Today’s Book Marketing Update is a hefty one.

The post includes several gems on book marketing and book sales, a lot of social media news, and a list of newsy items unrelated to book marketing but important to authors.

Enjoy the posts referenced below!

Book Marketing

Author Platform: How to Build It – from New York Book Editors: “In the most basic terms, an author platform is your ability to reach people who may buy your book.”

How to Create A Book Launch Content Calendar & Why It Matters – from Scribe Media: “There are at least 1,670 new Kindle ebooks published on Amazon every day. That’s more than one book every minute! Needless to say, that’s a lot of competition.”

How to Revive Dead Book Sales: Managing Your Backlist – from Dave Chesson: “As someone who’s worked closely with Amazon’s algorithm, and recorded book sales data over the years, I’ve found that there are phenomena that cause this, and that there are methods authors can take to correct it. Today, I want to show you how and why this happens, but more importantly, how to correct it and revive your book sales.”

Book Design

The Hardworking Magic of Book Design – from Writer Unboxed: If you don’t believe that great book design is important, read this blog post.

Social Media News

Twitter Launches Public Test of ‘Circles’ for Private Chats via Tweet – from Social Media Today: This featurel”will enable users to share tweets with a specific, custom group of connections in the app.”

Instagram Tests New, Full-Screen, Scrollable Display of Posts and Reels – from Social Media Today: “… Instagram has launched an initial test of a new, full-screen variation of its main feed display, which makes IG content look a lot more like TikTok, leaning into the latest usage trends.”

Twitter Expands Test of TikTok-Like Display Format in its Explore Tab – from Social Media Today: Remember when not so long ago platforms were copying Snapchat? The new leader in town is clearly TikTok.

15 Behind the Scenes Content Ideas to Share on Instagram [Infographic] – from Social Media Today: If you think you are running out of content to post, check out this infographic.

Twitter Under Elon Musk

Note: Unless Musk enacts changes to Twitter that will affect authors, this will be the last time I distinguish “Twitter under Musk” from other social media news.

Musk Secures Funding as More Hints of His Twitter Plans Slowly Filter Through – from Social Media Today: Here are the two final sentences of this blog post: “Expect job cuts and program changes, while you can also expect Twitter’s focus to shift dramatically within this initial period. How that changes your day-to-day tweet experience, we’ll have to wait and see.

Elon Musk Plans to Increase Twitter’s User Base by Almost 200% Over the Next Three Years – from Social Media Today: Musk also plans to dismiss 1,000 Twitter staff members this year and then add an additional 2,700 in 2025.

Downvotes Are Now on Twitter

Have you noticed these changes to Twitter?

This is how you’ll see the “downvote” icon:

Read These Too

How a Debut Graphic Memoir Became the Most Banned Book in the Country – from The New York Times: The author didn’t expect her memoir to do well. The timing of publication helped propel this book into phenomenal sales and debate.

Dave Eggers offers to replace books a South Dakota school board wants to pulp – from The Guardian: “The writer calls the planned destruction of copies of five titles – by Bernardine Evaristo, Alison Bechdel, Imbolo Mbue and Stephen Chbosky as well as his own – ‘an unconscionable horror.'”

Can A Writer Quote Song Lyrics in a Memoir or Novel? – by Anne R. Allen: The short answer is that you can quote song lyrics in your book but you’ll have to pay to use those lyrics.

Not a Journal Person? Post-Pandemic Might Be the Perfect Time to Start – by Anne M. Carley and from Jane Friedman’s Blog: I have tried to journal but have failed miserably in the past. But in this blog post, Anne M. Carley provides a bullet list of suggestions on how to approach your journal. So I will take another stab at journaling. What about you?

Quote of the Week

This week’s quote is from a poem, which you can find here.

Hey, I’m Frances Caballo and I’m a social media expert for writers, building and managing author platforms to enhance book sales. A writer all of my life, I also provide content writing and email marketing services. If all you need is some training, I enjoy offering one-on-one training sessions as well. Of course, check out my free, email-based social media training course (you’ll get a free, 64-page Twitter ebook with it). 

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