Romance Novels by Karlene Cameron

As a romantic sci-fi author, it’s easy to escape into the world of my characters night after night.

But Dark Awakening isn’t going to sell itself.

Lucky for me, I’m also a marketer who understands the importance of selling and promoting a book.

Having a website is critical to that process.

While clearly the digital revolution  has almost certainly taken over, this is a definite advantage for many independent and published authors alike who now find they have more control over the marketing of their book. No more do we have to rely on publishers and bookstores to promote our books. We can become a more active participant in the marketing function—and in many cases, without much upfront investment.

While there’s no doubt the Internet provides us with access to unlimited information, social communities, and endless eCommerce opportunities, it has also become the primary ground for marketing. Whether you’re soliciting donations, growing your business or starting a movement, every endeavor relies on proper marketing.

Even selling sci-fi romance novels.

So whether you’re working on a new fiction story, non-fiction, or even a romantic sci-fi novel, an author website provides you with the chance to reach your audience in a way that no other form of communication can.

Here are 3 reasons why every author needs a website.

Engage with and reach readers

The most important thing for any author is audience. Without readers, your success is nearly impossible to achieve. An author website allows your readers to communicate their feedback, share reviews, ask questions and join others in community.  Your author website also gives you a chance to better understand the likes and dislikes of your loyal readers — all with a goal to produce content that will resonate and satisfy.

If you’re creating content that resonates, and regularly publishing that content, your readership will grow. And, with a larger following and exposure to your book, your sales will likely increase as well.

After all, as we say in marketing, it’s a numbers game. The more people who see your book, the larger your potential  audience becomes.

Immense Marketing Potential

Sure, the main intention behind every book is to share your story (and quite likely to immortalize yourself!). But first, you have to actually attract that reader. Every published title requires proper marketing if it is to sell well. Building book and author awareness is just as important for the writer as brand-building campaigns are for every other type of enterprise. And, if you want to catch the full potential of current technologies, having a website is going to be the cornerstone of your endeavors.

The beauty of an author website is that it gives you not only a platform to reach your readers, but also provides you with early visibility into how well your marketing efforts are doing. Long before you get your first royalty check, you will have a good idea how much traffic you’ve been driving and the types of content that is resonating with your audience.

Your author website will be the underpinning of many types of marketing endeavors: from email list building, to blog posts in social media, and everything in between, your author website will be the hub with which you will connect a plethora of marketing spokes.

Be sure to invest the time needed to properly establish your hub.

Publishing Platform

Not only will you be able to reach your readers and have a central point for your marketing efforts, but having a professional website is going to provide you with your own publishing platform. Whether your an independent author looking to maximize and better track your profits, or you work with a publishing house, a website will help you build credibility, track your efforts and publish additional content. You can also let your fans and readers know about recent publications, future ones, when to expect your new work and upcoming author events.

Social efforts are also more effective (and certainly more trackable) when you have a place where you can land interested readers. And, if you’ve optimized your site for search, your website will assist you in reputation building as your site becomes highly ranked for content your readers find important.

You don’t need to be a webmaster to manage a website

While there are many tools on the market to assist new authors with creating a website, you may want to take into account your own skills, time and budget when deciding how to get started. Simply getting a website built is the first step and while there are lots of tools on the market to assist with this, the more important—and I’m not going to lie, difficult— work comes through optimization of that site.

If you lack the skills to design, manage or optimize a website, consider hiring someone to do the heavy lifting.

An author’s website is absolutely mandatory if you are to be successful and reach new readers. What is your preferred author platform? What other forms of marketing do you use to promote your book?

Drop me a line below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.