I have been looking at a lot of  author’s fan pages lately.  To tell you the truth, I really can’t tell the difference between the author page and the standard friends page in many of them.  An author’s page should be so much more than a wall of comments even if they do pertain to your book.  Even the best selling authors aren’t taking advantage of the wonderful promotional value that can easily be gained through these pages.  If you already have a fan page or pages, the following can make it better:

The Welcome Page

This page should be a striking introduction to you and your latest book. It should not be a lot of  boring text. It should have a large image of your book cover in 3D.  It should have an Amazon widget where a reader can purchase your book.  It should have a book trailer video or a video book review, and it should have an opt in form to collect email addresses where you can send emails about appearances, book signings, book tour stops, etc. to  your readers.  Give away a chapter or two of your book when they op-tin.   Your welcome page  should be set as the first thing your reader sees when they come to your pages.

 Book Page

On this page you should have small book covers from your   previous books linked to descriptions on your website or Amazon pages.  You can include  an Amazon widget for all your books or put them into the widget you are putting on your Welcome page for  the new book.  This allows for another way way to sell your books.  If you look at the image on the right, it also includes new updates from a blog and from twitter.   Assisting Authors Online created this page and the welcome page above for author, Diane Griffin. As you can see, her feed from her blog and her twitter account also go into the page.  Very soon she will have a book launch for her new series of books helping parents to protect their teens from the dangers of texting, social media, and Facebook, so stay tuned.  See all the entire pages at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Security-First-Associates/

Other Pages

• Video Page:  if you have video book reviews or trailers for your other books put them here.   If you don’t have videos, what about testimonials about your book or books?
• Events Page: virtual book tours, book signings, blog hops etc.  On this page, promote your book by putting links to your website, blog, and any other sites that are talking about your book
• About the Author Page: this page should be devoted to your bio.  

Every page you have should be peppered with images. If you have too much text, you will lose your audience.

When you complete your pages, invite all your friends to “Like”  your page.  Every day I try to make new author friends.  Every week I invite them to “Like” my Pages: http://www.facebook.com/jfriesler.   On my wall, I give quick tips that I think will help authors.  They get publicity on my Friends page because most of my friends are authors, but they get great content on my Facebook Pages as well as my blog.  I have a Welcome page, a Blog page that is updated right from this blog and links back to this blog.  I respond to every comment on my Wall and Fan page (my blog) as I do here on our site.  This is how people get to know  my partner and I,  and value what we can do for them.

I can hear you muttering under your breath, ” How am I suppose to know how to do all of this?”    That is why you have us.  Read On!

In the next few blog postings, I will explain each step and give you links to good examples so you can make this become a reality.  I want to make it clear that you will be able to create these pages on your own, but as I explained above, Assisting Authors Online can do this for you at a reasonable price.  Email me at janis@assistingauthors.com if you are interested.  We also have a Book Launch Package that includes the above at no extra cost.