The Setup:
I have a book coming out in about six months. I won’t mention it here, but I am getting ready to begin promoting it. Rather than promoting the book directly, I am attempting to attract users to my personal website and go from there. My “grab” factor is my content: funny-but-true stories that are excerpts from my various projects (you can find them/bash my writing in my signature link). Using word-of mouth, I have built the site from 5-10 visitors a day to about 300, with (according to google analytics) a great deal of repeat visits and a long (10+ minutes) time on site. The point being, once people come, they’re there.
the Problem:
Word of mouth is a slow process. I’m sure if I could get 10,000 people to visit, a significant fraction would stick around, and I’d love to go to a publisher for another bok with a potential audience already in hand.
The Question:
How do I get more people to visit? What online venues have other STers used to attract traffic? Apart from making a site, I’m not terribly savvy in terms of web promotions. I’m hoping there are a lot of clever people roaming this site who may know such things. Ideally, I would like to hit a “critical mass” point where the site snowballs in popularity, allowing me to quit my job and roam the house without slacks full-time;)
Thanks!
Sounds like you need a literary agent.
Ok, I’ll take a crack at this one. First of all, whether you’re selling a book, a widget, or a dog-walking service, you need to identify who your target audience is. One key question, in this example, should be whether your target audience is internet savvy and are they likely to go to the internet to get their information. If not there’s not going to be a lot of transition from book to internet and vice versa.
Secondly what do you offer (again, be it book or widget) that makes people want to come to your site compared to the 100’s (millions?) of others out there that people write about themselves? What is your differientiator?
These are the first two questions you have to answer before building any marketing campaign - be it online or offline.
Lastly, it sounds like what you’re asking is how to successfully build a social networking campaign that will bring attention to your site. There are a number of channels to promote your site online; facebook, myspace, writeups in other people’s blogs, SEO, twitter, etc etc etc. A great place to checkout is HubSpot.com. They have some wonderfully informative online videos (free of charge) that you can watch to learn more about “inbound” marketing.
I have a literary agent… and an editor… and a publisher. An agent’s duties typically involve facilitating the agreement to publish the book, while the responsibility of promoting a book rests on the publisher and the author. My efforts in this regard are independent of publisher-facilitated press. But thanks for the suggestion.
Thanks for the advice lilpups! I’ll check into your suggestions.
I have a book coming out in about six months. I won’t mention it here, but I am getting ready to begin promoting it. Rather than promoting the book directly, I am attempting to attract users to my personal website and go from there.
You are not well known enough to remain obscure. Stop loving yourself so much. No one cares about the cloak of secrecy you have draped over your book. Drop the bullshit and cut/paste excerpts of your ‘literary genius’ to this thread so we can hammer your ass into the dirt. Tell us the name of your book and give us some excerpts so we can offer constructive criticism. It will be the greatest gift you ever received
I stoop t accept this gauntlet. Although I mostly do nonfiction, try this on for a writing sample.
The Setup:
I have a book coming out in about six months. I won’t mention it here, but I am getting ready to begin promoting it. Rather than promoting the book directly, I am attempting to attract users to my personal website and go from there. My “grab” factor is my content: funny-but-true stories that are excerpts from my various projects (you can find them/bash my writing in my signature link). Using word-of mouth, I have built the site from 5-10 visitors a day to about 300, with (according to google analytics) a great deal of repeat visits and a long (10+ minutes) time on site. The point being, once people come, they’re there.
the Problem:
Word of mouth is a slow process. I’m sure if I could get 10,000 people to visit, a significant fraction would stick around, and I’d love to go to a publisher for another bok with a potential audience already in hand.
The Question:
How do I get more people to visit? What online venues have other STers used to attract traffic? Apart from making a site, I’m not terribly savvy in terms of web promotions. I’m hoping there are a lot of clever people roaming this site who may know such things. Ideally, I would like to hit a “critical mass” point where the site snowballs in popularity, allowing me to quit my job and roam the house without slacks full-time;)
Thanks!
You NEED to be on Twitter.
I have determined that you are a very talented writer. Go forth and promote your book by any means neccessary.
Sorry for being a dick and calling you out. Keep up the good work.
You’re is short for you are. Your is not.
See: “If your packing a can the size of Delaware…”
Awesome! Just tell everyone I love it. Word of mouth will spread faster then light and billions of people will buy it. Everyone does what I does.