The Creative Penn

Writing, self-publishing, book marketing, making a living with your writing

How To Create A Facebook Fan Page For Your Book Or Author Brand

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OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn

There is no getting away from Facebook! Whether you love it or hate it, you have to be on it as part of your author platform.

A few weeks ago, I interviewed social media strategist Amy Porterfield who inspired us about how to use Facebook for marketing. Then this Fast Company article convinced me that Facebook will only continue to grow and may even overtake Google for online search.

I already have a basic page for The Creative Penn here, but I wanted to provide free chapters and build a list for the launch of my thriller novel, Pentecost so I needed more functionality. In browsing for options, I found that it would cost between $200-$2000 to get it created so I did a bit of investigation and managed to do it myself within an hour.

This information will save you time and money, so watch the video below or read the text steps to create your own Facebook page for your book or author brand. Click here to Like the Pentecost page so you can see the result.

In the video, I go through these steps:

1) Set up a basic Facebook page here. You do need to be a member of Facebook already.

2) Add the Static FBML app. It creates a blank page where you can add FBML which is basically HTML.

3) Open a new blog post on a WordPress blog and add your text in the Visual screen. Then copy the HTML that has been generated for you. Paste into the FBML page and save.

4) For list building, I use Aweber (affiliate) and they give you the code that you can paste into the FBML page. (More detail on list building here)

5) Set the default of the page by changing the settings on the Wall.

6) Claim your easy to remember URL here after you page has 25+ fans.

If you do set up a page, please leave the link in the comments below with whether these instructions helped you and any other tips you have.

Please come and check out the Pentecost Novel page and download free chapters if you like thriller novels.

Facebook Marketing For Authors With Amy Porterfield

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OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn

Facebook can be quite overwhelming but there are 500 million users and it's the most popular social network. As author-entrepreneurs we need to know how to use it for book marketing and building an author platform. I have a Facebook page for The Creative Penn but I had some questions about using it for promoting a book.

In this interview, social media strategist Amy Porterfield gives us her best tips. Audio mp3 and text below the video.

Audio => AmyPorterfield.mp3

In the video, you will learn:

  • Why Facebook is so important these days
  • The difference between Pages and Groups
  • How to use Pages for book promotion
  • Why sharing your best content is so important
  • How to engage people in the process of writing your book
  • How to use your time effectively on social networks
  • Setting up an editorial calendar for effective blogging
  • Why Facebook ads can be effective for book promotion

You can find Amy at her AmyPorterfield.com and I highly recommend you read this post on Must-Read Facebook Marketing Tips.

Amy is also on Facebook here and on twitter @amyporterfield

Facebook: How authors can use it for book promotion

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OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn

Facebook has more than 175 million active users worldwide. If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria. The fastest growing demographic is those 30 years old and older (and you can bet a whole lot of them read books!).

It can therefore be a powerful place to promote your book and yourself as an author. Here are some ways you can use it for book promotion:

  1. Set up your own personal profile and start making some friends. If you are a complete beginner, check out these “How to use Facebook videos” on YouTube.
  2. Set up a Group. You can set up a group for your book or for yourself as an author here. You can also get a memorable URL instead of the incomprehensible one Facebook gives it.

Here are some related groups to check out:

  • How to publish a book – a new group from me and best-selling author Dale Beaumont. Weekly updates, links, videos, articles and information on writing and publishing.
  • Creative writing sites on Facebook – an Index of other creative writing sites – excellent resource
  • Writing and Publishing – International Association of Authors
  • Aspiring Novelists
  • A place for writing
  • There are also author groups e.g. Vikas Swarup who wrote the book Q&A which was made into the Oscar winning movie Slumdog Millionaire.

3. Set up a page. If you are a business e.g. self-publisher, you can set up a Page for your business which can be found from the internet without people needing to actually have a Facebook account. You can create a page here. I have setup a page for The Creative Penn as an example here.

4. Advertise on Facebook. Facebook profiles contain far more information about a person than general web searches have access to, so you can target your audience more specifically. If you set up an advert, you can specify who to show it to, for example, women aged 20-45 who like “books” or “reading”. You can also use this to search for how many people like a particular subject e.g. if 140,000 people in New York like horror, then that is a good target group for you to advertise to if you are a horror writer. There is lots more information about advertising here. I use it quite successfully to give away my workbook and build my email list, so I do recommend it (and certainly it's more targetted than Google Adwords).

5. Find your niche with Lexicon. This is a tool that searches for specific topics so you can approach people to connect with you based on what they are posting about. I haven't tried this but it sounds interesting!

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Most of the information on this site is free for you to read, watch or listen to, but The Creative Penn is also a business and my livelihood. So please expect hyperlinks to be affiliate links in many cases, when I receive a small percentage of sales if you wish to purchase. I only recommend tools, books and services that I either use or people I know personally. Integrity and authenticity continue to be of the highest importance to me. Read the privacy policy here. Read the Cookie policy here. I hope you find the site useful! Thanks - Joanna
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