If you self-publish you are going to need a web site. It is a necessity. You are not just the author, you are the publisher as well and this means you have to market your book to your potential audience of readers. As authors we want people to read our books. As publishers we want people to BUY our books.
So it would seem there is just one more thing we have to learn in order to become successful self-publishers, web site design and all that goes with it.
I have purchased and read just over 70 books in an effort to learn how to market using the internet (fortunately most were Kindle books and this kept the money spent in this endeavor much lower). I managed to learn some things that were helpful and apply them to my web site.
I also wound up spending money on my web site that could have been better spend elsewhere as a business investment (Morris Rosenthal would want to take me to the woodshed for this - spending money foolishly on web sites is one of his pet peeves).
It would seem the topic I should have investigated first was conversion rates. Without expounding on the topic myself, I would rather suggest reading the best book I have read on the topic, and I will admit, the one I wish I had purchased first. It would have saved me a lot of time, some money and and hopefully made my web site more useful and productive in a business sense.
Convert! Design Web Sites to Increase Traffic and Conversion by Ben Hunt. It is available in both Kinle and print versions from Amazon.
The book is written in language a regular person can understand and is very practical. Hunt also explains an approach that is NOT centered around the individual who owns the web site but rather the person who is looking for the web site.
I will be doing the research Hunt advises and making a trip to visit my web site designer in the not too distant future.
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