This is a guest post by Marina Gioti. You may remember this author power couple from my recent feature of their books. Marina is revealing how she’s using the much-maligned Facebook Author Pages in a novel way that allows her to boost her sales without having to pay for advertising!

Exciting Times For Facebook Author Pages

Exciting times lie ahead for Authors when it comes to promoting their books on social media! Apparently, Facebook and Goodreads have identified the need for tools specifically targeted to authors. They seem to be engaging in a race to become the best platform for authors and help them reach and engage their audience. So far, Facebook seems to be the most user-friendly, but Goodreads is more targeted.

As we all know, user profiles have better penetration and reach than a page in facebook, but they also have certain limitations, such as the 5000 friends limit and the fact that you can not advertise through your profile. You need to have a page for that. The reason is that Facebook is a social media platform, but it is also a corporation aiming to make more money. So, in order to increase their revenue, Facebook’s team has developed a set of tools which help you target your audience and sell more books, and thus making you very happy to pay for them. Great value for money.

What’s new for authors? First, just make sure in the “About” section of your page you have “Author” under Category:

Image: Marina Gioti

Then, If you look on the left side of your page you will see a few new buttons: Shop, Events, Groups and more. (Tip from peterjfoote: If you can’t see these, go to “settings”, then “edit page”. Scroll down to “tabs” and add “shop”, “events” etc.)

Now, let’s get into these in detail.

Shop

You now have your personal e-shop, easily managed and promoted. You can now place each of your books on you facebook e-shop. You can upload photos, a description, price, and offers. You can then link it to your Amazon book page or any other e-shop to make the sale. Facebook offers you the option to create collections. In my case, where I have authored books in English and Greek, I have made a collection for each language so I can promote them separately. An author that has books in different genres, such as fiction and non-fiction books, can use the collections to better organize them.

Image: Marina Gioti

Events and tours

This is such a cool feature. You can now see all your events in one place in chronological order and organize your events in tours. You can see how many people are interested, how many are going and the reach of the event. You can boost and share the event separately or the entire book tour. If you are traditionally published, your publisher can make you a co-host in the event and the event immediately appears in your events section of your author page.

Image: Marina Gioti

Groups

You can create groups or link groups you already to your page, thus better organizing your author street teams, fan club or author groups.

Goodreads

You can now link your Goodreads author page with your facebook page. This way you instantly have all your books and reviews appearing on your facebook page as well, and gain followers across platforms.

Image: Marina Gioti

Offers

Advertise your offers or discounts on your books, post discounts or deals directly from your Page. People who save them will get notifications before they expire. This is a great tool to combine with any free days or countdown deals on Amazon.

Advertise

This is not a new feature, but targeting in Facebook has been increasingly becoming more sophisticated. Reach new readers by targeting specific groups, such as readers of Romance novels or parents with children 3-6.

Author pages Vs book pages

The question that bugs many an author: which is better; a page or a profile?

Personally, I don’t use separate book pages for my books. It’s just too much for me to handle: Facebook profile, page, Instagram, Twitter, Behance, Goodreads, Linkedin!

Others, however, do use them. If you have the time to do so, there are several perks. You can cross advertise the book and author pages, ensuring that the audience of one page knows there’s another. Another helpful feature is that anyone adding your book to the list of things they’ve read will be linked to the book’s Facebook page. Also, your name will appear underneath, in case they don’t yet know much about you as an author.

These are some of the new features for authors but stay tuned for more. Facebook is known to always be a step ahead of the rest of the world and provide tools we didn’t even know we needed. As the competition with Goodreads and Amazon continues, more and more changes will take place. As I said in the beginning, these are exciting times…

Marina’s And Costas’ Books Offers

Both Marina and Costas have just launched their latest books. For the next few days, you can get them for $1.99 and $0.99 respectively. This is a great opportunity to get acquainted with these amazing authors. In the interest of full disclosure, let me add that I helped with Athora’s editing; a task that was made harder by the fact I couldn’t wait to see what happens next!

Athora: A Mystery Romance set on the Greek Islands

A tourist is found dead in Istanbul, the victim of what appears to be a ritual killing. An elderly man is murdered in the same manner, in his house by Lake Como. The third murder is the most perplexing of all: the priest of a small, isolated Greek island lies dead in the sanctuary, his body ritualistically mutilated.

Fotini Meliou is visiting her family on the island of Athora for a few days, before starting a new life in the US. She is looking forward to a brief respite and, perhaps, becoming better acquainted with the seductive Gabriel, whom she has just met. It is not the summer vacation she expects it to be. A massive weather bomb is gathering over the Aegean, threatening to unleash the most violent weather the area has ever seen.

When the storm breaks out, the struggle begins. A race against the elements and a race against time: the killer is still on the island, claiming yet another victim. In the absence of a coroner and with the island now cut off from the rest of the world, Fotini is called in by the local police to help carry out an autopsy. She quickly becomes swept up in the investigation and the battle against the storm.

Locals, a boatload of newly arrived refugees, foreign residents, and stranded tourists are now trapped on an island that has lost contact with the outside world. Is the mysterious refugee Azim the man he claims to be? Who is Sophie, an elderly woman who has been living on Athora like a hermit these past thirty years? What are Gabriel and Carlo, a visiting American investor, really after?

As the storm wreaks havoc on the island, how will they manage to survive?

Check it out on Amazon–only 99c for a few days.

Twice Upon a Time: Little Thumb (Fairytales Retold Book 3)

How could parents abandon their children in the forest? And how likely is it that smart Little Thumb did not know that the crumbs would not last for long in the woods? Besides, if he was so short, how did the huge Giant manage to see him and… not step on him? And really, now, just how tired was this Giant to let Little Thumb steal his boots?

Once again, intrepid reporter Tom Flibbertigibbet is determined to unearth the truth behind the classic fairy tale. A book about sibling cooperation, achieving adulthood, and facing our worst fears; this story is an excellent choice for parents and teachers who wish to teach children to look beyond appearances and think critically. Because not every word is cast in stone!

Check it out on Amazon–only $1.99 for a few days.

Exciting Times For Facebook Author Pages

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