web stuff 4 writers

A couple of weeks ago, Faye (yesterday’s interviewee) sent me an email about Bebo. I’d heard about Bebo. I figured it was just another social networking website, kind of like facebook or MySpace. Which it is. But what I didn’t realise until I received Faye’s email is that Bebo has a section dedicated to writers. This afternoon, I decided to check it out.

Authors on Bebo

If you click on the ‘Authors’ tab on Bebo, it’ll take you to a section of the site where you can browse published and un-published writings, via genres or Bebo’s book charts.

Visiting a book’s profile may allow you to read an extract, or – if you’re signed into your Bebo account – you can leave comments, write a review, or add yourself as the book’s ‘fan’.

Setting up a profile for your book or short story on Bebo

To set up a profile on Bebo for a book or short story you’ve written, click on the ‘Authors – Register You Book’ link in the authors section of the site. If you don’t have a personal Bebo profile, you’ll need to register for one of those as well (but, if you wish, you can change the privacy settings so that your personal profile can be only seen by those you’ve added as friends).

Once your personal profile has been configured, you can register your book or short story on the site, entering in its name, tag line, assigning it a category and entering a 1000 word description. For published books, you can also add a publisher and a ISBN number.

You’re then presented with a generic profile, which you can customise with the cover of your book ( click on ‘upload profile photo’). You can also add an extract (‘add a chapter’ under the ‘Read’ tab), set up a blog or a poll, and pick a more appropriate design for your profile (‘change skins’).

For an example of a Bebo book profile, check out Faye’s page for Cover the Mirrors.

Why use Bebo?

Bebo, like any social networking site, works best when you know a lot of other people who are using the service. I’ve set up a profile for Lessons to Learn but as I don’t currently have any Bebo friends, I’m not sure how anyone would find it (if they didn’t follow a link like the one I just provided).

Bebo’s one way to promote your book but, in my opinion, it doesn’t replace having your own blog or website. I couldn’t find a way to create a clickable link back to natashajudd.com from the front page of my Bebo profile, nor to any non-Bebo reviews, nor to an online store where Lessons is on sale – which kind of limits the routes your profile visitors can take to find out more about the book.

Still, I’m going to leave Lessons to Learn up there for a while at least, and see what happens.

If you’re interested in learning more about promoting your work and finding new readers on Bebo, you might want to check out this article from the Bebo author blog on how to be a great Bebo author.

Your thoughts

Do you have a Bebo account? If so, how useful has it been for you? Do/would you ever use a site like Bebo to discover new authors and writing?

Tags: Promotion, What is? //