Getting Your Children's Books Found (part 2)
In our previous article on how to get your children’s books found, we discussed Facebook. In this article, we’ll delve into some other social media channels - Twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads.
Let’s start with Twitter. With your tweets limited to 280 characters, you will learn to practice clear and concise writing. There are two things that will eat up those characters without any writing at all - an image and a url. The image will chew up 25 characters and the url will take up as many characters as it is long.
There is nothing to be done about the image - it will take up those 25 characters no matter what you do to try to make the image smaller. But the url can be shortened using a link shortening service like Bit.ly Just paste your link into the text box on the Bit.ly website and it will return a shortened link that will work exactly the same as the original link.
The most important part of a tweet are the hashtags. And yes, they also take up part of that character count. The hashtag, preceded by a pound sign # , is used to show what the post is about. #KidLit, or #ChildrensBooks for example. When using a hashtag, do not use spaces or punctuation. You can search Twitter for a hashtag to see how many visits each one has gotten. Often, people will simply visit a hashtag for a subject they are interested in and then look at tweets that pop up for that hashtag.
In addition to #kidlit and #childrensbooks, here are some others that usually have good traffic:
#PictureBook
#StoryBook
#KidLitArt
#KidsBooks
#BoardBooks
#EarlyReaders
#Kindle
You might also use a hashtag for a character in your book. If your book features a dragon, or a teddy bear, then try #dragon or #teddybear as well as the other more general hashtags. Also check hashtags for any specific subgenres that might apply.
Don’t go overboard on the hashtags. Use three to five per tweet not every tag that might apply to your book. Be consistent with your tweets, and try to make at least one every day or two.
Goodreads
Goodreads is a gathering place for readers book buyers that is often overlooked by book authors. It is a user driven review and book database website that was purchased by Amazon a few years ago. Goodreads is similar to FaceBook in that users can create pages and groups for specific book genres. They discuss and review books in those genres and often cross post comments and reviews to other social media sites.
Authors are welcome in most groups but do not do driveby link drops and promo posts or you will be banned from the group. Interact with the other members of the group and read the rules before posting.
Members of Goodreads can also generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create polls and most members write reviews, some quite lengthy. If you get a bad review, be careful how you reply to the reviewer. Remember that whatever you write in response to a bad review will be read by hundreds, if not thousands of potential buyers.
Here are some of Goodreads groups devoted to children’s books.
Children’s Books
“From picture-books to juvenile fiction, award-winners to overlooked gems, the world of children's literature provides an endless supply of fabulous books. This group was created to be a one-stop destination, for all readers interested in discussing that world, in whole or in part. All opinions are welcome, as long as they are respectfully expressed.”
Promoting Picture Books
“Are you an author, illustrator, publisher, promoter, reviewer of Picture Books? If so, come join the group and tell us about your books!”
Kids Reads
“This is a support group for those who read, write, or would like to write children's books. You don't have to be a children's book author to belong. You might just want to share a great book that you've read. You might just want some advice on a good read. For authors working on projects, this can include giving helpful advice, reviewing other author books (as long as it's non-reciprocal--see rules), asking for help, and everything else associated with children's books.”
Goodreads is one of the best marketing tools you can have in your toolbox. Take some time to browse through the site to get the “feel” of it and then use it to your best advantage.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must say that I have a love/hate relationship with Pinterest. Pinterest, a collection of category specific “bulletin boards” posted by users, can be a great place to showcase your book. However, there are two downsides to Pinterest.
Users feel that if something is posted to Pinterest, it’s free to download and use in whatever way they want. It doesn’t matter how many copyright notices you put on your images and text snippets, whatever you put on Pinterest WILL be used by others.
Successful Pinterest marketing relies on “repins” (think of retweets or resteems) to other Pinterest boards. This means you must have visually appealing pins on your own board. Making two or three visually appealing, engaging pins every week can prove challenging and time consuming.
Here are some Pinterest Boards you should look into where you can post your pins directly to their audience. As always, READ THE GROUP RULES BEFORE POSTING
Bookaholics Anonymous 8,600 Followers
“...anything to do with books to include products, authors, libraries, quotes, inspiration, ideas, reviews, and anything book or reading related.”
Indie Authors and Self Published 5,700 Followers
Pin your book covers, run contests and announce promotional events
Self Published Children’s Books 4,300 Followers
“Pin a children's book you authored/illustrated or anything about how to write/publish children's books”
Children’s Books/Movies 3000 Followers
“Children's Books, Children's Movies picture books, educational books, learning books, all things for children with beautiful colors and pages to bring the story to life. Illustrations, articles, book covers, and more. Self-Published welcomed “
This wraps up our tour of social media book marketing. One final word on social media marketing don’t try to do everything at once. Setup one social media channel and get used to how it works before moving on to the next one. Your mileage will vary between each channel and while one may give almost instant returns, another may take some time to build an audience. If you try to do all channels at once, you will become overwhelmed and find yourself spending all of your time trying to harness social media sites and have no time left to create your next book.
This is extremely useful information for a lot of creative fields. So much to learn!