If You Build It, They Will Come – Or Won’t They?

So you’ve got the web site basics down—you’ve bought Dreamweaver or FrontPage or you’re using a web template or you’ve hired someone to handle the technical aspects of building your site—but what do you put on the thing? And how do you tell the world about it? More importantly, how do you keep them coming back?

Target Audience
Start by considering your target audience. For example, most authors are targeting readers, but are you also hoping a few editors or agents glance at your site? Then you want to avoid anything that may potentially scare an editor off, like extreme negativity or embarrassing tell-alls from an RT party. Stay away from politics or religion unless that is what you’re writing (ie. inspirationals or Beltway suspense).

Who are the specific readers you’re targeting? Inspirational readers are very different from erotic romance readers (in most cases). E-book readers are often a different audience than traditional print readers. Yes, there’s crossover and you want to cast the widest net possible, but you want your web site to reflect what your books are about in tone and content. There’s also your tastes, personality, and comfort level. For example, you may write erotic romance but not be comfortable with a blatantly sexual site. Your web site is a very public reflection of you. Don’t just throw anything on it.

When you’re considering your target audience, beware of items that could invite spammers or preditors as return viewers. I removed my guestbook because it was getting little visitation by readers and daily posts from spammers. I’ve also been told that emails posted in guestbooks could be harvested by spammers.

In addition, I don’t post photos, especially close-ups, of my son, and I avoid using his name any place I post. I don’t want to attract a pedophile. These cautions also mean you might want to pay the extra amount to keep your domain name information private. Otherwise anyone can look up your name and address by simply pulling up a domain directory. It’s also a good idea to create a separate email address that you use on your site (or use a contact form with no email) and in any publicity posts.

Make a List
When I created my two sites, my first step was visiting as many author sites as possible, looking for the common elements and the things I liked or disliked. Basic items on an author site could be a “Bio” page, a “Books” or “Works-in-Progress” page, a “Links” page, and perhaps a “Photo,” “Contest,” or “News” page.

Once you’ve decided on your main pages, make a list. Under each page heading, list what you’d like to have on that page. For your bio, remember to focus on the things that make you unique and that relate to your writing. For example, I mention my involvement in RWA and VRW, the Citizens’ Police Academy that I attended, how long I’ve been writing, and how I decided on my pen name. The Bios vary slightly on my Dawn site vs. my Shara site. My Shara site is definitely more reader focused, so I mention my penchant for starting cooking fires and killing plants.

Making a list and then actually writing a draft of your pages will save you time and confusion if you’re hiring someone to create your site, as well as if you’re making your own. You’ll also want to choose photos or clip art for your site. I recommend at some point getting a professional portrait taken. This can be used on your book jacket (in the future if you’re unpublished). It can go into publicity folders. You can send it to newspapers or other venues that are interviewing you, and it can go on your Bio page. Again, decide the image you want to project: Strictly professional? Sexy? Romantic?

Make a list of sites you’d like to use on your Links page and collect banners from your friends if you plan to use those. Linking to well-trafficked sites can also help your search engine rankings, particularly if they link back to you.
Don’t forget to include links to your publisher and to the Buy page of your book, whether this is Amazon or a direct link to your book at your publisher’s site. Make it easy for the reader who loved your excerpt to immediately buy your book. If you’re unpublished, what works-in-progress would you like to highlight? Do you have some excerpts polished enough to post on your site? Do you have catchy blurbs created? Act as if that book is all but sold. Make anything you post on your site free from typos and as polished as possible.

What Brings Them Back?
Last, consider what elements you’d like to include on your site that will bring readers back for more and what elements will attract the search engines. I’m no expert on search engines, but from workshops I’ve attended, it seems that keeping your pages fresh and updated gets them higher rankings on the search engines. For some authors, this means having a blog page, a web journal, which allows readers to post comments. Some authors have short dated posts on their main page that tells any news.

For myself, I freshen up my main page by adding review snippets and new covers, but my most active page is my News page. On this I post a monthly or bi-monthly contest (more on this in a moment). I include covers and the most recent news about my new and upcoming releases. I also include links and updates on my newsletter, interviews, blogging, etc. And I post links to new Photo pages to highlight recent happenings in my life, such as conferences or trips, or photos that help illustrate the setting or atmosphere of one of my new works. This I hope will intrigue readers enough to check out the excerpts and buy the book.

I recently ran a contest asking readers to choose which of my many photo pages they preferred. The answers varied, but the most votes went to the page with the Mr. Romance Competition (at last year’s Romantic Times Convention). The photo pages are easy to look at and add an element of fun, but I had to learn to keep the file sizes small so that readers on dial-up could actually view them sometime this century.

Here are a few hints for running contests: think about postage first! Yes, I learned this the hard way. Some authors will give away a bigger prize that will cost more to ship, but they might run a longer contest. When I gave away a whole basket of goodies, including the basket, I discovered that postage could cost up to $20 and I stupidly gave away two at a time. The better thing to do is jewelry or other light items. Also think about how hard it might be to package a certain item. For example when a fellow writer and I did a big giveaway that included a porcelain chalice and a ceramic tea cup among other things, the tea cup actually shattered en route to the winner despite a lot of bubble wrap. In addition, I post a disclaimer that I send e-books to international winners. The idea is to promote, not go broke.

Why run contests at all, since they cost money and you can’t track if they increase sales? They keep viewers coming back to my web page and newsletter. My contest questions are designed to get participants to read my excerpts (hey, maybe they’ll like the story enough to buy it), to subscribe to my newsletter, to check out my blog, or my photo pages. It’s all about keeping them interested.

Then I announce the contests everywhere I can think of—often. A contest won’t attract readers if they don’t know about it. I also participate in other giveaways, such as with fellow authors, during chats or loop days, and on large reader sites, such as The Romance Studio’s Book-A-Day giveaway. TRS send me a list of entrants who clicked “yes” for joining my mailing list. I then take this list and send out invitations for my newsletter to all those “okays”.

Talking up contests, newsletters, blogs, or web sites all give you a reason to get your name out there without hitting readers over the head with “Buy my book!”

Newsletter, Blogs, Ads
Two things to keep in mind when you’re doing any promotion: time and money. If you pay someone to do web site updates, then you might need to limit changes based on your budget. If you’re doing the updates yourself, these can take a lot of time, which is why many people use blogs, which are user-friendly, but blogs can also take away from your writing time if you get too caught up in writing long posts and replying to comments. Some writers absolutely love blogs. If you run one, remember you must post regularly, whether daily or once a week, or readers will stop visiting that as well.

And please remember that a blog is a professional tool. Don’t vent about an editor because of a rejection you received. It will get back to her and it could cost you a book deal down the road.

I personally run a monthly newsletter, Shara’s E Zone, through a Yahoo group. This usually takes me a full day to put together, after making notes on it throughout the previous week. Some authors create elaborate newsletters with lots of participation from other authors. Some keep their newsletters very sparse or only offer them every few months. My goal is to have something interesting to read on its own that offers readers something special for staying subscribed and yet promotes my published work. The “something special” is a free story each month. Sometimes I just don’t have time, so I offer a sexy, new excerpt from something I’ve already written. Writing these stories is a great way to experiment with my writing, but it also requires quick inspiration, since I try to complete them within a couple of hours.

Some authors will get together and run a group web site, blog, or newsletter. This divides the time and expense, and if each author already has some built-in readers, hopefully those readers will check out the other authors in the group. Often a group of authors will then split the expense of an ad in the Romantic Times BOOKClub, promoting the web site rather than individual books.

Speaking of print ads, these can be very expensive, which is why you’ll often see a group of books in a full-page ad, often subsidized by the publisher. For myself, I participate in my publisher’s group ads when I have a new release that I’d like to get reviewed. We give our publisher a book blurb and they put together the ad. We have the responsibility of sending the book in for review.

Another way to promote both your books and your web site is to run banner or cover ads. These ads are generally a budget issue rather than a time issue, but most of the cover/banner ads are very cheap, especially when compared to print ads. If a site charges more than $20 for one month for one ad, I probably won’t do it. I love the ads that are $5-10. I can run more of these for more months on more sites. Readers need to see your name frequently over time to remember it, not just one time in one place. You definitely want to consider how highly trafficked a site is. I believe both The Romance Studio and Romance Junkies get a lot of traffic. If you ask for the stats, most sites will give them to you. And usually you can use Paypal to pay for the ads.

If you’re unfamiliar with banner and cover ads, they run around the perimeter of the web page. Look for a menu item such as “Advertising” or “Author Promotion” to find the cost information. You will need to send in a jpg or gif file of your cover or banner and tell them your web page address. They’ll link the ad to your address, so that if someone sees the ad and is interested, they can click it and be sent directly to your site. Generally sites offer either “static” or “rotating” ads. Static means the ad is seen in the same location on the same page no matter who’s looking at the page. Rotating means the ad is one of many that will show in the ad slots, so you might see it the first time you view the page, but a different ad will be in its place the next. Rotating ads are cheaper, but will be seen less often.

Odds and Ends
A simple and free way to promote your web site is a signature line in your email. Keep it short and to the point with a direct link to your site, newsletter or blog. Then it will be present any time you post on a loop. Quick and cheap. And posting on discussion loops is a great way to publicize indirectly. Participate in the conversations; don’t just send promos. Find loops that you enjoy and concentrate on a few, rather than many. If you spread yourself too thin on the loops, then it’s harder to concentrate on the conversation and participate naturally. For myself, I also find it hard to find time to write, so I’ve cut back on my loop interaction.

Besides my signature line, I also list the web sites on my business cards and in the header on my query letters. I want any potential editors or agents to know that I’m out there promoting my work. Plus I’m hoping that they’ll check out my site and read my review snippets and excerpts. I place my site addresses on bookmarks, postcards, pencils, key chains, and buttons. These items are then included with giveaway prizes, placed on giveaway tables at conferences, sent to coordinators to include in conference bags, or set out at bookstores. As a new author participating in a group book signing, such as the Book Fair at the Romantic Times Convention, you may not sell many books, but if you’re lucky enough to have people lingering near your table, talk to them with a smile and offer them a bookmark. Maybe next time they’ll buy your book.

Ultimately, you can’t control who will see your web site or ad somewhere and click through, so the idea is to get it out there as often as possible. Don’t forget to include meta tags in your HTML to help with search engines. And, as you can see at the end of this article, always include your web address in any bio, whether at the end of your articles or the beginning of an interview, any place that you can think of.
So, get out there and build your web site, learn from other writers, and they will come.

Dawn Oliveri’s novella, Love & Magic: Grave Awakening, written under the name Shara Lanel, received 4.5 Hearts from Love Romances and is available at Liquid Silver Books. Visit Dawn on the web at www.dawnoliveri.com and www.sharalanel.com.