More Facebook For Authors – The Cover Image

As I continue my Facebook For Authors series, I’m going to start with setting up your page.  If you haven’t read the first post, Facebook For Authors – Why You Need A Fan Page, I’d start there.  First you need to create a page (this is easy: click on this link, and down on the bottom right, you’ll see Create a Page – click on that and follow the steps).

Facebook For Authors – Your Fan Page

My advice for a page is as follows:

• create a page for yourself as an author
• make the page different from just your name (or people can get confused between your personal page and your fan page)
• create pages for your characters or books separately
• choose Public Figure (and author is under this)

Those are the basics – I go through a bunch more stuff in my video series that I’ll be updating soon.  I chose reneepawlish.author for my fan page.  I also have a page for the Reed Ferguson mystery series and one for Nephilim Genesis of Evil (although I haven’t done much with that one).  Voila!  It’s that simple.

Facebook For Authors – The Cover Image

There is a lot you can do with your page, but the first thing you’ll want to customize is what Facebook calls the cover image.  This is the large, wide photo at the top of your timeline, right above your profile picture.  Now, you might be saying what’s the difference between a cover image and a profile picture?  This is from Facebook:

Your profile picture is the picture that friends see next to your name everywhere on the site.  This is how people recognize you.  Your cover is the large image at the top of your timeline.  This is your chance to feature a unique image that represents who you are or what you care about.

Make sense?  Now, here’s where things can get a little tricky…

Facebook For Authors – Creating The Cover Image

When Facebook made their latest changes, I had to create a new cover image.  The problem becomes uploading a picture that fits nicely in the space provided.  I used Photoshop to create mine (I’m not super-thrilled with it but it works for now).  You can use Gimp or other software as well.  Here are some things to remember:

• the measurement for the new page cover photo is 851 pixels wide by 315 pixels tall
• the cover can be smaller but it has to be at least 720 pixels wide
• you may get an error if you try to load a picture that’s too small
• hover over the cover image – you should see Change Cover and this is how you can upload a new cover image

Facebook For Authors – Ah, Facebook’s Changing Rules

Before the new changes, you could use a landing page to advertize your books and to ask people to like your page.  With Timeline, the new feature, you can’t do this.  The cover image can serve as a nice billboard, but there are some rules around this:

• Covers may not display calls to action or references to Facebook features such as Like this Page
• Cover cannot have purchase or pricing information such as 10% off, download from our website, or Get It Now
• Covers may not display website addresses or other contact information like email, Twitter handle, etc.
• Covers cannot have references to Facebook features or actions, such as Like or Share, or an arrow pointing from the cover photo to any of these features

My advise – don’t try to get around these rules.  Facebook could ban you.

Facebook For Authors – What Makes A Great Cover Image?

This is where we get into branding.  You want to keep your brand consistent across all your social media sites.  I am a master wordsmith, and I used the same banner that I have on my blog and added my book covers.

I admit, it’s not the best cover image – I just haven’t had time to do something better .  But it’s consistent with my brand and it displays my books.  I’ve seen some cover images that really pop and that’s what you want.  Get people excited about you and your books.

Also, this is very important, the cover is clickable.  This is a great way to put in information about yourself, your books, and most important, links to your website, blog and so on.  Mine says:

Find out more about my books at Amazon (http://amzn.to/L8wova) or visit my website (http://www.reneepawlish.com/). Don’t forget to visit me on Twitter @reneepawlish.
Are you an author? Get tips and advice at http://tobecomeawriter.com/.

People do click on the cover (I’ve got multiple likes on it).  Who knows how many of them visited my Amazon page, website and blog.  This is great advertizing for you so don’t miss it.

Facebook For Authors – The About Section

The About section is the other important area for you to fill out.  This is where you can tell everyone about who you are as an author and what you write.  You can also put your website and other links in here as well (remember, this is good for your SEO on your website and blog).  Make sure to make it interesting and fun.  Also, if you have a book page, you can put in a link here to places to buy your book.  There is more you can do with apps, such as newsletter sign-up, coupons, and sweepstakes – we’ll get into that in future posts.

Facebook For Authors – More To Come

We’re just scratching the surface here.  There is a lot more to cover so please visit again and look for more.  I’d love to hear your thoughts and if you have a great cover image, please share your Facebook fan page link with us so we can see great examples.  And if you want, visit my page and like it (if you do ).  Thanks!