Facebook is said to be the most popular social media platform, which means that it’s one of the best places to find and engage all types of readers. Well, if you haven’t set up a Facebook author page yet, well, this post would be dealing with that shortly.
It depends on what you wish to call it, whether it is fan pages or pages; one thing is for sure, they are one of the best ways to promote your book and reach more readers. They are often considered to be public timelines.
Fan pages are known to be flexible than groups and won’t be able to dilute your profile with strangers. Here is how to create a Facebook Author page of your own.
And before I skip this, I recommend you use Facebook to connect to friends, but when it comes to Facebook author pages, make sure you use it to connect to strangers. This is because, as an author, it’s natural to dislike trolls or people you don’t know pretty well on the internet. Hence, it’s better to be on the safe side and safeguard your mental health.
How to Create a Facebook Author Page?
Now, to create a Facebook author page, you’ll need to begin with a personal Facebook account.
- First of all, click the ‘plus’ button at the top right of your Facebook account.
- Choose ‘Page’ from the drop-down.
- You’ll then be prompted to enter the name of your page, the page category, and the description. I recommend naming the page your name or pen name and using the category ‘author.’
- Click on the ‘create page.’
- Then upload a profile photo for your page. I recommend applying a headshot so readers can see you and know you are a natural person indeed.
Also, read Book Publishing Made Easy: Follow These Simple Steps to Publish a Book
- Next up, you upload a Facebook cover photo. Many authors tend to include images of their books or one scene that relates to their genre.
- When done with that, hit the ‘save’ button. And your Facebook author page is automatically created. Do make sure to fill out the ‘about section’ and add the necessary link to your author’s website and books so that readers can easily follow through.
- Also, in your Facebook page category, you can choose bookstore, or anything relating to book publishing.
- In your Facebook page description, you can talk about your books.
- Also, you can include your Amazon author page URL in your Facebook page URL so that readers can visit it and see your book. However, if you have a website, you can include it.
That’s it. Your page is live. You can share your page URL to your readers through your weekly newsletter or any other means suitable. Also, you can share your books on your Facebook page and also promote your books through a Facebook Ad campaign. That is in other to reach out to people that might be interested in reading your story.
Benefits of Creating a Facebook Author Page
I guess in one way or the other, you’ve seen authors either brag or talk about their page, and you may have wondered, “what’s in this Facebook page anyways?” You need to know the only reason they brag about it is that there are many benefits when it comes to a Facebook Author Page. And here are they;
1. It helps in getting your fan in one place
We all need a place to talk to our followers or fans easily, and a Facebook author page does just that. In essence, having a page can be one of the first steps in assembling and growing your fan base. Facebook is said to make it easy for you to invite your friends to follow your page, and your friends can, in turn, invite other people to the block—making it easy for you to expand.
Also, read Book Promotion: 16 Different Ways to Promote Amazon Ebooks as a Beginner
When it also comes to your author page, it’s also one great place to send people you meet at book clubs, and conferences, especially if you don’t have an author website of any type.
2. An excellent way to sell yourself
What do you think of this? Can you imagine having to push press releases to the newspaper, television, radio, and the likes just to let your audience know what’s coming? Or how about relying solely on your network’s lips, ‘Please tell a friend about it?’ our usual plea for support—well, that was in the past.
Thank holiness, we have the internet now, especially social media. It can do all of the marketing deeds for us with little or no price!
With your Facebook Author Page, you can easily create a good announcement and publish it to your followers or fans right on your page. What’s better is that your readers can click to share the good news with friends and the likes.
3. A good link of communication between you and the readers
There’s no good way to connect with readers than connecting with them for real. This can be easy for you; you can speak directly to your readership via posts or even simple polls.
In the same way, they can communicate directly with you in the comments. And you also have the liberty to have individual conversations through private messaging.
4. Find New Followers through Adverts
One nerve-racking question among authors is, “How can I create a good Facebook campaign?”
Well, it’s possible to make Facebook Ad without having a page, but your options can be pretty limited. Now, suppose you plan on creating Facebook Ad.
Also, read 12 Best Book Advertising Companies for Promotion Services
In that case, one thing I strongly recommend that you should do is to create a Facebook author page so you can explore the many different advertising tools for Facebook.
5. It gives you the tools to Use
Perhaps, you published a new book, blog post, and likes; you can link it to your Facebook author page. If you have excellent media coverage, why not link it to your page? And you can even link online retailers to your page. Your Facebook author page is known to give you an easy way to share good news and send people to the right spots.
Some of the Things to do with your Facebook Author Page
Now, you have your page set up, let’s go ahead and take a look at some of the fantastic stuff you can do with it.
1. Use Facebook Live
Another feature that the Facebook author page provides is the Facebook live; yes, you can go live on Facebook. This is the part in which you show yourself to your followers to see the person in the picture.
People can join in on the broadcast and also comment along. This is said to provide a fantastic opportunity for real-time questions and answers with your readers. All you need to do is be sure to let people know in advance that you’ll be doing it so that viewers would be able to show up live—I recommend informing your followers a few days or weeks to the deal date to get them all prepared for it.
You can also use Facebook live as a platform for interviewing; yes, you can invite guests to your live session and have a split-screen broadcast. And while you’re just at it, you can make a poll for your session as well—if you tell me, I’ll say that’s so cool!
2. Share Author stuff
This is an excellent way to build relationships and make them helpful. For instance, if another writer in your niche or genre has a new book out or is recognized for some accomplishment, try to show them some love on your Facebook page. You can either tag and make sure they see it. This is said to build reciprocity, which leads to free help and ease down the road to success.
3. Helps you to Share Updates
The Facebook author page isn’t only meant to promote your books. It’s all about deepening your connection with your readers. Do consider sharing a simple update on what you’re doing or up to and how your day’s going at the moment.
Also, read Self-Publishing a Book: 18 Powerful Steps to Becoming a Best Seller Author
Why? You might want to ask, well, the reason is that people tend to interact more when you make things a bit personal.
If users see your Facebook page as just some announcement factory, you’ll see slower growth on your page. And you don’t have to use a Facebook page for just short, simple posts. You can write a little mini blog post right there too, which is pretty a good way to teach your readers something new and increase your page engagement.
4. Increase your Email Subscribers
Having a solid email list is essential for authors. It’s said to give even more power and some flexibility to communicate with fans. But the other thing is establishing a system for getting email subscribers, which can often be pretty painful. For Facebook, it’s said to make things pretty easy.
Conclusion
Although there are various avenues for promoting your books and yourself online, one of the critical advantages of leveraging a Facebook author page as part of your overall marketing plan is the visitor base it easily commands within the market; look at it this way, Facebook is downloaded by about a whopping billion people around the globe! What more can you ask for in terms of a community of consumers?
So, by taking your time to add details about yourself to the existing community of members on this site or those that have Facebook in their mobile gadgets, you are surely going to develop a fan base and use your profile to promote other marketing efforts such as social media accounts, websites, blogs and all other author events that come to mind.
