Blogging is one of the most popular strategies for marketing books today. But blogs must engage your readers if they are to be effective. Here are some simple strategies to make your blog connect with readers so you can sell more books.

I’ve heard many people in the publishing industry say, “Every author must have a blog,” but is blogging really effective? Every author must decide for him or herself, but first, it’s important to understand what a blog is and how to use it effectively.

A blog is a shortened version of the term “web log.” It’s basically a journal or diary that is online for the public to read. Businesses use blogs to share information about their products, new items in their markets, and other information relevant to their industry. Blogging is similar for authors who want to connect with readers, books being the product and readers being the customers who want the product—at least they should after reading your blog.

Blogging is an excellent marketing strategy for authors because it’s a way for them to tell their stories, to talk about their books, to share information, items of common interest to readers, and ultimately, to get people to buy their books. Whether writing fiction or non-fiction, most authors are telling a story, and a blog is just another way to tell a story—the story about you the author—in a more personal way that will get readers to like you and want to hear more of what you have to say.

Having a blog does not mean just posting whatever and whenever. As an author, you want to have a strategy for your blog posts. Ultimately, your goal is to sell your books to your potential readers. Make sure your posts reflect that strategy. If you’re writing romance novels, it doesn’t make sense to post about your gardening interests—unless you can tie those into your book—for example, if your heroine’s name is Cecilia and she is a gardener in your book, then you could be creative and present Cecilia’s gardening tips.

Following are some key tips to make your blog effective so it will engage your readers:

• Have an attention grabbing headline.
• Keep the content relatively short—just a few paragraphs—a chapter a day from your book may be too long, so spread it out over a few posts—remember people online have short attention spans.
• Post selections from your books.
• Write about why you wrote your book—tell the background story.
• Give sneak peeks of future books or ideas you’re working on.
• Review products of interest to your readers—if you write historical fiction, review other historical novels or historical films. If you write about nature, the outdoors, activities like rock-climbing, then write reviews of nature hiking trails, the best kayaking places, or the newest in climbing equipment.
• Share information about your industry or genre—a lot of readers want to be writers, so talk about writing, publishing, and book marketing—be helpful to everyone who asks for help (within reason).
• Offer viewpoints that may be a little controversial.
• Ask your readers for their opinions on what you post. Solicit comments from them. Asking for feedback tells your readers that you want to know what they have to say, and that you’re interested in understanding your customers. Respond to the comments people write. Remember, many people view authors as celebrities. They will be pleased that you took the time to write them back. The more comments you get, the more people will want to leave comments. Don’t worry about negative comments—you can control what comments appear on your site, but a little controversy can also help.
• Ask your readers what topics they would like you to post about. Ask them for ideas for future books, or put up a piece of writing and ask for feedback.
• Link to other sites and exchange links. Find authors who write on similar topics or in similar genres. Interview them, or review each other’s books. Links will help your search engine optimization and you’ll have more links back to your site to attract readers.
• Advertise your blog. Just putting up a blog on your website won’t get people to your blog. Advertise it through your email lists. Be involved in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter where you can promote your blog.
• Avoid trying to sell directly. No one likes a pushy salesperson. Share information and make people curious about your thoughts, opinions, and writing. People like to do business with people they know and like. As they get to know and like you, they’ll become more curious to buy your book.
• Go beyond the written word. Include photographs in your blog to attract people who are more visual. You can also include audio and video to your blog. Take turns playing with or switching up different types of blog posts.
• Automate your blog so everything you post goes to your social networking sites. Ping.fm is one good site that allows you to cross-post.
• Be listed on blog directories so people looking for information or the topics you’re writing about can find you.
• Follow other authors and people in the publishing industry’s blogs and post comments on those blogs—your website will be included so people will follow you back to your website.
• Post on average three or more blogs a week so you always have new content and readers stay interested.

Blogging can be a fun and fulfilling way to promote your books, to have conversations with readers, to try out ideas for future books, and to learn a great deal about how to market your books to attract readers. Ultimately, you won’t know if blogging is effective for you unless you try it.

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

So, you’ve written The Great American Novel, and it’s about to be published. What next? The whole point to writing a book is so that someone (or a lot of someones) will read it. However, it’s rare that someone will walk into a bookstore and select a book they’ve heard nothing about. With a little ingenuity and hard work, you can market your work and increase sales. Read on for some tips for marketing your book online.

Create an Audience

This is why it’s important to begin creating your audience as soon as you can. This can start as soon as you have a reasonable idea of what your book will be about and when it will be released. Start describing your writing progress on your personal blog and encourage everyone you know to visit the blog, make comments and tell others about your upcoming book.

Procrastination is not an option here! By letting anyone and everyone know about your book, you increase the possibility that your fans will line up to buy it when it’s published.

Network Your Heart Out

Writers tend to be a cliquish bunch, with poets separating themselves from fiction writers, who in turn isolate themselves from nonfiction writers, and so forth. Thankfully, readers aren’t as finicky, often buying a wide array of writings. With this in mind, it makes sense to promote your work across all genres. Be shameless about this! Not only will you develop contacts who may help you further your writing, but you may gain readers who would have otherwise been clueless about the existence of your book.

Use Social Media to Your Advantage

The Internet has made marketing a lot easier than it used to be. Take advantage of technology by creating a website and opening accounts on various social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt, etc. This will increase your fan base exponentially, which will lead to more book sales. Not only can you update your fans about progress on your book, potential publishing dates, and so forth, but you can release “teaser” chapters to hook readers.

Integrate Search Engines into Your Efforts

One of the best ways to increase your fan base is to become visible in search engines. This can be done by incorporating specific keywords on your blog, such as the title of your work and a few descriptive words (e.g., “crime novel” or “young adult fiction”).

Also, visit Google Webmaster Central  to learn how Google crawls, indexes and ranks websites. By using specific keywords and submitting a sitemap of your site, you increase the likelihood that your site (and therefore your work) will be found through search.

Keep at It (But Maintain Balance)

When it comes to marketing your work, it’s important to remember the adage, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” Even the most seasoned marketing firms know this is a nuanced process that requires time and patience. Make a habit of doing a little marketing every day, and you will eventually start reaping the benefits of all of your hard work. Be sure not to burn yourself out, though, or your victory will not seem nearly as sweet.

As you can see, marketing is mostly common sense with a little strategy mixed in. Why pay someone to do it when you can do it yourself? Not only will marketing your own work save you money, but it will increase your overall confidence and help you gain a deeper understanding of what it takes to write a great book. Best of luck!

Derrick Cruise is currently writing a book of poetry, and plans to market it himself using various strategies, including email marketing.

Everyone wants to be a successful author – even people who’ve never written a book. Mention television and movie deals and people even start salivating. But those of us who have actually published know there is a vast distance between getting an ISBN number and actually selling books. For most of us the numbers, at least in the early days, are so few and far between that we start cursing our cousins that they haven’t bought enough copies to give to their friends.

The lack of sales leads to depression. Perhaps feeling desperation, we mention our books on Facebook. One friend, most likely somebody living in Bahrain, asks how to get a copy. Fighting back the impulse of gratitude that would take us to the nearest UPS store, we go to our Amazon pages, copy the links, send them. Of course living in Bahrain, our friend doesn’t have an Amazon account anyway, but we have started our careers marketing. Social media becomes our new home. We trudge electronic highways and byways like the old time Bible salesmen, going door to door and offering to personally sign each copy.

I’ve been trudging for a while now and I thought I’d share a few things I’ve learned along the way.

1) You can’t sell if you don’t get in the door. Those two thousand friends on Facebook, those fourteen hundred and thirty-two followers on Tweeter: they all have to think of you as a friend. Let’s face it, you aren’t the Fuller Brush man, you don’t have a product they want. They have to want to buy something from you. That means you have to be friendly before you pitch.

2) People start to sing to themselves when you repeat too often. You know – like the little kid going la-la-la when you’re lecturing him. They heard you the first time. You wrote a book. (They immediately thought they could write one too, assuming they haven’t done just that.) Now tell them something they don’t know. I follow an 80-10-10 rule. Eighty percent of my posting is about non-writing stuff. Ten percent is about writing, but not necessarily mine. I mention my friends, I mention something I’ve read. Heck, I’ll mention the Gutenberg Bible if I find something interesting to say, and I know none of my friends are buying that one. The last ten percent is for my writing. Some of that is about my novels, but some is about everything else I manage to get out there. For example, I’ll post about this blog.

Which brings us to a real problem, while people may know your name and that you wrote a book, they need to see your name and that title a lot of times before they actually act, before they go to Amazon and click that link.

3) Marketing is not a one time effort. I loved your website, but you’re still going to have to convince me that I want your book. Your book, who are you? Do I know your name? Round and round the prospective reader goes. This is a game of blind man’s bluff, and you are it. Come up with more ways to get those social network friends and followers to think about you until the sheer weight of your presence snowballs them right back to that Amazon page.

I hope this has helped you. Now, go buy one of my books. Think about it. You enjoy my style and my ideas. What more can you ask?

Life itches and torments Kenneth Weene like pesky flies. Annoyed, he picks up a pile of paper to slap at the buzzing and often whacks himself on the head. Each whack is another story. At least having half-blinded himself, he has learned to not wave the pencil about. Ken will, however, write on until the last gray cell has retreated and there are no longer these strange ideas demanding his feeble efforts. So many poems, stories, novels; and more to come.

Check out Ken’s website at: http://www.authorkenweene.com
For Widow’s Walk visit: http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=wbgzb2yk
For Memoirs From the Asylum visit: http://vidego.multicastmedia.com/player.php?p=nqm74a8k
To hear Ken read a chapter from his upcoming book, Tales From the Dew Drop Inne: Because there’s one in every town visit: http://soundcloud.com/kenneth-weene/in-the-army

As a freelance Internet marketer, I learned very quickly that I need to speak with everyone I meet, because you never know who has a website, or knows someone who needs help promoting theirs. As I spoke with my next-door neighbor last year, he told me that he’s an aspiring author who just secured an agent. Given my profession, I immediately started running through ways that I could help him out, and this is what I came up with.

Internet Marketing

Coming mainly from a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) background, I had a dilemma. The first step with any SEO campaign is determining keywords. This involves determining which keywords a purchaser of your book might type to try to arrive at your purchase page. This is difficult for books because people search for books by 1) genre, 2) title and 3) author.

Unless the author has considerable marketing budget, I wouldn’t consider trying to get his/her book up for the keyword “young adult fiction”. Enough people search it, but it isn’t targeted enough to bring you sales from that search. Instead, I’d immediately start optimizing your site for both the name of the book and the author’s name. If the title of your book is fairly unique, this should be easy. Oftentimes ranking for your name is easy as well, unless you have an ultra-common name like Steve Smith or share a name with a celebrity (Sorry to all the Anne Franks, Jen Lopezes, and Steve Martins out there! I’m just the messenger.)

Using this strategy, you’ll be there for when someone hears about your book and wants to check it out. Don’t let anyone tell you any differently – books are shared in a huge way by word of mouth, so do whatever you can to facilitate that!

Social Media

You’ll have raving fans of your book, so leverage those ASAP! Having a Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profile will make sure that when your fans talk about you, that you’ll 1) be involved in the conversation, and 2) you’ll be there for your fans’ friends to check out.

Don’t sit idly by and wait for them to build fan sites. Get in there and facilitate the conversation! That conversation will turn into curiosity which becomes sales.

Connect With Similar Authors

Is there an author who writes in a similar style that already has a strong following? Build a strong relationship with that author for effective cross promotion. Having an experienced author recommend your similar book over social media, mailing lists, and on their website will do wonders for you. Plus you’ll be giving the readers exactly what they want – a similar book to one they are already fans of.

Blogger Reachout

Because word of mouth is so important for book sales, reach out to those whom readers trust. Simply searching for blogs that rank highly on Google for terms like ‘best new fiction books’ or ‘nonfiction book recommendations’, you can quickly find influencers in your genre.

Next, reach out to these influencers. Send them a copy of your book and encourage them to read and share. Their blog may have thousands of followers who may result in hundreds of purchases, and a lot of buzz.

Bookstore Signings

I see book signings constantly at my nearby Costco and bookstore, so I have to assume they work. As a regular tradeshow exhibitor, I know the power of getting noticed. Get in touch with a good signage guy (If you need one, I use this banner printer in Austin), and make a display that gets serious eyeballs. Don’t be discouraged if lots of people walk by without speaking with you or buying your book. They’ll take notice, and go out and look you up. Some will come back to buy your book, and others will purchase online, and it will be because they shared some form of connection with you, and they may soon become your raving fans because they want to be able to tell people that they met you.

If you have any more suggestions on marketing for authors that I didn’t cover, let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear them and add to my recommendations to my neighbor.

AJ Wilcox is an avid Internet marketer and writer for the creative agency StruckAxiom. He loves exotic cars, running, and hanging out with his wife and 2 kids at his home in Utah.

Online video is definitely where the Internet is going. Video can generate traffic virally, increase conversions at your website, and allow you to build a stronger relationship with your customers. And the good news is it’s getting cheapr and easier all the time to produce video for the Internet.

Here are 3 free online video tools to help you get started…

Tool #1: Broadcast Your Own Live TV Show
http://www.ustream.tv

You can broadcast your own TV show…for free. Pretty amazing considering how much it usually costs to provide live video online. How could you use a tool like this to build your business?

- Run a regular TV show to generate viral traffic.
- Create a web conference using the video for training and the chat applet to take questions.
- Create a training product, because you can password protect your videos.
- Broadcast your workshop live while it’s occuring to those around the world.

Tool #2: Record Your Screen
http://www.camstudio.org

Record a screen presentation. Show what you’re doing on your computer. Perfect for creating a software or Internet training product…or doing a Powerpoint presentation. You could even record something you do regularly in your business, upload it to your site, and then outsource the work to someone else (train them by having them watch your video).

The screen recorder I’m personally using is Camtasia Studio. What I love about Camtasia is the more advanced tools and even the ability to do picture in picture (I can show a video of my computer screen and have a small video of myself in the bottom right corner of the display).

Tool #3: Edit Your Videos
http://www.onetruemedia.com

Want an easy to use editor for short web videos? Several of the video sites such as Youtube.com are now offering basic video editing. So far though, it seems Onetruemedia is in the lead on this. You can edit your videos for free or pay their $3.99 a month fee to do a little more advanced editing.

It’s a good way to get started with basic video editing and create some pretty nice online videos without having to learn the more advanced programs such as Sony Vegas.

Terry Dean helps business owners Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life. Receive his Special report, “10 Key Strategies for Any Business Owner to Earn More, Work Less, and Enjoy Life” along with “Live the Internet Lifestyle…Retire Young and Wealthy” here: http://www.theterrydean.com

With the strong emergence of social media in the internet marketing world, every Tom, Dick and Harry has come out saying they are social media experts. They are feeding on the desires of entrepreneurs who do not have time to dedicate to developing their social media presence effectively. If you do not ask the right questions you may wind up spending thousands of dollars and get no results. That’s why I created this guide to help you choose the best social media consultant for your company.

5 Questions You Must Ask Before You Hire Your Next Social Media Consultant

1. When engaging in social media marketing will you keep my targeted audience in mind?

Most social media companies will focus on making the connection. They do not care whatsoever who that connection is. What good is having thousands of connections if they do not become prospects, new clients, referral sources or possible JV partners. When I help my LinkedIn clients, I focus on their target audience. I research each individual potential connection to see if they could be a future prospect, referral source or joint venture opportunity. I focus on the quality of the connection, not the quantity because my clients do not care how many people I connect with them. They care more about how much money they are making from LinkedIn and their social media efforts.

2. Do you create a system to take the online conversation offline?

Many consultants do not take the most crucial step of any online social media connection — They fail to take the online conversation offline. If you think you are going to sell high-end products and services just by having a social media presence, then I have a Brooklyn Bridge to sell you. You need to have a system in place that consistently gets your website and information in front of your prospects. You need to engage with them on many levels. And, you need to find ways that you can get them to take the next step in your relationship – and have a phone conversation with you.

3. How engaged are you in social media conversations?

Anyone can post content to groups – a five year old can even do that if you show them how. If your social media consultant does not understand direct response copywriting techniques that encourages conversation, then it’s time to move on. If your social media consultant does not regularly monitor the conversations that’s happening online every day, then move on. The person you choose to handle your social media needs to know how to assess the conversations and find ways you can contribute. I spend time every day, scanning the LinkedIn Q & A boards and the different groups that my clients belong to. I look for opportunities that my clients can add value. I look for ways to spark healthy debates. That’s what effective social media marketing is all about.

4. When focusing on social media profiles do you focus strictly on keyword optimization and being found first for you niche?

If you go to LinkedIn and do a search on internet marketing, you will see the number one person has only 145 connections and the number 2 person has 154 connections. Now internet marketing is a popular key phrase. In fact, the search gets 487,100 results for that phrase. So imagine how many people check out their profiles. One has to wonder why they get so few connections. It is because the person who handles their profile forgot, if you want to create a connection, you need to have prospect focused copy within the profile. You cannot just have it stuffed with keywords. Your profile has to show me why I want to connect or do business with you.

5. How can you ensure that my social media messaging stays consistent with my branding?

One of my clients, Adam Hommey, Founder of Help My Website Sell, started to create content that dealt with how to work effectively with your website team. How does that relate to a brand that is heavily focused on increasing website conversions? Most companies would have distributed his article on their social networks without any concern. But I pushed backed and told him that this did not match his brand and this should not be sent out. I asked him point blank, how does this relate to website conversions and how will this persuade legal firms, management consulting firms and corporation (his target audience) to want to connect with him? You need someone who will keep your brand in check and work to reinforce it through social media.

By asking these 5 questions, you will avoid the mistake of hiring the wrong social media consultant or company. For additional social media help, I invite you to go to GetLinkedInHelp.com and check out my free LinkedIn special report revealing the 14 mistakes that most businesses make.

LinkedIn Expert Kristina Jaramillo creates online marketplace opportunities for entrepreneurs who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now, with her free special report, you can uncover how you can become “the trusted source for your industry on LinkedIn” and along with easy ways to gain more connections fast by avoiding the top 14 mistakes. Get this information for free at: http://www.GetLinkedInHelp.com

As our world becomes more digitized, eBooks have become more the rule than the exception. With a variety of ways to read them, many people are opting for instant downloads and ease of portability of a wide variety of literature.

People with online businesses, or those who are considering starting an internet-based business, should strongly consider creating and marketing informational eBooks about their niche. EBooks are typically shorter and more to the point than classic printed books. Additionally, it is easier to revise and update your eBooks as things change in your niche. Sales of eBooks can be done on the company’s website and many other places, including auction sites, eBookstores, and even Amazon.

How do you publish an eBook?

Gaining just a little technical knowledge will enable you to publish your eBooks. Most eBooks are created using an Adobe PDF file. Adobe Acrobat or one of the other PDF tools can be used, and those can typically be found online or at computer and office supply stores. Indeed, you might find the programs already installed in your computer. Nearly every computer that is sold nowadays includes a version of Adobe that enables you to read PDF files, and some have more advanced software bundled.

Free Distribution to Promote your Business

You might decide that selling eBooks is not for you, but distributing free informational eBooks is a great way of promoting your business, your website, and yourself. Simply have visitors to the site fill out their contact information to earn a free eBook.

Start an EBook Store

Setting up an EBook store will not cost enormous amounts to get started. You will need some unique or niche informational products to stock your store. You will want to have a few different options available to customers, who will likely appreciate the instant download capabilities that will save them money on shipping, while providing the same information. Decide who your target audience is, and begin marketing to them and driving traffic to your store.

Selecting Topics

Once you decide upon the niche for your eBook store, you will want to continue to add more informational products about that niche, especially if it seems to be selling quite well. On the other hand, adding some different ‘departments’ to your eBook store can also help to diversify your target market. You might find that complementary niches work best together, since there will be some crossover sales. For instance, eBooks that teach writing abilities can be great sellers on SEO and social media-heavy eBookstore websites.

Guest blog post by Denise Gabbard of Discount Vouchers, where you will find Argos discount codes and Comet.co.uk discount vouchers

It seems that a lot of people are questioning whether article marketing as a lead generation tool is “dying” because of video. Here’s real proof that article marketing is alive and kicking…

1. Key Organization Founder Denise Landers became a key contributor to Entrepreneur Magazine’s website. Entrepreneur.com receives more than 4 million hits per month! Can you imagine the amount of business she receives by getting her articles published on the site?

2. Technology expert Dan Kaplan had his best year in 29 years of business. Dan’s referrals dried up to the point where he thought about shutting down his business and entering early retirement. Now, because of articles, he is known as the “distribution technology expert” and he is now one of IBM’s top resellers!

3. Dr. Mark Hyman added article marketing and article submission to his marketing mix – and hit the #2 spot on the New York Times Best Sellers List

4. With just 4 months of article marketing coaching, organizational leadership consultant Skip Weisman received a new 25,000 consulting contract!

5. By following the strategies in my online article marketing course, Jason Dove published his book, “Crystal Reports Formulas Explained,” and sent it from selling zero copies to being number one in its specialist chart on Amazon. He secured a 95,000 euro contract and it allowed him to launch an info product to share his expertise with others and generate a modest passive income.

Now I will admit that video is playing a huge role in internet marketing today. YouTube has become one of the fastest growing sites on the Web. And, people are slapping videos on sales pages instead of making prospects read a 10 to 12 page sales letter. But video marketing and article marketing should go hand-in-hand. In fact, for every informative article you write, you should be turning it into video and vice versa. Remember article marketing is about getting the right messages to as many targeted prospects as possible in as many ways as possible.

So I think it’s quite bizarre that people think article marketing is dying. Newspapers still publish articles. All the big news sites are still delivering news. The blogosphere is still growing and ezines are still one of the best marketing tools. I bring in leads every single day from my articles on top websites like About.com and SiteProNews.com. And, because I’m posting articles on my LinkedIn group, I’ve seen my website traffic increase by an additional 18% last month.

So where is the slow death?

I figure it’s because people equate article marketing with distributing to ezinearticles.com, isnare.com,articledashboard.com, etc. With everyone jumping on the bandwagon and many talking about Google slapping duplicate content, the competition on the article directories has become fierce.

For me, article marketing is not dead…as I’ve never limited it to that.

Article marketing is using articles on your own site, contacting BIG and targeted website/newsletter publishers directly and REALLY getting your content out there, instead of just passively submitting to directories.

Use your articles to your advantage by re-using them in different and unique ways.

7 Ways to Use Your Articles

. Turn your articles into press releases

. You should be blogging every day. And, these blog posts should be automatically posted on your Facebook fanpages, LinkedIn profile and to your Twitter account.

. Develop an e-course. You can write a series of articles that you can distribute as an e-course. An e-course, or course by email, is typically a brief lesson sent over several days or weeks. This type of course a very simple way to give away some of what you know so that people get a taste of what it would be like to work with you. You can sell your e-course. Or give it away for free as a marketing promotional tool.

. Create an online publication like HealthyWealthynWise.com, SmallBusinessCEOMagazine.com and InternetMarketingTNT.com!

. For every article you write, create a video and podcast. Now, submit your articles, videos and podcasts to the top websites, ezines, video and podcast directories.

. Create your own Facebook fan page and LinkedIn group. Every article I write for my blog and for article submission, I link to it in my article marketing group and fanpage. As of this writing, my Google Analytics shows an 18% increase in website traffic due to my LinkedIn group and a 5% increase in website traffic due to my Facebook efforts.

. Dominate your niche with your very own resource and article directory. With this directory, you can promote your products, affiliate products or both! You can use your content and ask others to submit their content. You can even make it a reviews site and have others rate products, services and your articles. Make sure you put Adsense on every page. And, do not forget to sell advertising space.

Now I Will Also Admit That Article Marketing Is Not What It Used to Be.

No longer can you submit an article to thousands of article directories and expect the traffic to come pouring in! Whether you’re just starting out in article marketing, or you already run an article marketing campaign, you have to learn how it should be done in today’s world if you want it to succeed.

Over the last couple of years, article marketing and article submission has evolved into a tactical marketing strategy that must be executed properly in order to realize it’s full potential.

That’s where my “6 Module Online Article Marketing” course comes in. This course shares this information with you in a simple-to-understand, easy-to-read way. It works today, consistently and for any niche imaginable. I invite you to grab more information on this article marketing course at: onlinearticlemarketingcourse.com

Article marketing expert Eric Gruber creates online marketplace opportunities for authors, internet marketers and small business owners who want more website traffic, prospects and profits. Now you can get started with article marketing fast with Eric’s free instant article writing templates that will help you write articles in 30 minutes or less. Grab them now at: http://www.trymyfreearticletemplates.com

Many book authors decide that they do not need their own book websites. These authors feel that they can get enough exposure by listing their book on the various online book sites.

Yet, if you are truly interested in giving your book the best online marketing opportunities, you need to have your own book author website.

To begin with, if you use social media networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to promote your book, you will want to include a URL link that sends people to a dedicated website to show that you are a serious author.

And this is especially true because you don’t want to use a URL to a shared site where people can get distracted with the other books available and forget about checking out your book.

Second, you want to be able to offer a sample chapter on your site in order to entice potential purchasers to buy the entire book. This sample chapter can also be used to encourage people to give you their name and email address.

Thus, if you have this information, you can keep yourself in front of people who might not have bought your book the first time they visited your site. Now you can send emails with updates of your writing.

Another important reason to have your own website is to be able to include book club discussion questions on the site. Plus you can also include videos and audios.

Then there’s the advantage of having your blog on your website. With the constant addition of fresh material, you make the search engines happy with your site. The result of this is to help your site come up higher in the organic search results when someone is looking for a book related to the topic of yours.

Of course, you can add your own book signings and event dates to let your fans know when and where they can meet you in person. And you can add reviews and testimonials to encourage potential purchasers.

The bottom line is that, if you have your own book author website and you can control it yourself, you can greatly increase your online marketing opportunities.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) is the co-founder of the social media marketing company www.MillerMosaicPowerMarketing.com and the company has a collaborative program with WordPress website builder Doron Orenstein at http://www.magneticwebworks.com/services/ultra-pro-websites/ Doron builds WordPress websites for clients and Miller Mosaic provides how-to videos to help these clients effectively use their WordPress websites/blogs.