It's all about memes

You can buy this one from Tirgearr Publishing 

Oh dear. Oh, dear, dear. I’ve found a new way of procrastinating. And, best of all, I can pretend it’s marketing.

One of my my (many) recurrent New Year resolutions was to increase my marketing activity. Four books out, another on the way…every one, as a wise writer once remarked, is another mouth to feed. There’s only so much mileage in posting a link to the book on the publisher’s page, or Amazon, and you run the risk of being tagged as a spammer and slammed in Facebook jail for a couple of weeks. No posts in any groups. No online promotion. 

People tell me that changing your photo to something original improves its Facebook reach, and my own experience confirms that. So I decided to make my own memes and use them to promote my book. First find a package (after taking advice I’ve landed up with Canva, though there are others), and off you go. 

You can use the book cover, with a quote from it or (even better, if you can) a snippet from a five-star review. Or you can use a suitable picture to create a teaser for it., which is ideal for something that isn’t yet published. It works on other social media as well as FB. And believe me, you can spend hours doing it. 

Not yet available!

I’m no designer, but I’m enjoying creating my own images. Some of them are better than others but the whole process is fun. I’m going to have a standard layout for each book (cover on one side, quote or review or something on the other) and then, when I’m feeling creative, something a little different for a teaser. When the weather improves I’ll go out and take my own photographs, just to make it a little more personal.

The problem isn’t the time it’s going to take up for my published book. It isn’t even the temptation to use my new-found skills for non-marketing purposes. (Don’t worry, I’ll resist being witty on social media.) It’s that I’m having such fun that I’m starting to make promotional memes for books which aren’t published — aren’t even submitted. And I’ve just had a brilliant idea for one for a book which I haven’t even written.

Time for a dose of self-discipline. But maybe I’ll have just one more go on Canva first…