Publishing Engaging Facebook Content

Content creators must know how to publish effective content on Facebook in order to engage an audience. According to “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018” by Elisa Shearer and Katerina Eva Matsa, “Facebook is still far and away the site Americans most commonly use for news, with little change since 2017. About four-in-ten Americans (43%) get news on Facebook.”

How you write your content, what you include in your message, and when you post are critical in ensuring your Facebook audience likes, shares, and reads your posts.

How You Write

Your posts should be roughly 111 characters, according to CoSchedule. CoSchedule’s Social Message Optimizer is a free tool you can utilize to gauge whether your content is designed well for social media.

Write a positive message to maximize potential audience engagement. According to Scott Ayers, “The items that get the most shares on Facebook tend to be those things that are positive, inspirational and/or funny. People might agree with your negative sentiments—but they will hold back the Likes, Comments and Shares because they don’t want to be perceived as negative.”

Use an emoji 🙂 in your content. After I typed in a test post in CoSchedule’s Social Message Optimizer it explained that using one emoji would have made my post stronger. Ayer’s conducted an experiment on emoji use and found that posts had increased “engagement 23.78% higher with emojis” and also had “clicks 28.87% higher with emojis.”

What to Include

A call to action is a sign of a strong post. Ayer’s writes that “my experience is that if you give people a little push and some clear direction, you will see results.” For example, if you want people to sign your petition you shared on Facebook, tell them to click the link and what to do from there.

Include a link to engage more people on Facebook. CoSchedule’s Social Message Optimizer states that a link “is the best-performing message type for Facebook.”

When You Post

According to CoSchedule, posting on Saturday and Sunday typically increases a post’s engagement by 32%; furthermore, Thursday and Friday can increase a post’s engagement by 18%.

“More upbeat content does best on Friday” according to data explained in Mark Schenker’s “7 Facebook Engagement Strategies to Get You More Customers.”

9:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:00 PM are the best times to publish your content on Facebook. These times are both explicitly stated in Schenker’s article and on CoSchedule.

According to Schenker: “1 pm posts receive the most shares,” “3 pm posts get the most clicks,” and “the most engagement occurs later in the week and on weekends from 1 to 4 pm.”

To publish powerful and engaging content on Facebook:

Keep your post around 111 characters.
Write something positive, and/or write positively.
Use an emoji, but keep them under control.
Tell your audience what to do, give them direction, and encourage participation.
Include a link.
Post around 9:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:00 PM.
Post later in the week.

Is Kindle worth it for Authors?

Authors who have preferred traditional print publication in the past are now turning to digital publishing to catapult their careers. Kindle publishing is the pathway for allowing authors expansion with their audience and more control over their books. New authors and established authors are using Kindle to break through the barriers that traditional publishing places their authors.

Benefits of using Kindle Publishing

According to Benefits of Kindle Publishing for New Authors , “Through the Kindle publishing system, you can sell your eBooks on Amazon’s websites around the world, and you can earn up to 70% per sale! There are some basic requirements to achieve the 70% payouts, such as a minimum price of $2.99”. Kindle publishing is giving authors the potential of having a massive audience worldwide.

The pros & cons of Traditional Publishingexplains, “Writers can face dozens, even hundreds of rejections from both agents and publishing houses before their book makes to print”. Authors that use traditional publishing lose more than they gain. Through traditional publishing, an author is not able to easily make changes to their books because they have to go through editors and publishers. Authors lose their creativity control when it comes to their craft. Publishing houses have the final say in the book’s title, cover, and pricing. However, this leaves authors at the mercy of the publishing houses powers.

Meanwhile, authors who use Kindle publishing have the advantage of quickly making adjustments. Creators that use Kindle have more authority and creative control over their books. Authors can make changes to their book quickly and efficiently. Kindle can also update the price of preexisting e-books in the market.

Feedback for Authors

Kindle allows authors to get direct feedback from their audience. The readers can leave comments about how they felt about the book. Many readers do not suppress their feelings on the changes they think the author should make or their writing style. The feedback from readers will show the author if they are targeting the right genre or audience. An author’s primary focus is to appeal to their audience, and if they are not, then their failing.

Kindle Authors

John Locke is the eighth independent author to sell a million on the Kindle book store. He saw Kindle publishing as a platform for authors who were not given a chance to show their work to the world. According to John Locke Becomes the First Independently Published Author to Join the “Kindle Million Club” ,

“Kindle Direct Publishing has provided an opportunity for independent authors to compete on a level playing field with the giants of the bookselling industry,” said John Locke. “Not only did KDP give me a chance, but they also helped at every turn. Quite simply, KDP is the greatest friend an author can have.”

Locke struggled to sell his books early in his career, but as he began to promote his book through twitter and other cites, consistently his sells began to pick grow. As a result, he has had multiple bestsellers as his career progresses.

Amanda Hocking’s is the 26 –years-old “Kindle Millionaire” who sold over a million electronic copies of her self-published paranormal romance book. Multiple agents and publishing companies had denied Hockings, but Kindle publishing became the way she could achieve her dreams. According to Steven Spatz’s “Amanda Hocking Made Millions By Selling 99-cent Books — And You Can, Too,

“Hocking had written a series of novels over the preceding nine years, each of which had been rejected by countless agents and publishing houses. She decided, sitting in her apartment, to put them up for sale on Amazon. She listed the first at 99 cents.”(Writing Cooperative ).

Through Kindle, she has been able to make a living out of her writing. She has been able to call all the shots. Hocking has created a stable career for herself without having to spend as much money as traditional writers.

The authors who choose to use Kindle publishing have more advantages of getting more money and opportunities through their writings. Kindle publishing has become the pathway for established and new authors to have the chance of becoming a bestseller without an agent or traditional publishing company.

Choosing the Right Platforms for eBook Production

Writing an eBook can be hard, like writing any book. It takes time to develop the story and commit it to paper. But then it enters a whole new era of life at the design and revisionary stages. A big part of publishing an eBook, or even a print book, is the actual making of the eBook files. There are many different types of files, half as many publishing platforms, and a hundred more writing and converting platforms. If the book is being published traditionally, the publisher will likely take care of all the designing and formatting, but if it’s not, it’s up to the author. It can be daunting to navigate the world of coding software without any guidance. The first step is deciding which file type, or types, will be most effective. Then, based on the file type, a conversion platform can be chosen. If it’s early enough in the process, a writing software will have to be chosen, too. Each choice is important and should speak to the needs of the author and eBook.

File Formats

There are four main types of files that eBooks are trafficked in: ePub, Mobi, PDF, and iBooks. The best format depends on the audience and the material. ePub is the best option for many because it reaches the widest audience and is available on the most devices, even newer Kindles. ePub can display either fixed text- for eBooks with heavy image or video embedding- or reflowable text. ePub files are essentially a ‘website in a box’, as it contains all kinds of files inside that allow the reader to navigate the text, images, links, etc.

The Mobipocket eBook files, or MOBI files, started as a proprietary file and was then adopted for the Kindle. Its files technically have a smaller audience because not all devices support MOBI files, but Amazon is the biggest eBook distributor worldwide. To help safeguard against piracy, MOBI displays both reflowable and fixed, and it by default has DRM, or digital rights management.

Next, having the smallest audience is iBook. It is only compatible with Apple products, which is not a problem if that is your target audience. The main distinction of iBook is the difference in CSS extension. Also, iBook does not afford the same interaction as Mobi and ePub.

Then there is the PDF, or the portable document format, which is a proprietary file of Adobe. PDFs are a frequent medium in the business world because they are great for fixed text. The audience sees the page exactly as the author does. It affords some interaction with links and has great results with pictures. However, PDFs often create reader problems, such as the text being too small. They are good for newsletters or short, free website extras. But these files generally aren’t ideal for eBook stores. They are very user-friendly, however, and rarely require a conversion platform.

Writing Platforms

The desired file format will influence the writing platform. Many people use Microsoft Word or Google Docs. The benefits to these platforms are clear: most people are familiar with the interface, it can export directly to PDF, and they’re good for dictating. Unfortunately, these are the only benefits. Both platforms have formatting issues and will require a conversion platform that can do some major heavy lifting for organizing, formatting, and designing.

One of the most popular author platforms is Scrivener. Of the purchase-necessary platforms, Scrivener comes in the lowest at $40. It is one of the few platforms designed for long term writing, is easily navigable, supports files of any type, and focuses on organization. It can be intimidating but contains features like the Corkboard for storylining and research, the Outline for quick editing and writing, and the Progress Bar where goals and progress are set and tracked. Scrivener will show pages side by side from different places in the book for easy description, editing, or fact-checking. It also tags metadata automatically. While Scrivener is hailed the ultimate author platform, it only exports to PDF, and so requires conversion software. Lastly, it does not enable collaborative editing and has a sharp learning curve.

An online author platform, Reedsy claims a distraction-free writing environment with collaborative editing. It publishes to ePub, Mobi, and PDF which makes it a great conversion platform as well. It focuses on an available ‘professional market’ where authors can link with editors and beta-readers directly but doesn’t handle any code manipulation. Consequently, this wouldn’t be a good designing platform. But it is free, and comes with an instructional blog, so it is great for new writers or authors only looking to produce one work.

iBook Author is another option for writing, but it quickly gets complicated. There is an Apple Pages extension separate from just iBook Author. IBA only exports to iBook; AP only exports to ePub. The two are not interchangeable and cannot be switched between. Not to mention, neither offer any advanced content design options. They can function as writing platforms, although they are probably used more for conversion.

Converting Platforms

Then there are the conversion platforms. These platforms convert documents from PDFs- or Docs or Word- and turn them into publishable files in ePub, Mobi, or iBook formats.

Reedsy has a separate conversion site that is somewhat popular. It supports heavy image editing, document styling, and additional document add-ins and exports to PDF, Mobi, and ePub. Like the writing platform, it is fully online and supports reflowable text and fixed text.

InDesign is a proprietary editor belonging to Adobe. It is great for working between Adobe programs like Photoshop or Illustrator. It is not cheap but comes in the Adobe license package. It is very in-depth and allows for great modification but can also lead to great confusion. InDesign handles images well and works in XHTML and CSS already formatted for ePub. It is great for the pros but has some drawbacks. Specifically, if images aren’t properly anchored, they can be pushed to the back of the eBook, it wasn’t designed for long term writing, and it is difficult to navigate. Lastly, InDesign only exports to ePub.

Another software conversion platform is Pressbooks. It is fairly cost-effective for authors on a budget and exports both ePub and Mobi. It has great brand support and was specifically designed for eBook-stores with print on demand options. The downsides of this platform are that it barely supports images, the templates are better suited for fiction writers only, and the design options are severely limited. Still, if the eBook is an image-free, fiction novel then Pressbooks will do nicely.

Similar to Pressbooks, Vellum comes with a larger price tag. It was designed for eBooks and only runs on Macs. Vellum is an efficient and simple platform. This platform is perfect for an eBook that is already complete and in need of conversion on a Mac.

Sigil is a software conversion platform that lets the author, or designer, deal directly with coding in the interface. It runs on all processing systems and only publishes to ePub. It offers full text translations and an easily navigable outline, as well as metadata editing. All in all, Sigil is a fully supported, but strictly conversion software.

Finally, Calibre is a free platform that converts nearly any input file into almost any output file. It exports to ePub, Mobi, Docx, and even TXT. Because of the lack of actual design or editing interface, Calibre is a more effective tool for readers building an online library, and not necessarily for an author publishing an eBook.

There are even more platforms available for writing, editing, and converting. While these platforms fit almost every author’s preference, no one should stop looking for their ideal one. Most of these platforms offer student and academic discounts, and frequently have sales and free trials. Some are better for pros, looking to publish frequently and with little effort. Some are better for the busy writer on the go, who wants to craft their eBook by themselves. Writing, designing, and coding eBooks can seem intimidating, but with all the platforms available, publishing online has never been easier.

Edited to remove repeated paragraph