Here’s another great use for Social Media as an author: Read a portion of your chapter and post it to YouTube.
Film it with a digital camera like a Flip Video. They make it very easy to post the video to their website. It will take you less than a couple of minutes once you’ve made the recording. It works well if you make sure you are reading from the book, rather than looking like you’re reading from a teleprompter.
A lot of my authors ask if they can’t have the copy of the book on the video, but not appear on the video themselves. The answer is since you want to create a relationship with your potential book buyers, the best way is to let them see you and how you engage with your own words. They will engage with you much better seeing you.
The video needs to be less than five minutes to be YouTube post-able. You might explain a bit about the chapter first, then go into a five minute segment. What works best is to do a recording each week and post a copy to your blog. It will give your blog much higher rankings.
The main thing is to generate a buzz about your book and keep them coming back for more!