Steps to Customizing your Facebook Author Page

Facebook is more than a platform to post pictures and rant about how unfair life has been to you. It can also serve as a very powerful promotional and engagement tool, especially for writers. This tool can be optimized by setting up an Author’s page and this can be done in 3 easy steps.

Step 1:

We are going to assume you have not been living under a rock and you actually have a profile on Facebook.  Now, click the upside-down triangle at the top right side of your page, then click on “Create Page.” There are many options on the kind of page you want but you can use either “Artist” or “Public Figure.” Then select the “Author” option and then go through some series of steps to complete your page. The first is your “Author Name,” and this is really important. You will need to use the exact same name you have on your books in order to avoid confusion. You might be tempted to use a nickname like Lucy Swaggalicous, but resist such temptation.

The next important step is your “About Me,” where you need to write about yourself. This can be edited as you continue to add more stripes to your shoulder or if you later feel you need to add anything. To make your page more attractive, make it as creative as possible. You an Author! You need to show you are one. The final step is a picture. Again, you might be tempted to use that picture of you in a bikini that got 10,000 likes on Instagram. Don’t do it! A beautiful face portrait is best because you need your readers to perceive you as a serious writer.

Step 2:

Now that you have created the page, you will need to go back to that “About” tab and give it some more of your time. This can be tedious but it will be worth it. This is to place to brag about yourself, all the books you have written, all the awards you’ve won, etc. You need to show your potential reader you don’t just mean business but you are the business.

Then you will need to have a header image above your profile picture. It can be your book cover, or even an award you’ve won (Anything that can brag for you).

Finally, you will need to populate your page with beautiful images so you will need to create an album. This can have cover images of your work, pictures of you in book events with the appropriate caption and even videos.  You might be an author, but powerful images are what will attract people to your page.

Step 3:

Make sure you take deliberate steps to improve your page. You can borrow from pages of Authors you look up to, just to see what you can add. You can see how they link their pages to their sites, the kind of free materials they use to draw more readers, etc. But always remember that your page is not static and with time, things will keep changing. But taking time to set it up perfectly will always give you a huge advantage moving forward.

Samuel Ejedegba