If you would like to provide a case study on how you are using social media, please email me: sam.missingham@bookseller.co.uk. Isabel Losada talks us through how she uses Facebook to engage readers and ultimately sell her books: 

I ran a blog for two years but I began to hate it because it was all about me. As I write narrative non-fiction I’d had enough of my own opinions. I didn’t like the easy habit of measuring how good a blog post was by the number of responses because the two don’t necessarily go together.  If I wanted lots of replies I simply had to choose a controversial topic or reveal something personal.  I soon understood in a whole new way why the tabloids chase sensation.

And there was another thing about the blog I didn’t like - I had no idea who anyone else was.  I wanted to know about my readers and their lives so I took to facebook like the proverbial duck to water.  Slowly and surely I have been learning who some of my most loyal readers are - I know their faces, I know their worries. They are my supporters and my advisors.

I’m not saying that it’s an easy way to win readers.  You have to be a human being who takes a genuine interest in other people’s lives in order to be an author who cares about your readers.  However for half an hour a day in the morning and half an hour in the evening, and sometimes more if I’m not busy, I have daily conversation with an increasingly large number of people.  With 100,000 readers out there it will be a lot of work to try and find them all.  But I’m having fun trying.

Facebook has become increasingly complex to manage as I now have 3 pages.  One I created, one my fans created (but which I also admin) and one facebook created. I have over 1,000 on my personal page. The ‘fan’ page (click here)  is nearly up to 1,000 too. The different types of pages have different advantages and disadvantages which you soon learn about. Then there is the facebook created ‘community page’.  The old ‘groups’ pages have been downplayed by facebook so there is also a readers group page that will slowly vanish as people catch up.

On the professional author page I put quotes up from my books, some personal stuff and advertise events. I sell books because we chat about the various themes in the books and readers of one book see comments and conversations about the others so it makes them curious.  I also run various gentle campaigns.  I’m a great supporter of Waterstones as I think we need to keep our last and biggest book chain – and I always ask readers to go there or to their favourite local independent bookshop rather than buy books online.   I am passionate about bookshops and all the readers on my page know that.  I get them to tell me about their favourite bookshops and have posted this information promoting bookshops on my website. I see myself as a bookseller as well as an author and use facebook to encourage reading by raving about my own favourite books.

Recently, to support another author, I asked for ten people who would buy, read and review a book about compassion that had particularly impressed me and I had ten volunteers by lunch time.  The people on my page are my readers, fans and friends and are keen to please me as they have loved my books.  I love them back and often ask their advice about a question in my writing that may be bothering me.  They are a wise and well educated bunch – very computer savvy but also passionate about books. 

The third page (created automatically by facebook) is the ‘Community Page.’ This draws together people who have specifically chosen to put ‘books’ down on the information page about themselves and to fill in the names of their favourite authors. Not many do this but those who do can now press on that link and it will take them to a page where all the information about me (including, rather irritatingly, my personal status updates) can be found.  They lift your author photo from your Wikipedia page – so if, as an author, you don’t have one you just appear as a blank – which was an incentive to ask my admin support to update my page.

My admin support is not paid for or provided by publishing companies but made up of fans of my books. I haven’t even met these people – but the support they provide is extraordinary. The only thing that I run myself is the website www.isabellosada.com but that is increasingly static and, although it provides lots of information, I prefer facebook as that is where everyone is.  I have a mailing list on the website for dinosaurs who are not yet on facebook. I do my best to cajole the dinosaurs to join the discussions on facebook with rumours of gossip and cup-cakes (I have been known to make cup-cakes for author events). Only in a truly interactive place can we help each other. I know that I add value to the days of my readers because they tell me so and they add value to mine too.  This conversation with my readers is the most rewarding aspect of being an author.

This is very different from people who just arrive and, rather clumsily try and use facebook just to sell books.  Authors that do this are easy to spot. It’s a bit like a sledge hammer. I promote my books quite hard – I feature the covers and don’t hesitate to ask people to buy them.  But this is only a small part of what I do there.  Mainly I listen.  If you get it wrong, even for a day, you soon notice as people vote with their virtual feet.

Of course all this will serve my sales figures well when my new book, The Battersea Park Road to Paradise, comes out next year.  I know exactly who and where my marketing force is and it is more than any publisher could ever afford to pay for.  They won’t let me down.  And I will ask them all to order from a bookshop.  Call me old fashioned.  J x i

Isabel Losada is the author of - New Habits (Hodder), The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment (Bloomsbury) which has sold over 100,000 copies in 15 territories, For Tibet, With Love ; A Beginner’s Guide to Changing the World.  (Blooomsbury)  3rd edition just printed with a new preface, 100 Reasons to be Glad (A small gift book for Summersdale), Men! (Where the **** are they?) Random House, And ‘The Battersea Park Road to Paradise’ to be published May 2011