Category: Marketing

Notice I didn’t title this “Book Website.” That’s because many of today’s popular authors are putting out so many books that it makes sense to only have an author website that contains all their books. Readers are used to this, so it’s good to go with the flow on this.

Your website name (domain name) must be your author name. So Jimmy Joe Schmidt’s site would be www.jimmyjoeschmidt.com.

Put a picture of your book(s) on the home page (very first page a visitor sees). Then you can add other pages or scrolling that includes the following:

• Pictures from or associate with your book (make sure it is a picture you took or is in Creative Commons)
• Creatively formatted description
• Good reviews from Amazon or Good Reads
• Blog
• Links to buy your book (Amazon, iTunes, etc.)

Just like Facebook, this is more free advertising!

Simply do a search on how to setup an author page in GoodReads.

Ask your friends to add your book to lists in GoodReads.

Although Amazon owns GoodReads, the reviews are not yet shared between the two platforms.

Doing a Google search for a popular author and one of their books will result in a separate box from the normal search results that shows:

• cover
• description
• excerpt
• links to buy (all but Amazon)
• link to Google Search of author
• search box for borrowing from libraries

This is great information to see from a simple Google search. It is accomplished through the Google Books Partner Program. Getting your book included in Google Books might not be easy. You might come across broken links or a long approval process. It might take months, but I encourage you to persevere.

Google Books requires you to upload a digital version of your book. Once approved, a Google search of your name and book title will show a separate box containing the information listed above. It will also be available for sale from Google Books.