Poet Katrina A. McCain Shares Facebook and Instagram Live Tips for Authors

Facebook and Instagram Live Videos have proven to be economical ways that authors can engage with their followers. Katrina A. McCain, a poet published, Because She Decided To Love, in November of 2019 and sold the print copy of her book directly from her website, poetkatrinamccain.com using Facebook and Instagram Live as marketing tools. She still listed her book on Amazon for readers who naturally go there but was able to recoup her publishing investment by selling directly to the customer.

Statistics show that people are more likely to engage with social media when there is a video or photo included in the post. The numbers of users who use their tablets or phones to check email, surf the Webs, and view videos continue to increase. Katrina capitalized on this trend by doing Instagram and Facebook Lives. She also created a compelling video about her life and writing journey that has been viewed thousands of times. You can click, Who Is Katrina McCain? to view the video.

Katrina’s ability to use videos and create eye-catching snippets that featured her poems kept her going to the post office every week to ship out books. Continue reading to learn more about her tips.

#1 Create a Business Page For Your Book
There is a difference on Facebook between a personal page and a business page. Personal pages are good when communicating updates with family and friends. This is the place where you want to share funny stories or perhaps discuss personal viewpoints. A Facebook Business page is where you promote your book. Only with a Facebook Business page can an author look at demographics and see metric information on who is interacting with their page. This information is useful when creating ads because Facebook allows people to set parameters of who will see their ads.

#2 Consistently Post Videos
Katrina says that in addition to selling a few hundred books she was also able to grow her Facebook followers to 4,136 by regularly posting videos and doing Facebook and Instagram Lives. Followers are very important because people who follow you will see all your updates. This is very different from a personal page here only a fraction of your friends see your posts. Over several months Katrina scheduled Facebook and Instagram Lives once a week and promoted these events on Facebook. Her commitment began to pay off when she noticed that followers would be on her page waiting for her event and purchase her book after the Live event.

There are a few key differences between Facebook Live and Instagram Live. Instagram only allows a user to go Live for an hour and doesn’t have the robust analytics that users will find on Facebook.

#3 Ask an Intriguing Question
There is so much you can get from current events that you can apply to your own book. You can also invite some friends to be in the video with you. Katrina would read off parts of her poems. She also created snippets.

#4 Provide information
All authors can use Facebook Live Videos to provide information on a topic related to their book. Nonfiction books has a more obvious angle than fiction authors however with some creative thought all authors can create compelling content to draw in readers. You can use the videos as a free class and invite people to connect with you if they want to take other classes or perhaps connect with you. I have attended many Facebook Live Videos on topics of interest to me and even took the next step to take a paid class or purchase a product.

Zoom even has a feature that allows you to make Facebook Live Videos. The advantage of using Zoom and Facebook Live Videos together is that you can share your screen. You can use this to post notes for further clarification.

#5 Give Away Free Books
People love to win free things and what better gift than a free copy of your book. Katrina did a lot of reading of her poems during her Instagram and Facebook Lives. She always mentioned her social media handles and her website. Other authors can emulate Katrina by reading excerpts to their books and then at the end give away at Live events. Readers love to hear authors read from their own books. Instead of reading excerpts, an author can answer common questions from fans or admirers to spice up their Live events.

Feel free to check out Katrina on Facebook, facebook.com/poetkatrinamccain, on Instagram, Instagram.com/poetkatrinamccain, and on her website, poetkatrinamccain.com to learn more about her and to get her poetry book, Because She Decided to Love.

About Candace Waller
Candace Waller is a Christian fiction author. Her novel, What Goes Around Comes Around can be purchased on Amazon. Her new book Good Things Comes, a sequel to What Goes Around Comes Around, is available for preorder on Amazon.

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