Publishing University 2012, that’s a wrap!
POSTED BY stephanie ON March 19, 2012
SXSW-goers might have missed out on IBPA‘s Publishing University. But we didn’t. Last weekend, we attended both (hello, Divide and Conquer!): SXSWi in our hometown Austin and Publishing University in San Francisco. And we took plenty of notes for you.
Each of the bullet points below lends itself to an individual post, so watch for more helpful info in future posts. But for now, we give you One-Liner Lessons from Publishing University.
Spoiler alert: The highlights are 95% social media-related. That’s not an indication of where thing are headed, but the state of the industry now.
• The industry is changing! Don’t shirk from the changes; learn how to capitalize on them.
• Self-published authors are often more successful because they tend to be closer to their buyers. They sell directly to their niche.
• At breakfast with Google, we learned about Google Play, Google Books and Google Plus and how authors can use them to sell more books. If you’re confused by all the new Google offerings, perhaps this will help: In the simplest terms, Google Play can be compared in functionality to iTunes, Google Books to Amazon, and Google Plus to Facebook.
• Overwhelmed by yet another social media tool with Google? Keep in mind that Google’s cloud is what makes it unique from its competition. Need we say more?
• When adding social media buttons to your website, don’t forget the +1 icon for Google Plus (here’s the code) and the PIN IT icon for Pinterest (here’s the code).
• Hoot Suite is a great tool for managing your social media fronts. Think of it as a dashboard for driving Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, from one location.
• Don’t neglect your Amazon Author Page. Remember to update it with your events, endorsements, etc, and link it to your blog. There are many creative ways to use it.
• Here’s another way to use YouTube: Consider posting a video response (rather than a traditional blog post) to ride a hot news story.
• Don’t forget to also leverage Shelfari, Good Reads and Library Thing in your book promotion.
• Always remember: One of the main purposes of social media is to drive traffic of your blog.
• There are plenty of services to help you boost social media productivity, including Social Oomph, where you can automate your Twitter account, among other things.
• Pinterest gets 17 million hits a month. It’s 70% women, ages 25-44. It’s very intuitive and easy to learn. Ask us if it makes sense for you to be active on Pinterest, and we’ll happily give you pointers.
• If you’re new to social media, here’s a good of thumb to get you started. Aim to plant 3 seeds everyday for marketing – using your blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Work up to one post an hour during peak business hours.
Tags: book industry, IBPA, Publishing University, social media tips
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