A Short, Quick Guide to Social Networking for Blog-to-Book Authors

I just came back from giving a talk at a local writer’s club. There I heard the same question I hear everywhere I go: What’s the best way for writer’s to accomplish their social networking — especially given the fact that they really don’t want to do social networking at all. They just want to write.

Here’s my very, very short and quick guide to social networking for writers: Blog. That’s right. One word. Blog.

Oh…right. And this sentence: After you publish a blog post, post a link to that post in at least two social networks (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or LinkedIn).

That’s it.

Basically, blogging simply involves writing. Every writer can blog. It’s not too hard. It’s not too techy. It doesn’t take too long. Except for the part about posting the links to social networks, which also isn’t too hard or too techy, it involves doing what you love — writing. After that, it’s all about telling people to read your writing. What writer doesn’t want to be read? A blog allows your writing to be read.

For those of you blogging a book, you’ve got it really easy. The more you work on your book, the more readers you drive to your blog. Hopefully, they share your book/posts with their social networks. Even if they don’t, as you build a fan base — unique visitors to your blog, you build a social network all your own right on your blog.

You should have plenty of good fodder to share. You have your manuscript, so you don’t need to create any additional content to post to your blog. Your book is your blog content. Pretty nice, huh?

If you aren’t on any social networks, go to Twitter.com and Facebook.com (and LinkedIn.com if you provide a service, sell a product or are an expert or professional), and sign up. This is a very easy and self-explanatory process. (LinkedIn is a bit more difficult and requires more information.) Then begin posting status updates – in other words, write a few words about your blog posts and then the link to your post. You can also offer a status update now and then simply about yourself. (On LinkedIn the real action is in the groups.)

That’s it.  You can do more, but that’s all that’s required for this short, quick blog-to-book author’s guide to social networking.

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