Firstly, if you’ve just had your book or article published, congratulations! Your hard work and commitment have paid off and your research is contributing to conversations in the global scientific community. The next step is to make sure that your work reaches as many interested readers as possible.

Whilst publishers like IWA Publishing have dedicated marketing processes in place (find out more about our own channels here: https://www.iwapublishing.com/about-us/author-centre/book-marketing-publicity), today there are lots of ways for authors to champion their research and bring it to the attention of the right people. Want to get the most out of your work? Keep reading to get some ideas.

Social media

Like it or not, social media has become a part of day-to-day life for many. Sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and a professional or company blog, wisely used, can be great ways to engage with readership and start conversations around your book. Here are a few tips to get the most out of these:

• Announce work as it is published: let people know that your latest research is out there!
• Include a link to where your work is hosted. If you have limited characters (Twitter), you can use a link-shortening site like bitly.com – this also lets you track who is clicking and from which sources.
• Hashtag key words so people searching relevant subjects find your post (E.g. #pollution).
• Tag any co-authors, linked institutions or colleagues to promote sharing (E.g. @IWAPublishing).
• Make your post attention-grabbing: use a short, catchy description or intriguing question so people want to click through and learn more. If you can, add a visual (the book/journal cover, a relevant infographic, an author photograph) so that your message stands out in a crowded feed of posts.
• Make your online identity as consistent as possible: using the same name, titles and photographs on different public/professional accounts can help people to find you and your work.
• Link between different social media accounts: if someone finds you through LinkedIn, they may be interested in following you on Twitter for updates and new work.

Other ways to get the word out online

• Add a link to your email signature: this could be the page of your book or paper, or a link to your profile on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Kudos.
• Write blog post which complements, expands on or explains your work in plain language to help engage a wider audience. This could be your own blog or that of your publisher, institution or society. Come up with a compelling title and share this on your social media platforms with a link to your book or paper.
• Add a link to your work on your faculty page or company LinkedIn profile.

Academic community websites

Community websites give researchers the opportunity to create a comprehensive academic profile and share information on their work with peers in the field. Some of these sites require uploading a PDF file for works listed, but sharing full publications may put authors in risk of breaching copyright and publishing agreements.

An author can upload infornation on the paper to community websites such as Mendeley, Zotero or ResearchGate, getting the word out about their research with the confidence that they are sharing work within copyright. Sharing the abstract is within copyright.

If you have any questions about promoting your work, feel free to send me an email.

Sarah Cooper (scooper [at] iwap.co.uk).