I like to watch television in the evening to unwind, but I find it almost impossible to just watch TV. I have to be doing something else at the same time — flip through a magazine. Knit. Promote my book.

Promote my book? Really?

Yup. And you can promote your book while watching TV, too.

If you’re a multi-tasker like me, try doing a few of these book promotion activities the next time you watch your favorite show.

1. On social media, follow the people who influence your readers.

Zeroing in on the social networks your ideal readers use, find and follow the people who influence them. An influencer is someone who is both active online and respected and followed by your target audience.

Novelists can start with the most popular authors in their genre. If you write fiction, your influencers might also include genre bloggers, prolific genre readers, and any well-known genre publishing house editors.

Nonfiction author influencers are often industry or topic experts and leaders.

While you’re at it, go to their websites and subscribe to their newsletters, too. (But do not add them to your newsletter list!)

2. Follow your influencers’ fans on social media.

After you’ve followed your influencers, go back to their profiles and begin following the people who follow them. (I do a quick profile check first before following someone.)

Over time, as you see what they share, you’ll learn more about what your readers are interested in (especially if they talk about books). And, if they follow back, you’ll add more of the “right” readers to your network.

And don’t forget to follow your own fans, too. I find it hard to stay current with connections, so I use my network TV commercial-break time to follow back the people who have recently followed me. (Streaming without commercials? Hit the pause button now and then.)

Some social networks offer recommendations for other people to follow, too. It’s a lot like when Amazon says, “If you like that product, you’ll like this one, too.” Because the suggestions are based on someone I just followed, they’re on target.

3. Schedule social media posts.

Use a free desktop or smartphone social media management tool to schedule your social network posts several days out. And do it all during commercial breaks.

You can also use your smartphone to share what others post, all without missing any of the TV action.

4. Pin to your book-specific boards on Pinterest.

You probably know what kinds of images and content you want to share on Pinterest. Wait until you’re parked in front of the TV set to pin it.

It’s a great way to add content to your boards without feeling like you should be doing something else — because you are doing something else. You’re relaxing with a good show.

5. Set up Google and Talkwalker Alerts.

Create these alerts for your name, book title, book topic, and other important book-related words or phrases. You’ll get an email with a link each time any of the phrases you’ve set alerts for show up online.

While you’re at it, create alerts for competing authors and book titles so you stay better informed about the competition, too.

If you receive alerts about news articles, add the reporter’s name to a media list so you know who to contact when you’ve got an article idea that could lead to book publicity.

6. Create social media images with quotes from your books.

I’ll confess: Creating quote graphics is my favorite thing to do while watching TV. I use either the WordSwag or Canva apps on my phone, but there are many other options, too.

Admittedly, I am more likely to create images with inspirational or funny quotes than I am to pull a pithy statement from one of my books, but if I add my website URL to the image, it still helps build awareness.

Here’s one I created for a recent blog post.

Create these for your books by pulling key messages or brief, but compelling quotes from your manuscripts.

The image you’ll place the text on will depend on your book, its personality, and your audience. You can use a different background each time, or you can support your author brand by using the same background each time.

7. Make sure you’re using the right keywords and categories on Amazon.

Amazon is a search engine where keywords rule. Make sure your book’s set-up includes keywords that people will search for to find it.

I use Publisher Rocket for this. It’s easy to do the searching while I’m watching TV, but I prefer to make any necessary changes when I can focus more. I just save and export my search results to work with later.

Publisher Rocket also explores categories so you know you’ve selected the best ones for your book. Use the search results to validate your choices or change what you’ve been using based on the tool’s recommendation.

I don’t recommend changing both keywords and categories at the same time, though. Instead, make one change, then monitor sales to see if it made a difference. After a few weeks, make the next change and watch for results.

Select just one of these to work on tonight and see how much progress you make while watching TV. Doing even just a little to promote your book every night will add up and eventually make a difference that you will feel good about.

How do you promote your book while watching TV? Add to the list of ideas by commenting!

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2015. It has been updated and expanded.)

Research shows that images improve your social media success and engagement.

More specifically:

• Quick Sprout reveals that tweets with images receive 200 percent more engagement.
• BuzzSumo reports that Facebook posts with images generate 2.3 times more engagement than posts without images.
• Research published in the Journal of Marketing Research shows that including an image in tweets about air travel increases the number of retweets by 119%.

Here are three types of custom images you can create that support your book marketing messages while they increase social media engagement.

1. Image quotes/picture quotes/quote cards

No matter what you call them, these social media graphics that place words on images are versatile and powerful.

For the text, use inspirational quotes, a pithy message from your book with attribution to your book (not yourself), or a snippet of text from your blog post (that’s what I’ve done with the example below). There are so many ways to approach this — my suggestions are just a start.

Please don’t quote yourself saying something you feel is wise or profound, though. I know that so-called gurus do this, but it isn’t going to position you as a thought leader. You earn that title when others  believe that what you say is so worthwhile that they have to share it.

Rather than quoting yourself on your road to social media success, quote others you admire — and tag them when you post the image online.

Create these types of images with any of the many web-based and/or smartphone tools available for this. I used Canva to create the three images above. The kitten photo came from  Depositphotos; I’ve got links to free photo sites here.

2. Tipographics

Tipographics — also known as tip-o-graphics — are tip lists. I’ve got a collection of them I created from blog post content on a Pinterest board. Each Pinterest image links back to my original blog post on the topic. While I share them on Pinterest, they can be shared on any social media platform you use.

Here’s one example:

During the first two months I started sharing these on Pinterest, traffic to my site from that social network increased more than 300 percent. I’ve recently added a few more and will watch the numbers to see if traffic jumps again.

When I first started creating these, I used a PowerPoint template (download a PDF version of it here). Now that Canva is an option, I’ll test that tool to see which approach is easiest.

If you’ve got design skills, you can make yours look a whole lot nicer than mine. I opted for simplicity, as you can see.

3. Infographics

Infographics incorporate images and text to walk you through a process or simplify complicated data. 

Of the three image types we’re discussing, infographics are the hardest to create. First, they need to tell a story. Second, they’re graphics-intense — they’re the opposite of my tipographics above.

And yet, I love them. They get my attention — and when they do, they nearly always have information I can use. They give me an opportunity to share helpful information with others, as I did in my recent blog post about world reading habits in 2021. I was happy to build an article around that infographic when the creator offered it to me.

Here’s an example of an infographic that’s designed to inform and influence authors.

To create your own, look for templates online.

HubSpot offers 15 free PowerPoint infographic templates that can simplify the design process. Canva has infographic templates, too. Australian designer Donna Moritz also offers links to infographic templates in her article, “4 Easy Infographic Template Tools for Stunning Infographics” on her Socially Sorted site.

If you don’t have design skills or don’t have the time for this, it might be easier to search Fiverr for a designer who can do it.

Increase social media success

Increase engagement and improve reader connections by creating and sharing social media images, whether it’s any of these three or other types. You’ll indulge your creative side while making your time on social networks more productive and meaningful.

Have you incorporated images in your social media plan? Are you seeing more, less, or the same engagement among your followers and connections? Please tell us in a comment. 

(Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2015. It has been updated and expanded.)

Book promotion quote graphics – also known as “image quotes” and “quote cards” – are social media images that excerpt praise about your book from:

• Book blurbs (testimonials and endorsements)
• Reader reviews (with permission)
• The book’s contents

You create these graphics to show that your book is respected by influencers and readers, or to give a small, intriguing sample of the book’s content.

Easy to create and share, they let you use other people’s words to say, “People like my book, so you will, too.” (Which is way classier than using your own words.)

What do book promotion quote graphics look like?

You can use a number of different approaches or treatments, but simple works best. Here are a couple of examples from major publishers for books you might recognize. (Click on the image to see the examples in a larger format.)

You’ll see that only one of these three includes the title. I pulled each from their book’s Amazon sales page, so in that situation, there’s no question about the book title.

I prefer to create them so that they stand alone anywhere, even without an explanatory post accompanying the image. To do that, you’ll want to include the title in the image.

A note about permissions

As you think about how you might duplicate what the big publishers are doing in those examples, keep in mind that Amazon requires authors to get permission from the reader to excerpt reader reviews on that platform. This is because the reviewer owns the review copyright.

To be safe, apply that permission policy to reader reviews from any other retail site or platform, too, including Goodreads.

By definition, you’re allowed to use anything from pre-publication testimonials and literary/trade/media reviews in quote cards and other book promotion materials.

How do you create them?

My favorite tool for creating social media images like these is Canva. I used it to create these promotional quote graphics for the Build Book Buzz Reader Book Review Forms. (Click on the image  to see the examples in a larger format.)

Online tools that are similar to Canva include:

• Stencil
• Snappa
• Quozio

I gave the MockupShots image generator a try, too. MockupShots incorporates your book cover into hundreds of backgrounds, so with that tool, your book cover will always be in the image.

I’m not sure how I feel about including the book cover, though. What do you think of this one I created for my e-book with MockupShots?

Design tips

As you use any of these tools, work to keep it simple. Less is more (which is why I’m on the fence about the image that includes my book cover).

Be consistent with your quote images by using the same or similar templates for all book promotion quote graphics. For example, if you’re creating three for your newest book, all three should look similar for branding reasons.

Speaking of branding, be certain to incorporate book cover imagery and/or colors into your quote card.

To make sure your image has your cover colors, use the free Eye Dropper tool for color matching. Get instructions and a demo video in my article, “How to use Eye Dropper for consistent author branding colors.”

Using book promotion quote graphics

There are a number of ways you can use and share your quote cards. Here are just a few; I’m sure you can think of more.

• Share on social media with appropriate text and a purchase link in the accompanying post.
• Add to your author website.
• Distribute to your launch team to share with their networks

Don’t miss this easy opportunity to make the most of endorsements, reviews, and pithy gems from your book. You might even have fun with it!

What are other uses for book promotion quote graphics? How have you used them for your book?