If You Build It, They Won’t Come: A Guide to Author Websites — Publishing Trends

How To Boost Book Sales, Win More Fans & Attract Readers

If You Build It, They Won’t Come: A Guide to Author Websites — Publishing Trends

For the fiction author interested in attracting more fans and readers, this article is a must. For any serious author a website presence is an absolute given! Visiting an author's website is the prime method used by book lovers to get to know and appreciate their favorite authors. This holds true regardless of age.

How else are readers going to know your book exists unless there's a web link to who you are, what the book is about, a cover image and any other graphics details, links to purchase sites, links to great reviews, links to book awards ... the list goes on. In addition, website visits translate directly to book sales.

These days readers want to know more about their favorite authors, what makes them tick, what makes them real, accessible and human, what makes them touchable and yet still special. With more and more buyers preferring to browse online, a virtual bookstore may just have become more important that a real one. Fans are more likely to visit an author's website than the author's page on the publisher's website. With such a strong trend as evidence of the reader's thinking, authors would be foolish not to spend that extra bit of time and/or money giving readers and fans something special and worthwhile.

A big plus is giving readers unpublished material. Maybe an extract from a forthcoming book? Letting readers know where you'll be to read from your latest work is also a drawcard. Readers love seeing authors in the flesh, and many relish the opportunity to ask questions about the author's work, get an autograph or a copy of the book personally signed.

So, when designing your book or author website, give some thought to including your voice, your attitude and your unique angle as a writer and a person!