Awesome Gang

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Using Twitter For Local Book Signings

The other day on our Facebook authors group we were talking about using social media to get more people to your book signing. I asked how many people used Twitter to find people that may be interested in your book and may come to your book signing. I was surprised no one had used Twitter for this. Consider this a guide for you just change out the city and use your own.

I am going to assume that you already have a Twitter account. If you don’t go to Twitter and sign up. This will work best if you have a few weeks before your book signing and I promise it won’t take much time.

Ready! Set! Go!

OK the first thing we have to do is find out if the bookstore or wherever you are signing books has a Twitter account. When you find that account go and follow all the people that have tweeted at the bookstore recently. In this example I am going to use New York City.

Lets say I am signing at St Marks Books. A nice book store in Manhattan. I find their Twitter account which is @stmarksbookshop. Right now they have 1400 followers. Hmm 1400 people that are already fans of the bookstore. I am sure they would be interested in coming to a book signing in a store they like already. I go and click on their followers and follow them all if I have enough room in my Twitter account without hitting the limit for the day.

If you don’t have enough space and only want the serious followers I usually follow only the people that have tweeted out about the store or had some recent interaction with them. This way I don’t get their followers that haven’t been on Twitter in a while. You do this using the Twitter search box with the @ symbol and their twitter account.

Since we are following the bookstore where your signing will be send them a Tweet, something like this. “I am excited to be coming to your store to sign books on (include the date and time)”. Their followers will be familiar with you by the time the signing happens. I would tweet this once a day myself.

Another thing I would do is find their Facebook page and post a “Looking forward to signing books at your store.” In this case St Marks has 5000 fans so that is the place I would be marketing also. But Facebook marketing is for another post. You can take some of these methods and apply it to Facebook if you have time.

Rinse and Repeat This Method

St Marks is in the East Village so the next thing I would be doing is look for popular Twitter accounts in the Village. Lets see the first thing that pops in my mind is the newspaper “The Village Voice. In this case I am going to follow everyone that the Village Voice follows which is mostly staff. I will also look for other people that may be local in their followers list and follow who they are following.

I just noticed they are following reporters that are also near the East Village, Sweet that is a home run. They are also following a popular East Village website NSAYEastVillage. I will go through their followers and also email the site and alert them to the book signing. They also have 6000 people on their Facebook so I would make a post there too.

But Vinny I Don’t Have These Huge Resources.

I realize that NYC is huge and has a lot of resources that some other cities don’t have but I am only using the East Village section so in a way it is a small town. I want you to pull up a map of the address where you are doing the book signing. Here is a map where St Marks Book Shop is.

east village map

If you look closely on the map you will see about 20 locations that are near the book store. I see three or four churches, a few restaurants, a few parks. There are even a few schools, last time I looked there were teachers that read there. Using your local map search for their website and/or Twitter account. If your local Starbucks has it’s own Twitter account that is a good place also.

You can find the popular places in your town by finding the Twitter accounts for

  1. Chamber of Commerce
  2. Local Radio Station
  3. Local Newspaper
  4. Neighborhood stores
  5. The Mayor or local politicians
  6. Police or Fire Stations
  7. Local TV News Station and/or popular anchors
  8. Local Parks

Do the same thing we did with the other accounts. I personally like using the @symbol in searches so I get the most recent people in my searches. I have found this works better.

Between all these accounts your book signing should be a major success. After the end of the book signing I would also contact as many people as possible thanking them for their help getting the word out.

While you are doing all this Twitter following why not follow me https://twitter.com/ourawesomegang.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Know the food network show, Sweet Genius? Well, Vinny is a …

  3. Vinny this is some great information and makes me want to go out and do a book signing! How did you get to be so smart? You make things so much easier for us. Thanks for showing us the way.

  8. Good tips. Thanks!
    Question – if I follow all these people, they need to follow me back. Otherwise they won’t get my tweet announcements. Or do I message them individually?

  9. Yes they need to follow you back. If you get half of them to follow you back you will be way ahead of the game. You will also get more followers from them retweeting you and interacting with you. After you follow them you should try to engage them on Twitter.

  11. Thanks, Vinny. This was brilliant. Houston is also a huge place, and very spread out. These tips will be very useful in honing in on a particular area or one of the many communities making up the Metropolitan area.
    ~JD

  12. This was a great tip, Vinny. I am going to follow you now. Please return the favor. I tweeted and Facebook-fed this post. Hope it gets you some new subscribers and followers.

    Marta Chausée
    Murder’s Last Resort on Amazon.com

  13. You are welcome, glad you like it. I will follow you back also.

  14. What a great article full of useful tips we as authors can use.

    Thanks

  15. That’s great info! I’ll be sure to use it. I have a book signing on October 1st at Chick-Fil-A in Oklahoma City. Thank you!

  16. Good luck to you! Come back and let us know how you make out with it!

  17. Vin, you take the word clever to new heights, my friend. Everything else that I have read, recently, about local book signings for Indie Authors only mention things like “grueling,” or they go on to question the value of such in today’s digital marketplace . After reading this post, though, I find myself (dare I say it?) ‘excited’ at the aspect of staging my own book signing event. Good job!

  18. Glad you like it. Most that say it is grueling is the authors that didn’t do any work before the book signing.

  20. Thank you for good information and for supporting us who are trying to get the word out about what’s come of our clicking the keys! Someone told me that we may have written the best book in the world (I’m not claiming mine is…), but unless others know about it, what difference does it make? Thank you for caring that our work gets noticed. Have a great day.

  21. Hi Vinny, I’m new here and to Twitter. Thanks for these tips. One question, when you say “I go and click on their followers and follow them all if I have enough room in my Twitter account without hitting the limit for the day”
    is there a way to select all and follow, or do you have to follow one person at a time?
    thanks carol

  22. Unfortunately you have to follow them manually. It may take a few minutes a day but well worth it.

  23. Thank you for the kind words. I always tell authors that writing the book is the easy part, marketing the book is tough especially because most authors I know are not marketers. I am glad to help out any any I can.

  24. You are simply the best! Thanks a lot my friend!

  26. Thank you, Vinny. I am going to be doing my first official book store signing soon and will be using this idea.

  28. I have a signing at a bookstore in July. Going to twitter right now to follow their fans. Great advice.

  30. I thought I was pretty good at gathering a crowd, but these suggestions via Twitter are devilishly clever. Takes some time to implement, but it would definitely bring in a crowd, especially useful when I’m going to a city I don’t know anyone in. Thank you. I will use your model.

  33. Among the more understandable Twitter advice I’ve read. As always, thsnks Vinny

  34. I’ve not come across this site before, but with great tips like this I’ll certainly be back. Thank you. X

  35. Thanks Yvonne so glad you like it. I hope you joined our newsletter.

  36. Wow, impressive insights into how to best utilize Twitter. I’ve been trying to figure out how to find some way to make the most of all my connections on Twitter, but this is more targeted. Much better.

    Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to receiving your newsletter now, too!

  37. This could not have come at a better time, as I have a book signing in two weeks. Thanks, Vinny! I’m off to follow your advice.

  39. Wow! Great article. Thanks Vinnie! And I’m looking forward to Monday’s promo!

  40. Thanks! I think your promo is for 11/11? Unless you have 2 books scheduled.

  41. Hello Vinny:

    I’m new to your organization, so this is my first post. Even though a book signing isn’t in the foreseeable future, you’ve provided an informative article that can be useful for marketing to potential readers. Thanks for sharing!! (smile)

    Connected by the written word,
    Marcía/USA-Atlanta, GA
    Write Like A Pro-2

  42. Great information…really got my mind spinning! I have two more signings this year and I know now I can be more productive. Thanks Cheryllynn

  43. You are very welcome. Glad these tips can help you get more sales.

  44. I’m hosting my first book signing, Pages in the Caves, in Cave City, KY in September. Can’t wait to try this technique to bring in more readers!

    Thanks, Vinny!

  46. Food for thought. Wonder if my local paper has a Twitter site.

  48. Vinny, that is a brilliant idea!..Thank you!

  49. This is absolutely brilliant and simple to understand. Thank you so much for sharing these tips.

  50. Excellent ideas, Vinny. Thank you 😊

  51. Thanks for the good advice!

  54. Thanks for the kind words. I am actually thinking about expanding social media lessons.

  55. Almost wants me to print books instead of justing going ebook