Build your readership by leveraging the internet—an attractive, well-designed website will do wonders in promoting your books.

What:  Create an author or book-focused website which directs readers to information about you and your works. With a website, you form an opportunity for your visitors to learn about you, the author, and interact with your thoughts and works via blogs, comments, FAQ's, and many other mediums of intra-site communication. Equally important, your website can provide customers with the ability to purchase products directly from your site or link to other sites such as BK community portal bkconnection.com, Amazon or Barnes & Noble, view sample work, preview chapters of current or upcoming books, and stay up-to-date on books in your pipeline.

Why: Expand your marketing edge with sharper online tools; websites have become staples of successful promotion and business management. Book authors must maintain a digital presence even if most of their products are sold from traditional brick-and-mortar locations. A website not only brings visibility to your books, it can establish your credibility as an expert on your chosen topics. Having your works on the internet may also attract additional audiences.  And your website works for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even when you are sleeping; it is your non-stop promoter.

How: Since website design has a reputation as tedious and time-consuming work, many choose to hire a web designer or work closely with a tech-savvy individual. But you can create a professional site all by yourself using simple tools and templates.

Blueprint - Start by jotting down a "blueprint" for your site—what you want to include, a rough visual sketch of the layout, a general color scheme, a timeline for delivery, and a budget. Keep the timeline and budget a bit flexible, as you will likely encounter pieces of the website puzzle that require much more attention than you initially anticipated.

The Basics – Focus first on a simple site that includes pages for your bio, descriptions of your books, news for your works, and a way to order books. If you visit other author websites, you'll find that each site includes different promotional tools, such as blogs, author videos, webcasts, interviews and photo galleries. Fortunately, we've already covered some of these interactive tools in past issues of the BK Author Tip Sheet, so integrating them into your site will be much easier than building them from scratch.

Style - Remember the elements of sites which annoy you, like neon lettering on loud backgrounds, text too small to read comfortably, busy backgrounds and setups, and long loading times. You can avoid these common mistakes by visiting the sites of well-established authors who have their sites expertly built. Take their site presentation as free consultation. Keep everything simple and fluid.

Do-it-Yourself Software or Hosting Templates – If you are building the site yourself, either invest in a web-building program such as Print Shop Web Designer, or select a hosting company with a wide assortment of templates to build from.  The leading hosting companies offer easy-to-modify templates that require no programming or technical training.  Building with user-friendly software should not only help to quell any fears about writing code, but should also make this process enjoyable. Remember to leave ample time for learning and training. Community colleges and online sources offer courses in using these programs. If you want to investigate the template route, check out IX Web Hosting and GoDaddy for examples. As background, I use an IX Web Hosting template for my family-owned Marshall Books website, which my non-techie wife updates with no trouble.

Keeping it Fresh - Be ready to make updates as you return to your site and observe your traffic. You may see better ways to present and structure your own site's presentation.  If you have a news and events section to inform your readers on where you will be speaking next, be sure to keep it updated.

Web Hosting Company Selection – Be sure to choose a company that does not limit your number of pages.  Some companies have starter programs for $5 per month but only allow you to have 5 web pages.  Most people outgrow this limitation quickly. Also look for programs that provide lots of storage and memory in case you want to host video and audio components on your site.  If you think you will be blogging, also look for a hosting company that incorporates blog software into its overall offerings.

How Much: Building a website on your own can be quite time-consuming, so while it may cost $50-$200 for web design software and a monthly fee ($5 to $10) to have your site hosted online, you may decide your time is better spent writing and in public speaking engagements.  Hiring an IT manager or web design company to handle the site development will give you much more ease in creation and access to newer developing technologies. The pricing of web design varies, but including long-term maintenance and upgrading, you may pay anywhere between $35-$250 an hour on designers, depending on how reliable, talented, specialized or effective they are. Generally, a professional site can be developed between $3,000 and $30,000 depending on how small and simple or large and complex it is, then you should plan on monthly retainers of $300 to $3,000 for ongoing maintenance, updates, and utilization of the newest technologies (generally about 5-10% of your initial site development cost).  If you choose a professional service, find someone who provides high-quality and on-time deliverables, favorable pricing, and excellent customer service.

Help: Since not all BK authors are alike, the help section is split into three categories: Beginners, Experienced, and Masters. Find your comfort zone.

Beginners: Purchasing web design software usually comes with comprehensive tutorials and guides, but finding some online is free and simple. Here are some sites that we even used ourselves. They contain more topics than you'll have the time to cover, so just spend time on what you need.

Web hosting templates come in many flavors. Here are some we recommend:

...or compare web hosting plans from the excellent review section on CNET

Experienced: If you have a smooth running website, but want to add video, blogs or podcasts, check out past issues of the BK Author Tip Sheet on how to incorporate these media-rich components into your site.  And Widgetbox, Yahoo Widgets, and Google Gadgets are three cool sites to find free interactive components to make your site come alive.

Masters:  Two new areas that are heating up are paid webinars and Internet movie marketing.  An upcoming  BK Author Tip Sheet issue will focus on virtual author tours and online seminars based on webinar technology, but meanwhile you might want to see what the BK Author Cooperative is doing with webinars, and check in on the latest from WebEx, a Cisco company.  Although most webinars to date have been free—helping customer reach but not the pocketbook—the paid model is starting to gel.

Internet movie marketing is one of the most exciting areas to hit book publishing.  Free Range Studios, which produced the award winning The Meatrix and The Story of Stuff, is now working on Internet Movies for at least two high-profile BK authors.  Free range produced the BK Author Video series, the first batch of which is now on YouTube and Barnes&Noble.com (see Juanita Brown talking about The World Café).  Call me if I've piqued your interest.

BK Author Show & Tell - Here are some BK author sites with strong book marketing components:

Carol Kinsey Goman on The Nonverbal Advantage (May 2008)

Paul Polak on Out of Poverty (February 2008)

Lynda Gratton on Hot Spots (February 2007)

Brian Tracy on Eat That Frog (January 2007)

Alex Pattakos on Prisoners of Our Thoughts (Paperback – January 2008)

Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordon-Evans on Love 'Em or Lose 'Em (3rd Edition – March 2005)

Also check out the True North book site, which Joe Chung of Thalas developed for bestselling author Bill George.  Joe also helps us produce the BK Author Tip Sheet every two weeks.

Finally, if you don't have a website yet and want to get started, give me a call; I would be glad to advise you.  If you already have a website but want to update it, I can give you a couple names of webmasters who can review it for you and make upgrade recommendations for reasonable rates.  If you are a master and have best practices to share with the rest of us, I would love to hear from you.  Call me at 415-743-6463 or email me at dmarshall@bkpub.com.