Marketing A Novel: Using Facebook To Sell Your Book

These days authors have to depend more and more on using social media to sell their books. If, like me, you're an independent author, it's crucial... though writers who've had their books published by traditional means also have to reach out to readers. It's especially important if you're only selling your novel as an e-book. Because you can't sell in-person and do readings in bookstores, using sites like Facebook or Twitter is the next best thing.

For F#@! BOMB's release, I've been experimenting with Facebook. We had great success launching LOVE NOTES with a Facebook party, so I hosted aa FB event for F#@! BOMB. I also, of course, posted my book's link on my personal and author pages, and alerted my friends and contacts of its existence. So far, I've sold quite a few through FB, though I'm trying to expand my readership and sales.

I've tried my luck at using Facebook's ad campaigns... and I can't say it's worked too well for me. While most features on FB are still free (and will hopefully stay that way), you can buy ad space to promote a post or particular page. FB has you pay a certain amount of money -- they encourage anything from $5 on -- and the more you pay, the more people you reach. Generally your post/page is boosted for a day or so, or until the money runs out (which happens rather quickly). You can customize your ads to target particular people, which further expands your potential fan base.

FB does what it promises as my pages and posts HAVE gotten many views. I've gotten dozens of "likes" on my author and jewelry designer pages, and have a few new followers. However, while the views are coming in, it doesn't seem like people really click the actual links. People tend to "like" what's right in front of them, whether it's a photo of my jewelry or a blurb about my books, but most haven't bothered to actually head to my Etsy stores or to my Amazon pages. They simply like the post and move on. Sometimes I wonder if they even know what they're liking.

From this experience I've found that it's better to target people who are specifically looking for a product. The FB release parties worked well because book lovers were eager to meet the authors and learn about the novels. They weren't just blindly liking links. I think many of us -- myself included - kind of go through FB and click, click, click, like, like, like whatever pops up... but it takes more effort to actually stop and change the page to view whatever is being sold.

As an online vendor, I'm a big fan of Facebook because it has gotten me book and jewelry sales. But buying ads is not the way to go, at least for me.

Please read and review F#@! BOMB, REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD and LOVE NOTES, all available on Amazon.

My New Novel: Now Available For Pre-Order On Amazon!

Great news! My second novel, F#@! BOMB is finished and is now available for pre-order on Amazon! It will be out on March 30, so you won't have to wait too long to read it.

I've been working on and off on this book for a couple of years, so it's a little surreal for me knowing it's finished. I have that feeling of, "Okay, now what do I do?" but the easy answer is to ... write another book. I began F#@! BOMB soon after the release of REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD and I hope to jump into another project within the next few weeks.

Meantime, I'm really happy with how F#@! BOMB came out. This novel is a heavier story than BAND GEEK, which was basically a romance. I don't know how readers will respond, but I've gotten some good feedback from my editors. More importantly, I'm proud of my work.

One thing I did with this book that I hadn't done with BAND GEEK is make the entire package look professional. I did hire a graphic designer to create my BAND GEEK cover, but I formatted the text myself... which apparently had mixed results. For F#@! BOMB, I hired someone -- Shane Morgan, whose book THE RIGHT SONG is included in the LOVE NOTES anthology -- to design my cover AND text. She did an amazing job! The cover is below, but when you read the book, you'll see the care that was put into the creation of the chapter headers, page breaks, etc. These are details I hadn't thought about when doing BAND GEEK, but every little thing matters. I'm actually thinking of re-doing BAND GEEK's overall design so I can update it and bring it to F#@! BOMB's level.

I hope people enjoy reading my latest book as much as I enjoyed writing it. Here's a blurb to whet your appetite:

Fatty. Freak. Friendless. Failure. Sadie Abramowitz is used to being alone. The morbidly obese college freshman literally doesn’t fit in anywhere and was constantly the butt of jokes in high school.

So far, life at Cunningham University isn’t much better. Her roommate only communicates in grunts while Sadie’s “dream job” at the school paper has her interviewing her fellow students with questions that practically invite them to insult her.

Things change when she’s assigned a story on Griffin Greenberg, the freshman track star who was one of Sadie’s high school bullies. At first, she’s reluctant to work with the gorgeous Griffin, but soon discovers that he’s not such a bad guy. Plus, he’s been keeping a secret: he’s gay.

As their friendship grows, Griffin challenges Sadie to do something she never thought possible: train for a marathon. Meanwhile, she supports him as he slowly comes to terms with his sexuality. Together, they help each other survive their first year of college – and also learn how to stand strong on their own.

Don't forget to order your copy of F#@! BOMB. Also be sure to check out LOVE NOTES and BAND GEEK, all on Amazon.

Welcome to Naomi Rabinowitz Author!

Today was a really important day for me. For one thing, it's my husband's birthday. We had a great night out in the city with friends and enjoyed some delicious Senegalese cuisine. But we had more than one reason to celebrate: my book REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD is now available on Amazon Kindle.

I've been working on this novel for quite a long time. I began in 2002, got an agent, made some major edits, almost sold it ... and then nothing happened. I then put it away for a few years, but often thought about it. I finally decided to go the independent publishing route and once again made some major edits. All in all, I'd say that I edited this book about 20 times. Writing is fun, but it certainly isn't easy when you take it seriously!

I chose to write Young Adult fiction because that genre has always appealed to me. Teens are interesting to write about because they're not kids, but aren't yet adults -- and they're still going through many changes and many "firsts" in life. I wanted to write a story that captured that confusing time that we've all been through -- or will go through eventually.

In a nutshell, BAND GEEK is about a 15-year-old girl named Melinda who sees herself as a loser in school. She's chubby, she doesn't have a boyfriend, she doesn't have many friends and her own mom makes fun of her weight. Mel's content to be in the background and hide from life. The one thing she is confident about, though, is that she's first chair flute in band. But even that gets taken from her when her enemy, Kathy Meadows, wins the seat in the next round of auditions.

Mel then teams up with Josh Kowalski, a rebellious trumpet player. He persuades Mel to help him take down Kathy and as they scheme together, they fall in love. Only Mel begin to question just how far she's willing to go to get what she wants and hang onto Josh.

Music, love and revenge are major themes in my book, but the story goes much deeper than that. It explores various friendships, Melinda's relationship with her family, high school dynamics and Melinda's relationship with well, herself. It has some funny moments, but like any coming-of-age stories, a lot of sad portions, too.

While this novel is a YA story, there is some harsh language. Let's be real: teens swear and often say some disgusting things. I wanted my teens to be real, not sugar-coated versions of youth. So my characters screw up and make mistakes, and are sometimes rude. But I tried not to overdo it. I also tried to show how my characters have goals and passions.

As for the cover, it was made by a great e-book design company called Damonza. I gave them my book's summary and they came up with this awesome concept. I love it! It's gotten many compliments from friends, too, which is always a good sign.

So welcome to my blog! I hope you'll check out REVENGE OF A BAND GEEK GONE BAD on Amazon and will continue to check in with me as I write about my literary journey. Happy reading!