influencers like bloggers, journalists, booksellers, festival and event organisers and you had the chance to meet them all at the event and build relationships with them you’d want to go wouldn’t you? 

If I told you it was happening moments away from your home so there would be need to travel and no cost to get there, you’d be there in a heartbeat wouldn’t you?

Well that event is happening, and it’s happening on social media right now and you can join whenever you want. 

Let me tell you the brilliant opportunities social media offers and some of the ways you can benefit from being active on social media.

You can build relationships with your readers

This is the big one. You can build your own audience of readers who are interested in you and your books. If you do social media well they will be interested in the insights into your books and your writing life. The connection they feel with you will help to build their loyalty so they are more likely to buy and support your books. This relationship with your readers be yours, not your publisher or agent, so if for any reason you move publishing house, or are published by a number of different people, your audience stays with you. 

You have the opportunity to be noticed by media, event organisers and journalists

Social Media isn’t just for reaching your readers, it’s a great opportunity to build relationships and come to the attention of the media, event organisers and journalists through the content that you share, the conversations you join in with and the communities you are part of.

You can form relationships with people who can impact the success of your books 

There are lots of people in the book word who influence readers such as bloggers, journalists, booksellers, librarians, other authors and teachers, parents and education influencers if you are writing children’s books.  Many of these are very active on social media and use social media to follow and engage with authors and publishers.

You have access to an enormous research pool

Your social media channels offer a great hive mind and source of information which might be of value to you when writing your books. With such a vast number of people active on social media there is always bound to be someone who knows the answer to a question vital to your book that you may be struggling with. 

You never know who you might meet

If you embrace social media and engage well, you never know who you might meet, and what connections you might form. From friendship and support from other authors or people in the writing community through to other businesses who might like to cross promote with you, there is endless potential. 

Please don’t just think of social media as just another thing to tick off a checklist of ways to market your book. The benefits of being active and engaged on social media reach far beyond promoting your book.