Inside Social Media at Ooligan Press

Most of us have some sort of feeling about social media. But whether we love it or hate it, there’s no denying that it’s an important way for authors to reach their audiences. At Ooligan Press, we have a set of best practices for supporting our authors and their books through social media channels. As part of the “Inside Ooligan” series, here’s a look at what the Ooligan Press Online Content Manager does for our books in production. As with many elements of book production, it starts earlier than you might expect—about six months before launch. Here are some of the key milestones and tools that we use.

Social Media Strategy Document (SMSD)

The SMSD is the customized go-to social media guide for each book. It is a combination of branding, marketing, communication, and author/illustrator information. The strategy document gives a timeline for different phases of social media engagement (announcements, awareness, pre-orders, launches, and sustainment). It also collects information such as the author’s social media handles, types of posts for each platform, who we think would love to read this book, and ideas for engaging with audiences about the title. We start on this document about six months before publication, and collaborate to keep it updated through the launch phase of the book.

Campaign Schedule

Each book gets its own focused set of posts, which we call a “campaign”. The campaign is coordinated with objectives for each phase as mentioned above. For example, about 120 days before the book’s pub date, we share a well-designed announcement post. That is the prompt to start posting weekly content about the book, to generate interest, and grow its audience in the pre-order months prior to launch. As we get closer to the pub date, the pace of posts will increase and we start looking for posts from the author to share. Some of the tasks are dependent on book milestones—for example, we won’t have an author unboxing video until the printed copies arrive. The timeline for the social media campaign is integrated into the Ooligan Press Production Timeline template, so that the book’s project team and author know what to expect.

Third-Party Scheduler and Bulk Upload Sheets

Ooligan Press has several goals with social media. We want to connect audiences to our books, share information about Portland State University and our program, support and engage with other regional independent publishers, and be a voice for increased representation in publishing. That’s a lot of moving pieces and varied content! So we use a third-party social media scheduler to help us stay on track. We are currently using Buffer, which allows us to schedule content ahead of time, and also provides some key analytics for different campaigns and types of content.

To ensure that our posts look good and are easy to understand, and to maintain some consistency with many different folks designing content, we have an established approval process for social media items. Like many organizations, we use Bulk Upload Sheets to organize draft posts. Our Design Manager and Copy Chief are then easily able to approve posts or suggest edits. Afterword, the Online Content Manager can find everything that needs to be scheduled in one place. The Design Manager also provides a color palette, fonts, and approved images to create social media content for each book (drawn from the cover). This helps everyone stay consistent with imagery and makes the book’s content easy to identify visually.

Engagement with Authors and Author’s Followers

One of the most important things that we do in social media as a publisher is to amplify and support an author’s own social media presence. We always ask authors to tag us, share photos, and be as present as they can in this process. It comes very easily to some authors and others aren’t so involved, but audiences are really eager to know who is behind these beautiful covers and they love to see “behind the scenes!” While actively working with authors, the Ooligan social media team holds giveaways of advance copies or other book-related swag, posts live from events, and answers questions and comments about the book. We have also collaborated with outside publicists that authors hire. This process doesn’t end after a book launches and we are always delighted to share and boost an author’s social media efforts.

All publishers want to generate interest and excitement about each of their books, and to help readers find the books that are right for them. Social media is a key piece of that effort at Ooligan Press. Take a look at our social media accounts to see these tools in action! What are the most challenging or important parts about this process? We’d love to hear from you.

The cover of SHORT, VIGOROUS ROOTS, a 2022 anthology published by Ooligan Press, centered over an image of a colorful foreign city taken from the sky

Designing Basic Social Media Images for Your Book

Are you lost when it comes to designing social media images for your upcoming book? This step-by-step guide walks you through the process of creating basic social media images to promote your book, including the preferred image dimensions for several social media platforms.

  1. Determine Your Platform(s) and Dimensions
  2. What social media platforms do you want to promote your book on? Popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have different suggested image dimensions that are their “best fit.” Because you want your book’s online promotion to be professional, you should follow these suggested dimensions. According to Sprout Social, the suggested dimensions for visual content on each platform are:

    • 1200 x 630 pixels for Facebook
    • 1080 x 1080 pixels for Instagram
    • 1200 x 675 pixels for tweets sharing a single image on Twitter

  3. Choose a Design Software
  4. Adobe Creative Cloud is the industry standard for graphic designers, but because social media posts are more ephemeral in nature, it’s perfectly acceptable to make your designs using free software like Canva. If you don’t have access to an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription or are worried about being overwhelmed by Adobe’s software, Canva is a free and easy design software that I recommend.

  5. Set Your Dimensions and Upload Your Cover
  6. The dimensions of your design should be based on the social media platform(s) outlined in step one. Social media posts aimed at promoting your book should incorporate the book’s cover, so you’ll want to upload it to the design software you’re using or have the file ready to incorporate into your design later.

  7. Find and Download a Copyright-Free Image that Complements Your Cover
  8. You want a copyright-free image that emphasizes the cover without being too busy or distracting, but you also want to stay away from images that are obviously meant to be “background” rather than the focal point of your design. If your book has a cover design brief, try selecting simple images that follow the tone and color scheme outlined in the cover design brief. Images like these will naturally go well with your cover because both designs are working from the same brief. If you’re unsure where to look for copyright-free images, websites like Pixabay, Unsplash, and Pexels are safe, user-friendly platforms to start your search. Although these websites offer copyright-free images, double-check each website’s search settings to ensure that “copyright-free” isn’t a search feature that you need to turn on before starting your image search.

  9. Upload and Position Your Image
  10. Check that the image isn’t blurry at the size you need to fill your design’s dimensions. If it’s blurry and you’re familiar with Photoshop, you can try sharpening the image there, but a blurry image most likely means you should choose a different copyright-free image for the background. Position the image over the dimensions of your design in a way that gives the design the best crop lines possible. In other words, make sure that the dimensions of your design don’t cut off the background image in a way that’s distracting.

  11. Place Your Cover
  12. Since your cover is the focal point of the image, I recommend centering it in your design. Canva and Adobe both have guides to help with this. However, if your background image has a unique border, some type of visual element on one side, or if the dimensions make the cover look “off” when centered, try aligning the cover within the background image using the rule of thirds or aligning the book cover to something in the background image. The goal is to have the placement of the cover within the design appear natural. The goal of centering or aligning the cover within the background image is to keep the cover from appearing as though it “floats” in the design.

  13. Download and Preview Your Design
  14. For this last step, simply download your design (I recommend downloading it as a PNG file) and review your work! Double-check that your cover is positioned the way you intended and that nothing shifted during the download process. Be critical of your work and ask yourself if the focal point of the design is the book cover. Once you’re pleased with your design, you’re ready to write a caption for your image and post.

Congratulations, you’ve designed a basic social media image for your book!