Top Three Mistakes Rookie Authors Make in Marketing Books on Their Web Site

By Steve Weber

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 it's fine with the buyer. 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 more options.

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!

See Steve Weber's Self-Publishing blog.

Read more free articles on selling used books profitably online.

Steve Weber is author of "The Home-Based Bookstore: Start Your Own Business Selling Used Books on Amazon, eBay or Your Own Web Site" (ISBN 0977240606). For more information about selling books, go to: http://www.weberbooks.com/selling/selling.htm

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