Friday, September 4, 2015

How to Drive Traffic to Your Books



One thing that Church of Christ Women Authors has committed to do is to help Indie authors get noticed. I tend to think of us authors as pieces of gum in the world's largest gumball machine. We are all in one container, and we all want to get out. Sometimes it feels like our quarter will never drop into the machine so we can fall into the hands of someone who really wants us.

As authors we must realize that no one wants us to succeed like we do. So, we must take our careers into our hands. People published with vanity presses, and traditional publishers have some marketing advantages, but it is unwise to imagine the publishers are babying your book. You still need to market yourself.

Ultimately our book's success or failure is directly tied to its marketing.

Fortunately, there are some things you can do to help yourself and other authors.

Start a Blog

If you haven't already started a blog, do it now! There are several free options for bloggers -- Blogger and WordPress are good ones. If you already have a blog, consider the following post ideas.


  • Write a blog post about your book, and add hyperlinks to where your book can be purchased in the text. 
  • Write a guest post about another Indie author and link to where her books can be purchased.
  • Comment on the posts and answer questions that readers have.

Use Twitter

Set up a Twitter account, and follow people with similar interests. Make sure to tweet your blog posts several times a day. If you're an Amazon Affiliate, you can even tweet your books directly from Amazon.

Use Pingfarm

Always ping your posts. This will improve your Google ranking. When using Pingfarm make sure to ping your posts and also use the rapid indexer. Make sure to select deep links.


Google Plus Account
Set up a Google Plus account and share your blog posts. Also, plus other author's blog posts to help improve their rankings in Google and drive traffic to their books.


Pinterest

Pinterest is not just for recipes and crafts. Create a board for your books, and your blog posts. Make sure your board is public.

Use Email

Create an Email mailing list and Email your friends the links to your books.


What ideas do you have to make your book stand out online?