Top three mistakes rookie authors make in marketing books on their Web site
Today every author knows they must have a Web site to help sell their book. But most new authors make three dumb mistakes while trying to market their book on their site.
Insisting the customer buy on your Web site.
Most authors try to sell directly to the buyer on their Web site, figuring they will reap the full list price of the book. That's fine -- IF that's how the buyer wants to purchase the book. But most would rather buy from an online store they've heard of, not an individual. So if you want to sell your book effectively, offer as many options as possible.
How? Offer an affiliate link to your book's product page on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you're a self-publishing author and set a short discount (say 25 percent), you can earn the same money by letting Amazon sell your book, plus you don't have to fill the orders.
You can reap some additional rewards through affiliate sales. I earn about $15 a day in additional Amazon affiliate commissions from folks who followed my site's affiliate link to Amazon and decided to purchase additional items in the
same order. So in those cases, I earn a lot more money than I would have earned by selling the book on my own Web site, plus I don't have to handle the customer.
Static Web sites.
Unchanging Web sites are another boneheaded practice employed by most authors. I've had a lot of success
promoting my book through my blog, and it's easier than maintaining a regular site of static pages. (It's also easier than trying to sell books using Google Adwords, and cheaper.)
Offering no content.
Authors can improve their Internet marketing efforts tremendously simply by adding a bit of free content. Offer your first chapter, table of contents, and index in a free PDF that visitors can download from your site. It's a no-brainer -- if you're trying to sell a book outside a brick-and-mortar bookstore, the buyer has to have a sense of what they're buying. I know I get a tremendous amount of buzz and sales from that (I offer my first three chapters).
Many authors are leery of offering a free PDF of their first chapter online. "My goodness," they say, "What would happen if people forwarded the chapter all over the place?"
What would happen is that you'd get a bazillion dollars' worth of free advertising, and the sales of your book would get a serious shot in the arm!
Insisting the customer buy on your Web site.
Most authors try to sell directly to the buyer on their Web site, figuring they will reap the full list price of the book. That's fine -- IF that's how the buyer wants to purchase the book. But most would rather buy from an online store they've heard of, not an individual. So if you want to sell your book effectively, offer as many options as possible.
How? Offer an affiliate link to your book's product page on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. If you're a self-publishing author and set a short discount (say 25 percent), you can earn the same money by letting Amazon sell your book, plus you don't have to fill the orders.
You can reap some additional rewards through affiliate sales. I earn about $15 a day in additional Amazon affiliate commissions from folks who followed my site's affiliate link to Amazon and decided to purchase additional items in the
same order. So in those cases, I earn a lot more money than I would have earned by selling the book on my own Web site, plus I don't have to handle the customer.
Static Web sites.
Unchanging Web sites are another boneheaded practice employed by most authors. I've had a lot of success
promoting my book through my blog, and it's easier than maintaining a regular site of static pages. (It's also easier than trying to sell books using Google Adwords, and cheaper.)
Offering no content.
Authors can improve their Internet marketing efforts tremendously simply by adding a bit of free content. Offer your first chapter, table of contents, and index in a free PDF that visitors can download from your site. It's a no-brainer -- if you're trying to sell a book outside a brick-and-mortar bookstore, the buyer has to have a sense of what they're buying. I know I get a tremendous amount of buzz and sales from that (I offer my first three chapters).
Many authors are leery of offering a free PDF of their first chapter online. "My goodness," they say, "What would happen if people forwarded the chapter all over the place?"
What would happen is that you'd get a bazillion dollars' worth of free advertising, and the sales of your book would get a serious shot in the arm!
posted by Steve Weber at 3/07/2006
4 comments
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4 Comments:
You mentioned in your post to set a short discount, 25%. I have searched Amazon's page, and the only thing I can find is they get 55%. We have published out first book, Elder Affairs Silenced, and did not price it high enough to be able to offer a 55% discount and pay to ship it to Amazon.
The book is available in several independent bookstores and shops in Florida, Georgia, and Illinois, and on our Website.
I would love some feedback on my Website, http://elliotfiction.com and any suggestions you might have.
I think you're referring to the Amazon Advantage program, where the publisher ships books to Amazon.com, Amazon fills the orders, and the non-negotiable discount is 55 percent. I don't participate in the Advantage program. I published my book through Lightning Source/Ingram and set the discount at 25 percent. The retail price I set was $19.95, therefore the wholesale price is $14.96. The way it works is that when Amazon (or any other retailer) takes an order for my book, they pay Lightning Source, then LS pays me $14.96 minus the printing fee, about $3.40 for a trade paperback. LS is the POD subsidiary of Ingram.
I took a look at your site and was quite impressed with the clean, uncluttered layout. I like the big display of your cover art and the blue theme. You've got everything an author Web site needs, with the exception of affiliate links to Amazon or Barnes & Noble (to sell to people who don't like Paypal or just aren't comfortable buying outside a name-brand store).
And assuming your book was available for $9.95 on Amazon, I'd understand why you wouldn't want to push people there and give up 55 percent through the Advantage program. It doesn't give you much of an incentive to send the customer to them if you've made the sale on your site. This is why many self-publishers have begun referring in jest to Amazon's Advantage program as the "Dis-Advantage Program."
I'm not sure if you published with your own ISBN or went through a POD subsidy press such as Lulu, etc. If you did, that may limit your options on setting retail and discount pricing. Perhaps you could revisit your price, raising it to $12.99 or $14.99. The great thing about having your own book is you can try different things like that, whereas if you'd gone through a regular publishing house your book would only have a few months to prove itself. But if you're the publisher, it's not over until you say it's over -- you can promote your book successfully for years.
We did publish using our own ISBN number and I have 5,000 copies with $9.95 on the back and in the bar code. We used Victor Graphics in Baltimore, MD, and they did a great job printing. It is 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 and 432 pages.
We paid right at $2.00 per copy, including shipping them to Florida. Even at that, I can't afford to give Amazon or another distributor 55%, and pay to ship them to them.
I do know one author who published a very small Children's book and had it priced at $4.95. She has ordered stickers to change the price and is going to sell it on Amazon for $9.95. Do you know if you have to use a new ISBN number for change the price?
Restickering is definitely an option. A new ISBN isn't required. But my understanding is that most distributors, wholesalers, bookstores ask for 60 or 90 days' notice on a price change. You have to give everybody time to update their catalog info I guess.
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