The Executive Author: Using LinkedIn to Build Your Brand Before and After Publication
- 6 days ago
- 11 min read
The majority of executives who author a book make one critical mistake on LinkedIn, treating it like a megaphone.
The executive will take the next step of promoting their book and post the cover image and/or poster with a link to purchase it on Amazon. They'll post, "excited to announce" with little to no traffic. However, when they don’t generate traffic to view their book, they get surprised when they receive little to no inquiries about interviews. Ultimately, it’s a huge disappointment that three weeks later, their book wasn’t "found."
What they didn’t know is that LinkedIn is not a megaphone, but rather a "long game." Executives who are successful on LinkedIn understand that the process of promoting their book is not at the time of launch, but 12-18 months of consistent effort prior to that. That time is spent establishing a personal brand that will support their new book when it finally arrives. The difference between success and failure is largely determined by the personal brand that existed before the book launch.
Are you an executive or entrepreneur in the process of putting together a book? Contact us at Rolling Authors — we provide high-level executive leaders with books that will help them build authority and create an audience.
Table of Contents
Why LinkedIn Is Good for Executive Authors
Over 1 billion members use LinkedIn, which includes more than 60 million decision-makers who log onto the site at least once a week. Hence, articles written by individual professionals get twice the level of engagement compared to articles produced by organisations. Your individual voice will carry more weight in the minds of the people reading your article than any organisation's page, regardless of its size.
The data is telling. The average cost of producing an article by executive authors (i.e., thought leaders) is 73% less than that of actually creating an executive-sponsored article. However, the average conversion rate generated by executive authors is nearly four times greater than that of executive-sponsored articles. Further, 73% of decision-makers indicate that they find thought leadership more credible than marketing material.
This is the primary strategy for executive authors.
Thought leadership builds over time. It creates a compounding effect, which means after you have published multiple articles over a six- to eighteen-month window, there will be a larger number of people you have reached, with whom you have established credibility. Therefore, your personal brand will become a significant competitive advantage over your competitors who have only used advertising dollars to create their brand awareness.
Part 1: Establishing Your Author Brand Before Your Book Is Published
How You Can Utilize Your LinkedIn Profile to Grow Your Author Brand
The first impression your profile will have on a potential reader, agent, or journalist is the basis for all subsequent impressions. While you continue to develop content focused on your book post-publication, you should start building content in anticipation of developing it further once your book is completed. At that point, you will only need to update it once you’ve completed the book for approval by your publisher.
Your headline should be more than just your title and company name; it should provide insight into the area of expertise that will provide value to readers as it relates to your book. For instance, if you’re writing about building organizations that are resilient, it should be obvious to readers who are looking for thought leaders (like you) on the topic of building organizational resilience — rather than a COO with an obscure organization nobody has heard of.
Too many executives seem to use their “About” section as an opportunity to present a summary bio that sounds dry. Make it personal and interesting by sharing your story; why you are doing what you are doing, what you have learned from your experience, and what experience shapes your leadership philosophy. Your About section should feel more like the first page of a conversation than a bio.
If you are developing ideas for your book now, please remember to update your header image with photos that align with those ideas. When your book is ready for publication, use your “Featured” section to showcase the most authoritative posts related to the topics that make up your book. Include direct links to any topical posts you have already published.
Eighteen Months Prior to Launch: Eight Easy Ways to Create a Content Strategy for Building an Audience Before Your Book Launches
If you follow the previous steps, there’s going to be a lot of buzz around your book on launch day; the readers who will buy it will have had it in mind for weeks or months before it became available. The purpose of the content strategy that you create is to start building an audience of followers for you and your ideas before your book launches.
The best way to accomplish this is to publish three pieces of content per week on the same days every week over the course of six to eighteen months prior to the launch of your book(s). This is clearly going to build lots of engagement and give potential customers a reason to purchase your book once they’re available.
Many senior executives will be very excited during the first three weeks that they get to publish content on the new book(s), but will stop after that. Executives who have successful author platforms publish content most weeks for numerous months before their book comes out.
Each time you create content, it should align with one of the primary themes of your book. Every post you create should function as a proof of concept, every framework that you produce should provide a preview of what will be in the actual book, and every story provided in a post will be a sample of the writing style that will be found in your book.
Make an assertion in one sentence, then support that assertion with data or an example. Numbers are more persuasive than adjectives. Look for value at the source.
Connecting Strategically
The size of your LinkedIn network is not as important as the quality of the network. Build your network based on four types of connections before your book launch: your target reader, event & podcast producers, book reviewers, and other authors in your niche. Bringing authors together is a great way to create opportunities for collaborations.
When you send a personalized connection request instead of the standard request, you will have much more success. By sending a personalized request, you create a relationship based on a mutual interest rather than a transactional request.
LinkedIn Articles and Newsletters
LinkedIn Articles are your online publishing platform to host content and distribute it to your readers. For the executive author building out their author platform, articles are the in-depth content that establishes your assertions, outlines your frameworks, and demonstrates the intellectual foundation that your book will provide.
LinkedIn Newsletters will help you build a loyal audience prior to the launch of your book. By sending out a newsletter, all of your connections will receive a notification, and all of your subsequent newsletters will be sent directly to your subscribers.
A benefit provided by a newsletter that delivers new content consistently means that, any time someone subscribes to receive that information, they also become digital observers of the author's work and thought process for months.
Part 2: LinkedIn Strategy During and After the Launch
Launch Period: 90 Days
When used effectively by executives to promote and sell books through their LinkedIn accounts, executives do not post "buy my book" every three days; they also post excerpts from the book to demonstrate what to expect during the launch period. They creatively use the launch period to continuously extend the launch and showcase ideas from their respective books.
What to Post on LinkedIn During and After the Launch
Excerpt Post: Select specific conceptual ideas that you can post as an excerpt from your book (make sure each post is complete and stands alone). If the excerpt is "a complete idea" by itself, readers will likely want to read everything in the book.
Behind-the-Scenes Content: Show followers the authoring, editing, proofreading, and printing process. Discuss the chapter that was the most difficult to write or an epiphany that occurred that caused you to rethink an idea or direction related to the book. It is important to remember that followers are connecting with you as the author.
Pose a Question to Readers: Provide readers with a question from the book and invite them to answer it through replies. As a result of asking the question, if you engage your network and encourage conversation from your audience on LinkedIn, it will enhance the algorithmic reach of your LinkedIn posts and confirm that you have provided a solution to a challenge your audience is struggling to solve.
Video: LinkedIn video posts receive 5x more engagement than a text-only post. A well-done 90-second talking-head video detailing the main premise of your book will beat out any graphic representation of your book that contains an Amazon link.
Update Your Profile at Launch
Your profile header image should have your book cover and tagline on it. Include your book in the “Featured” section of your profile. Your profile headline should now state "Author of [Book Title]." Include your book in your experience section and write a brief description of how it relates to the audience/user and what useful information your book provides. If people are going to be searching on LinkedIn for an expert in your category/topic area, they should be able to find you in multiple places.
Building Lasting Momentum
Remember, publishing is just the beginning, not the end.
Consider your book to be a library of content, not an announcement that happens only one time. Each chapter has enough material in it to produce at least 20-30 posts on other social networking platforms. For instance, Chapter 4 could provide a framework for a post that you can write in month-3 after the publication of your book. Chapter 7 could give you valuable material to create a video for social platforms in month-5 after publishing your book.
Begin collecting and posting reader feedback. Collaborate to get more exposure through podcast appearances, articles written with other authors, and virtual presentations/webinars. Track the results of the activity on LinkedIn (LinkedIn analytics) to help create an ongoing loop of information for content creation and desired outcomes.
Three Things Executive Authors Do Wrong on LinkedIn
Starting Late - An audience that has seen your ideas after a year is a whole different audience that first heard from you on day 1. You should build an audience before launching your book.
Using LinkedIn for Billboard Advertising - Promotional posts (promotion only, with no relationship/engagement) have a much lower rate of engagement than posts with relational content. “Sales, sales, sales” via promotion do not work on LinkedIn; instead, they hurt your ability to connect with your reader base and future readers. This is why executive authors who sell the most books on LinkedIn do so by providing value (creating an opportunity for readers to want to find the book) rather than spending money promoting the book.
Not Posting with an Opinion - LinkedIn tends to reward posts that have a strong opinion. Executives tend to post more frequently by sharing articles than by posting their own opinions. The types of posts that travel the best on LinkedIn are: counter-intuitive positions, failure stories, and specific frameworks or methodologies. General "insight" type posts have a very short shelf life.
What Your Book Does That LinkedIn Does Not
LinkedIn will allow you to build an audience, build out your network, and create an audience aware of your book, but it will not replace or provide what a book does. A LinkedIn post is a short-lived piece of content that only reaches the people in your network, while a book can be found and read by anyone, anywhere, and at any time via libraries, bookstores, or colleagues who recommend it.
Posting to your platform gives people an opportunity to see your thoughts. However, writing a book is your way of showing that you have put in the time and effort to turn those thoughts into a structured prose with say, 60,000 words to back it up. The book cohesively holds together, earns the trust of the reader from front to back, and lives up to the expectation or promise you made when they opened the first page.
The relationship between the platform and the book is synergistic. LinkedIn serves as a foundation for building your audience; the book functions as an authority for that audience and creates a source of content on which LinkedIn can continually draw for years to come.
Your current role is a short-term position, but your present level of proficiency is permanent. Executives who build sustainable professional reputations do so by creating platforms that can continue to exist independently of any entity (such as a corporation) to carry their ideas through any transition, market shift, or circumstance.
Key Takeaway
Executive authors can use LinkedIn for more than just promoting a book; it's also a long-term branding strategy.
The audience and authority you have laid the groundwork for before your book is published will often determine the success of your book launch.
Personal posts on LinkedIn tend to get significantly higher engagement compared to business posts because people relate to people, not logos.
The way you position your LinkedIn profile should reflect your area of expertise and what you believe in. It should be less about your title (i.e., "president" or "CEO") and more about the value you add through your work.
It's much more beneficial to be consistent in your efforts than it is to go intense for a short time. When you post consistently over time, you build trust and create greater visibility.
Your overall content strategy should mirror the ideas and concepts you've discussed in your book.
Using LinkedIn articles and newsletters to build a base of loyal readers prior to reading your manuscript helps to establish your authority.
During the time of the book launch, value-driven content will generate much greater interest and engagement than simply promoting and selling your book.
The value and presence that a book creates for a personal brand will help contribute back to the author's authority through their book as visibility grows on LinkedIn.
The most successful executive authors see the finished product as an asset rather than simply an announcement.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How long before publishing my book do I need to start establishing my presence on LinkedIn?
It is recommended that you start at least six to eighteen months before your book's release. It takes time to create an audience that will trust you and your ideas. Therefore, an audience is much more likely to respond to your book if they have been following your ideas successfully for a period of time.
2. Which types of content work best on LinkedIn for executive authors?
The most effective types of content consist of authors sharing their perspectives, frameworks, personal experiences, and meaningful insights. Most readers enjoy authentic expertise rather than traditional self-promotion.
3. Should my focus be on building a presence on LinkedIn or writing the book?
There is value in both; however, the two have different purposes. LinkedIn is used primarily to gain visibility, credibility, and audience engagement, while the book is established as a long-term authority that is going to last with your audience.
How to Build the Brand for Your Book
Writing a book without creating the platform to present it is equivalent to creating a lighthouse on an island that does not exist; while the beacon may be lit and the work is complete, no one will find it.
The team at Rolling Authors collaborates with C-suite executives, business founders, and thought leaders who see book writing as a business opportunity and who know that the development of a brand surrounding their book will determine how successful it will be.
Our team works with you to create meaningful books that express and build your unique voice without using AI tools or templates, and without taking any shortcuts.
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