Websites and Newsletters
| Category: Online Promotion | Date: 2002-01-14 |
(1287 words. This article may be freely published or distributed as long as the authors information at the bottom remains intact. If you use it, please notify michaellarocca@lycos.com.)
If you are selling anything, you should have a website. If you are selling ebooks, you should consider it mandatory. How many people do you know who read ebooks but dont access the Internet? None come to my mind.
The best thing about having a website is that you can quite probably do it free. Later, once you know what youre doing, you can choose to buy a domain name and pay a hosting service if you want.
You can pay someone to design a gorgeous site for you, loaded with graphics, complete with a secure server and the option to buy right there, but I didnt. My publisher does the selling. Writing a site yourself, loaded with information and a place to click to send someone to your publisher, is simple.
For the actual mechanics of web site construction, send a blank email to website@sendfree.com.
So lets talk strategy.
"Hi, Im Michael LaRocca and these are my books." This approach will guarantee that anyone looking for Michael LaRocca will find my site. But when we consider that no ones heard of Michael LaRocca, how many people will seek out my site?
Heres a possible solution.
Lets say youve written a book where most of the action happens on a snowmobile. Put together the best damn snowmobile page in history. Everything that anyone wants to know about snowmobiles should be on your site. Make it the kind of resource that any snowmobiler will go visit again and again. Then slip a little note in there mentioning your fiction book. People will find your site, and during one of those repeat visits theyll buy that book.
Basically, fill a need. Give folks a reason to keep coming back even if they think theyll never buy your book. And please, put more on there than just your book. In my case, I kept a high- traffic site running for almost a year without a single product to sell. My site is a reference source for readers and writers. More writers than readers, probably, but writers read too. Maybe not the most original approach, but I write in so many genres that I havent come up with anything better yet. I might later on.
Being helpful is my "sales gimmick," but I just so happen to enjoy it. People dont log onto the Internet with the purpose of spending money. They log on for information or entertainment, then maybe make an impulse buy while theyre at it. Give them information and/or entertainment and theyll keep coming back.
If you throw in just a little soft sell, and do it right, theyll eventually make that impulse buy as a favor to you. Hopefully after they read one of your books, youll hook them and theyll come back specifically to buy the rest.
Search Engines
The single most important and effective way to bring traffic to your website is to place it in the search engines, in the appropriate categories. You want to place it in the top ten or twenty slots.
The best way to learn how to do this is to send a blank email to tamswriteangles@sitesell.net. Youll receive a free five-day course by email, over 200 pages long in all, that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.
Also, visit Search Engine Watch and subscribe to the free newsletter. http://www.searchenginewatch.com. Useful advice on a monthly basis.
Newsletter
Why do I have a newsletter? To tell you when my books are for sale, of course. To announce each new book as it becomes available. It also comes in handy whenever I change the address of my website, as a way to tell folks Ive moved.
But of course, almost nobody will subscribe to a newsletter just for that info alone. Just groupies. Ive got over 600 subscribers, and certainly theyre not all groupies. Nope, Im actually providing useful info and filling a need again. And slipping in occassional the "read my book" message while Im at it.
If you dont feel you can write a newsletter, you can use the "free content" sites to get someone else to do the writing. Instead of paying contributors, you simply allow them to include their URL. Theyll appreciate the free advertising, and you wont have to write for your newsletter unless you feel like it.
But really, why have a newsletter? There are ways to promote web sites (search engines) and there are ways to promote newsletters (announcement lists). Each generates a different type of traffic.
Your newsletter can mention your website, your website can mention your newsletter, and you will gain more users in both areas.
Newsletter Promotion
One quick and easy trick for promoting your newsletter or discussion group is to take advantage of the free announcement lists. Itll take you about two minutes a week.
What is an announcement list? Put simply, the Internet has users who enjoy receiving newsletters, and receiving regular announcements of what newsletters are out there. These are people with some time on their hands, probably the same people who will be the most receptive to buying your books.
The way Ive set things up on my computer is, Ive written an ad for my newsletter. I send the same ad to the announcement lists as often as theyll allow it. In the same file with my announcement, I have a "monthly list" and a "weekly list" of email addresses that I send this ad to. Also in the file, I record when I last sent my announcement to them.
Once a week, with a two-minute copy-and-paste job, Im advertising. Every time I do this, more subscribers arrive. Apparently different people are always joining these announcement lists, and some of them are joining my newsletter subscriber list.
You have to join any announcement list before you can announce on it, but you dont have to receive the announcements yourself. All the major newsletter/discussion group hosts will allow you to set your options to "No Mail/Read On The Website."
Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michaellarocca/files/ and pick up a copy of the file I use. Its called NewsletterAd.rtf. All typed in and ready to go, except for the "signing up" bit. (If youre not receiving my free newsletter, you might want to join while youre there. *grin*)
Once you join each group -- that might take you an hour or two -- youll be ready to send out those weekly emails.
To join the SmartGroups lists, log onto http://www.smartgroups.com. Each group address is http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/{listname}
{listname} refers to the part of the email address before the @
To join the Topica lists, log onto http://www.topica.com Each group address is http://www.topica.com/lists/{listname}
To join the YahooGroups lists, log onto http://groups.yahoo.com Each group address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/{listname}
Free Content
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours is a good starting place. Also in Yahoo Groups are articles_announce, articles_archives, Free-Content, and publisher_archives.
You can also look in any search engine for "free content" and find some more.
I recommend Media Peak (http://www.mediapeak.com) and Nerdworld (http://www.nerdworld.com).
Newsletter Unveiling
Im not going to list all these sites in my article. You can find them at http://free_reads.tripod.com/websitenewsletter.html. There are 31 of them. When I visited them all, I watched my subscriber base grow by about 200 in a month. I dont know which sites should get the credit.
Most of them allow you to list your newsletter for a month. I may or may not visit them again at some point, because they take a lot longer than the two-minute job I mentioned before.
Conclusion
Okay, that should keep you busy for a while! Set up your website, set up your newsletter, and do some announcing. If you have any questions along the way, write to michaellarocca@lycos.com and Ill do what I can.
Websites and Newsletters Copyright 2001, Michael LaRocca.
About the author.
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. His website is designed to help you find the best free and low-cost quality reads, and to help you improve/publish/promote your own writing free and avoid scams. free_reads.tripod.com
michaellarocca@lycos.com
http://free_reads.tripod.com
If you are selling anything, you should have a website. If you are selling ebooks, you should consider it mandatory. How many people do you know who read ebooks but dont access the Internet? None come to my mind.
The best thing about having a website is that you can quite probably do it free. Later, once you know what youre doing, you can choose to buy a domain name and pay a hosting service if you want.
You can pay someone to design a gorgeous site for you, loaded with graphics, complete with a secure server and the option to buy right there, but I didnt. My publisher does the selling. Writing a site yourself, loaded with information and a place to click to send someone to your publisher, is simple.
For the actual mechanics of web site construction, send a blank email to website@sendfree.com.
So lets talk strategy.
"Hi, Im Michael LaRocca and these are my books." This approach will guarantee that anyone looking for Michael LaRocca will find my site. But when we consider that no ones heard of Michael LaRocca, how many people will seek out my site?
Heres a possible solution.
Lets say youve written a book where most of the action happens on a snowmobile. Put together the best damn snowmobile page in history. Everything that anyone wants to know about snowmobiles should be on your site. Make it the kind of resource that any snowmobiler will go visit again and again. Then slip a little note in there mentioning your fiction book. People will find your site, and during one of those repeat visits theyll buy that book.
Basically, fill a need. Give folks a reason to keep coming back even if they think theyll never buy your book. And please, put more on there than just your book. In my case, I kept a high- traffic site running for almost a year without a single product to sell. My site is a reference source for readers and writers. More writers than readers, probably, but writers read too. Maybe not the most original approach, but I write in so many genres that I havent come up with anything better yet. I might later on.
Being helpful is my "sales gimmick," but I just so happen to enjoy it. People dont log onto the Internet with the purpose of spending money. They log on for information or entertainment, then maybe make an impulse buy while theyre at it. Give them information and/or entertainment and theyll keep coming back.
If you throw in just a little soft sell, and do it right, theyll eventually make that impulse buy as a favor to you. Hopefully after they read one of your books, youll hook them and theyll come back specifically to buy the rest.
Search Engines
The single most important and effective way to bring traffic to your website is to place it in the search engines, in the appropriate categories. You want to place it in the top ten or twenty slots.
The best way to learn how to do this is to send a blank email to tamswriteangles@sitesell.net. Youll receive a free five-day course by email, over 200 pages long in all, that will tell you more than you ever wanted to know.
Also, visit Search Engine Watch and subscribe to the free newsletter. http://www.searchenginewatch.com. Useful advice on a monthly basis.
Newsletter
Why do I have a newsletter? To tell you when my books are for sale, of course. To announce each new book as it becomes available. It also comes in handy whenever I change the address of my website, as a way to tell folks Ive moved.
But of course, almost nobody will subscribe to a newsletter just for that info alone. Just groupies. Ive got over 600 subscribers, and certainly theyre not all groupies. Nope, Im actually providing useful info and filling a need again. And slipping in occassional the "read my book" message while Im at it.
If you dont feel you can write a newsletter, you can use the "free content" sites to get someone else to do the writing. Instead of paying contributors, you simply allow them to include their URL. Theyll appreciate the free advertising, and you wont have to write for your newsletter unless you feel like it.
But really, why have a newsletter? There are ways to promote web sites (search engines) and there are ways to promote newsletters (announcement lists). Each generates a different type of traffic.
Your newsletter can mention your website, your website can mention your newsletter, and you will gain more users in both areas.
Newsletter Promotion
One quick and easy trick for promoting your newsletter or discussion group is to take advantage of the free announcement lists. Itll take you about two minutes a week.
What is an announcement list? Put simply, the Internet has users who enjoy receiving newsletters, and receiving regular announcements of what newsletters are out there. These are people with some time on their hands, probably the same people who will be the most receptive to buying your books.
The way Ive set things up on my computer is, Ive written an ad for my newsletter. I send the same ad to the announcement lists as often as theyll allow it. In the same file with my announcement, I have a "monthly list" and a "weekly list" of email addresses that I send this ad to. Also in the file, I record when I last sent my announcement to them.
Once a week, with a two-minute copy-and-paste job, Im advertising. Every time I do this, more subscribers arrive. Apparently different people are always joining these announcement lists, and some of them are joining my newsletter subscriber list.
You have to join any announcement list before you can announce on it, but you dont have to receive the announcements yourself. All the major newsletter/discussion group hosts will allow you to set your options to "No Mail/Read On The Website."
Visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/michaellarocca/files/ and pick up a copy of the file I use. Its called NewsletterAd.rtf. All typed in and ready to go, except for the "signing up" bit. (If youre not receiving my free newsletter, you might want to join while youre there. *grin*)
Once you join each group -- that might take you an hour or two -- youll be ready to send out those weekly emails.
To join the SmartGroups lists, log onto http://www.smartgroups.com. Each group address is http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/{listname}
{listname} refers to the part of the email address before the @
To join the Topica lists, log onto http://www.topica.com Each group address is http://www.topica.com/lists/{listname}
To join the YahooGroups lists, log onto http://groups.yahoo.com Each group address is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/{listname}
Free Content
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PublishInYours is a good starting place. Also in Yahoo Groups are articles_announce, articles_archives, Free-Content, and publisher_archives.
You can also look in any search engine for "free content" and find some more.
I recommend Media Peak (http://www.mediapeak.com) and Nerdworld (http://www.nerdworld.com).
Newsletter Unveiling
Im not going to list all these sites in my article. You can find them at http://free_reads.tripod.com/websitenewsletter.html. There are 31 of them. When I visited them all, I watched my subscriber base grow by about 200 in a month. I dont know which sites should get the credit.
Most of them allow you to list your newsletter for a month. I may or may not visit them again at some point, because they take a lot longer than the two-minute job I mentioned before.
Conclusion
Okay, that should keep you busy for a while! Set up your website, set up your newsletter, and do some announcing. If you have any questions along the way, write to michaellarocca@lycos.com and Ill do what I can.
Websites and Newsletters Copyright 2001, Michael LaRocca.
About the author.
Michael LaRocca is the author of four published novels and an EPPIE 2002 Award finalist. His website is designed to help you find the best free and low-cost quality reads, and to help you improve/publish/promote your own writing free and avoid scams. free_reads.tripod.com
michaellarocca@lycos.com
http://free_reads.tripod.com
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