4. Impact on Marketing
Remember, this article is restricted to discussing topics only in how they relate to Author websites, so this will be a limited look at marketing.
4.1 Newsletter & the 1000 True Fans
It's true that people find your books in all sorts of ways, via all sorts of channels, some of which you can impact, and some of which are and will remain mysteries to you. There are three primary actions that are under your control:
- Make your book available on every platform you can reach in every available format
- Tell people about your book through a consistent set of social network and blog announcements (expanded occasionally by joint efforts, such as book bundles with other authors or cross-blog postings)
- Collect the names and emails of actual fans, people who have chosen to sign up for your newsletters via email
The first bullet has nothing to do with your Author website.
The second bullet audiences are mostly faceless strangers. They come and go, and your visibility to them is not really in your control. You don't control which of your Facebook followers see your announcements, or who happens to see a Twitter message go by, or who looks at a post you put up on someone else's website.
Many people have invested heavily in Facebook followers, only to discover Facebook monetizing their access to them.
Certainly you should continue with your activities for the second bullet, to the degree that you enjoy it, but they are a chancy area to place most of your attention. The third bullet is arguably the important one.
The concept of 1000 true fans drives the weight that many people give to the Author (and Publisher) website newsletters. These are people who have given you their contact information. There is a school of thought that says with 1000 true fans you can make a living as a creative person, like an author. (That may apply more to the music world than the book publishing world.)
Not everyone agrees with this. See this article and this one about the limitations of this principle for authors. Nonetheless, the effort involved in maintaining a periodic newsletter is minor (and a good discipline), and the accrual of fans that results, even if smaller than the desired level, provides at least a base for reliable purchasers of each new product as it comes out, which can only help with momentum and reviews during early post-release days.
What does this have to do with an Author website? No website, no newsletter.
4.2 Traffic
It's hard enough driving traffic to your book on retailer websites. It's a whole different job driving traffic to your Author website (in order to drive traffic to your book).
4.2.1 Passive
Passive marketing for your website comes from links to it in:
- Back matter in your books
- Email signatures
- Business cards and handouts
- Newsletters
- Links on guest blog posts
- Links in comments you make on other peoples' websites or Facebook pages (as part of your identity)
- Automated forwarding of blog content (Amazon Author pages, Goodreads Author pages, etc.)
- RSS feeds of blog posts
This is background marketing — you set it and forget it.
4.2.2 Active
Every time you create a blog post and make an effort to draw the attention of an audience to it you are actively marketing your Author website. Since blog topics can vary, you have the potential to reach a different audience each time. To the degree that the audience overlaps with the target audience for your books, that may attract new potential readers to your Author website (and thus to your books).
4.3 Blogs & Posts
So, what should you write about on the blog on your Author website?
The answer varies wildly from author to author. Some want to keep it cool, just post a few announcements from time to time, and not make a major time sink out of it.
Others want to dive deep, post three times per day, and tell you about what they ate for breakfast. Or cats — cats are popular.
There's no one-size-fits-all answer here.
4.3.1 Audience
Who is your target audience for your books? Find that out and focus on them and the goals for your website.
Is that audience interested in meaty author topics, humorous commentary, important announcements, writing insights, new project reveals, discussions of characters from existing books? They're probably not interested in daily babble — restrict that level of trivia to personal blogs elsewhere and try to keep the focus on your audience. That doesn't mean you can't be introspective and write posts full of personality — just keep in touch with what your audience wants and how it will help them get to your books.
Every blogger has to find their own personal balance between formal and informal, private and public, frequent and rare, earnest and sarcastic — just as they have to decide how much contact info to provide.
4.3.2 Social engagement on secondary platforms
There's a lot of anxiety around about being active on social network platforms, especially for those who are not otherwise engaged there. My advice is to spend as much time there as you are comfortable with, and no more. It's probably better to let new blog posts be the excuse for new announcements via platforms like Facebook and Twitter, but if organic discussions result, go with the flow. Fans can come from these worlds, too.
If you can, encourage them to follow you on the Author website directly via comment ecosystems which keep them coming back and gradually build communities.
Tie it all back to your central platform, the one you control, so you can sell more books!
Ms. Myers,
While I’m not exactly new to writing, I am just getting started seriously trying to publish – and with that, professionalize something that’s always been more of a hobby. To that end, this post was an invaluable catalyst to get me thinking about managing my image as an author.
I think I’ll especially benefit from the advice you gave about the transient nature of website platforms – I’m currently using the free wordpress.com, which, come to think of it, isn’t a great idea. (The above website is a webcomic I’ve been doing for fun).
I just wanted to say thanks.
Daniel
Glad it was helpful!
[…] A much longer version of this post, with more detailed advice and helpful explanations, can be read … […]
Karen. I read the shorter version on ALLi, came here for the rest. Best article I read to date on Author websites. Will be sharing with friends.
Thanks, Shawn. I was all prepared to pontificate to a friend on this topic and thought, why not make a monster article about it instead?
Karen — I also came via the ALLi site and think this is one of the best articles I’ve read on author websites. Thank you — you have given me some food for thought! 🙂
Colleen
You have a lot of books out; I have one – and the next two books in the trilogy will easily consume the next two-four years of my writing life.
I’m overwhelmed by these pages – nodding my head, but not seeing how to get there from where I am.
I need the absolute minimum of what you have – so I’ll be thinking what I can add or rearrange for now.
It is obvious you know what you’re doing – so many people don’t. Time! Can’t but more of it – waste so much due to illness. Not even procrastination. That’s the sad part.
No one goes from zero to sixty in a single website creation — it’s just too much, unless you do website design for a living, and even then you have to convince your customer that you know what you’re doing (if the customer isn’t yourself).
Instead, the first website takes care of a lot of the basics. Then, as soon as it’s done, you start to understand a lot better what it doesn’t do (yet) that you wish it did. You have to go through these iterative steps to understand what you need to do to it next — there’s really no shortcut.
Hi Karen,
I found your article via a blurb at the end of a different article at selfpublishingadvice.org. I am enjoying browsing your posts and learning a great deal – thank you so much. I wonder if you would mind divulging your web hosting company? A dozen domains with hosting for under $100/year is a great deal! I’ve recently switched to the free hosting at wordpress.com because of cost. But you have me re-thinking that move. Thanks again for all you’ve done here.
Hi, Liam,
I use a company called Hostica.com, and in particular their package “SimplePlus” which I’ve used for several years which covers, as I recall, 10 hosted sites. I have more domain names (parked or redirecting) and a couple additional hosted sites which I pay for individually.
The last time I did the reconciliation, in 2015, the domains cost what domains typically do (circa $9-$13/year), and the hosting cost $60 for the 10 hosted sites, and $7-9/annually for the additional ones, each.
Now I have very simple hosting requirements — basic HTML, WordPress, a few mailboxes (all of which forward rather than store), etc. All of my sites are on shared IPs (I’m not high volume). If you enabled all possible bells & whistles, might cost more.
Don’t know how grandfathered I am — the plans being offered now might be a bit more expensive. But I’ve had a very good many years with Hostica, good support both for emergencies and ordinary things, and excellent availability. I do recommend them.
Wow, Hostica looks fantastic. I’m currently paying close to the SimplePlus plan to host one bare-bones site. My needs are very similar to yours. I was about to sign up for the SimplePlus plan, but I noticed they have an affiliate program – I will happily sign up through you Karen if you’d like. https://www.hostica.com/pap/affiliates/index.php
Thanks very much, Liam — I had no idea Hostica had an affiliate program.
I’ve signed up for the affiliate membership. They tell me there’s an approval step to go through. (“You have been successfully signed up. We review every application manually, and your registration is waiting for manual approval. Please, be patient. After confirming your registration, you will receive one more email from affiliates@hostica.com with all the necessary information including your password which can be changed once you sign in. “)
So, if you can wait a day or two, I’ll contact you with that information, by email (and if you can’t wait, I’ll understand.) 🙂
You can reach me via email at KarenMyers@HollowLands.com, and I’ll reply to you that way.
And here’s my Hostica affiliate code if anyone else should feel so moved. 🙂
http://www.hostica.com/ref/KarenMyers.html
Very helpful. Thank you! I’ve had too many websites over the years (some abandoned owing to long-term ill-health; others ‘cos they went hopelessly wrong, beyond my ability to do anything but scream ‘Arghhh!’; two went belly-up because 1) My website designer became uncontactable, and 2) ‘cos they took my money and left town). I’ve now got a self -hosted WordPress website (with Hostgator-though yours sounds Mmm). I will now attempt to follow your excellent suggestions. Fingers crossed!
Glad to give you something to think about.
Since this article was written, I’ve settled on a 3-part website structure:
1) Publisher (https://PerkunasPress.com). Info directed at wholesale & business contacts. I now have new imprints for publishing I do for others (e.g., https://BehindTheRanges.com) which are “children” of the Perkunas Press organization.
2) Author (https://KarenMyersAuthor.com). Info for my readers, where I send advertising/newsletters, etc. Limited blog. All my public branding focus for readers is here.
3) Writing colleagues (https://HollowLands.com). A website of articles about writing & publishing, a small blog, and book info, for my colleagues in the business.
The book pages on all 3 sites are functionally identical.
If it helps, I’ve been using Hostica since that discussion above from 2017. Their user interface can be a little daunting, but the one or two times I’ve contacted them, support has been great. I have nothing to complain about and the price is still very right 🙂