Can you use LinkedIn’s Slideshare to promote your book?

A trusted source recommended the idea to me, it didn’t take me long, and in any case it can’t hurt.

When you weigh book marketing options, it’s the same decision making process as most decisions:

1. How much is going to cost me? (time, money, stress, effort, etc.)
2. What are the possible (and probable) returns?

In the case of Slideshare, which is owned by LinkedIn, it’s pretty easy to set up a presentation and the returns are … I don’t really know. Sure, you could say that there are millions of people who use it (and who use LinkedIn), but that’s like counting the English speaking audience in India: sure, great, but are they going to buy your book?

Considering I put together a collection of praise for my book (Every Single Day, published Oct. 17, 2017) and just inserted them into a Google presentation and then imported that into Slideshare, the cost of creation wasn’t much.

As far as potential returns, after just half a day, I have 71 views. Sure, I have no idea who those people are (nor am I sure if I can find that out) and I’m not even sure I have a link to my book somewhere, but hey, that’s what I get for a quarter hour of investment.

But according to my math, 71 views in half a day of something that took me 15 minutes with the potential of being shared and liked and whatnot, works for me.

Summary: I’ll keep an eye on it, maybe read up a little more about how to make my presentation better and more interesting and maybe find some tips to drive engagement.

Other people who know more than I do:

• Using SlideShare For Marketing Fiction And Non-Fiction Books from Joanna Penn at The Creative Penn. “Slideshare is one of 120 most visited websites in the world, with 60 million monthly visitors. It ranks highly in Google for keywords, and you can use embedded hyperlinks to direct traffic to your site.”
• How To Market Your Book With Slideshare from Turgay Birand at Edition Guard. “Slideshare is a legitimate option for authors to market their books and build an audience. This unique social network provides long term traffic and helps you enhance your other social networks and blog. Creating a Slideshare presentation might take a little extra time, but it is totally worth it. Most authors are using Twitter and Facebook. You can stand out by taking a plunge into Slideshare today!”
• [Here’s a meta idea: book marketing ideas built in Slideshare.] 119 Book Marketing Ideas That Can Help Authors Increase Sales from BookBub on Slideshare. “To spark inspiration and get those creative juices flowing, we put together 119 book marketing ideas.”