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Promotion Pyramid

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Your Author Website: Build a Strong Foundation

What is the main goal of your author website? It should be to connect with readers and build a relationship where they grow to know, like, and trust you.

Before we get into the strategy of your website, remember you don’t have to do this alone. If the technology overwhelms you, consider outsourcing this part. Hire someone, find a volunteer, or barter services with another author. Don’t skip this part just because it feels overwhelming. Find a way to accomplish your goals.

Domain name • Have your own URL vs. a free one

• Have an e-mail address from your URL vs. a free one

• Much more professional than free. It is a solid foundation where you can continue to grow.

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!Where will your website live?

• I recommend WordPress self-hosted websites. Many authors outgrow free platforms like Blogger and then it is not easy to change later on. Plus, there are issues with WordPress.com (deleting sites for breaking terms of service, offensive ads, etc.)

• Website hosting – I recommend Bluehost. Once your site grows consider getting a virtual private server (VPS). That’s what I have now and use Servint.

• Have your website and blog hosted on the same URL to avoid confusion and to keep things simple.

• I use and recommend StudioPress themes for your site. For ShelleyHitz.com, I am using Michael Hyatt’s “Get Noticed” theme.

• If you need technical help with your website, I recommend WPcurve.

What pages should you include? You want to ask yourself this question, “What is the main purpose of each page?” For example: signing up for your newsletter, buying your book, reading your bio, etc. You want it to be as simple as possible because a confused mind says “no”.

You can include static pages which are your information pages as well as blog posts. Not every author needs to blog, so don’t start a blog unless it fits well in your overall marketing strategy.

The first 6 pages listed below are what I would consider essential and the last four are optional.

1. Homepage

2. About

3. Book pages – You can use My Book Table Plugin – to add your books to your WordPress self-hosted website. See how I did this here: http://shelleyhitz.com/bookshelf

4. Contact – make sure to include a contact form

5. E-mail list signup page – Offer an ethical bribe in exchange for their e-mail address. This should be your #1 goal when visitors come to your website. I will cover this extensively in book #3 in this series.

6. Disclaimer/Legal – you can see what I include on my legal page here.

7. Resources – Apart from your about page, your resources page will be one of your highest visited pages on your website.

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!8. Blog – a landing page for your blog posts (also sign up for gravatar)

9. Events – speaking events, etc.

10. Media page – links to press releases/interviews, links to download a media package (headshot, bio, etc.) etc.

What content should you include? • Make it about your reader, not about you.

• Add tons of value.

• Use a call to action on every page.

What should you include in your sidebar? • E-mail list sign up

• Featured book

• Links to popular blog posts

• Progress on your next book – here’s a cool tool you can use.

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Email Marketing for Authors

Email marketing for authors is a powerful way to promote your book. However, many authors are not taking advantage of it.

A few years ago, I discovered TrafficWave for email marketing. It is a lesser known company, but offers unlimited subscribers for one flat fee of $17.95. This is attractive to me because many of my lists are ministry lists where I give away free resources, but am not making money to cover my costs. For most email providers like GetResponse, Aweber, and MailChimp; your costs increase as your subscribers increase.

TrafficWave has the basics of what I need for most of my lists:

• Ability to send broadcast email messages.

• Ability to scheduled autoresponder messages.

However, for my lists for authors, I am using GetResponse with LeadPages so I can have access to more features.

How to Get Started with Email Marketing There is a detailed tutorial on my site TrainingAuthors.com on TrafficWave vs. Aweber and why we originally switched years ago. You can check it out here: www.trainingauthors.com/aweber-vs-trafficwave

Resources: GetResponse – one of the most affordable services for all the features you get. This is what I’m using for this site. They also have really great support.

Aweber – one of the most popular services. I have used Aweber in the past and love their support.

TrafficWave – the most inexpensive over the long term. You pay $17.95/month no matter how big your lists get. I still use TrafficWave on most of my sites.

MailChimp – they have an option to get started for free. However, you do not have access to autoresponders with the free service.

LeadPages – a great service to help you get more subscribers.

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Social Media for Authors

Confused about social media for authors? In our digital world, it is essential for authors to have a social media presence. However, you do not need to do it all. It is very easy to get overwhelmed when you think about social media marketing. Don’t. I recommend starting with 2-3 social media platforms where your audience hangs out.

Then, spend most of your time on one of the platforms. Don’t try to spread yourself too thin. It’s better to have huge impact on one site than to have a small influence on a bunch of social media sites. I personally spend most of my time on Facebook.

Create posts appropriate for each social media platform. Realize each social media site has a different culture. Just like a parent will treat each child differently in a family as they each have different personalities, we need to treat each of the social media platforms differently in our strategy too.

Follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of your posts should be social and only 20% related to your books, products, and services. Try to avoid too much “horn-tooting.”

A Few Tips on Social Media for Authors • Make sure to fill out your bios on all your social media profiles to include information about

you and a link to your website, preferably your e-mail list where you offer a free gift when they sign up.

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!• Think about branding. For branding purposes, it is best to use the same headshot across all

social media platforms.

• Limit your time. Set a timer. Seriously, just do it!

• Don’t let it take over your life. Set boundaries.

Four General Considerations 1. Consistency is key when it comes to social media.

2. Let your personality shine.

3. Engage and interact with your audience.

4. Change your mindset about marketing – instead of seeing it as self-centered and pushy, see it as helping your target audience.

17 Ideas of What to Post on Social Media 1. Ask an engaging question.

2. Get feedback on book covers.

3. Post about a sale, coupon, or a giveaway.

4. Share a snippet from a review (don’t overdo).

5. Share other people’s quality content (i.e. retweet on Twitter, share on Facebook/G+).

6. Share a free excerpt.

7. Share about a significant milestone in your career as an author.

8. Congratulate others on their accomplishments.

9. Share about an informative blog post you have written.

10. Post an announcement.

11. Reveal something personal. This humanizes you and makes you real.

12. Share a video related to your niche (one you create or one someone else has created)

13. Create a “pick your favorite” post.

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!14. Share a resource.

15. Share an inspirational quote.

16. “Caption This”

17. Answer your reader’s questions. This can be done via text, audio, video, etc.

Success leaves clues. Watch how other successful authors in your genre interact and engage with their fans.

What NOT to Post When Marketing Your Book 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid Have you heard of the popular TV show, “What Not to Wear”? Well, I am not going to cover fashion, but instead I will be focusing on what NOT to post when marketing your book on social media. The idea for this post came while I was on Facebook one day.

I am in a lot of Facebook groups for networking and marketing purposes and I see the craziest things posted within these groups. Unfortunately, many authors are pushing, pushing, pushing their books on social media instead of engaging their readers and pulling them in.

I have compiled 8 of the most common mistakes I see authors making when marketing their books on social media below:

#1:  “Buy My Book” “Buy my book” is a phrase you want to avoid using very often, if at all, in your social media marketing efforts.

However, this phrase can be used as a call to action on your website when you list your books on your book page. You do have a book page on your website, right? If you don’t, I highly recommend that you add one to make it easy for your visitors to find out more about your books.

Here are a few examples of phrases you can use on your book page:

“Get Your Copy Here”

Get it Now”

“Buy Here.”

But remember that on social media you want to besocialand engage your readers instead of simply trying to get a sale. The goal of marketing is to build a relationship with your readers so they grow to know, like and trust you. If you are constantly asking them to buy something, they will most likely tune you out.

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#2:  “You Will Love My Book” I saw a Facebook post in one of my groups that started with this phrase… “I am sure you will love my book…”

Really? How do you know? Many of these groups are general groups and so the people reading your post may not be interested in your book’s genre or topic.

In addition, telling someone theywilllove your bookfeels pushy and manipulative.

#3:  “I Hope You’ll Read Mine Book” Here is another actual post I saw in a Facebook group… “I hope you’ll read mine book.”

Is anyone else cringing right now?

Granted, I sometimes post typos as well and understand that no one is perfect. However, I do encourage you to take a moment to proofread your posts to avoid critical mistakes like this one.

Honestly, would you want to read this author’s book? I know I would not. I can just imagine a book filled with errors and typos, that is, unless they have an excellent editor. But, you get my point.

#4:  The Lonely Link Something else I recommend when marketing your book on social media is to avoid posting a lonely link without any introductory text. Even though there is usually a preview with a title and description that automatically comes up, you still want to personalize the link you are sharing.

Otherwise, to me, it screams laziness because the author didn’t even take time to write a couple of sentences about why they are sharing this link with me.

Don’t make this mistake. Take a few moments to introduce and personalize any links that you share on social media.

• Here are a few questions to consider before posting a link:

• Why should this audience visit your blog post?

• What benefit is in it for them?

• What is your purpose in sharing this link with this particular audience?

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!#5:  Copying and Pasting a Tweet onto Other Platforms Avoid posting your tweets formatted specifically for Twitter on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. I can spot a tweet when I see one. It usually has a bunch of hashtags, a shortened link and often times has a twitter @ reply within it. For a Facebook super-user like myself, it is a major turn off to see these “tweets” posted within Facebook and I often ignore them.

When on Facebook, post for Facebook. What do I mean by this? Take a moment to remove the @replies and most of the hashtags. I also recommend not using shortened links like bit.ly or ow.ly as some Facebook users may be hesitant to click on them.

#6:  Posting Multiple URL’s As I was scrolling through my Facebook groups today, I saw several posts that listed multiple links to their books for each country’s Amazon store. However, instead of listing every single Amazon store URL in your post, I encourage you to create a smart URL that redirects to the appropriate country based on where the person is using the internet. You can use a free resource called SmartURL to create this link here: http://manage.smarturl.it/

For example, put your main Amazon link first. Then, simply add the additional countries and their corresponding Amazon URL’s when you create the link.

Just know that the free version of SmartURL may change your affiliate links into theirs. A paid version where you can keep your own affiliate links is coming soon per their website FAQ’s.

#7:  Using All Caps I assume that most authors know by now that typing in ALL CAPS is similar to screaming at someone in person. However, I keep seeing posts that are written entirely in all caps. WHO WANTS TO BE SCREAMED AT BY AN AUTHOR? Not me!

If you want to emphasize certain words with all caps, go for it. But, please avoid typing your entire post in all caps. Please.

#8:  Repetitive Posts There are certain authors that post the same things about their books over and over and over on social media. Every week I will see certain authors posting similar posts with a similar blurb about their books in the same groups.

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!Granted, repetition is good in marketing. They say it takes the average consumer seeing something seven times before they buy. However, please avoid posting the exact same thing over and over. This will turn your prospective readers away in a hurry. Plus it says that you are not creative enough to think of something new to say.

Let’s Get Creative Instead of blending in with all the other authors online, I encourage you to take time to be creative with your posts. Pay attention to which posts get the most likes and comments. Most likely it will be a post that is social in nature and engages the reader in some way. Not only is it rewarding to engage your readers, but you will also get a better return for investment of your time in the long run.

For more information on building an author platform for long-term success, see my book, “9 Strategies to Build and Grow Your Author Platform” here: http://www.shelleyhitz.com/books/author-platform/

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