Online Book Marketing: How to Market Your Book Even If You Are Not a Salesperson

Online Book Marketing: How to Market Your Book Even If

You Are Not a Salesperson

(c) 2005 Jeremy M. Hoover http://jhooverwebcopy.com/bookmarketing.htm



What you do after you have written your book is as

much, if not more, important than the actual writing

of it. You can take a great book and poor marketing

and have very poor results. Conversely, I believe you

can take a mediocre book, market it well, and make

very good sales from it. The only limiting factor is

you. You probably think, "I'm a writer, not a

salesperson." That's true, but there are some very

simple things you can do to create a website that

sells your book.



1. Create a direct-response sales page for your book.



This doesn't need to be an extra site, your home page,

or anything extravagant. Devote your home page to

information about you or your most recent work and a subscription form for a newsletter for your fans.

Create a secondary page, linked to from your home

page, that sells your book. But instead of simply

stating a few sentences about your book, either put up

a full book review or a direct-response sales letter.

Either way, at the end of the review or the letter,

you must ask your readers to buy your book. Put a

direct order link at the bottom of your page. Simply

asking for your readers to buy your book will increase

your sales.



2. Create a "fan list" you can send messages to.



On your home page, and on every page of your website,

create a newsletter subscription form for your readers

to join. You don't need to send something out every

day, or even every week. Once a month, send out a new

"flash fiction" or microfiction story, or a new essay.

Keep in touch with your readers. Send out a special

notice of a discount for your subscribers. But in

each communication with them, provide a link back to

your sales page and ask them to buy. Don't worry…they subscribed because they like your work and are open to buying it!



3. Write some articles or short stories and give them

away.



You can give these away from your website as a gift

for joining your newsletter group, or you can give

them away from other people's sites as a way to get

more awareness of your work. Do a search for "article

sites" and you'll find many sites you can submit your

work to. These are great for two reasons—1) More

people will be exposed to your writing (which means

more potential buyers); and 2) Others may take your

article or story and run it in their newsletter,

giving you even more exposure. Writing and

distributing articles or stories is a great way to

build traffic to your site and confidence in your

writing.



Follow these three steps and you'll notice an increase

in sales of your books.



If you have any questions about this article, please

email me at jeremyhoover@gmail.com.



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Go to Jeremy's site -- http://jhooverwebcopy.com/bookmarketing.htm -- to see how he can help you market your books online.