Lean Publishing Tip of the Day: Using Social Media to Promote Your Book

A full-time book marketing expert could write a whole book on using social media to promote self-published books - but you’d only want to publish it on Leanpub, since things change so fast!

Jokes aside, the biggest obstacle you’ll probably find to using social media, when you first get into marketing a self-published book, is the huge amount of advice there is out there.

So, in this self-publishing tip, we’re going to be brief and opinionated, with the understanding that if you want to learn more yourself elsewhere, you have many other options, from self-publishing blogs to podcasts to webinars.

Post Content You’ve Already Written

Whether you’re publishing your book chapter-by-chapter, the “Lean Publishing” way, or you’ve written a complete book manuscript, you’ve already got plenty of content to share on social media.

You can literally copy and paste interesting sentences from your book into social media posts, giving potential readers a taste of what’s inside.

Post Content Regularly

Set aside a fifteen-minute block of time every day when you’re going to go on social media and publish posts.

Like a run or workout, once you’ve done it enough days in a row, you’ll actually miss it if you don’t do it.

Don’t Chase Algorithms

If you read the self-publishing experts, pretty soon you’ll come across advice for how to best take advantage of this-or-that platform’s algorithm.

Unless you’re basically a full-time self-published author, we do not recommend chasing algorithms in this way.

It’s not just because algorithms are opaque and changeable - every time one changes, you’ll find heartbreaking stories of algorithm-gaming small business that see their sales collapse - but also because, basically, you’re competing with people who do this all day long, every day.