What Makes for a Successful Social Media Presence for Fiction Authors?

Social media chart

Vision — Drive — Passion — Clear purpose — Excitement

All ingredients to a successful social media campaign.

Yes, social media is your blog, and social networking sites, all ways we connect with each other online, and all the ways we share our content and connect with our tribe.

Your success in social media all depends on what you would like.

And it all starts in exploring and uncovering and defining what you would like!

Here’s what you can do! Describe what you would like in your social media experience.

• What does it look like to you? What are you saying to yourself about it?
• What are you thinking? What are you feeling? How does it feel in your body?
• What could I see you doing about it if I was sitting next to you at the cafe?

A successful social media presence for fiction authors requires that we know as specifically as possible what we would like.

More specifics for you to explore!

• When will you know that you have a successful social media presence as an author?
• What lets you know that?
• With whom will you have it?
• When?
• Where?

I was talking with a client recently who said she wanted to feel a sense of play when she was using social media; she wanted to be comfortable with Facebook, Twitter and blogging. She wanted to have a few hundred followers and friends within a month of starting, and she wanted to be able to connect with her follow authors, too. She also wanted to blog weekly and run a monthly giveaway contest on her blog. She said she could see herself sitting in her office at home using Twitter with a glass of wine in her hand after a day of working on her current novel.

We also discussed what it was like for her now: no social media presence, a little afraid to start — “Where do I begin?” she asked. — and she was overwhelmed by the process.

Yes, it’s also an excellent idea to explore where you are now with your social media, asking the same questions as above!

Find out more about creating your successful social media campaign for writers here in these past Writer’s Fun Zone articles, and in this free report, Confessions of a Reluctant Marketer. (It will sign you up for my newsletter, that you can unsubscribe from at any time.)

If you’d like to take a course on the subject, I’ll be teaching one starting June 20th, a 7-week online course just on social media for fiction authors. I look forward to having you there!

Note: This course is specifically for novelists and short story writers. While the same principles apply to nonfiction authors, special and unique concerns of fiction authors will be addressed.

Also: This course is best suited to authors who have already completed at least one manuscript and are already shopping their work to agents and editors. This course is also for already published authors, whether self-published or traditionally published.

About Beth Barany
Beth Barany works with many authors who are nervous about book marketing and about how to get started in social media, and how to make social media work for them. She helps them find their comfort zone in marketing and selling their books so they can have a successful author career.

About WFZ
Writer’s Fun Zone, WFZ, is a service to aspiring and published fiction and nonfiction authors to help make writing and book marketing fun and adventurous.

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