I just love that moment when someone says, ‘You need an upgrade.” It’s the way we live today, almost everything is fluid, from Presidential candidates to web sites.

Here are some updates you can consider for the coming holiday season:

1. Create a new Facebook page for your brand as an author, or a Facebook group for your readers. A page is different to a personal profile. It allows you to accumulate huge numbers of Likes’s, not the maximum five thousand friends you are allowed with a personal profile. A group allows you to interact with members and for them to communicate with each other. 

2. Move your WordPress.com blog to a hosted WordPress.org platform so it will improve on Google search ranking and have more theme options using WordPress Plug-Ins. See the results when we moved to a hosted WordPress site here: BooksGoSocial.com.

3. Updating your Amazon author page. I am always amazed at the number of authors who don’t list their web site, Twitter name, if they have one, and their complete bio. I suggest updating your Amazon author page at Amazon Author Central on both the Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk sites. I did this to make sure all my books are credited to me at both these sites and the reviews from the UK and US can be seen on each country site.

4. Create videos for a YouTube channel. Interviews and readings are all possible with YouTube. We make 30-60 second book trailers and short 5 second animated cover videos for use in Tweets. You can too. We are also using Soundcloud.com to post first chapter readings. 

5. Publishing guest posts on other sites. Great posts on respected sites can really boost your book sales. We accept good quality posts of general interest to readers on our Editor’s blog.

6. Updating Goodreads with the books you use for research, updating Instagram with images and your Pinterest boards too, depending on how much time you have, and which of these sites suits your book.

7. Updating your Twitter profiles, Tweets and background images to reflect any new book you have out. You might also plan a complete new look for your profile pics for the holidays!

8. Spending money to build an email list.We give away a KindleHD each month to people who sign up for our special ebook offers & you can sign up too! An email list is vital for an author. Make sure you are building yours over the holidays! Provide an incentive and your list will grow faster.

It seems like a lot to do, but a few minutes a day is enough to get most of this done. Writers who don’t market themselves online these days have a limited chance of success. If you’re not one of the lucky ones to be published and become a best seller – and only 1 in 300 published books become bestsellers in the US  – you will have to do your own marketing or employ someone to do it for you!

What have I missed?