Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Public Service Announcement: MAKE IT EASY ON READERS

Make it easy for potential readers to buy your book
We are a society that loves instant gratification. The easier you make something, the more likely someone is to do it.  Which is why it is so, so important for you to make things as easy on potential readers as you possibly can.

Some of you heard me lament on this several months ago in my post about building a call to action into your marketing and social media efforts.  I'm not one for beating people over the head with an idea, but I've seen quite a few posts of late that make me feel the message is worth another visit.

Specifically, I wanted to focus on why every book promotion needs to have a link to buy your book and/or add it to Goodreads.

This one feels obvious, but you would be surprised at the number of book promotions I've seen as of late that did not include a single link to buy the author's book or add the author's book to Goodreads.

Make sure that every cover reveal, every interview, and every mention of your book includes links to  Amazon, B&N, and any other places your book is sold. If it's not yet available for sale, then include a link to add it to Goodreads and/or easy ways for the potential readers to learn when the book is available. In fact you should include a Goodreads link regardless - readers might want to add it to their queue before committing.

If someone else has done the write up, help them help you by reaching out and asking them to add the links. I promise they won't mind, because someday they may need to send a similar email.

If you regularly host book promotions on your blog for new releases and cover reveals, do the writer a solid and ask for the info if they don't provide it. It will make a huge difference in their promotional success.

Any post/blurb/write up about your book is a critical moment for gaining potential readers - if you've been lucky enough to get there attention, then you need to do everything in your power to close the sale.  Don't assume that they will remember the title, your name, or that they will even take in upon themselves to type the info into their preferred book vendor after they've read about it.  Make it easy for them.

Happy writing!



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