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But what if it is just the first book you have ever written? What if you don’t have an army of fans who are anxiously anticipating your next release? Promoting a book often turns out an even more complicated task than writing it. This is why it makes sense to take care of the promotion in advance, long before your book is finished.

But where do you start? It has been said a lot about the online promotion, but what hasn’t been actually covered yet is the role of online communities in the process of engaging the audience. Not just the regular reading communities you can stumble across everywhere on the web, but the highly personalized online networks where you as an author (and obviously your book) are in the spotlight. Before you can really spark the interest of the crowd, your goal is not just to reach out to as many people as possible, but to engage them, make them get involved with what you do. You need to build your strategy step by step:

1. Start with establishing your authority by creating a worthy content As soon as you launch your own networking website, you have to fill it with interesting content. Think what knowledge you could share, come up with creative ideas to engage and entertain your readers: post informative articles on the topics related to the book you are going to release, run a readership blog, tell others how it is to be an author who’s struggling to make it to the top, share your writing tips, etc. And of course, let people know you’re writing a book and explain who might find it useful and why.

2. Reach out to your potential readers. Your next step is to bring to your new website as many people as you can. Utilize all possible means including social media, e-mail, public readership communities, digital advertising, etc.

3. Shape your community. When you start getting visitors, don’t let them go. Show how much you care, encourage them to comment on your posts, communicate, share their own ideas and experiences. The key to building a healthy online community is letting its members feel they can contribute on equal terms. This is exactly what sets communities apart from regular websites. Being an owner of the community, you are in power to let its members post their own content, encourage them to participate in collective events (e.g. collective readings, reading/writing challenges, workshops, creative meetups), organize discussions and forums, etc.

4. Let the community be your marketing tool. There’s nothing that tells better of you as an author than a good-looking website boasting an army of devoted visitors who connect with each other and talk about your book. Having invested some time and effort into building a thriving online community, you can expect your book to be bought not only by your network members, but also by other people who will come to your website.

With a right approach and functional website at your disposal, you can acquire a large following, accumulate lots of great content, make it visible for search engines, and earn yourself a reputation needed to give your new book a nice boost on its release!

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