42 Rules

Just like any social network, Facebook has to be used wisely while you are building a community of potential readers.  Do the wrong thing and you can undo all of the credibility you’ve worked hard to build.

Here are some things that you definitely want to avoid doing on FaceBook:

1.  Do not spam people’s inboxes, walls or Facebook Fan Pages. This will cost you your credibility and it can also get you banned from FaceBook entirely.  Facebook is an important tool that needs to remain spam free in order to be a place where people want to gather.

2.    Don’t post the link to your website on people’s walls or Fan Pages.  This just makes you look desperate and greedy. Don’t drop links anywhere at all. Instead, post interesting comments and people will click your name to learn more about you from your profile.

3.    While you want to give yourself and your business a human face don’t get overly personal  especially with photos and videos. You aren’t searching for a hot date – you are trying to build an audience of readers.

Use good sense and avoid behavior used by other spammers.  In the long run it may take longer to build your audience but the price of your credibility is not something you want to lose.

The Book Deal blog has a great interview with Jackie Morse Kessler, the author of a four-book Young Adulst series with Houghton/Graphia: Hunger, Rage, Loss and the upcoming Breath.  Ms. Kessler just finished a blog book tour and explains how it works and what the benefits are for authors.  To read this insightful post at the Book Deal blog and let us know if you’ve ever participated in a book blog tour.

A feature on LinkedIn that can help authors build their network and establish credibility is LinkedIn Answers.  Answers is where you share your expertise and establish yourself as an expert.  It’s a great way to make your book stand out – by answers that are the topic of your book.   This is not a lead generation tool and using it like one will hurt your credibility.  Provide useful, relevant answers and you will do just fine.

You can ASK and ANSWER questions here.  When asking questions, keep them short and specific. You are more likely to get response if your questions are clear and on point.  This is a great way to do research for your marketing campaigns.  When answering questions, remember that these folks are honestly looking for information – they don’t want to hear your sales pitch.  So if you have something to share hop on over to LinkedIn and get started!

Get reviews.  It’s that simple.  The incredible success of Amazon.com has largely been driven by user generated reviews.  Books with no or few reviews don’t sell.  Even books with negative reviews sell better than books with no reviews because potential buyers know a book won’t please everyone.  If you have a book you need to give away copies to reviewers and ask them to post their reviews on Amazon.com and every other book review site they can find.  It’s that simple.