We've talked in the blog before about how the major difference between those who sell two copies of a book and those who sell two million copies of a book is that the person who sells two million copies has a perceived relationship with more people. Even if that person has never met his or her two million fans, the fans feel like they are familiar with the person and nothing sells more than familiarity.
To read that blog post, go here:
http://www.makemoneywriting21.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-some-authors-sell-2-copies-of-their.html
In the 21st century, there are more ways than ever before to let your potential readers get to know a little bit about you. Social networking and website design tools make it very possible to put your own creative spin on a website, blog, or profile. And it also brings an interesting twists to the things people consider when deciding to make purchases.
For a long time people expected a certain level of pure professionalism--no goofing around, no sense of creative self, just a product and a proposal and a price. And then the customer or potential buyer made their decision. It was simple, it was direct, it was business as usual...and it was boring. It became so boring that in recent years the average customer/buyer/reader has been trained to ignore all sorts of advertisements that companies pay thousands and millions of dollars for. While maintaining professional standards is more important than ever--the customers, the readers, the people want more. They want to know the who behind the people who are doing things. They want to know what drives a person, what motivates them and how they can relate to them. This is why DVDs are often loaded with behind the scenes specials and extras. This is why since Game Of Thrones became big on HBO interviews of George R.R. Martin have been surfacing everywhere. And this is a great opportunity for authors writing in the 21st century.
Author Commentary: Sometimes what an author has to say about his or her own work can be just as interesting to a potential reader as the work itself. Sharing a little bit about what motivated the author to write the material and what the author was trying to do can be the insight readers need to want to find out more about the work.
Personal Q and A's: I would stress this as being different from interviews because the questions would come from the readers rather than a commentator, magazine or host. Readers love these because they feel very connected to the author--after all, the author is taking time out of their day to answer questions from the readers and if you happen to answer a question from a particular reader odds are that reader will be a fan for life.
Interviews: A more rigid questions and answers where the person doing the questioning is a host, another author, a publisher or even the author themselves who put forth questions that they chose to answer.
And in the 21st century, there are more means than ever at our disposal to show that personal touch and get our readers to know us:
YouTube: Youtube and other video websites allow us to post our own videos without permission from anyone. Why not take advantage of this to the fullest extent possible? Video interviews go over quite well.
Audio Files: Some authors aren't comfortable on video. That's fine, because podcasts, radio segments and audio interviews with the author's voice answering questions and talking to the reader can be almost if not quite as powerful. They take less time than videos and can still show readers how much you care about them.
Pictures: This works particularly well if you have live events for your work. Potential readers online love to see pictures of author readings/book signings, and even the author hard at work. Text on a wall is boring, pictures say thousands of works.
Of course the benefit to all these methods is that they help the author greatly in handling the job of connecting to their audience while leaving the author with time to do their writing. After all, if an author has to spend 24/7 connecting with people it becomes exhausting and they will never have time to actually be an author and give the fans the material they love. The great thing about utilizing all these means in the 21st century is that you do the work once, and they do the work for you indefinitely.
This would seem like an obvious statement--that a website would be essential to an author's campaign to get their work noticed and ultimately purchased. But you would be surprised at the percent of authors who maintain almost no online presence at all. The truth of the matter is that in the 21st century--even brick and mortar retail businesses need to have a website in order to stay competitive. For entrepreneurs--which is essentially what start-up authors aiming to sell their writing are, websites are essential to their success.
The most common responses I get to this statement from authors who have yet to have a major web presence in the form of a website is something akin to this:
"Isn't it enough to have my book on the lulu marketplace store, or amazon.com?"
"I post about my writing on facebook, isn't that enough?"
"I'm active on a forum and have a link to buy my book in my signature when I post, wouldn't that work?"
While all of these practices might help to increase awareness, a blurb, mention or article promoting something--even something of extreme value and worth, is rarely enough to hold attention these days if there isn't somewhere else to refer the readers to. Part of the procedure of building up a relationship with the readers like I discussed in the previous post:
http://makemoneywriting21.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-some-authors-sell-2-copies-of-their.html
is to have enough content for your readers to get an idea of what your project, book, blog, newsletter, posts and writing in general is all about. A website of some kind is the best and most efficient way to do this for several reasons. First and foremost, when people consider the idea of making any kind of purchase--and we are assuming here that you are aiming to make a little money off of your writing, they often want to find out more about it and it is very hard to sell anything to anyone if they can't do further research about it online.
Something that keeps a lot of authors away from putting up websites is the illusion of the complexity required for web building. The truth of the matter is it is easier than ever to put up a a website. Blogs that function almost as well as websites are literally a dime a dozen and can usually be gotten for free. A fully functioning website can be put up for free as well--and going one step further to buy a domain name is very cheap. And with the ease of building that most of the leading websites now allow--you don't need to be fluent in any kind of coding or HTML for what you really need to put up the website. (If you need bits of HTML most things you need for widgets and buttons come pre-made and there are forums where you can post what you need in HTML and people online will provide it for you for free.)
Remember this simple motto for the 21st century: you can find a way to do ANYTHING on the internet. Don't let fear of the unknown hold you back from researching and pushing forward because a website is absolutley essential to author success in 99% of cases in the times we live in.
One you have a website up that has your writing on it, driving traffic to your writing becomes increasingly easy. The website serves as your online headquarters and you want to get as many people there as you possibly can. The more traffic you get, the more readers you aquire, the more readers you aquire, the better the chance of you selling your products, newsletters, subscriptions, and other products that have to do with your writing.
You can use the common approach of business cards to get people to your website as you meet them in person. (For a way to get your hands on some free business cards see my post on it here: http://makemoneywriting21.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-sneaky-way-to-sell-few-more-of-your.html ) And once the website is up, post it in your email signature, in your signature on forums you to go, on any social networks you are a part of and in your bios for any publications you achieve at magazines or anywhere with a readership. As long as your content is genuine, catchy and consistent, you should start to see the traffic flow, your readership growing and the beginnings of a steady place for you to begin to kick off your projects and products from.
Some resources below for websites or blogs:
www.weebly.com
www.wordpress.com
www.godaddy.com
www.inmotionhosting.com
www.blogger.com
