Engaging with Your Readers after Their Purchase

So, you’ve written your book, you’ve chosen the perfect cover design, you’ve edited it to within an inch of its life, you’ve put it up for sale, and its well on its way to the bestseller lists. What now? Your job isn’t over yet. In the age of social media, engaging with your customers after their purchase is more important than ever before. As an author, you should be working to create a positive brand around yourself and your books, and nowadays building a brand is all about creating a community and engaging with your customers. Below are some of the steps you can take to engage with your readers long after their purchase. 
 
Work on your author website 
One of the first things you need to have in order to create your brand and engage with readers is an author website. You need to make sure this is professional, accessible and informative. When your readers search for you online, you want them to find a website that tells them everything they need to know. Key pages that your website should include are an about the author page, a catalogue of your work with links to buy, and a contact page. These sections mean that readers can learn about who you are, what books you’ve written, and they can get in touch with any further questions! For some brilliant examples of author websites, take a look at Shannon Condon’s website here and John Pahl’s website here.  


Set up an email newsletter 
Using your professional new website, you can encourage readers to sign up to an email newsletter. This is a great way to stay in touch with readers after their purchase. Via your newsletter you can update readers on your latest releases and even give them sneak previews of your unpublished masterpieces. This is another great way of letting your readers get to know you, so that they can get insight into the mind behind their new favourite book. One of the key challenges to consider when creating an email newsletter is the frequency with which you release updates. You want to find a happy medium between sending too few, which can lead to readers forgetting about your work, and avoiding pestering customers with too frequent news. Campaignmonitor.com suggests that you should send an update no more than twice a week but at least once a month. 


Get on social media  
In 2021, anyone looking to gain loyal customers needs to develop a presence on social media. Through your social media channels, not only can you let your readers get to know you, but you can get to know your readers. Interactions online are all about conversations. Unlike a website or newsletter, social media allows your readers to reply to your thoughts. In this way, social media allows authors to build a community with their readers simply by talking to them. We understand that creating a social media presence can be intimidating at first, especially for beginners, so we’ve created simple guides to creating your own Bookstagram or Booktok. Through analytics tools on these accounts, you will also be able to build up a stronger idea of your main readership demographics, so that you can tailor your content more effectively to your readers in future.  
 
Get personal 
Readers are more likely to engage with an author if they feel as if they can get to know them as a person, and readers who engage with an author are more likely to buy their books in future. Use your brand-new social media presence to let your readers into your life. Now, privacy is important, and you shouldn’t be telling your customers every little detail. However, a few small facts that allow readers to get a sense of who you are as a person may pique their interest in you and your writing. Maybe you have an addiction to eating hobnobs while you write? Maybe you have a dog or cat who likes to attack your laptop while you’re working? Tell your readers all about it! An effective way of getting a little bit more personal with your readers is running a Q&A session. This will allow them to ask what they really want to know about you and your work. 
 
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