So, you’re an author, and you want get your signal heard in the noise of the marketplace.  What do you do?  Here’s my best advice:

Write a great book.*

That’s it.

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*Obviously there are a lot of social media/marketing things you can and probably should do.  But having done this a long time, having watched the careers of other writers at a distance, I can tell you that the best and most important thing you can do is write a great book and tell a great story.  With very rare exceptions (which exceptions would include big marketing budgets, and few of us get that), you can’t manufacture hype.  A book has to come by it honestly, which means readers must love your work enough to talk about it/recommend it/review it.  And that means telling them a great story.  So don’t spend a bunch of time planning a social media strategy.  Instead, spend a bunch of time polishing the story.  Fin.