When advising authors on Facebook, one of the first things I encourage them to do is migrate their Facebook profile into a fan page. What migration essentially does is convert their current friends into fans. Those new to Facebook are happy to do this, but those who are committed Facebookers are always hesitant. They don’t want to “lose” their friends and the ability to interact with them. I completely understand their concern.

If you fall into the latter category, you need to ask yourself “How many of those 100+ or 500+ friends would I invite over for dinner?” The answer is normally around 25. Now, write down their names and save that list-you’ll need that later.

Now, I promise you there is no need to worry! The reasons to migrate from a Facebook profile to a Facebook fan page are simple:

1)  No limit on # of fans. Many authors don’t know this, but Facebook has set a limit to the amount of friends you can have. This limit is 5,000. If you really want to grow a fan base you have to migrate.

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What works for books that are already selling and what works for the majority of books that never really hit their tipping point are two very different questions.  It’s interesting to hear what marketers have to say.  I think they place a lot of emphasis on these third party discovery sites that have been popping up in the past few years. Do they really work?  Probably a little bit and this kind of activity is better than nothing.

As I’ve said before in this blog, the great thing about the new media economy is that you can bypass the traditional media funnel and go direct to consumers to make your pitch in a variety of ways.  But stepping out of the funnel you risk drowning in a sea of uncurated content where you’re just another voice in the cacophony.  So it’s kind of a good news bad news situation.

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It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of Facebook. With over 600 million users worldwide it is by far the largest social networking site in the world and as Gretchen points out in her last post “probably the most important tool for first-time authors”. I couldn’t agree more. However, Facebook isn’t the only social networking site authors should be paying attention to.

Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Shelfari are three large social networking book sites that authors need to make sure they have a presence on. These sites are important because they are filled with avid readers–booksellers, librarians, book bloggers, teachers, and fellow authors. They’re the readers who talk about books most and will spread the word by posting, tweeting, and reviewing your book online and recommending it to their friends, customers, and colleagues off line. They are buzzmakers who can help catapult your book to the best sellers list.

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