Authors on LinkedIn®: What You Need To Know
I’m not a LinkedIn® expert. Nor am I a LinkedIn® guru.
However, I do use LinkedIn daily, and it’s one of the best sources for finding qualified clients that I know. In fact, I don’t do any other marketing. I use LinkedIn to showcase my expertise, build authority, educate, and network.
My daily posts about writing, publishing, marketing, and understanding your book options made me a ‘top content’ contributor last year. Though LinkedIn has discontinued those badges now, it was a privilege to have one for the time that I did. After all, I never asked for it. I just remember logging in one day, and it was there. A nice little pat on the back, if you will. For a job well done.
As an author, LinkedIn can be a great resource for you, too. Whether your book is fiction, nonfiction, or creative nonfiction, there’s an audience for it on LinkedIn.
Let’s discuss what LinkedIn is and why I think it’s good for authors.
LinkedIn is described in Wikipedia as “an American business and employment-oriented social network.” It was launched on May 5th, 2003. That means it will be 22 years old this Saturday. I started my profile in December 2006.
You could say I was an early adopter on LinkedIn. I was there in the very beginning. I recognized the value of being part of a growing network of businesspeople who were done with the over-the-top content on Facebook. Just as Tom and I knew blogs would be big business back in the early 2000s, when everyone else said they were a fad, I knew LinkedIn was going to play a significant role in the world of business for the 21st century.
Only if we learn how to use it properly.
To that end, I spend a good bit of time reading and learning from true LinkedIn gurus and masters, like my friend, Jon Keel, who holds quarterly masterclasses on how to understand and use LinkedIn.
Based on what I’ve learned from Jon and others, I’ve changed my profile six times, redesigned my header, and updated my About section. I have also revised how I talk about myself in posts and what I write. With Jon’s advice, in his masterclass, I learned how to create a signature, how to best use the featured content section, and how to engage with others on LinkedIn.
I’m not going to talk about how to make the most of a Premium account. I have a Premium account, but most people do not. And as a new writer, or even as an established one (depending on your goals for your writing), you can achieve what I’m going to share by having a free account.
While the LI masters often disparage free accounts, I want to say that I did fairly well for myself with a free account for more than 15 years. It was only recently that I went to Premium because, as Master Book Builders grows as a company, I want access to more of the bells and whistles.
What is LinkedIn for?
The true purpose of LI is to connect with business professionals. To encourage networking. To allow individuals to meet new people without having to leave their homes. LI writes this as its Mission: “The mission of LinkedIn is simple: connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful.”
A big part of LI is focused on helping people find the right jobs or switch careers. To that end, the company shares information about its members with recruiters and other sales professionals looking for talent. I admit I get pitched every now and then, even though I am not looking for a ‘job.’
Most members know that their data is being mined. But the payoff is worth it. We get to build better and stronger businesses through the networking we do. We can find professionals in any line of work or industry to connect with. We can find coaches and career counselors if we need them. Using LI groups, we can expand our authority and build more credibility. And there is no better place to learn than LinkedIn. IMBO
Today, LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft, which acquired it in 2016 for $26.2 billion, and boasts over 1 billion members in 200 countries. According to The Social Shepard, “16.2% of LinkedIn users are active daily.” I find that stat a bit sad, since why be there if you aren’t going to network?
And I would be one of the daily users. Whether it’s sharing something I’ve written about my work, supporting a client, commenting on people’s posts, downloading a fantastic image or PDF someone I follow has shared, I’m there.
And you should be, too.
How can LinkedIn be good for you, the new (or experienced) author?
If you get serious about your presence on LinkedIn, you can build a fan base for your book(s). I wrote a post about this in 2023 that’s still useful if you want 7 Proven Ways to Get Your Book and Yourself Noticed on LinkedIn.
If you join groups that are relevant to your book’s topic, and engage – don’t sell or promote, just engage – you can create new friends. You will find people to follow, and you will find that people will follow you.
In your feed, if you write something at least 3 times a week, you’ll find people starting to take notice. People who might be interested in your book.
If you visit new profiles multiple times a week – at least 10 new profiles per week (although the LI masters might say double and triple that, I find it difficult to give that much time to LI, so 10 is good enough if you’re consistent) and reach out to connect, you will begin growing your connections and followers.
You do not have to have 10,000 followers to be successful on LinkedIn. I’m just now, all these years later, approaching 5,000 followers. Would I like 10,000? Sure, but I’m neither going to pay for them nor am I able to spend the time necessary to build them the way some gurus advise.
The goal isn’t to have the most followers. Or to compete with someone else who has a lot of followers.
The goal is to engage, meet people, and talk about you, your purpose, your work, and then your book.
Caveat – don’t talk about your book every day. Talk instead about the message in the book. Share keen insights you learned while writing the book. Ask questions, do polls (LI loves polls!), and create great images with great captions.
Remember that the profiles on LinkedIn are connected to real people. 🤔 I’m pretty sure none of them are AI, but I wouldn’t swear to that in a court of law.
There are companies popping up that want you to let them – or rather their AI – do the hard work of being on LinkedIn. The AI will ‘get to know you’ and then post for you, and comment on other people’s posts for you, and you’ll grow and grow like the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk.
But like Jack and the Beanstalk, there’s an evil giant at the top of the stalk waiting to push you over the edge. What I’m saying is this: I know when a comment is AI-generated. Mostly because I know the people who are commenting, and it’s not their voice. AI-generated content and comments are flat. It’s as simple as that.
They have no feeling. No emotion. No sense of touch. AI is a computer-generated voice. And it sounds like one.
Yes, I’m saying this to discourage you from hiring a company using AI to manage your account. I do recommend experimenting with AI, because there are many great uses for it. But being you on LinkedIn is not one.
Posting on LI is something you should do yourself. If you’re ever at a loss for what to write, visit Tom’s blog post 2025 Bookish Holidays Indie Authors Can Use. It’s a fun way to step out of yourself and share interesting things about books and holidays. People love that kind of stuff!
Now, here’s some advice on how to present yourself properly on LI:
◾Write your profile in a way that shows your expertise and credibility. Tell me more about what you can do for me to make my life better, rather than adding that long list of letters after your name. Show me I can trust you by speaking to my needs, not yours. You can add those letters at the end.
◾Make your header a showpiece. Headers that are left blank are a turnoff. No one will follow or connect if you don’t have a header image. It doesn’t have to be stunningly beautiful, but it should be there.
◾Make sure your picture is up to date. I know other people feel just as I do – I want to see the ‘now’ you, not the ‘20 years ago’ you. (I bet they aren’t even the same people)
◾Find a unique way to represent yourself – I’m the Book Whisperer | Author | Book Coach | Author Specialist. Helping passionate professionals and entrepreneurs create authority, build thought leadership, and create community with their published book.
Tom is a Book designer and publishing advisor at Master Book Builders; author, coach, speaker, serial entrepreneur, and still an Old Dog Learning!
◾Endorse 10 people a week for their skills (this is connecting).
◾A week or two later, endorse them for another skill – this attracts attention and may induce them to check out your profile and endorse you (this is relationship building).
◾Make a goal to support other people’s content on a regular basis with comments and to show you are paying attention to their posts. (this is engagement)
◾Once you’ve exchanged a few comments and maybe a couple of DMs, ask them if they are open to a Meet n’ Greet on Zoom.
◾When people follow you, remember to follow back. LI tells you via email and Notifications when someone new follows you or wants to connect.
Your goal isn’t to sell books on LinkedIn. Your goal is to discover a fan club. Discover who among the many millions of people on LinkedIn is a reader of the kind of book you’ve just written.
And then support them in their endeavors. All the while, subtly talking about your book and its message with text and image posts, 3D images of the book with great captions pulled directly from the book, and personal stories about your journey becoming a published author.
And if you have a website (you do, don’t you?), share the link now and then. Visit Tom’s blog post about the 7 Essentials of Author Websites to learn more. Make sure your link goes to a page about the book. Or to your ‘invite me to speak’ page. Don’t use QR codes on LinkedIn. People don’t want to scramble to get their phone to get to the place you’re sending them. Or, more likely, they’ll be on their phone, and your QR code is useless to them. Just use a link in your post. Don’t put the link in a comment – and this is NEW as of April 30th, 2025. Before this, I had been told to put the link in the first comment.
I’m excited about this. It means you can link to more than one thing – a resource, your website, your Instagram account, Amazon, or whatever is suitable for your audience, right in your post.
Now, go duplicate this advice on Facebook. And/or Instagram. And/or Pinterest.
The key points here are:
➡️Be authentic.
➡️Never give up.
➡️Be approachable.
➡️Engage with others.
➡️Write content others want to see.
➡️Support the people in your network.
➡️Show your cover in 3D with short captions.
➡️Connect with the people, not just their words.
➡️Tell good stories about your book and yourself.
➡️Don’t sell – share. Don’t throw your book at people.
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