Fiction book marketing tips to help authors build a bond with readers
For readers to spend their money on a novel, they must have a desire to spend time (plus their money) in the world that you, the author, have created. To encourage readers to want to do this, you need to provide information that helps them enter your world.
One way to do this is to provide the first few chapters for free on your website so potential readers can get a good idea of the story and characters. You can do this with PDF downloads or audio or video recordings or all three methods. And you can encourage book clubs to pick up your book by providing book club discussion questions outside of your website. If you have other information related to your book that you can share on your website, please do so. For example, if your novel is related to a historical event, you can include photos, videos, or commentary about that actual event.
Or let’s say you wrote a novel about a woman battling breast cancer. You could include the names and contact information of organizations that help breast cancer patients on your website. By sharing such information with your potential readers, you are creating a bond between you and them. Of course, there is the basic question of do you need a website? Couldn’t you just put your book club discussion questions and sample chapters on book authors’ websites and forget about having your own website?
If you could. But you’d be foolish to pass up the opportunity to have a destination URL for you and your books.
On the other hand, there is an alternative to having a website designed for you. You could do what many people are doing now: use WordPress blog software to create a website. This is usually less expensive and easier than having a programmer design a website, and has the added benefit of changing content more easily. With your own website featuring sample chapters, helpful information, and book club discussion questions, you’ll give potential readers a number of reasons to say yes to reading your book.