We know how excited authors are to finally hit the publish button. Next comes the somewhat scary task of book marketing, getting it out there to the masses. For an audio-book author, this may seem an even more complex challenge because your book is recorded- you're telling the story, but let's face it, people love to connect visually. In comes Instagram, the visual story-telling social media tool we've observed has over 300 million active monthly users as of December 2014! From character development to quick videos to daily photos and even giveaways, you can get on your fans' radar to create a lasting visual impression that makes them buy!
Quick & Easy Instagramming Tips For Audio Book Authors
For novels, biographies, autobiographies and story tellers
We know character development is key. Listeners want to know the color of your star character's hair, how they dress, what they eat etc. Just as big box office television channels spend time recording shorts highlighting actors talking about their characters on the show, you can create "scene" excerpts that help sell the story with Instagram. Refer to a certain scene and tell a story over the course of one day with visuals that portray the story excerpt.
How-to, DIY and cook book authors
Instagram is the perfect tool to couple your audio books or audio clips and photo how-tos. Now you'll have a free tool with tons of visual inspiration to lock in fans and get new ones buying. Food photography comprises more than half of the exploration feed on Instagram making it one of the most popular visual expressions on the app.
No matter what your topic, people love to see and to connect with authors. Consider recording a 20 second video reading an excerpt or doing a demo to portray your work in a personal way.
Remember the Basics When You Get Set Up
1. Take advantage of the bio space to sell your book with a short excerpt
2. Be sure to list a link to your book
3. If you do have a cover photo of your book, use this for the profile image
4. Follow all of your favorite authors, book agents, writing associations and people that fit into your target market
5. Place an Instagram link in your email signature, on your Facebook page and the webpage you use to promote your book. Be sure to prompt people with tag-lines such as "see new cooking demos and special features from the book at my Instagram page."
6. If you're using Twitter or Google +, post links from those tools to point to the posts you're putting up on Instagram. Start using hashtags that correspond to your project so people will be able to cross-reference your work throughout your social media channels.
7. Get invited to guest blog and specifically talk about how you're hosting special visual features through your Instagram account. Talk about how you're building a community of fans through your page.
Check out Instagram's most popular author profiles to see how they're doing it right.
Keep the Faith and May the Force be with You!