Why You Need To Start Your Social Media Platform Before You Publish

Today I’m pleased to welcome blogger and author Kara Piazza to the blog to talk about the all-important social media. If you have a social media question please leave it in the comments below. I may just feature your question and the answer in my next post! 

Hello all you fabulous readers here on Kate Tilton’s blog! I am so honored that Kate has given me the opportunity to be here with you today! I’m very excited to be visiting with you all today and I would love to connect with you even after this is over. I love meeting new people.

Kate was generous enough to let me pick my own topic today, as long as it had to do with writing of course. 🙂 So after thinking long and hard about it, I thought a good subject would be social media. Now this isn’t about writing books or poems or anything but I thought it would be ok because I think it has become so essential to authors.

I do a lot of guest interviews on my blog, including one with the fabulous Kate Tilton that you can read at http://www.thewritingpiazza.com/blog/thewritingpiazza-around-the-web/other-interviews/interview-with-author-assistant-kate-tilton/ it was such a fun interview! I also do a lot of published author interviews. Although I like to come up with new questions for each interview, there are one or two questions that I like to ask all my guest authors. One of those questions is: “What is something you know now that you wish you knew before you published?” And one of the answers I get A LOT is “I wish I had started building up my social media presence sooner.” Of course I’m Karaphrasing on that, they all wrote it using different words because, hello they’re writers and that’s what they do. But the idea was the same. They wished they hadn’t waited to work on their social media accounts.

Writing a book is a tremendous undertaking. There is a lot more to it than many people realize. In the midst of all the agonizing over a manuscript, one of the last things a writer wants to do, is add another task to her ‘to-do’ list. But this is something you should seriously think about adding.

I have interviewed authors who have both traditionally and self-published and they all will tell you that it’s hard marketing their book. You might think that going with a traditional publisher means you don’t have to worry about that, but you’d be mistaken. You will come to see that you still need to market your work (unless you’re JK Rowling or Steven King perhaps). This means being on social media. This is where a lot of the magic, er I mean, marketing happens. And I’m not talking about the “buy my book” tweets that the same person sends out every five seconds. I don’t recommend that at all. I’m talking about the marketing of yourself.

Social media is where you introduce yourself to your target audience. You show them who you are and give them a glimpse of what you’re all about. You’re probably thinking, ‘what does that have to do with selling my book?’ And I bet you thought my answer was going to be “EVERYTHING!” Well, it’s not everything, but it is important. Here are a few reasons why:

• They are more likely to buy your book if they know a little about you than they are if you are a complete stranger.
• It gives them a chance to see your writing style. People want to read things they enjoy. (I know this seems like a “duh” statement.) But if they read what you write on social media and they like it, they are going to be more comfortable spending their hard earned money on your book because they know they like your writing already.
• You have a ready-made audience. If you’re strategic in the connections you make on social media, you will have a targeted audience all ready to buy that book once you put it out.
• It takes your level of influence to a whole new, you guessed it, level. Your followers have followers. Social circles nowadays circle the globe. What you put up on social media has a much farther reach and will be seen by a much larger audience then you are likely to ever have IRL (in real life) unless you are performing at the Superbowl halftime or something.

These are just some of the benefits to building up your author platform on social media. And if you are still writing your book it’s the best time to start. Having that platform in place before your book is published is something many published authors wish they had. So do what you gotta do to free up some time and/or motivate yourself to get to work on it. If you need help, don’t hesitate to reach out. I’m always happy to answer any questions I can and I know Kate offers social media training for authors if you’d like to check that out. She also has a resource page for social media: https://katetilton.com/social-media/ and social media tips on this site (yep, it’s right here: https://katetilton.com/social-media-tips/) It’s one of those investments that will really pay off down the road. It’s hard at first, but once you get your author platform built up, you’ll be glad you did!

About the Author:
Kara Piazza is the author of the soon to be released, exhilarating novel The Seeker Initiative. Seeker Initiative is Kara’s first full-length novel and it will be the first book in the series she has planned for her protagonists. Kara is also currently working on publishing her novella The Maladroit through her impress Writing Piazza Press. She also authors The Writing Piazza Blog where she documents her journey through the harrowing process of writing and publishing her novel series. Kara currently lives in Arizona with her amazing twin boys and her pug Neptune.

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