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WWW. vs Word of Mouth

M P Goodwin

Scribe
Hi, I have recently self-published via Amazon and Apple on their respective eBook platforms and as one might expect sales are low. This is obviously because of a lack of marketing, fan base, etc. etc. and my reliance on word of mouth. I have undoubtedly committed most of the cardinal sins of self-publishing in the first few months, so lessons being learned.

Therefore, I am interested in any advice the experienced writers out there might have on the subject of self-built websites as marketing tools and also as sales rooms, so to speak.

My intent is to build a website and sell paper copies (generated through Create Space et al.) of the novel(s) and also high quality prints of the maps that attend the series, both of which i am told are worth my time, and other's coin.

No doubt this is a common aspiration so all comments, advice and general hoots of hilarity are welcome.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
MP,

I don't know much about building a website to sell paper copies of books. I have no idea if that's really a viable business plan. The costs of printing the book are so high that you have to sell the books at a price point that is as as high as Big 5 new releases.

If you're interested in selling ebooks, however, did you check out the thread I started here: http://mythicscribes.com/forums/mar...arned-about-fundamentals-ebook-marketing.html

If that didn't help you, I definitely suggest you head over to KBoards - Index and check out the writer's cafe.
 

MineOwnKing

Maester
Websites are easy and free to make.

Unless you intend to blog on it the only other reason to have one is as a bio page.

Some literary agents require a bio which can either be a static page with a few lines of info and a photo, or a full fledged interactive website.

If you're going to keep blog subscribers satiated you need to be prolific at blogging, add mind blowing blog content every week and basically devote gobs of creative energy that could be going into manuscripts.

Unless you use twitter, you're not going to get much traffic on a new blog page.

So then it comes down to asking yourself, do you want to put forth the effort and time to follow twitter?

A link to an author's Facebook page is usually included on a website but Facebook has proven to be mostly ineffective for marketing.

Instead of a website I would create a professional looking author bio page, with links to your published novels.
 

M P Goodwin

Scribe
Seems to me that I am missing some very basic understanding here so I am going to go away and do some serious research. I have one novel, with more planned, so taking advice from the thread 'What Ive learnt about...' I obviously need to keep writing (currently editing books II and trying to start book III, so no problem there. However its the lack of marketing no-how that is proving to be the downfall of No.1...I have no email address in the book for example. This is the sort of understanding I am missing.
Thanks for the info and I am going to push on....
 
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