As an author, there is always a temptation to spend the rest of the holidays doing things that are not related to writing. After all, the festive season is considered as a time to get away from work – and work in an author’s case is writing. However, there are ways to have fun during the holidays, while also doing things that will benefit your writing career, such as:
Engage Fans on Social Media
The festive season is the perfect time for you to connect better with your fans, and since it can be difficult (or impossible) to meet them all in person, you can instead do it through social media. If you don’t have a social media account yet, then you should use the downtime to create one on one or two major platforms, as it’s really not smart to be left behind these days. You can use social media to converse with fans, and ask them to share their favorite holiday photos and anecdotes.
Give Away Copies of Your Book as a Gift
Why not? If you write for a living, you know that giving away free copies of your book is such a strong marketing strategy that it’s actually required. The difference during the holidays is that you won’t come off as too self-promotional. In fact, it’s a great gift because it’s a very personal one. You can use your social media page as a way to announce the giveaway.
Write Poems on Cards and Send Them Out to Friends
Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean you have to let your skills go to waste, it also doesn’t mean you have to write for work. You can keep on writing and honing your craft by creating poems, writing them on greeting cards and sending them out to friends. It’s cute, personal, and shows your loved ones you care enough about them to do something really personal. Best of all, it costs nothing (outside of the card, of course). Make sure you include a reminder on the card that you have social media accounts.
Start a Holiday Contest
You can sort of hit two birds with one stone through a holiday contest – drive up engagement and please your followers. As mentioned a few paragraphs above, giving your books away for free can be a powerful marketing and promotional tool, and followers will appreciate the goodwill. The contest could be anything and everything that has to do with the holidays, but you can also sneak in a smart promotional mechanic. For instance, create a holiday-themed quote related to your book, or post a photo of your book under a Christmas tree. All it needs is a little bit of creativity, which you should have if you are an author.
Share a Holiday Themed Short Story on Your Social Media Page
A single page short story shouldn’t be that hard to hammer out in a couple of days. A new holiday-themed short story will do a great deal in humanizing your social media page and showing that it is a place that fans can enjoy on its own, instead of merely being treated as an extension of your promotion and marketing strategies. Best of all, a short story is something that fans can share on their own pages, which would go a long way in spreading awareness of your name and your works.
Image credit: Jerry Nihen on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]