Seth Godin said in his popular Advice for Authors blog post that “the best time to start promoting your book is three years before it comes out.”
I also like what he said that a book is a souvenir and it’s a way for you to spread an idea. I agree that’s how I buy books. Sometimes when I read a book from the library and love it so much that I have to have a copy in my collection (a souvenir). As for why I wrote Emet’s Box, it is because as a mom and volunteer at school art programs, I see how brilliant kids are. They are naturally creative but sometimes I feel some of them try to hide themselves to conform to what the adults want. I want to encourage kids to be who they really are, the joyous, creative beings and shine their lights onto the world. That’s the meaning behind this “Shine Your Light” illustration on my Twitter.
My publisher recommends posting consistently on social media for at least three times a week. You can pick one platform you enjoy to focus on because if someone likes your work, they will follow you across different platforms.
Twitter has a lot of writers. Instagram has more educators and artists. Although I am finding more painters on Twitter, probably because I started following #painting. I created a Facebook page recently because my publisher said maybe my friends don’t want to keep seeing my art on my personal page but if they are interested, they can follow my Jeni Chen Art page.
At first, I felt overwhelmed even posting just one post per week. I didn’t know what and when to post and I would just post random stuff at random time.
I wanted to figure out the best time for me to post so I made a schedule of the different times my followers are online. I found the info somewhere on the Instagram app under Professional Dashboard. I made a schedule of all the times that I can post to reach the most people on a sheet of paper (see below):
I have no idea if I am reaching more people but this schedule had made posting on social media a lot easier for me. I can plan ahead on what I am going to post and schedule my posting with Creator Studio for Facebook and Instagram, and with Tweetdeck for Twitter.
I also started drawing Emet on different holiday like Remembrance Day and Thanksgiving to post on those days. It’s fun draw Emet in different situations.
It’s been one month since I’ve been following this schedule. I will try it for another month but I can already see that I have more engagements on Wednesday.
I think there are lots of companies that help you figure out precisely what and when to post but I am still not very sure about social media.
I saw some news recently that Lush Cosmetics has stopped using social media because their purpose is to help people switch off and relax, to pay more attention to their well-being while social media is doing the opposite. I thought that was very admirable of Lush, to do something that is true to their brand, despite the possibilities of losing some eyeballs. And I like their new message on social media:
