If you’re an author, you better have a Facebook page that says so. Your author Facebook page is one of the most important things in your social network. By the end of 2014, Facebook had around 1.35 billion users, and those users spend an average of 40 minutes per day perusing the website. Since people are already spending a lot of time on Facebook, it’s easy if all the important information about you and your writing is readily available on your page.
Things you can use Facebook for:
1. Posting pictures
Post pictures of yourself, of design drafts for your cover (if you feel like sharing them), of your dog, of things that are inspiration for your work, or anything! Pictures are a chance for you to be humorous, or to show fans aspects of yourself not necessarily accessible through your writing.
2. Posting videos
Like YouTube or Vimeo, Facebook also allows you to post videos. We recommend keeping YouTube as your primary video hub, and posting just your highlights on Facebook.
3. Giving your fans updates
You can post status updates, which will populate your followers’ news feeds in the same way Tweets fill up a Twitter feed. Facebook statuses allow you to post much longer messages, allowing you to update your fans about things like book signings, upcoming interviews, information about contests, progress on your writing, or even your unfortunate lack of progress.
4. Posting links to relevant content
Often after reading a book, people will become interested in some of the ideas, events or topics explored in the book, so if you happen to see an article, essay or news report related to your book, post it to your Facebook feed –your fans are likely interested in that stuff. For instance, science fiction author Neal Stephenson is constantly posting articles relevant to the ideas he explores in his books. At the same time, posting someone else’s article gives somebody else some exposure!
5. Helping out fellow writers
If you like somebody’s work, and think your fans would to, tell them about it! Authors will greatly appreciate you spreading the word about their work. Who knows, that author may be inclined to do you the same favor.
Examples of author Facebook pages:
As a writer:
- Creating an author page allows you all sorts of ways to communicate with your fans.
- Like Twitter, you can post quick updates that show up in the ‘News Feeds’ of your fans.
- Post pictures and videos that can remain on your page permanently, so anyone who visits your page can see your most important content–and not just your most recent.
- Posting excerpts of your writing allows fans to give you feedback, as well as helping to build hype for your upcoming work.
- Facebook provides tools that measure the impact of your posts. Facebook analytics show how popular your various posts are, so you can edit your content to better appeal to your followers.
- You can post the same things here that you post on your blog or on Twitter, and link between each platform.
- Allows you to post questions, participate in discussions, offer links to blogs and websites, offer news.