5 reasons why you need a book website

If you watched my recent Book Marketing Masterclass, you’ll have learnt 7 of the marketing strategies that you can implement to promote your book.

These tips will allow you to create a buzz for your new product before you finish writing it and actually launch it.

It’s essential that you get these in place now so that you can reap the rewards when your book is published. It’s very exciting to have people who can’t wait to see your book being released and signing up to be your first book customers.

The first strategy I shared was this: Buy the website for your book.

Of course, if you’re doing this, you need to nail the title of your book first. And most of my clients would say that this is a very difficult thing to do.

The title not only needs to capture the essence of the book, you also need to think about your audience and how you can attract them.

If you’re too clever with your title, then your target readership will never find your book. So ensuring that your title and subtitle clearly defines your audience, and how you help them or what you do, will certainly help your book’s success.

Anyway I digress.

You might be wondering why you should buy the book website. You might be asking yourself: “Why can’t I just add a page to my website?” Well you can if you wish, and this is actually better than doing nothing. But if you buy the website for your book, it will give you 5 really important things.

5 reasons why you need a book website

1. You can check the uniqueness of your book title

It helps you to check whether anyone else is using this title or running a business under a similar name. Although you can’t copyright a book title – you’ll probably be aware of some books with the same or similar names – you do want something that is unique.

Also when you buy the book website address (the .co.uk and .com if you’re in the UK), then no one else will get in there first and buy it before you!

2. You’ll have an easily quotable link for your book

Buying the website for your book title gives you an easily quotable link for your book. For example, it’s much easier to give someone the address www.themousethatroars.com rather than www.librotas.com/the-mouse-that-roars – which is a bit of a mouthful and easy to forget.

You can use it when you promote the book, in conversation, or when you’ve got the opportunity for PR or a speaking engagement.

3. You can create a squeezepage and pre-sell your book

A great way to create a buzz for your book is to create a squeezepage for your book. This will give you a couple of things. You could start to promote your book before you publish, which great if you’re getting PR before your book is launched. It’s also good to allow people to pre-order your book. Both of which will get people interested in the book that you are writing.

4. You can get clear on your message

If you’re using your book to reposition your business to attract clients in a new marketplace, like a couple of my clients are currently doing, then having a separate website address for your business and book is key. This will allow you to create a message that’s congruent with your book, and it will be the perfect place to promote products, events and programmes that will support your target readership and clients.

5. You’ll have a place for additional book resources that will grow your list

One of the things that I suggest my clients do is to take their readers onto their website. If, in your book, you’re including checklists, forms and other useful information, driving traffic to a hidden place on your website where they can download PDFs of these documents gives added value to your readers. When you ask for their name and email address in return for downloading these resources, then this allows you to build your community at the same time.

I’ve done this in my third book, Your Book is the Hook where you can get hold of additional information that I didn’t have space to include in the book.

Now go and buy your book website!

Once you’ve decided the title for your book, it’s time to get your domain name.

Buying your book website isn’t expensive. Using a reputable domain provider, you’ll pay around £30 for a year to buy the URL.

Using a tool like the Squeezepage Toolkit will also allow you to create a one page website with little fuss, when all you need to do is to drag and drop elements into your page (pop over here for a free trial).

When you grab people’s attention with your copy, and share some advance reviews with your audience, then you’ll get people interested in your message. Who knows, you might even get new clients off the back of it?

Ultimately it gives you a place to send people who are interested in ordering a copy and finding out more about your book.

When you add a PayPal or other e-Commerce button to your page, then you can start to make money from your book before you’ve even published it.

Surely that’s a good place to be?!

What do you think? Will you buy the website for your book?

Want to learn more?

This is one of the strategies I’ll be go into at length at the Book Marketing workshops. If you want the step by step processes to get you and your book noticed, and market your book on a budget, then do pop over to this page for details of the next event.

We’ll give you the strategies to get PR for your book, get to number one on Amazon, as well as online tips like this. Plus I’ll show you the exact steps you need to take to create a successful launch for your book.