Courtesy of ilco
Author websites are the number one online discovery site that lead to the purchase of a book
Online discoverability is always a huge topic at digital publishing conventions. I got frustrated with the traditional broadcast method of paying thousands for banner ads and the panacea approach of trying to create a perfect recommendation engine and researched better ways to market books on the web.
Here's a summary of what I found:
- The internet is different from other marketing mediums: communicating, not broadcasting, is the way to engage consumers to spread your message online. By helping the author build a relationship with a target audience and target journalists, publishers can have a much greater impact on getting the right readers to share the author’s message and raise the overall discoverability of books online.
- 48% of book buyers know what they’re going to buy before they even get to Amazon. It's where people go to buy books, not discover them. You have more control over discoverability outside of Amazon, so find your audience and engage with them before they get there.
- The best way to increase online discoverability is to get your target audience to suggest your book to their friends and family. The goal is not to just sell the book, but get people to refer it to others. The best way to do that is to give them a reason to suggest your book by building a connection with them. The most powerful connection is the author-reader relationship. Start building the author-reader relationship early by providing authors with the strategies and tools to build their brand online.
- Author sites are by far the most likely to generate purchases online. Unfortunately, not many people actually go to author sites. Once you have a site that revs up the target audience, work on helping authors funnel the audience to it by using social media and Google to their highest potential.
- Now that readers are on the author site, give them something to do with the book other than buying it. Find a way for fans to openly share content related to the book. Create an experience for them to participate in. Once they’re hooked, get them to spread the message elsewhere.
The full paper:
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