Book Marketing: How the Cover of Your Self-published Book Influences Your Brand as an Indie Author

ALLi Partner Member Aimee Coveney provides a useful overview of the impact of a self-published book’s cover not only on its sales success but also on an important long-term consideration: the establishment and promotion of your brand as an indie author. What she has to say also holds true for books published by trade publishing houses. Over to Aimee…

Over the years as a cover designer, I have often spoken with authors about their brand, and on occasions I have received very quizzical looks, but it is in fact something that should be included early in your career plan as a writer.

A strong brand helps an author in the same way it helps any organisation: it gives your name recognition and helps to sell your work.

The significance of visual marketing and design is forever stronger within all industries, but with online portfolios making artists more accessible, the standard of book covers in self-publishing has hit an all-time high and subsequently increased competition for authors too.

What is an Author Brand Anyway?

The concept of an author brand is sometimes misunderstood, and it is a large topic to cover:

• It’s not just about the genres you write in, it’s about how you represent yourself to the entire industry and create a recognisable and trusted name.
• A brand is about how you want your audience to perceive you as a person and a professional.
• A brand can create an umbrella for all you do, whether that’s working in different fields, or writing in different genres.

Why Book Cover Branding is Important

For new readers, your book cover is more often than not the first introduction to your brand and your work as a whole.

The average customer spends eight seconds looking at the front cover of a book and fifteen on the back.

Customers buying online may spend even less time than this, so you can see why a high standard of cover is so vital.

It’s important to ensure that your book cover not only visually represents your writing and the story it envelops, but also your brand, so that new readers have an idea of what your work will be like and existing readers can recognise books as yours.

Strongly branded book covers can also have a huge, positive impact on your chance on gaining media attention or getting bookstores interested in stocking your books – not always easy for self-published authors. You must remember that the industry is inundated with books every day. Bookstore buyers may not necessarily be opposed to self-published books, but they know all too well that it’s the cover and brand that sells and if that’s weak, then stocking it wouldn’t make business sense. Unfortunately the use of unprofessional covers can harm the reputation of the self-publishing sector.

In a study of booksellers’ assessments of publisher marketing efforts, 75% of 300 surveyed said that of all the elements of the book itself, the look and design of the cover was the most important.

The cover of a book is thus prime real estate for promoting a book and your brand.

How Effective Cover Branding Helps Reach Your Previous Readers

It’s important as an author to reach previous readers, and one way this is easily achieved is through a recognisable, branded design. If an author has received a good response from their previous work, they may assume that their next book will do equally well, if not better. But what if your readers do not recognise your latest book? The right visual connection on the cover will ensure they do. That recognition factor is vital, and it is what sells books every day.

The same can be said for booksellers. If they can easily identify from your covers that you are an author whose previous books sold well, they’re more likely to stock your books again. If the cover is not strongly branded, they may not remember your earlier books’ popularity.

What About Cover Redesigns?

That’s not to say that a redesign isn’t a good idea. If your design and brand is not up to standard, a complete brand overhaul can be a great piece of PR. Also, cover designs date quickly. The big publishing houses frequently issue new covers even for books that have been selling well under the old covers, so don’t feel that you must stick with the cover under which your book was launched. Changing covers can change the fortunes of a book entirely. (For more on this topic, see the related post at the foot of this page.)

Top Tips for Your Cover Branding

Brand identity is now more important than ever for authors, but it doesn’t have to be complex to be effective. Here are the essentials:

• a strong, unique font for your author name and book title
• similar illustrations or image styles for each book
• consistent layout
• similar use of colour

Next time you are working on a cover design, remember to ask yourself and a qualified focus group how it’s representing your brand as well as the individual book.

Choosing the Cover for your Self-Published Book – Follow the Crowd or Dare to be Different?

As an indie author, it’s your prerogative to do things your way, including choosing the cover design for your self-published book. While trade-published authors often dislike the covers picked by their publishers, that doesn’t mean their publishers have got it wrong. Though it may seem that all book covers in a particular genre start to look the same (take the trend for headless women on historical novels a few years ago, for example), trends are followed for good reason, and you flout them at your peril. Here I explains why it’s important to strike the right balance between pleasing yourself and conforming with common practices in your genre.

As a self-publishing author, there is one benefit which I believe gives authors a pre-conceived satisfaction, and that’s the control that they have on how their book will look in their hands at the end of the process. For many authors this is something they have dreamed of for a very long time. As a book design professional, it can sometimes be difficult to express to authors why the cover that they have visualised in their mind may not the best option.

Should You Dare to be Different?

Often the first thing a professional will hear from an author is that they want the cover to be completely different from other books on the market. Most book cover designers will tell you that this can be fatal to a book’s selling potential. This is where professional book cover designers prove their worth. They’re not just graphic designers; they should research the elements of a cover and what is working in particular areas of the market on a regular basis. The trends that are set and followed can mean the difference between your book selling or being looked over by a reader.

With this being the case, there is a fine line between being different and risking that vital connection between your book and your chosen target market.

This is because readers are naturally drawn to books that have a familiar appearance and brand to those that they have previously enjoyed.

The Disadvantage of Difference

If your book has a very different cover, you may lose out on those sales from readers who are looking for a particular style of work. Many publishers, agents and designers insist on using the tried and tested styles of design, only testing the waters with a new trend once they know it will pick up sales. This can be frustrating for self-publishing authors who rightly feel that their work deserves to be noticed, but ironically, being different can mean your book isn’t noticed as much as it could be.

Blend In, But Don’t Camouflage

Having said this, there is also a risk that your book will blend in too much and the design may appear dull. There are, however, ways that you or your designer can make your cover stand out whilst still creating a sense of credibility through familiarity within your position in the market.

• Take some time to look through books in your genre. What covers stand out to you and why?
• What is selling well and gaining notice?
• You can also look at other genres, as trends often find themselves crossing over.

Once you have accumulated some detail, use this information to cleverly better the themes and styles that have proved themselves successful. The elements to focus on can include colours, imagery, mood, typography and composition.

Get the Balance Right

Cover design is a true balancing act and something to take great care and consideration over. At the end of the day, the cover is there to perform one job, and that is to appeal and sell to your readership. Achieving this can take some thought, but there are certainly ways to make your work appeal to the genre’s regular readers, whilst standing out for the right reasons.

If you and your designer have an idea that breaks the mould, that you both feel could work then it can be worth trying to become the trendsetter, but if you don’t, there is nothing wrong with balancing familiarity and uniqueness, trusting in the market and in your readers.

 

This blog was originally posted on http://selfpublishingadvice.org/best-book-cover-design-for-self-published-books/

 

If you have any questions about cover design, feel free to comment or email me at contact@authordesignstudio.com

Why You Should Use Video Media to Market your Self-published Books

One of the challenges to indie authors in marketing their self-published books is that people simply don’t have the time to browse the web like they used to. It can feel as if there is a narrowing timeframe in which to generate interest in your work.

With thousands of authors and books competing for attention, it can seem impossible to stand out from the crowd. Information needs to be delivered in a much more exciting, interactive manner, and most importantly, fast.

Different techniques are necessary to deliver information online, due to the varying ways internet browsers view material online. An ever increasing amount of people browse via their mobile phones, which means your page of text can become too daunting to read.

This is why many individuals and companies have taken to ‘vlogging’, replacing long articles of text with videos of themselves speaking about what they would have once written, conveying information in a much more graphic medium. The written word will never be replaced, but video can be a creative way of delivering information and reaping the rewards.

Videos displayed on websites can not only increase traffic, but keep visitors engaged up to 88% longer.

With that being the case, video media and book trailers have become increasingly popular, but are still viewed with some skepticism. Authors by nature perform most of their work ‘behind the scenes’ and are more often than not simply not used to such intrusive promotion.

Which Video Option Would Work for You?

There are many options for videos apart from book trailers that authors can consider creating. Website introductions, readings, interviews or announcements can create an interactive feel and convert information into sales.

An author I recently worked with created a hilarious video of spoof reviews. Some types of video media also have the added bonus of ‘meeting’ the author. Being able to put a face to the name and making your brand memorable has huge advantages for future work and tempts visitors to return.

Marketing professionals worldwide are reporting that video converts better than any other medium, and this is mainly down to its ‘sharability’. In fact up to 92% of mobile video viewers share videos with others, meaning your audience just expanded more than you could ever reach in isolation.

Where to Share Your Videos

Once you have produced your videos, there are many platforms that you can develop to reach your audience. The most obvious are your website, blog, social media, Youtube and Vimeo, where uploading is simple. Others that many don’t consider is uploading to your Amazon, Goodreads or Huffington Post profiles, as well as perhaps your publisher’s website. If you are planning to produce regular videos, uploading to the same accounts each time and creating a channel for your media is a must, so that once you have caught their attention, readers can easily find others.

Using Metadata to Broaden Your Views

Naming your videos and adding useful tags when uploading to certain platforms is also key to allowing readers to find you. Much like a blog, using tags for your particular audience and genre, as well as your author name gives you a much greater chance of appearing in their search results.

This explosive growth in popularity is allowing authors to reach a huge audience via visual means, deepening that all-important connection between author and reader and keeping your name at the forefront of their consideration.

Practising What I Preach

What better way to illustrate my argument than with a video?

OVER TO YOU How has using video impacted your book sales and visibility? What’s your top tip for using video media in book marketing? Join the conversation via the comments box!

This post was originally published at ALLi’s How to For Authors – http://www.selfpublishingadvice.org/why-you-should-use-video-media-to-market-your-self-published-books/

Book Trailers and Video Media – Why They Are Increasingly Effective

Over the last decade the internet, how we use it and when we use it has changed dramatically, and this has meant that every industry across the world has had to adjust. The publishing industry has been no exception. In fact, as an industry that relies heavily on appearance and technology itself, it has had to be more vigilant than others in order to keep up with digital modifications. Even over the last few years, huge changes have meant that publishing in the digital world has become even easier, but making a success of your work is just as challenging as ever.

Online promotion can be one of the least expensive, but most effective tools that any writer can utilise in what has become an overcrowded marketplace. The issue is that in today’s online book sector, there is a narrowing timeframe in order to generate interest in your work. In a world where people visit websites whilst shopping, scroll through social media during television adverts or read a blog on their way home from work, everyone is increasingly busy and increasingly impatient. Nowadays information needs to be delivered in a much more exciting, interactive manner, and most importantly, fast.

With that being the case, video media and subsequently, book trailers, have become more and more popular, but are still unbelievably held with some skepticism, and that is due mostly by the amount of poorly produced examples there are being shared online. Many authors with little design or production skills put simple slideshows together themselves, or have friends or fans send them in. This gives many authors the advantage of still being able to stand out from the crowd with a professional video.

Book trailers bring your work to life in a way that many authors often dream about. They can also give readers a great impression of professionalism and much like a movie trailer, is designed to visually stimulate. With visual elements on the internet bringing in far more attention than those websites without, book trailers can now play a huge role in your visibility online, and its ultimate success. It has been found that statistically the average internet user will remain on a website around eighty percent longer if there is a video to view. Videos have also seen the largest rise as a piece of sharable media, meaning your book trailer can be shared all over the world 24/7. If you are having trouble conveying the message of your book, or gaining the attention you feel it deserves, a book trailer may be a good option to explore.

Part of the reason why information online needs to be delivered in a different methods now, is due to the varying way internet browsers are viewing the web. An ever increasing amount of people browse via their mobile phones and tablet devices, meaning your page of text just became too daunting and perhaps too small to read. Book trailers are great ways to gain instant attention, tempting visitors to look further and stay longer. Most readers won’t fully read the lengthy reviews and information that some websites try to share online. Instead, they want snappy information delivered with greater ease. These visitors therefore need to be fed details in a much more graphic medium, without inundating them with text, and that is why book trailers and video media are still on the rise.

There are other options for video media apart from book trailers that authors can also consider. Anything from website introductions, readings, interviews or announcements can create an interactive feel and convert information into sales.

Website introductions are just that, a short video, usually featuring the author, welcoming visitors to their website and speaking about their work. This can replace, or work alongside the text that usually appears on a website home page, giving visitors the option. Videos of this nature, much like book trailers should be around one minute in length. At that length, a video receives the highest amount of viewers watching until completion. One minute sounds like a very short window in order to get your message across, but you will be amazed how much can be communicated in this time. This type of video media also has an added bonus of ‘meeting’ the author, which readers have always admitted to being intrigued about. Being able to put a face to the name and making your brand and website memorable has huge advantages for any future work, tempting visitors back again and again. And remember, it’s not just your website that can utilise video media; it can be shared across your entire online platform, including social media, as well as being played at book launches or other events. Approximately sixty-four percent of consumers are more likely to buy a product after watching video promotion, with marketing professionals reporting that video converts better than any other medium.

There are many versions of book trailers, interviews or other forms of video media out there that have been put together poorly and unprofessionally, and like any piece of promotion, it needs to remain professional in order to gain the right attention and not deter from your work. It need not be expensive either; a professional book trailer varies in price, but something effective can be found for as little as £95. However not all companies that offer the service maintain a high quality, so be sure to view some samples of their previous work and discuss any requirements prior to instructing anyone.

This explosive growth in video popularity is allowing authors to reach a huge audience, deepening that all important connection between author and reader and keeping your name at the forefront of their consideration.

This article was originally published on the Bloomsbury Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook website at https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/901/self-publishing/marketing-and-publicity/

How Your Online Platform Can Take You From Self-Published to Securing a Major Publishing Deal

You may remember a month or so ago, a children’s book made headlines, claiming to guarantee sending your children to sleep at bedtime, and today, it has made headlines again, after it was announced that Penguin Random House have snapped it up, and is due for release in October.

Author, Carl-Johan Forssen’s story, The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep, started its journey as a self-published book, which was translated into English last year, using Amazon’s self-publishing system, Createspace. After reaching No.10 on the Amazon book chart, it began at times outselling high-profile titles such as Go Set a Watchman and Grey.

Many writers now start out as indie authors, either consciously or not, hoping a major publishing house may pick up their work after the success of ‘going it alone’. Whether you admit it or not, it’s every writers dream to have their work read by a wider audience. Today’s news seems to reiterate the point that I make on a regular basis, that mainstream publishing houses are clearly listening to what the market is doing, even outside the bigger works.

The managing director of Penguin Random House Children’s UK, Francesca Dow, said in a statement: ‘We’re thrilled to be publishing The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep—a phenomenon that’s grabbing people’s attention all around the world.

‘We are excited now to be bringing this book to an even bigger audience here in the UK and internationally.

‘As a publisher we want to publish books that speak to people and have the power to support them.

‘This book is very clearly doing that.’

I have seen many authors wanting to achieve this dream, only to fall at the last hurdle for one reason or another. When speaking with authors at events, many are surprised to hear that agents and publishers may research them online prior to making any offers. It’s easier than you may think for publishers and agents to find your details and review how you interact with your audience. This can be done over social media, via interviews, or looking at your own website. This is a vital reason why your online platform should display outward professionalism and encourage the confidence of not just readers, but clearly industry professionals too. If you do not have a website or an online presence at all, publishers and agents can view this as a significant negative against your name. It will take more work in marketing terms to publicise you and your work if you refuse to embrace what is probably the least expensive, but most effective platform for publicity in today’s market.

It also means that publishers or agents may find it extremely difficult to even find your contact details in order to discuss future opportunities with you. The publishing industry is no longer simply about sending in submissions and waiting to hear back. This story demonstrates how the professionals are keeping their ear to the ground and seeking out future titles. If you cannot be easily found, you may be missing out on advancing your writing career.

If you look at Carl-Johan Forssen’s website you will see a very well presented site that immediately conveys legitimacy and professionalism in his field of work. We don’t know whether Random House took note of his online platform or not, but it would have certainly added to their confidence in him as a professional and an author if they had.

It’s never too early to assess whether you could present yourself more effectively online, and if you’re looking for advice or a friendly critique, please get in touch by email (contact@authordesignstudio.com) or via Twitter (@authordesigner).

Five Must Haves for your Author Website

An author website is a central meeting place for you to contain the majority of your detailed information on yourself and your books. Here is the place to convince your existing and future readers to connect with you and point them in the direction of purchasing your book/s. Turning potential readers into profit.

If you don’t have a website yet, you will certainly want to look into setting one up. If you already have a website, then now is the opportunity to ensure you have everything set up correctly and are using it in the best way possible. Below is a shortlist of ‘must have’ components to help you get started in making the most of your author website and maximizing your promotional success.

1) Your Books!

If you’re an author, whether that’s self-published or mainstream, you need to promote your work. One of the best ways to do this, is on a dedicated author website.

You also need to ensure that your book/s are displayed clearly and that your website is easily navigable. You will need a page dedicated to displaying your books with clear links to purchase, a copy of the cover and blurb and even the latest review. Don’t overcrowd this page. It is vital that it’s clear and concise. If you have a number of books, they can be sorted by release date or genre in order to make it clear to your readers what they can find.

2) Author Information

It’s well known that readers like to connect with author’s, and a page dedicated to a short biography is a nice addition to entice your readers further into your website. The key to this page is to let your readers learn a little bit more about you, but still keep it professional. It’s also great to include a professional photo of yourself as knowing what you look like is a great way for your readers to create another connection point with you.

Another tool to include here is to include a Newsletter sign up form after your biography text. If readers find themselves interested in you as an author, it’s then there for them to very easily sign up.

3) Newsletter Sign-up Form

Whilst displaying static content on your books (and links to purchase the book) is imperative, having consistent visual impact with your reader can be a fantastic tool. Imagine your name appearing in their inbox on weekly basis. They may or may not open and read the newsletter every time, but your name is there, and when they think they are ready for a new book, your name will be prominent in their minds.

Connecting with readers (and potential new readers) on a regular basis is the key to keeping them informed with your latest work. If they don’t know your book is available to purchase, then how can the buy it!

You don’t need to spend money on expensive newsletter systems, although some are free. Another way of handling this, is to set up a blog on WordPress. It can act as a newsletter (as people can sign up for email notifications when you post) and acts as a regular blog alongside this.

Make sure that your sign up forms or links to any social media are easy to see, in prominent locations, and appealing.

4) The Sneak Peek

Offering your readers something that they won’t find elsewhere is a very ‘sneaky’ way of pulling them further into your website. Your design is the first key to appealing to your demographic, however offering something for free is the best way of keeping them there for longer. There are lots of options here. Whether you offer exclusive free sample chapters, competitions for free copies of your book or sneak peeks at your next release, everybody loves something for free! Changing the free offering from time to time will also keep them coming back for more.

One other thing to remember is when you mention ‘free’, ensure it is free. Don’t insist they sign up for your newsletter first or similar. Although this is a great way to gain visibility, it more than often puts people off these days. If they are genuinely interested in you and your work, they will sign up of their own accord. You have more chance of gaining said interest by letting your free sample chapter do the work. If you want to focus on gaining further sign up’s to a newsletter, offer them something such as an extra free bonus chapter.

5) Validating Reviews

If you are a writer or reader, or both, you will know that books are one of the most talked of products of all time. The extent of sharing and the recommendation of books is something no other type of product in the world gets to enjoy. Reviews are one of the best ways in validating why people should purchase your book, however overstepping the mark is easily done too. By filling miles of your website pages with reviews may seem tempting, the sight of so many words on a computer screen will seem like a daunting essay to your website visitors. By taking a selection of the best reviews to date, or snippets of them, much like headlines, you stand a much higher chance of visitors actually reading them, and therefore impacting them on their purchasing decision.

If you insist on sharing every review, then consider putting your reviews on a cycle so that you may display a handful at a time.

Tap into reader’s instincts to share their thoughts by having clear social media ‘share’ buttons on your website. Word of mouth can often be the most powerful sales pitch. If they genuinely enjoyed your work, make the process of sharing their thoughts easier.

 

I hope these points have made you think about your website and the power these tools can have over both selling your books and your brand. Authors are using these elements all the time for their website’s and now you have the knowledge to craft a fantastic website too – are you ready to take action?

Using Your Author Website to the Full – Part Two

Thank you for coming back to read part two of ‘Using Your Author Website to the Full‘, which I recently spoke about at The Self Publishing Conference 2014. If you weren’t able to attend, this information could prove extremely useful. If you were there, then this is a great re-cap on such a lot of the information that we spoke about on the day.

In part one, I spoke about ensuring your design and content was targeting the right people. Your website isn’t there to convey you as a person with family photos and every hobby and interest you may have; it is there to portray you as an author. Now that you may have had a chance to sort through this in you mind, it’s time to look at making it work. The very best website and author can go no-where if it doesn’t reach the correct people and work in the right way. 

 

Keeping Visitors on Your Website

Once you have people on your website, preferably potential or existing readers, you need to learn how to keep them there. Bounce rate, which refers to people who almost immediately click on and then off of a website can be very high if there isn’t content interesting enough or a design worthy enough to obtain their interest. The further you get in your writing career, the more content will naturally grow. You will need to add fresh new ideas to your website on a fairly regular basis in order to bring back readers and visitors.

I spoke last time about sample chapters and short stories, but there are many other options.

Book trailers are fairly new in author promotion, but you may have noticed more and more appearing on your TV advertising, as well as buzzing around the social media websites. When book trailers are done well, they can create a great sense of intrigue towards a book, much like a movie trailer. They certainly shouldn’t depict the entire details of your book, but it is another avenue to visually entice readers to your work. Websites such as Youtube have a huge impact in the world today, and utilising these can portray further professionalism and interaction between author and reader.

What’s more, website visitors tend to spend 88% longer on a website that has a video on the Home page – giving you more opportunity to convince them to buy that book! Whether it’s a book trailer, an interview or a welcome message from yourself, videos are a people pleaser. Also, if you ever find yourself presenting your book at a fair, show, launch or signing, it is something to have on display. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t dream of their book being on the big screen!

Remember those words and pages you threw away or changed through that long editing process? Utilise them! Another movie related piece of enticement, would be to add deleted scenes or an alternate ending (if your book is fiction). Extra chapters can also be added if your book is non-fiction.  

Another idea is to carry on using your characters. Your existing readers may have come to your website to find more information. Whilst they’re there, amuse them with telling them what your characters have been up to since the book was finished! This works particularly well with children’s books, as does colouring sheets. Add downloadable ‘sketches’ of your cover/characters and ask your readers to colour them in with their own ideas! You could even have this as a competition.

All exclusive content should bring people back to your website. Let them feel they have stumbled upon something they won’t find anywhere else.

It wasn’t until recently that website browsing on Mobile and Tablet devices has become vital to how you should review your website. Many website builders or older websites didn’t convert to a mobile/tablet friendly system until last year (or perhaps still haven’t) so make sure your website is presentable on these devices. Some may be viewed as a ‘mobile site’ (a simplified version of your website), which is fine as long as it is presentable and still branded/targeted to your audience. Others now offer to display your website in exactly the same way as it would appear on a computer, which is ideal, as long as the content is suited to this size of screen. Much like the thumbnail image of your book cover has effected cover design (viewed as a tiny image on a book retailer website), this style of internet browsing on smaller screens has also affected website design. Elements must be clearer, bigger and even more easy to navigate.

 

Search Engine Optimism (SEO)

To some degree SEO is something your website designer will handle (if you have one). Upon building your website, they should create keywords and phrases for Google to pick up when they look through (crawl) your website for listing in their results. They should always contain the obvious, including any book titles, your genre/s and your author name, as this is most likely how people will look for you. Be cautious though, too many keywords, or unrelated words will flag your site with Google and will have an impact on where your website is listed. Your web designer should help with this, if you have one.

If you’re designing and building a website yourself, you will need to submit your website address (e.g http://www.authordesignstudio.com) to Google. There are many companies who offer to do this for you, but there is no need. You can easily do this yourself and it should take anywhere between three days and three weeks to list – depending on how busy Google is(!). Once you have done this, you can do the same with other search engines, but it is most likely that it will list automatically once on Google.

Another way for you to encourage your website to come higher in search results is links. A link to your website (wherever it may appear) is very valuable to your SEO. Ensure there is a link to your website from any social media or author profile’s you have on the internet, including any interviews you may have. Google will pick up on these and believe your website is of better interest than it perhaps initially was, therefore moving your website up the rankings on search results.

Try not to expect too much too soon. Google is a waiting game, and it pays to keep an eye on things and keep trying new ideas. Visit your website once in a while too (which you should do to check for errors anyway),but go via Google. It will pick up on your ‘hit’ and count it towards how ‘popular’ your website is.

I will go into more detail on how you can use Google in a later post.

 

Selling Your Book Online

It goes without saying really (although I have come across some before!), that your website should offer direct links to where your book is available to buy online. I hear from a lot of authors that they aren’t ‘in it for the money’ and they just love to write:- well that may be the case, but if you have published your work, and it is for sale, you need to sell it in order for people to read it! So don’t be ashamed to offer links to a few online retailers, to make it super easy for potential readers to buy the book with one click. Don’t overdo it however. Too many authors get a little excited that their book is available (rightly so!) on Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith, Book Depository as well as numerous others, but keep it to two or three links to make it clearer. You can always add ‘and all good book retailers’ if you want to make it obvious that it’s elsewhere.

Another thing I hear a lot is authors who dislike having a link to Amazon. We all know the profits (or lack of) that authors make from sales on Amazon, but it is the biggest book retailer in the world, and therefore all those readers out there have an Amazon account, making it very easy to buy books instantly. The question you may have to ask yourself is do you want to sell more at a smaller profit, or less with a bigger margin? If you only sell via small retailers or yourself directly, it’s a more long winded system for your reader to go through. That being said, it is now very easy for authors to sell editions themselves from their own website. With payment systems such as PayPal (which again a lot of people hold an account with), it’s easier than ever to offer your book for sale on your website. If this is something you do, or are interested in doing, consider offering them something else (again something exclusive) such as signed copies, to entice them away from the big retailers, and to buy direct from the author instead. 

 

Well, I think that’s probably enough for Part two. In part three, I will go into Website Statistics and how best to use these to further advance your website.

If you have any questions about this post, visit me at my website (www.authordesignstudio.com), on Twitter (www.twitter.com/@authordesigner) or at Google+ (https://plus.google.com/+Authordesignstudio). You can also email me direct at contact@authordesignstudio.com.

Thanks for reading!

The Self-Publishing Conference Overview

I had a fantastic day at the second Self Publishing Conference yesterday. My voice just about held out for the three sessions I presented! It was a fantastic day for everyone, and I met some fantastic #authors and #speakers. I’m already receiving lots of brilliant feedback, and everyone hopefully took away lots of new ideas and tips on their #websites and #bookcovers! There will be a run through of what we covered on my here very soon too.

The Self-Publishing Conference 2014 Interview

Why Authors Need A Website.

The question often arises of exactly why an author needs a website, and there are many reasons to consider. One of the most vital being because agents, publishers and most importantly readers expect you to. So what are you waiting for?! Not explanation enough? Read on…

‘I really wish every author had either a website or Twitter account. Makes me sad they won’t be interacting with readers.’  –          @readingGals

The above was genuinely taken from Twitter, written by a fairly disappointed reader. Whomever the author is that they’re referring to is making a dreadful mistake. Doesn’t it just say it all?

As an author, you are unknowingly losing out on a vast amount of opportunities (not just sales!) if you do not have a website. Readers take more and more time to research authors and their books online in today’s market, and you are losing out on valuable interaction and potential sales by not investing and embracing what is one on the worlds most effective promotional tools.

Displaying your work on other websites, such as your publisher or retailers simply isn’t good enough. The book market is extremely overcrowded and readers are more likely to be distracted by other works or adverts on the websites where more than your books are on offer. Needle. Haystack. Enough said.

Having your own website enables that important element of control, enabling you to brand your design to attract and engage the readers in your genre. It uses the same concept as a cover design, which your publisher or graphic designer has worked so hard to perfect. If the design of your cover isn’t carefully considered, you’re in danger of losing a sale to the book next door. In addition  your own website can be continuously updated, making it the centre of your promotion.

“Here’s a copy of my book, I hope you like it, but you may not. Probably not. Maybe?” – No success ever came from lacking confidence in your own work. If you portray yourself though your website as a professional, that confidence will also reflect on your work. A poorly designed website on the other hand, can immediately give a death sentence to your reader looking any further.

No successful author would forgo a website for the simple reason that they understand the importance of reaching out to their readership in whatever way they can. A website can be hugely successful and exciting to create. Whether you do it yourself or brief a designer, make it professional and ensure it’s worthy of displaying your work.

The process can be daunting to some authors too, but really, you braved the agents and publishers, dipping your toes into the publishing pool, you can do this too…