WordPress themes for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part Three)

by Ben Zackheim | Dec 18, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 0 comments

Our sordid story so far…

In the previous installments of WordPress for authors and writers, I’ve talked at you incessantly about the need for authors to focus. A good summary would be, “Define what you want out of your website and find the tools to make it so.”

But what does that mean? Well, if you’re looking to sell books then, in my opinion, it means apply BaB to every aspect of your site.

Bab? Isn’t that short for Barbara? No, that’s Babs.

My BaB is a design mantra that I think all authors should apply to their sites:

Books – show us your books!

action – give us an easy action to take now!

Blog – keep them coming back for more!

Why is the “a” lowercase? Because it should be right in the middle of everything you do, but not in an obvious way. The action should be obvious, logical and clear in its messaging. Does the action need to be a Buy button? Nope. It could be a sign up button, a follow me button or a play video button. But whatever action you want from the visitor it should be a central part of all design decisions.

Much of this theory is based on how people sell web services or non-fiction books (think weight loss programs and cloud services). But fiction writers need to start thinking the same way. We have something to offer and, if we band together, we can come up with standards that will help everyone sell their books from their site!

Someone asked me why they should even bother making a site that tries to sell their book. Their point was that Amazon spends millions on designing product pages that work, so why not just lean on the Amazon page. It’s a good point! Amazon makes great product pages. But they need to follow a one-size-fits-all road. They can’t design a page that’s meant to sell your book. They can only design a page that’s mean to sell “books”. As in “all books”. However, I do lean heavily on Amazon. When I point my visitor to my buy button, they DO go off to Amazon. But I’m not willing to depend on their site to sell my book. I think I can do a better job.

The problem with how authors sell books today

As I researched this post, I ran into author site after author site where I had no idea I was even on an author’s site. I’d see blogposts, images, links, all jumbled together. Some of the sites are really beautiful, but they don’t scream “BOOKS ARE HERE!” which they should if they want visitors to know that, well, books are there. One of the things I’ve learned after selling things online for 15 years is that your site is your business card. It needs to state what you do up front. It’s likely that you list “Writer” or “Author” in plain English on your card. You need to give your site the same focus.

Bottom line: Every page of your site should have one purpose, and you should focus on it like an ion cannon clearing the way for the Rebel envoys. This way your visitors will have all the information they need to decide whether or not you should get their money.

Tell the story of your site before you design it

I spent many months, working hard to craft a flow through my site that is enjoyable for the visitor and maximizes my chances at converting them into a paying customer.

I started by telling the story of my site. What does a site’s story look like? Mine was simple. I want visitors to notice my books. I want visitors to consider buying my books. I want my site to be entertaining and useful to people.

With those three thoughts in mind, I started to focus on how to make a site that makes these dreams come true.

Here’s the flow I wanted to create for my audience:

With quality blog content, search engine optimization and clean code I’d bring the person to my site. I knew that a huge majority of them would know nothing about me, or my books.
The visitor quickly notices she’s on a site where I have books to sell.
She reads my blog post and sees the buy options for my books.
The curious visitor exits to where I want them — namely, Amazon — where I cross my fingers and hope that Amazon (and my book copy on Amazon) converts them to a sale.

And this is exactly the flow I got! Google Analytics shows me it’s the path that a plurality of my visitors take.

But it wasn’t easy to get there. I worked with every web service and piece of software under the sun (from Dreamweaver to Kompozer to Blogger to Tumblr) I found the one-tool-to-bind-them-all.

WordPress.

It’s almost as if they created WordPress themes for writers and authors!

Read part four of my series of WordPress for authors and writers.

Why you should run Goodreads giveaways

by Ben Zackheim | Aug 6, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 7 comments

I talk to a lot of writers, and one of the most common questions I get is, “what can Goodreads do for me?”

The answer is, “Goodreads is good for creating interest around everything that has to do with books”. As a reader, a writer, or a reviewer you can lose yourself in Goodreads if you plow through the horrible interface and abandon yourself to it. I’ve been a member since January, 2012 and I’ve only skimmed the surface. But one feature (besides ads) that I’ve benefited from over time is the Goodreads giveaways feature.

After running a number of Goodreads giveaways I want to help dispel any confusion about why or when to run them (I’ll do ‘how’ in another post). As an author I’ve had hundreds of people add my books to their shelves using contests. It’s worth every minute I’ve invested.

Okay, so the most frequently asked questions are:

1) What are the Goodreads giveaways good for?

Simple. They get your book in front of hundreds, or even thousands of people. And not just any people, READING PEOPLE. Our favorite people.

When a reader enters the contest they are opted-in to add your book to their Goodreads shelves. That means most entrants will have your book added when they enter. So what? you may ask. The big deal here is that if your book is not released yet then everyone who added the book to their shelves will receive an email when your book arrives! Let me repeat that, if you are promoting a book by doing a giveaway on Goodreads, and the book is pre-release, everyone who adds your book to their shelves while entering your contest will receive a launch email from Goodreads.

Yeah, it’s awesome.

2) Can I run a contest for a book that I’ve already released?

Yup, and it will definitely help you get exposure, too. The downside is that there will be no launch email sent out by Goodreads since your book is already out there. But you will get on a bunch of shelves and you’ll be able to get reviews, plus some new friends to follow your Goodreads status and event updates.

3) How can I maximize success?

Two things, run the contest for one month. This gives it time to find traction. Two, advertise the giveaway on Goodreads. This will give you the best chance to find people who are interested in books like yours.

If you’re doing a giveaway for a pre-release, then do your first contest 3-5 months before launch to build buzz. You’ll need to give away proofs, because, well the book isn’t out yet! Also important to note, you cannot give away ebooks at this time.

I hope this clears up any confusion about what Goodreads giveaways are good for. Did I do a good job of that? Let me know in the comments!

To read:

How to set up Goodreads giveaways

Don’t miss this priceless slide show presentation that Goodreads gave recently about how to promote your books on Goodreads!

Does advertising on Goodreads work?

The Ultimate Guide to Goodreads for Authors

by Ben Zackheim

Shirley Link is FREE on Kindle 5/16 and 5/17

by Ben Zackheim | May 16, 2013 | Book Promotion, Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest | 0 comments

Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, the third book in my Middle-Grade Mystery series, is out.

But the real good news is that today and tomorrow it is

FRREEEEEeeeeeee

eeeeeeeeeee

….

So go to Amazon and download your own copy. If you like it, give Shirley a review! And spread the word.

Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest clocks in at twice the size of the two previous books. I wanted to dig into the three teen characters some more, and reveal why they are such a great team. Shirley, Wylie and Marie are like the perfect storm. Between them, their loyalty, intellect, strength, bravery and faith in each other makes them the best sleuthing team of all time.

I look forward to writing more about them in the years to come.

Next up in the series is Shirley Link & The Black Cat. It should be a doozy.

Look for it this summer!

From Amazon (Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest):

Shirley Link loves pirates. Well, she loves the idea of them. She wouldn’t like them if they were running up the street stealing bikes, but digging for treasure and swashbuckling adventure are on the top of her to-do list. So when a clue pops up that there’s a hidden pirate treasure under her hometown, Shirley gets to work.

In Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, the third volume in the critically-acclaimed Middle-Grade Mystery series, our heroine takes on her toughest challenge yet. But this time the stakes are bigger than ever. If she fails to find the treasure, or if it ends up being a hoax, then Shirley’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Smiley, will lose her home to the bank.

More Shirley, Dad, Wiley and Marie than ever before. That’s right. Even Mr. Link gets to join in the adventure!

Reviews:

Emily Neuburger, Everyday Fun blog, Parents.com
“Shirley Link is a new girl detective series that my daughter is crazy about. This is an amazing series, my friends! Your kids will be hooked and you’ll feel really good about it.”

Edward Hemingway, Author/Illustrator, Bad Apple
“This Virginia Mars for the tween-set is funny, smart, and full of preternatural wisdom.”

PopBop (Top 1000 Amazon reviewer)
“There are early middle grade mysteries out there, but most of them have sketchy characters, and a lot of them plod along fairly predictable arcs. This series has an engaging heroine, a lot of attitude, and a much snappier overall feel.”

WordPress for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part Two)

by Ben Zackheim | Mar 19, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 8 comments

To read about how WordPress can help writers, see Part One!

In my experience, authors are hesitant to sell. That’s okay, as long as they do it anyway. (Tweet this instantly!)

I’m not going to tell anyone what their site should be. Only you know what you want to get out of it. You may just want to tell stories. Blog. Podcast. Post pics of cats. But if you want to use your site to highlight you and your books then I have some pretty strong, and well-tested, opinions. After years at Viacom, Sony, ESPN and AOL, building games and game sites, I can tell you that selling something requires focus.

With focus in mind, here’s what every fiction author website must do:

Highlight the books

Have one or two strong calls to action (sign-up for newsletter, buy, download)

Include blogging, video, illustrations, SOMETHING to keep folks coming back twice a month.

What does an author website need to have? BaB!

I call these fundamentals, BaB, which stands for Books/action/Blog.

Why BaB? Because it wraps up what your book site is all about. Selling yourself and your books.

Think about it for a moment. If you stumble on a site that’s selling something, you’ll visually scan it and, whether you know it or not, you’re making a lot of judgments in a split second.

Is it pretty? Assuming you don’t go with a puke pink palette, Wordpress will help make that first impression go well. That’s one of WordPress’ biggest advantages. You need to work hard to make it look bad.
What is being sold and does it look good? Get the best book cover you can afford and highlight it with a WordPress product page. I’ll cover the top themes with product pages in a later post.
What else is here for me? News? Advice? Videos? Contests? Podcasts? Ways to share? Which social network is important to this writer? Is the site worthy of bookmarking?

By executing on the above three points, your site will do the most important thing it can do for you …

…show the reader what your priorities are…

You know how biz folks are always talking about how smart people remove all obstacles to buying a product? The same holds true of site design. Don’t make me think! Do not assume that I found your site because I wanted to see your book, or you. Odds are I did a search and stumbled on you. Now it’s up to you to convert me. Yeah, it’s like sprinting from a standstill. It’s hard, but you have to try.

Want to see what I mean? Okay, go to Jay Asher’s author page.

I’m not nuts about the overall design, but all the elements of BaB are there, and they’re in the right place. Notice the big honkin’ Buy Button in the upper left, which is where most eyes land when they first look at a page. I’m asked to buy before I even know what the product is! But that’s okay because, lo and behold, there’s the pic of the book. Now I know I’m on an author’s site. Jay gives more prominence to News than to Reader Reviews, which is odd, but they’re both really obvious from the get-go.

In the top menu I see there are a whole bunch of reasons for me to come back to the site if I like the book. There are links to his blog and to videos that tie in with his books. The site is bookmarkable. I would also follow the site, which I’ll explain in a later post.

So, yes, Jay Asher’s site has BaB! The books and buy action are tied at the hip on the top of the page, which is how it should be. And there’s content to keep the reader coming back to see what he and his characters are up to next.

Maggie Stiefvater‘s site tackles things in a different way. But let’s check out what she does and (maybe) why. Does Maggie have BaB?

It’s a design-heavy site, with a long load time, but when it does load it intrigues (just like her writing). She knows her audience (young adults) and her pub has made a judgment that the design of the site must capture her audience’s eye and let them know they are definitely in the right place. Since Maggie is busy building a very potent brand, where she is the product, she’s very prominent. Still, notice the biggest words on the page? “Welcome Reader”. She knows that she needs to let folks who don’t know her well that they’re on a writer’s site. Books are here. If you navigate to the books, you’ll find a very succinct and pretty presentation. You can also get fresh content if you come back to the site for her blog.

But this is where things fall apart. Where can I buy her books? Nowhere. I need to either search for the books manually on my site of preference, or go to one of the books’ official sites. From there I can find a Where to Buy section waaaay down on the page. Maybe the publishers figure she has a big enough name so they don’t need to worry about losing sales. But even the slightest bump in the road to purchase is lost money.

I’ve noticed this weakness in a lot of big publishers’ author pages. Maybe they know something I don’t know, but I’d say a design that hides the buy button isn’t doing anyone any favors. Including the readers.

So enough with the studies. How can you take this simple concept of BaB and apply it to your site with WordPress? We’ll explore the answer in the next post.

See what a good landing page needs to have to get the job done. And read part three of my series on WordPress for authors and writers.

Does advertising on Goodreads work? (Part 2)

by Ben Zackheim | Feb 18, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 15 comments

This is a follow-up to a previous post.

I’ve received some feedback on my post about advertising on Goodreads, and it looks like some people are interested in getting into Goodreads, but haven’t made the plunge yet. This sequel is for you!

The thing I like about Goodreads is that it’s filled with readers of all ages. The best way to get to know people who share your tastes is search their groups. I’m still seeking out my niche, but I’ve found lots of helpful and supportive people by just making a page for myself .

If you’re an author you can either “claim” the books you’ve written, or you can upload your book data manually. Once you have an author page with books you can start to find friends by joining group discussions. The best way to sum it up is that Goodreads, while a bit obtuse, is a microcosm of all the reading/writing forums you’ve ever joined on the Web. It’s a wild west of discussions and contests and promotions. The benefit for the author is that you only interact with dedicated book lovers.

Goodreads started a service called Goodreads Self-serve Ads. You can buy, for up to 50 cents per click, ad space on the right or left column of some of their pages. The ads consist of a small image, ad copy and a link to wherever you want. You can set aside any amount as your budget (I chose 10 bucks) and you can track your ad’s performance.

The big benefit of ads on Goodreads is that everyone who sees the ad is more likely than the public at large to be interested in your ad. Still, to ensure you get the most bang for your buck Goodreads allows you to target your ad, meaning you can offer the ad to certain kinds of Goodreads customers. They allow you to show your ads ONLY to people who like (for instance) mystery and YA. You can choose as many genres as you’d like to target, but it’s a fine line you’ll walk in trying to target correctly.If you target too broadly you risk getting people clicking on your ad who are not interested in your kind of book. That’s wasted money. Conversely, if you target too specifically you can filter out perfectly good customers and not see anyone click on your ad at all.

You can also target customers by the author they like, which is an interesting filter that I plan to test out in my next campaign. I need to find out from my current readers who they think I’m similar to!

Advertising on Goodreads

As you can see in the image below, I set my daily budget to 2 bucks. That meant I was planning to pay for a max of 4 clicks on my ad (they charge up to 50 cents per click). I set 10 bucks as the campaign budget, meaning I planned on eventually paying for 20 clicks at 50 cents each. As you can see from the views data, a lot of people had the ad put in front of their faces. A “view” is simply defined as “your ad showed up on the person’s web page”. Goodreads can’t actually guarantee that someone saw and read the ad, they can only tell me that 116,129 people had the ad served to a page that they loaded. Of those 116, 129 Goodreads people, 20 people clicked on my ad. That is .02%

While that sounds miserable, it’s a middling result. A super success would be half a percent point considering that Goodreads doesn’t give you a sexy place on their page to put your ad. In the final analysis I got some exposure for my book series brand, and 20 people showed interest in buying the books.

Lessons learned

And here is where I learned my biggest lesson. Because I don’t have a sale page on my personal website where I can track traffic, I can’t see how many people actually bought the books. I can look at the dates when the ads ran and guess but that’s not a good way to measure these things. My conclusion is that it’s best to have a page with a shopping cart on your own site so you can check the traffic for your site and see “oh, he came from Goodreads.com and he bought a copy on my site.” This way you can see how successful the ad campaign is AND tweak your ad and/or purchase experience next time around.

I’ve learned about a trick and I plan to use it on my next book. According to Tom Corson-Knowles, you can track conversion on Amazon pages by placing an image of yourself in your book description. The image should be hosted by you and served from a bit.ly url. The bit.ly url will allow you to go to the bit.ly site and check traffic for the link. This way you can find out a bunch of user data on who went to your Amazon book page from Goodreads. I haven’t tried this on my Amazon profile because I use Amazon’s Author Central, which does not allow html in their profile form. However, if you are on KDP and have not signed up for Author Central, you CAN use the KDP profile form to enter html, including the bit.ly link. There are some tricks to it and I advise that you buy the three dollar book on Amazon, or borrow it if you’re on Amazon Prime. It’s worth it. It appears that Amazon has changed their policy. I tried to use this trick on a new book using KDP and my html was rejected. As of now, I’m not aware of a way to see traffic to your Amazon page.

Goodreads, for their part, advises ad buyers to make their ads link to the book’s Goodreads page. The Goodreads customer likes their ads to stay within the Goodreads ecosystem because they’re loyal and enjoy the experience.

I saw an uptick in my ads’ performance (known as CTR, or “click through rate”) when I did two things:

Updated the copy. I went for the soft sell, instead of the hard sell. I toned down the language and removed the “Get the book for Xmas”-type wording. The hard sell doesn’t work well on Goodreads.
I changed the ad so it linked to Goodreads instead of Amazon. This made the link at the bottom of the ad read “Goodreads” instead of “Amazon” which, again, appears to be what Goodreads customers prefer.

I hope this post now makes it clear what the benefits of Goodreads is as a platform and as a place to advertise.

by Ben Zackheim

Top 5 writing contests

by Ben Zackheim | Feb 12, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 37 comments

If you’re searching for the best way to submit to fiction writing contests, you may be a bit overwhelmed. There are hundreds of options that range from scams to high-exposure, free-to-enter blockbusters. Through a lot of trial and error, some research and a propensity to have strong opinions about one thing or another, here’s what I’ve discovered.

(Please note that I focus on contests that offer the widest range of entry requirements. None of the contests, as of this writing, require your story to be about food, technology, zebras or any of the other rules that contests force upon us.)

The top 5 writing contests

Here are the top 5 writing contests, as measured by BANG! for buck.

Benjamin Franklin Awards

Independent Book Publishers Association runs this one. I’m a member, but don’t get any dough for recommending them. The cost is $225 for non-members (which includes one year membership to IBPA). While there is no cash prize, the competition has a lot of cred. It’s been around for 25 years. First call deadline: September 30th, 2016. Final deadline: December 15th, 2016.

Writer’s Digest Writing Competitions

Writer’s Digest has a pretty good rep as a place for authors to find useful advice and tools/services. Their contests have thousands of dollars in prizes, but more importantly, they have clout. Not Klout. Real clout ;-)

All the contests, except the Your Story writing contest, cost something — but not more than $110. Prizes include cash, up to $3000.

Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition (their catch-all contest which allows almost everyone to enter).

Short story Competition

Self-Published Book Awards

Popular Fiction Awards

Your story (this one is free and the winner’s 750 word story is published in their magazine) Rolling submission deadlines, so enter away

The IPPY Awards

Entry per category for the first book was $75. Winners get a nice flood of exposure, notably through Publisher’s Weekly publications and emails. Deadline, February 25th, 2017.

National Book Foundation

These guys have been around forever. Lots of cred, a little on the stuffy side, and a nice, big deal if you place in the competition. They’ll take books from small publishers, but no self-published books are allowed. The cash prizes are up to $10,000 They have $125 fee per submission, which they’ll take off your hands during the submission process. (Thanks to Jennie Goutet for pointing out a rule change)

Inkitt Amour

This is a bit more specific than the other contests but Romance is eternally hot and I want all of you to know about it. The Inkitt Amour contest is more like a publishing deal. A good one. In fact, I thin it’s where traditional publishing is going. Check out the perks:

$6,000 in Book Marketing
A dedicated marketing team
Professional editing & cover
25% Royalties

The 25% royalty means that this is a contest for talented newcomers who want to build a fan base. You can do better in percentage profit on your own. But will you have your own marketing team dedicated to making your book a success?

Okay, looks like this post is now the Top 6 contests!

Amazon’s Kindle UK Storyteller Award

Amazon’s back in the game! After phasing out their annual literary award they’ve launched the Kindle UK Storyteller Award. Here’s the deal:

Competition entry period begins at 00:01 (GMT) on 20th February 2017 until 23:59 (BST) on 19th May 2017 (the “Entry Period”). To enter, during the Entry Period you must go to the Kindle Direct Publishing (“KDP”) sign-in page at (https://kdp.amazon.com) (you may select the language for your region in the upper right corner of the page) and follow the instructions to upload and publish to KDP an original, previously unpublished, English-language book authored solely by you (the “Book” or the “Entry”), and include the exact phrase “StorytellerUK2017” in the “keywords” metadata field in order for us to identify your Entry. Entry into the Competition also requires that you have an Amazon account and a completed KDP account and you have accepted the KDP Terms of Service and the Terms and Conditions for KDP Select Program located at (https://kdp.amazon.com/terms-and-conditions)

The prize? A cool £20,000 and a prize ceremony in London. Classy.

Go shopping!

Don’t see a contest that you like here?

Browse two local booksellers!

Skim the shelves where your book will one day be prominently placed (if there’s any justice in the universe). You’ll find stickers or emblems on some books with contests/competitions that the publisher felt were worthy of mentioning up front. These are usually the big boy awards, but you’ll also find some niche awards this way, too.

Try it, it’s fun! You get to scour books and work at the same time!

Gotchas!

Be careful of two things.

One, rights. Make sure the fine print doesn’t lay claim to your work. You’re not giving them the right to anything, except the privilege of giving you an award for your great writing. A number of contests offer publication of your work as a prize, and if that’s what you want then go for it. Just be careful they don’t overreach.

Two, rules. You don’t want to prepare your submission and then find that your story exceeds the limit by a thousand words!

Don’t rush in. Read the teeny, tiny, itsy, weeny print. It’s adorable!

Free or fee?

Should you pay, or should you go for the free contests only? That’s a tough one, since most of us are made of 90% water, and 0% money.

The bottom line is that if the contest is perfect for you, and you’ve checked your writing with a pro editor, then it’s worth paying something.

Important point: It’s best to set out with a budget for contests before you start looking for which ones to enter. You don’t want to go broke when your ambition starts arguing with your income. In my experience, ambition can be a hell of a debater.

Finally, when you have a list of five contests, STOP! One way to make sure you never catch a bunny is to chase two at the same time, right? So focus on your top five. No more for now. You can get to more when you’re done submitting to the ideal choices.

You won! Now what?

If you win, or earn a finalist/honorable mention title, then the hard work starts.

Announce it everywhere. Tout it on your Twitter/Facebook/ G+/Amazon author/Goodreads profiles.

Post a press release with the award name next to your name in the H1 of your site. This way Google will make the association between you and the award. If enough people pick up the story (don’t forget to leverage friends and fans!) your chances of having your name attached to the award’s name in search results grows.

Add the award to your email signature.

Resubmit the story to any agents or editors you’ve reached out to. Winning an award usually pushes the reset button so it’s worth a shot.

Conclusion

Contests are a great way to hone your craft and show the world how much better you are than that other dude writing over there. The one with the empty coffee cup, who’s been hogging the electrical output,

Now head on over to Poets and Writers website and dig into their awesome list of writing contests! You can also see a current list of contests here. And good luck.

Wait! More!

I’ll add to this list as I run across reputable and influential contests. Be sure to these check out, too.

Discovery Awards by IndieReader.com. The IRDA entry fee is $150 per title per category + $50 fee for each additional category entered.
The Guardian is now doing a monthly contest for self-published novels. UK authors only. Who in the USA has the guts to match this? The Atlantic? Reader’s Digest? New Yorker? Anyone?
The Kindle Book Awards are run by The Kindle Book Review.
I also stumbled on this list of contests that are friendly to Indy authors!

by Ben Zackheim

Are you trying to find a good website theme for your author site? Check out my post, packed with excellent ideas!

WordPress themes for writers and authors

And if you want to get to know KDP better, read on:

The $1.1 Million question: Is KDP Select worth it?

Amazon KDP Select has a bridge to sell you! No, really.

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