Why your book needs a website!

This may seem like a no-brainer for some of you, and then this may be the burning question many others ask themselves all the time.

A website is actually more than just a store front where your book will be displayed.

If it were only that, Amazon.com would do just fine. The problem with Amazon is it is very limited in the way it can bring you traffic. Put another way, suppose you had a store and you only allowed walk-in business. No phone orders, no internet orders, no ads in industry publications, no radio or TV ads, no delivery, etc. . . If all you did was utilize just one channel for sales, you would obviously be limiting your sales. Not a great business strategy.

Similarly if you used all the sales channels known to man, but used them as their own mini storefront, you would have many different addresses to maintain and monitor. What would you do if you found differing prices at a couple of different channels? More than likely you would be chasing problems all day long. Very hard to organize and run efficiently. Lots of wasted energy.

A good book website will be the HUB of all your book’s information.

Once you have your website created, you can then go and investigate other sales channels and use the text (copy and paste) for the sales copy in those other channels, saving you time and energy. You should also change your prices, titles, descriptions, synopsis, etc. all on the website FIRST. Then you can either change your other sales channels to match it, or you could even just point to the website from the other channels for “more information” and just change the website and all the other channels will immediately be pointing to updated information. Change once, fix everywhere.

A good book website will also be where you will send all of your visitors from offline channels.

Business cards, post cards, flyers, book jackets, etc. . . all should carry your website address so people can go there for more information and to even purchase your book.

A good website will help people find you when they search for your topic in a search engine, leading more people to your book.

A website shouldn’t be the only sales channel you use to sell your book, but it should be the one that helps you organize the other sales channels and keep them in sync with your latest information. Your book’s website should link to all the different formats your book comes in as well as all the other channels your customers may wish to interact with your book. Some may prefer Amazon, some may prefer iBooks, Goodreads, Audible, etc. . . Let your reader purchase your book where ever they prefer and let your website show them what all the options are.

Lead everyone to your book’s website, so you can sell your book anywhere.