Once your e-book is sold and on
publisher’s web site, don’t expect sales to come rolling in. Unless you have a huge network of family and friends with credit cards and PayPal accounts at ready, you’re not likely to rack up much in way of sales without promoting your book.Here are five tips to getting people to notice your novel or non-fiction book and click onto that site and stock up on your title[s].
The Signature Line. [AKA Sig Line]. Unlike scrawl that many authors use to sign their correspondence and autographed copies, Signature Line is blurb you always add to bottom of your e-mail. The best Signature Lines have your name or pseudonym, URL of your book, a catchy one or two-sentence blurb, and your homepage address [if you have one]. Acceptable lengths range from two to six lines. You’ll need to experiment with what type of font to use, and if there should be color or not. Sometimes you can use two different fonts. For example, Amazone BT, Kaufmann, Lucida Handwriting or Park Avenue fonts make terrific simulations of handwriting. The choice of lettering is vast and it can help reflect tone of your book. Creepy is name of “blood-dripping” font, and Curlz MT is commonly used to invite younger visitors. WONTON ICG can add an Oriental touch and Storybook might help that fantasy or romance novel attract more interested readers.
However, not all e-mail programs are able to discern unique fonts/colors so don’t overdo it! What all e-mail addresses should be able to pick up is URL. This should be written out in its entirety, always beginning with http://www.nameofbook.com. To link your book to WWW at large, make certain it goes to your author page. Sending a person to http://www.bookcompany.com and expecting them to find your book will cost you potential buyers. People online have very short attention spans. Always make it as easy for them to find your book as possible.
Another way to make your signature line stand out is by adding some of your deathless prose in form of a blurb. For my soap making book, THE JOY OF MELT & POUR SOAP MAKING, I came up with just six words: ‘Buy it today … make suds tomorrow!’ Sometimes you’ll want to use a quote directly from your e-book, or a line of dialogue. Movie posters are excellent sources of inspiration. Think of memorable line from STAR WARS -- “May force be with you” or “A hero will rise” from recent Academy award-winning movie GLADIATOR.
Your Own Web Page or Web Site. Any e-book author must be able to communicate to potential online buyers that not only are they a legitimately published writer, but what their book is about. Whether you choose to have a single page offering a description of your book or go to a flashy web site with room to highlight not only your book, first chapter or two, a guestbook, links, chatroom, your favorite recipes, etc., your budget may be such that going with a free web host is all you can afford. While Writers’ Web Designs offers very reasonable design and hosting rates, Tripod, GeoCities, AOL and MSN, along with many others, don’t charge you a penny to have a web presence. Whether you have a hankering to work with HTML or want a simple site that’s as easy as AOL’s 1-2-3 Publish, that decision is yours. Surf web, particularly other writers’ web sites, and see how each author has a unique place on Internet. When designing yours, always remember your goal: to sell copies of your e-book[s].
