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?

Marketing Indie Books with Social Media

One of the biggest discussions we've ever had in the Facebook group Church of Christ Women Author's was how to successfully market our books. This is the eternal question when it comes to book sales.

The answer mostly amounts to traffic (or page views); of course drawing people into a site is easier said than done. How do we stick out amongst the millions of pages on the Internet?

It takes work, but the fact that we all have the world at our fingertips through the Internet helps a lot. That is, if we utilize it. There are several social media outlets Indie authors must use to grow their business -- your book is your business, you are its brand.

Twitter:

Many people have Twitter accounts they use to keep track of trivial things, or even current events. As authors, and readers of authors, we must use our Twitter accounts to promote our books, events, pages, and so on. This isn't vainity, it's good marketing strategy.

Tweets can only be so many characters, so post the URL and add hashtags like #amwriting, #ebook, #amazon #kindle #fantasy, #yabook  and #religion. Don't be afraid to hashtag your name -- #susanelliott

Facebook:

SHARE. SHARE. SHARE! It does no good for your book or your friends' books to be posted on your wall alone, encourage your friends to share your posts. If you see someone has written a book. Share it! Make sure to turn the settings to public on that post so friends can share it too.

If you find a page that needs to know about your book. Post a link to it. (Make sure to read the page rules first.)

Create an Author's Page, and then invite your friends.

Create an event before any book release, special promotion, or pubic appearance. Set that event to public. Invite friends. Run contests. Do small giveaways. Send out teasers of what's inside the book.

For example, for Arwen Chandler's book The Louvre Still Stands, she might talk about art. Maybe share images of art from the Louvre (public domain of course. Around Mom's Kitchen Table had a great post about this the other day.) Make statements about the characters like "Gwyn's been scouting out the Louvre. Wonder what she'll find?"

Pinterest:

Make use of Pinterest. Create a board for your books, and one for your favorite books. Share your pins. The blog Chris the Story Reading Ape had a great post about this, titled How to Use Pinterest to Get Massive Amounts of New Readers.

Blogger or Wordpress

Start a blog. Talk about your books. Share excerpts of your books, but don't leave it at that. Tell other people about yourself, your hobbies, your interests.

If you notice the left-side bar on this page, you will see links to Meet the Author Pages. These authors have taken the time to let you get to know them. Do this on your blog. People love stories about people.

Google+:

Open a Google+ account, and share your posts. Your books, other people's books -- anything relevant to your business (book.)

Pingfarm

Always utilize Pingfarm. Simply copy your blog post urls and book link urls into the Rapid Indexer, and let the Internet work for you. This will raise your  book's ranking in the search engines. If people can Google you and find your book, you're much more likely to get it into the readers hands.

--Susan


What do you do to increase traffic to your books?