Creative Ways to Tweet About Your Book

One of your goals is to use social media to get people to buy your book (or hire you or learn about your services). If all you ever do is tweet, "Buy my book", your audience will quickly start feeling annoyed and they will unfollow you. You need to find additional, creative ways to get people interested in your message and your book without always directly asking them to buy your book.

Book Quotes & Images

This is one of my favorite ways to help clients share their book on social media - especially nonfiction authors. Your book is full of great information and tips. Pull interesting quotes from the book, add a link to the book page at Amazon and tweet away!

Example: Business is about persuasion: you're going to have to understand something about how people think to have success. http://ow.ly/Ccd530cQvJw

Even better, create an image with the quote and post that on Twitter (and Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn). Visuals have great appeal. Here's an example:

Book Review Quotes

What do others say about your book? Share what Amazon reviewers have posted about your book. This will encourage people to buy your book, without you asking them to "Buy My Book". You can pull a short bit out of the review at Amazon and tweet it with a link to the book at Amazon. For example: "Don’t miss the chapters on small business, case studies, and troubleshooting your data." http://ow.ly/Vw4930cQFDW #B2BMarketing

If you know the reviewer is on Twitter, you could even thank them for the review and use their Twitter handle. Not only will they appreciate it (and possibly share with their audience), it will encourage other readers to leave positive reviews so they can receive your thanks as well. Example: Thank you @lucindaspeaks for the 5* book review! Commonsense makes Common dollars for Virtual Business Owners. http://ow.ly/Ccd530cQvJw

Your Milestones & Book Orders

When you reach a milestone (just sent your manuscript off to the publisher, released a second edition, sold 100 copies, 1000 copies), tweet about it and include a link to the book. Your audience will share your enthusiasm and you will be promoting the book without actually asking for anyone to buy it.

One way I've promoted my book in the past is to mention when the Community College places an order for the book for their class each semester. Just mentioning that the order was placed, without asking for a sale, has resulted in book sales. Example: Just received an order from the Community College in Illinois for copies of "The Commonsense Virtual Assistant". http://ow.ly/Ccd530cQvJw or Mailing off copies of "The Commonsense Virtual Assistant" to the Community College in Illinois for their class. http://ow.ly/Ccd530cQvJw

Use Hashtags 

Hashtags can help you find your readers and helps your readers find you. What is your book about? Use relevant hashtags when tweeting about your book. Is it a self-help book, a book about the retail industry, or how to manage your career? Then use one of these hashtags: #selfhelp #retail #careermanagement

As an example for one of my client's books, the audience for that subject would be B2B Marketers. So I would use the hashtag #B2BMarketing in my tweets. So I might tweet this: This complete guide identifies B2B data sources & shows how to architect your data to best advantage. http://www.ruthstevens.com/books/ #B2BMarketing. You'll also note this tweet does not directly ask for the audience to buy the book.

Here's a tool to help you find hashtags.