KEEPING YOUR READERS ENGAGED

I recently posted a sarcastic piece on Facebook about how they constantly badger me that I haven’t posted anything recently. Well, it isn’t true. I post something on each of my two dedicated book Facebook pages once a week, as a minimum, unless unforeseen circumstances get in the way.
What Facebook is trying to do is badger me into PAYING for their pretty much useless advertising, which is something I’ve talked about before here at Fred Central.
Facebook advertising is all about them taking your money and trying to engage NEW FANS. The return on your investment is almost always ZERO. However, I do have fans already. What about them?
TIME BETWEEN BOOKS
It doesn’t matter that you still haven’t come out with your first, are writing your second, or are well off on your journey with several in the hopper.
You need to keep your fans engaged and let them know you haven’t “fergotted” about them.
To do this, you keep them engaged with periodic posts about something.
The old trend was to have a web site and post things to do with whatever your platform is. That’s something I do with these articles here at Fred Central. My web site also contains stuff about my other interests for those so inclined. However, book-wise, there are sections dedicated to those aspects in-particular.
There can be long stretches between books. No matter what kind of impression your first or second or whatever book made on your audience, you need to let them know your still around and still working on the next one.
There’s nothing wrong with throwing them a bone once in a while.
WHAT DO YOU DO?
Some authors have a barely functional web site, no social media presence, and become those media hermits that readers never hear from until BAM! A new book shows up on the shelf.
The reader just has to forget all about them and be surprised when a new story appears one day.
That method works just fine for some, but when you’re not exactly a number one best-selling author, it’s a lot better to expand your horizons and engage your small fan base. It’s better to be more approachable and do a bit more marketing because frankly, you need all the help you can get, especially if you don’t have a budget to let some big publicity machine do it for you when your book comes out.
WHAT I DO
At the risk of repeating myself, which I’m not at all ashamed to do, I approach this several ways.
I have this web site, with which I post my weekly articles every Tuesday.
I also post a notice of these articles on Facebook and Twitter.
On the weekends, I post a little article about each book or series on the dedicated page here at Fred Central for my two series, Meleena’s Adventures and Detach And His Search For Gold. I then post the notices on the dedicated Facebook pages.
Twice a week, I engage my readers.
Apparently, this twice a week doesn’t count for Facebook because they keep sending me these bitch notices that I haven’t posted in a while. Why? Because I didn’t pay for their useless advertising!
Why should I when a bunch of strangers are going to just ignore my posts anyway.
Yet, my readers, like you will see them.
That’s what these things are for. YOU.
ENGAGEMENT
This may all seem like a lot of writing and posting to do each week, but the only thing it is for me is a few minutes to dream it up, about fifteen minutes to write, then actually posting it. The thing is that I keep my readers constantly engaged so they always have my books and my series in mind. Plus, because I post to several open forums, I DO get the word out to strangers, I just don’t have to pay for it!
SUMMARY
You can engage your readers in all kinds of ways, and it doesn’t necessarily mean you have to pay for it with annoying ads.
It also doesn’t mean you have to spend hours and hours at the keyboard.
It’s up to you.
Happy writing!