This is an image I created last year, in the very depths of fall for my Reading transforms Flying Books collection.
As you know, I’m also a professional photographer, and a lot of my fine arts portraiture work is focus on self portraits. I adore my Reading Transforms series because it represents my love of books.
As an author, you have a love of books…not just your own books, but all books. How can you express this love of reading to your fans? How can you share this mutual interest?
- Bookstagram the book you are currently reading. Tell why your favorite character in that book is your favorite and ask their opinions too in order to start a conversation.
- Start a book group. Get together with your fans and pick a book a month to read together (that isn’t your book) and then talk about it in your closed Facebook group. Do a read along if your group likes and assign chapters every day and then lead a discussion on it. This gives them a reason to continually talk to you.
- Take fans on a trip through your books shelves. Either use Facebook Live or Periscope and do a live broadcast walk through, or do it through Instagram Stories/Snapchat to do a quick video/photo walk through of your shelves.
- Have a coffee date with a book and social media it. Set your table or counter up nicely, add a pretty cup of coffee or tea, set out a nice snack, then open up the book and document it through your social media. Bonus points if you cooked/baked your treat and can give fans the recipe for “the perfect snack to go with that book.”
- Going out for the day? Pull a Rory Gilmore and carry a book in your bag with you. But first, snap a photo and ask fan which one you should bring along. Then give them proof throughout the day that the book they picked is spending the day with you.
Showing that you are a book fan just like them helps your fans to connect more to you. When you do the things they do (like bookstagramming, carrying a book in your bag, eating while reading, etc) they fall more in love with you and your author brand. And when you promote other people’s books, that makes you an awesome person who promotes books, and not an author who shoves your own books down people’s throats. When you prove you have good taste in books your fans would like, you become a trusted source of information for your fans...which then leads back to them thinking “if they have such good taste in books, and I’ve loved the other things they recommend, I’ll probably like their books too, I should preorder their new one.” Win, win.
Make friends, talk books, market yourself without ever saying a word about yourself.
Stay inspired,
-K.M.