I recently read a book I liked and wanted to contact the author. Little did I know how hard that would be. After spending a few minutes searching for her on Google, I gave up.
Too bad for her, because as I know from being an author myself, I’m pretty sure she would have been thrilled to hear from me. Getting e-mails from fans is my favorite part of being a writer. But this woman had no website, no Facebook presence, no author page on Amazon, nothing on Twitter. I found zero!
Her book’s rankings on Amazon were also very low, so I don’t think she’s selling very many copies.
Word-of-mouth is a critical element of book marketing, so you want to make it easy for your readers to find you. The best way to do this is through a website, ideally yourname.com. If that URL is taken, try yournameauthor.com, or yournamebooks.com. If that seems like too much for you right now, at least set up an author page on Amazon (use the Author Central feature) and include a photo, bio and e-mail address. Author Central is free and available to both traditionally published and indie authors. (Click here to see my author page on Author Central.)
When readers contact you, write them back! Thank them for reading your book(s) and ask them to please tell their friends. There’s nothing wrong with asking your fans for help in getting the word out. But if your fans can’t find you in the first place and you’re not already famous, you’re probably not going to get very far.
Happy New Year!
Maria ๐
This blog post originally appeared onย CreateSpace.com. Reprinted with permission. ยฉ 2013 CreateSpace, a DBA of On-Demand Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved.