The opportunities of the Internet
Thanks to e-commerce, it has become possible for authors to sell and market their books without the backing of major retailers and celebrities. It helps authors maximize the potentials of the Internet in reaching potential readers, thus eliminating the disadvantages that new, struggling, and self-published authors usually experience with book marketing and promotion. If they can’t square off against established and popular authors through traditional means, all they need to do is to take their fight and struggles to the World Wide Web, where potential readers await their prose and poetry.
Author websites: a must
That is, provided they or anyone else does their e-commerce website well. Potential readers scour the Internet for great new reads, and chances are high that they’re looking for titles like yours. But chances do you have if your book(s) get lost in the pile of other books in Amazon and Barnes and Noble? Your author website will either make or break whatever remaining chance you do have.

Your author website needs not to be sophisticated with all the cool features and lots of pages and images. It has to be:

  • Properly designed
  • User-friendly
  • Highly customized
  • With well-written copy and high definition images

What’s your e-commerce website for? It is to sell your book(s), to entice potential readers with a teaser of your story or poetry, to excite them with a story or poem that has never been written or express before. Moreover, it is to provide potential readers an easy way to connect with you and purchase your book(s).

Many independent book marketing firms offer authors not only fully-loaded websites at competitive rates but also the opportunity to customize their web pages. Authors provide not only content to web designers and developers, but also directions on how they want their e-commerce website done. While the experts are bound to apply the author’s vision onto the website, they could also suggest best and effective practices.

Authors would also want to employ the expertise of digital marketing specialists to make their website (and books) visible online. Of course, basic website packages come with social media choices and a blog post ready. Author websites are connected to their social accounts, further increasing their online visibility through link building as authors can leverage social media for search engine optimization or SEO (which we will discuss in future articles).

You could write your own blog post for your author website or else contract your book marketing firm to create one for you. The topic for your blog post will be taken from your book. Topics will be based on your book’s overall theme(s), events, or any general or specific topics. You will want your blog post to truly reflect your idea and motivation for your book, right?

In this digital age, authors have all the opportunities to share their gift of storytelling or poetry to potential readers all over the world. The Internet helps author easily and immediately find the audience they want to entertain.