As you think through all of the options for getting involved in social media, they all fall into 6 general bucks.

There are 6 types of social media.

This week I will introduce you to each of the types of social media and then we will go more in depth in the coming weeks.

• Social Networks - Services that allow you to connect with other people of similar interests and background.  Usually they consist of a profile, various ways to interact with other users, ability to setup groups, etc. The most popular are Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Bookmarking Sites - Services that allow you to save, organize and manage links to various websites and resources around the internet.  Most allow you to “tag” your links to make them easy to search and share.  The most popular are Delicious and StumbleUpon.
• Social News - Services that allow people to post various news items or links to outside articles and then allows it’s users to”vote” on the items.  The voting is the core social aspect as the items that get the most votes are displayed the most prominently.  The community decides which news items get seen by more people.  The most popular are Digg and Reddit.
• Media Sharing - Services that allow you to upload and share various media such as pictures and video.  Most services have additional social features such as profiles, commenting, etc.  The most popular are YouTube and Flickr.
• Microblogging - Services that focus on short updates that are pushed out to anyone subscribed to receive the updates.  The most popular is Twitter.
• Blog Comments and Forums - Online forums allow members to hold conversations by posting messages.  Blog comments are similar except they are attached to blogs and usually the discussion centers around the topic of the blog post.  There are MANY popular blogs and forums.

Keep in mind that, while these are the 6 different types of social media, there can be overlap among the various services.  For instance, Facebook has microblogging features with their “status update”.  Also, Flickr and YouTube have comment systems similar to that of blogs.

Promoting your book is often a huge psychological hurdle for authors. One that many never get over. The interesting thing that I hear from a lot of authors is the word "self-promotion" when it comes to their book. This is the same person that can easily promote their speaking abilities, consulting services or their company's product. The word they use for this is "marketing" or "sales". Even if, in the first two examples, they are merely selling their advice, somehow this does not translate over to their book.

When you sell your book, the phrase gets switched to "self-promotion". Why is that?

What is the power of going to a therapist? Or hiring a business coach (the same thing from all I can tell)? Sure, the insight of said therapist or coach is important. You don't want to go to someone that will give you bad advice. However, I believe the most important thing they do is force you to externalize what is so caught up in your head. Often, as you start talking, you'll become extremely surprised and appalled at the destructive thoughts that are cycling through your brain.

The power here isn't in the person sitting across from you, it's in taking something inside of you and setting it out in front of you so you can objectively make decisions about it.

My wife's therapist calls these internal monologues that define behavior "scripts" and the trigger word for these is "should". Any time the word "should" crosses your mind you are to stop, externalize the script that comes after that and then decide objectively if it's a good or bad script. For instance:

Bad: "I've had a bad day so I should be able to eat a box of brownies."

Good: "I spent and hour at the gym this morning so I should take a shower."

The truth is, your book is a good thing. If you didn't believe this, you would not have gone through the excruciating process of writing it. If it's a non-fiction book, you are sharing knowledge, wisdom and insights that are going to change people's lives for the better. If it's a fiction or entertainment book, you are adding hours of enjoyment to people's lives they wouldn't have otherwise. Your book is a good thing.

If this is true, then by not promoting your book and getting it into as many people's hands as possible, you are doing them a disservice. Your selfishly keeping something out of their lives that could better them in some way just because you're afraid of something you call "self promotion".

However, it's not "self promotion". It's just "marketing" -- like any other product that will improve people's lives.

Somewhere along the way you get a script in their head that by promoting your book it is self-serving and anything else you do is somehow not.

Let's take a look at the numbers.

The typical author makes about $2 per $20 book that is sold. That's a 10% margin. If you happen to be one of the very few authors that sell at least 10,000 copies of your book, you end up making about $20,000.

Of course writing a book can take a very short time or a very long time, but let's just throw a time frame out there of 9 months. So you spend 9 months of early mornings, late nights and working lunches pulling together a manuscript. That's not even counting the editing, rewrites and many other things you end up doing just to get it done.

9 months of work for $20,000. That's well under $30,000 a year as a salary. Now let's look at a few other numbers.

As any author will tell you, there is a lot easier ways to make money. Most professionals can start making thousands of dollars to show up and speak somewhere. Consulting services are often priced by the hundreds of dollars per hour. And if you are selling a product for your job, odds are that you make more than 10% off of each one and even so, it's not a two year process (the typical length from book contract to book shelf) before you start getting a return on your time investment.

The idea that your book is "self promotion" and everything else you sell is just "marketing" or "sales" is ridiculous and false. It's a script that was given to you at some point in your life and it's time to let it go.

Here is your takeaway: Anytime you think about what you need to do to promote your book, and words like "self promoting" pop into your head, that's your trigger to stop, externalize it and realize that by selling your book you are helping people and nobody else is going to do it like you will.

There are two types of successful authors.

• Authors who sell a lot of books
• Authors who sell a lot of books and are adored by their tribe.

Brent Weeks is a fantasy fiction author published out of Orbit Books. He hit the scene at the end of 2008 when he released all three of the books in his debut trilogy in just three months. And although he is now a New York Times bestselling author, it took six months for him to hit the list.

Conventional publishing wisdom says that if you don't make bestseller status in the first week, the odds of you making it are extremely slim. By then, all of the marketing by the publisher has fizzled out and they have long since moved onto other books. The initial excitement by initial fans often dies out and your books start getting pulled from the Barnes & Noble shelves and shipped back to the publisher.

So how did Brent Weeks pull this off?

Besides the fact that the wrote three fantastic books, he put himself out there. He blogged on a regular basis and even started a little social network so fans could interact with him and each other. Just recently he started a series of blog post teaching his fans how they can get started in the world of writing.

Brent loves his fans. And in return, they adore him.

--

Dan Pink is sitting on top of the author world. His latest book, Drive, was an instant bestseller and continues to sell extremely well over a year after it's release. His last book, A Whole New Mind, has sold millions of copies and was endorsed by Oprah.

But how did he get to this point? Was it a fluke? Was it luck?

In the paperback version of his first book, Free Agent Nation, he told readers that if they lived within 50 miles of Washington D.C. (his hometown) and there were at least two people reading the book together, he would drive and meet them in person and talk about the book. If they lived outside of the 50 mile D.C. radius, he would do a phone call with them.

He travels extensively to speak and meet readers. When you meet Dan Pink, you come away feeling like he thinks you are just as important as any other reader of his book including Oprah. He truly appreciates every single person that buys his book and proves to be regularly giving of himself on his blog and in person.

On Dan's first book tour, he often spoke to crowds of 1 or 2. On his Drive book tour, he was filling out every venue he booked.

Dan loves his fans. And in return, they adore him.

Recently I asked Dan what it takes to have his kind of success. Here was his reply:

"Lots and lots of shoe leather."

--

A couple years ago I got into gardening for the first time. After an argument with my 3 year old over his belief that vegetables come from the grocery store and that it is a gross idea that they come from plants, I went out and spent a bunch of money to start a garden on my porch.

Recently, when discussing gardening with a friend of mine, he shared with me that he wasn't very good at it. "I'm the type guy that goes out and works really hard for a couple days on a garden and then forgets about it for two weeks. Plants don't respond very well to that. You have to do a little bit every day."

It struck me that this is also what it takes to build a tribe of readers that adore you. You have to show up every day. Writing your blog, attending conferences, answering people on Twitter, emailing fans and even driving 50 miles just to meet with a couple readers... it's all about "lots and lots of shoe leather".

I often talk to authors that point at people like Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, Dan Pink, Pamela Slim and others that are adored by their fans and they say "I want to be like them. How do I do that?" My answer now?

"Lots and lots of shoe leather."

There are so many options available for social media.  Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.  In fact, according to Wikipedia, there are currently 189 social networking sites to choose from.  How can you possibly keep up? This is usually the first place that overwhelms people.

The good news is, you do not have to keep up with all of them.  Your job is to pick the one that make sense for you and your content.

Recently I was speaking with a client about whether she should be spending her time on Twitter or Facebook.  When I asked her about Twitter her response was:

"I just don't get Twitter.  I signed up for an account, read about how it works and tried to start posting regularly, but it just did not work for me."

After that she went on to explain that she loved Facebook and was already heavily involved there.  Since a lot of her potential fans were also involved in Facebook, it makes complete sense for her to spend her time tribe-building on Facebook.  It just makes sense for her.

I also spoke with an author that is writing a book around acting, specifically improvisation.  As we discussed where she would get the biggest results, we landed on YouTube.  She was already teaching classes that could be recorded, she had enough skill to do basic video editing and the subject of her book obviously lent itself to the medium.

When you are making the decision on which social media platform to engage in, here are a few questions to ask:

• Does it make sense for me? Is it something I can easily fit into my life?  Do I have time to do it?  After doing some research and observation, do I "get" how it works?
• Does it make sense for my content? Twitter is only 140 characters.  Can I adequately use that for my content or the content I'm sharing?  Do I feel more comfortable producing audio or video instead of written?
• Do potential fans spend time there? Many authors have an extremely small niche and tracking those people down on Twitter may be too hard.  Your time may be better spent focusing on Facebook groups or large online forums.  Make sure people using the platform are in your tribe's demographic!

I work on the fringes of the publishing industry. Our clients are authors and looking to build a following so they can spread their ideas and change the world. It is very satisfying work to be part of helping someone reach more people with their art and ideas.

And, of course, the question gets asked of me from time to time:

"Have you written a book yet?"

On one hand, it completely makes sense that I should have a book or at least be working on one. I know a lot of great book agents and editors at the big publishing firms. I know plenty of great authors that would share their contacts with me and endorse the book. I also am the creator of the Instant Bestseller Formula so I know a thing or two about launching a book.

So why haven't I written a book?

I don't have anything worth saying yet.

Publishing a book now is easier than ever. Editors are more accessible and they are more desperate than ever to sell books. And if you want to skip the whole trade publishing process, you can self-publish your book and have it for sale in the biggest book store in the world in a matter of weeks.

However, just because the tools exist does not mean you should use them.

Earlier this century everything changed with the advent of blogging software. All of a sudden you didn't have to rely on a handful of geeks that knew how to put content online. You could do it yourself free and easy. Fast forward a few years and the number of ways to publish your content are more than you could ever keep up with.

But If I take a cursory glance at how they are being used by a lot of people, I come to the same conclusion:

Just because the tools exist does not mean you should use them.

Even if you take out the clearly horrid things that people accomplish by spreading their bigotry and hate, so many of the tools are used for vapid and useless things. Facebook is used as a narcissistic cry to the universe to prove that you are interesting and matter. Twitter is used to spew useless drivel 140 characters at a time. "Internet marketers" start dozens of blogs and post thousands of words of worthless content in the hopes of gaming the system and making a few bucks.

And we have all read a least a few books that should have never been allowed to reach the light of day.

I haven't published a book yet because I don't have anything worth saying yet. When I start thinking through what I could write, my mind immediately goes to what a published book could do for my career, speaking rate and social status.

Until I'm writing a book for the people that are going to read it, instead of for myself, I'm not going to do it.

The tools exist. They are there, easily accessible, for you to use. If you're reading this, odds are you are using at least a couple of them. So what are you using them for? Merely to make a few bucks? To prove to yourself and the world that you exist?

Or, are you trying to make the world a better place by putting your art and ideas out for all to see?

If you remember from a previous post, the first step in our tribe building framework is to "Go where people already are". Let's look a little closer at this topic and how it applies to social media.

The goal of social media and all other online marketing is to go where communities already exist online and invite them to join your tribe. This is why being an author is so exciting! You can work with other authors and share communities and it helps each of you.

If you own an Apple iPod, the odds of you being interested in the Microsoft Zune is very low. You already own a media device and you only need one of them so you are likely to ignore other competing products. This is not the case with books. If someone has read another author's book in a similar niche as yours, they are more likely to buy and read your book! So by becoming a part of other communities, you are actually adding to them.

When you begin looking at social media opportunities, think through where your community already exists and how you can engage with them. Here are a few examples:

• There are several Facebook groups on the topics of Science Fiction and Fantasy books, some of them consisting of thousands of members. If your books are in this genre, engaging in discussion with these groups will enable you to talk directly to potential fans of your book.
• One of my clients has his first book coming out next Spring. He reached out directly to other authors in his genre on Twitter. As a result, several of them now retweet every blog post that he publishes and will be on board to help launch his book.
• An author that is coming out with a how-to book for acting has engaged the large audience already present at YouTube by releasing a series of how-to videos.

What is the biggest problem facing authors when getting started with internet marketing?

Analysis Paralysis

There are 189 social networks listed on Wikipedia. Even if you completely ignore social media, you have to make decisions about email newsletters, blogging, podcasting, guest posting, webinars and on and on. They could each be a great opportunity to build your tribe but there is simply too much to choose from and as a result many people throw up their hands in frustration and quit.

Embrace Constraints

The truth is, we already have too much to do outside of building our tribe so the idea of adding another dozen things to an already busy schedule is not very appealing. Especially when you have no idea if what you are doing will make a real impact.

The key to break out of analysis paralysis and start making some progress is to embrace constraints. When looking at all the different ways you can build your online platform, the idea is to pick three things and be amazing at those. Here's why:

• It allows you to actually get started. By picking three specific platform-building ideas it allows you to break analysis paralysis.
• It makes your to-do list manageable. Keeping your list down to three items will make it much more likely that you follow through.
• It is a litmus test for opportunities. There will always be a shiny, new thing to spend your time on when marketing yourself online. By making the decision to stick to three specific things, it keeps you from getting distracted by every marketing tips article you read.
• It allows you to be successful. If you try to get involved in a dozen things, you will not be great at all of them. The likely outcome is you getting burned out and never build a following. By focusing on only three things, it allows you to do your best work and will give you the most impact.

As you look through all of the options to market your book and build your tribe, remember that your job is to pick three things and be amazing at those.  Don't get caught in the trap chasing everything new marketing gimmick that comes across your screen.

At the 2011 SXSW Interactive conference I attended a great panel discussion titled “Care and Feeding of Blogs and Book Contracts” moderated by Pam Slim of Escape From Cubicle Nation. My favorite part of the discussion was the insight offered by Mary E Glenn of McGraw-Hill and Matthew Holt of John Wiley & Sons. Statements like “You don’t need agents anymore” and “Hiring a PR firm is bulls*** and a waste of money” stood out the most to me. However, the hardest part was listening to the questions from the audience. Here’s a sampling:

• How big of a readership does your blog need to have to get a book contract?
• Does it matter if you can get published in major trade magazines?
• What if you have a big email list but you don’t blog?

If you are asking these questions, you're focusing on the wrong thing. This is not what a publisher actually cares about.

Back in December I spoke at the BizBookLab hosted by Todd Sattersten. There were a lot of publishing folk present and lots of conversations erupted around this idea of what it takes to get a book contract.

The same questions kept coming up about blogging, speaking, Twitter following, etc. And then finally somebody got it right.

It all boils down to this one fundamental question that all publishers care about:

“Can you sell books?”

What if you snapped your fingers and skipped all of the writing, editing, designing and printing of your book? Instead, this afternoon somebody dropped a pallet of 2000 of your books in your driveway. Could you sell them in the next 30 days? If the answer is “Yes” you can probably get a book contract. If the answer is “No”, you’re going to have a hard time persuading a publisher to invest in you.

Last year over a million books were published. Often when an author sits down with a publisher, the first question to come up is not “What is your book about?”. Instead, it’s “What is your platform?”. In other words, “We want to make sure you can actually sell your own book before we invest in publishing it.”

It’s about the tribe, not the tools. Blogging, social media, public speaking, etc are all tools for building and engaging your tribe. If you have a large tribe of passionate followers that are actively engaged and willing to spend money on your book, it doesn’t matter what tools you are using, you’ll be able to get a publishing deal.

Publishers are in the business of selling books. If you can sell books, they’ll be interested in what you have to say.

Photo by The Digital's

"What do you think of book publicists? Good or bad?"

I get some form of this question on a regular basis. This is always an interesting conversation and I usually talk about my own interactions with publicists.

Here are my top three:

The "We can't make any promises" publicists

Last year I spoke at an author marketing workshop and hung around to participate in some of the other sessions. The most awkward was the one the one led by three publicists from three different firms. The majority of the workshop was spent lamenting about how much media has changed and how they can't promise that anything will work. The most depressing of the group was the publicist that focused 100% on getting newspaper coverage.

I guess I would be depressed too.

The "Bloggers are stupid and online media is a waste of time" publicists

I recently had a phone call that included a client, a publicist and myself. The publicist was openly hostile to the online tribe building suggestions I was making. When I suggested that the author spend time in every city he visits interacting with readers, the publicist said it was a "waste of [the author's] time". When I suggested that bloggers be invited to media events, the publicist said "bloggers can't be trusted and don't drive many sales anyway".

Wow.

The "We are actually good publicists" publicists

Then there are a very few publicist firms that do a fantastic job. They have great connections and do their best to get you the media coverage you want.

They also cost over $50,000.

Who hires a publicist?

Last year I got a behind-the-scenes look at an author buying their way onto the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists. If you hire a couple top tier publicists, run full page ads in the major, national newspapers and buy ad spots on major TV and radio networks, you can absolutely force your way onto the bestseller lists.

If you have more money than time and you care more about selling books than connecting with an audience, hiring a publicist is the way to go.

What about the rest of the authors out there? The ones that care about building a platform and making a difference over a long period of time? What are their options?

DIY

What is so amazing about the brave new world of online media is that you already have all the tools for being your own publicist right at your finger tips. You can develop relationships with journalists yourself. You can build your own following instead of spending a bunch of money to borrow someone else's.

Now, when the topic of book publicists come up, it's no longer a discussion of whether they are good or bad, it's about imagining a world where they are rendered irrelevant. A world where spending over $50,000 and no guarantee of results is ludicrous because you already have direct access to your readers.

That is the world I want every author to live in.

photo by William Brawley

There are thousands and thousands of business books out there and it can be very confusing what you should be reading to learn how to build your tribe. I've taken the time to read a ton of books and do the research and I've narrowed it down to a handful that actually matter. Read the following books to learn the basics on building your tribe.

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
by Seth Godin

The guide to building a tribe and the first place to start. Your mission as an author is to gather a group of fans and influencers around yourself and lead the way to a bigger idea. Tribes explains why this is so important and why you are the person to do it.

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

If I asked you what your book is about, what would you say? How long would it take you to say it? Would I be interested when you were done? Made to Stick teaches you how to pull the big ideas out of your book and present them in a way that resonates with people and "sticks".

All Marketers are Liars: The Underground Classic That Explains How Marketing Really Works--and Why Authenticity Is the Best Marketing of All
by Seth Godin

Stories are the back bone of any marketing effort. Stories make your ideas clear and help them spread. All Marketers are Liars explains how you can best use stories to grow your tribe.

Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation
by Sally Hogshead

What are the 7 triggers for fascination? Which ones can you use to grow your tribe?  Fascinate walks you through each one, helps you identify yours and teaches you how to leverage them to fascinate your fans.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
by Robert B. Cialdini

Why do people do what they do? What drives people's actions and decisions? Influence will walk you through how people make decisions and teach you how to craft your message in the most persuasive way. This is a fascinating book that everyone trying to sell anything (especially a book!) should read.

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard
by Chip Heath & Dan Heath

The amazing follow up to Made to Stick teaches you the framework for catalyzing change in your tribe. Merely crafting your idea to stick is not enough, you have to then figure out how to get people to follow you and make a difference. Switch teaches you how.

The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
by David Meerman Scott

Media has changed and the power is now in your hands. That's great but now what? The New Rules of Marketing and PR walks you through how to leverage the online tools to maximize your marketing and spread your message.

Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
by Seth Godin

How do you build a fan base that will buy your book (and anything else you sell)? Traditional forms of advertisement and marketing don't work like they used to. The future is found in Permission Marketing.

The Referral Engine: Teaching Your Business to Market Itself
by John Jantsch

While this book is written for businesses, it is a gold mine of information for the author. You want people to spread the word and tell their friends to buy your book. The Referral Engine offers a systematic way to do this.

Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy That Grabs Their Attention and Compels Them to Buyby Maria Velosa

Writing a book and writing web copy are two very different things. You want to move people to buy your book and Web Copy That Sells offers a step-by-step blue print on how to do this. Skip this title at your own peril.

Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business (New Rules Social Media Series)
by Ann Handley & C.C. Chapman

This is the newest book on the list and the title I've been waiting for. One of the hardest things to figure out is how to come up with content for your platform and use it effectively. Content Rules is the definitive guide on this subject. It will walk you through how to come up with content, how to leverage it to grow your tribe and "reimagine" it for multiple uses.