Promoting
Your Book on the Internet
Many standard
means by which authors have traditionally promoted their writings
are outdated. Mailings and articles reach a limited target area;
article ideas may never be seen by editors or publishers. So how
does an unknown reach an audience today? This article will
introduce the novice internet user to promotion via the
internet. You will find out about the internet, web pages,
internet-service providers, and other “high-tech” terms that
might have been confusing you.
The
internet.
The technological marvel known as the internet is a free and
inexhaustible source for savvy authors. It can even facilitate
traditional sources of book promotion. Email contact can
introduce an author to editors in a variety of printed media,
allowing an article idea to be accepted and the article
subsequently submitted for publication. An author might also
email book critics, book stores, and other potential sources of
positive publicity. Excerpts can be emailed to individuals for
comments and opinions, and just to whet their appetites. Be it a
fictional novel or a technological piece, the extensive reach of
the internet is an area every aspiring author needs to consider
for promotion. After all, the 21st Century is here.
The technological explosion we have all heard about for many
years is now at hand. This is the time and this is the place,
and every aspiring author, whether young or old, needs to take
advantage of its potential.
Web pages.
A person announces his or her presence on the internet through a
web page. A carefully constructed and properly submitted
internet web page allows the author to promote his or her work to
the entire world at a very low cost. Web-page creation software
can be acquired at little or no cost. Some of these computer
programs are basic entry-level programs, easily understood by
those with even a novice’s computer savvy. An author’s initial
or main web page is the one primarily listed as “The Web Page.”
From this main page, authors can link to several other of his or
her web pages, which contain additional information about the
book, the author, book reviews, photographs, etc. After a few
weeks of tinkering with and refining a web site, authors can add
links to an infinite number of locations, drawing more and more
interest to his or her publication.
A web page’s
location on the internet is called its “URL,” or Uniform Resource
Locator. This is the all-important “address” where your web page
can be found on the internet.
The most
important point is simply to create a web page. It does not have
to be perfect the first time, remembering that one can and
probably will edit, change, and improve it continually. In the
following paragraphs I will describe the entire process for
creating, uploading, and publicizing your web page.
Begin by
creating a basic internet web page. Many programs are available
that can be downloaded for free from software developers and
companies that offer “trial” versions of their software. Here
are just a few of these sites:
http://www.sausage.com/products/index.html
http://www.adobe.com/products/tryadobe/main.jhtml
http://download.developernetworks.de/download/evrsoft/1stpage2/
http://www.easy-web-editor.net/
These are a
few of the dozens of software companies that offer, either
completely free programs with unlimited use, or shareware and
trial programs that allow you to use their software for a limited
time, at which point, if you like it, you can purchase it.
Additionally, most computers today come with many Microsoft
programs already installed. As part of Microsoft’s “Office”
program there is a program called “Front Page,” an excellent
web-page creation program. Check under “Programs” on your
computer to see if this program is present. Some Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) also allow their customers to create
basic web pages with just a few clicks of the keyboard and
mouse. America On Line is but one example
Once an
author has used one of these programs to create his or her web
page, the next thing is to upload it to a web-page server. That
may sound difficult or like a place in “Cyber
Never-Never Land,” but actually it’s quite simple. Many ISPs,
including America On Line (AOL), AT&T, and Microsoft Network
(MSN), offer free web hosting for their customers.
Another
possibility for obtaining web space is through a web-hosting
company. Some are free, usually if one is willing to put up with
a bit of advertising, and others charge a small monthly fee.
Those that provide web space without cost normally make their
money through advertisements that appear on the screen. My
suggestion is to either pay a little for the service or use the
free ones that come with your ISP. It’s in poor taste to have
the distraction of pop-up advertising on your web page when you
are promoting yourself and your novel.
Here are a
few links to some web-hosting companies. Read all the
information and make sure you pick the one that best suits your
needs and computer knowledge.
http://www.freeservers.com/
http://www.fortunecity.com/
http://www.spaceports.com/
http://www.50megs.com/
You will need
a name for your web site. I recommend using the title of the
book you are promoting. For example, my novel is entitled “Dead
Red.” I created a web page and purchased two “Domain names” for
my promotion. Obviously, DeadRed.com would have been the best
choice, but that was already taken by another company. So I
chose DeadRedNovel.com and ReadDeadRed.com. Anyone who types
either .com name in their internet browser’s address line will
automatically find my pages. Pretty neat! I should also mention
there is a fee for registering the domain name(s) you want. Some
of these services include add-ons that one might want to take
advantage of, depending on the extent of your knowledge of
computers and web page creation. Some domain-name companies also
offer web space for storing your web pages. Most also offer
assistance in creating web pages and promoting them to search
engines.
To check and
see if the name you want is available or is someone else already
has that name or URL, one can contact numerous companies that
offer this free service. By simply typing in the name you would
like to use and reserve, one can almost instantly determine
whether or not it is available. Here are a few links for that
service. Incidentally, the technical name for the process of
selecting and reserving a name for an Internet web page is
“Domain Registration.”
http://namesecure.com
http://www.register.com/
http://www.mydomain.com/
Search
engines.
Just because you create a web page and host it on the internet
does not mean people will be able to find it when they run a
search. Therefore, the next step is to inform search engines
about your web page and where it can be found. As I explained,
typing DeadRedNovel.com into a browser’s address line will take
you to my web page. But what about people who don’t know the
web-page address (DeadRedNovel.com)? That’s where a search
engine comes in—you may have heard of Yahoo, Google, WebCrawler,
or Lycos, and dozens of others are out there. An author must
tell these search engines how to find a new page.
In the
earlier days of the internet, search engines used to send out
“spiders” to find new web-page addresses. Before long, however,
the extreme rapidity with which pages were created, the essential
explosion of new material, outran the ability of spiders
adequately to find these new sites. Now it is up to us, web-page
authors.
One way to
inform a specific search engine of your page’s existence is to
visit the search engine’s web site. Often they will have a link,
usually called “Submit Your Site,” or some variation of those
words. There are also web-page submission sites, some of which
are free, that submit your site to several search engines at the
same time. A few of these are listed below: One point worth
mentioning is that, due to the immense numbers of web sites being
created and submitted to these search engines on a daily basis,
it may take several months before your site is listed.
Therefore, create your web page, even if it’s just a basic one,
and submit it quickly to as many search engines as possible.
That way, even if you later modify or change it many times, the
URL or address will remain listed with the search engines.
Add Me:
http://www.addme.com/
@ Submit:
http://www.uswebsites.com/submit/
Easy Submit:
http://www.scrubtheweb.com/abs/promo.html
Simple
Submit: http://www.a1freestuff.co.uk/submit.html
And others,
for a small fee, will do all the work for you. Here is one:
Microsoft:
http://www.bcentral.com/products/si/default.asp
Additionally
there are a few Internet web sites that offer novice users a
great deal of help in designing, implementing, and promoting a
web site. The best one I have found is called “Self Promote.”
This one and others and can be found at the following links.
http://www.selfpromotion.com/
http://www.123-cyber-register.com/
Another
service, which I use frequently, is web-page transferring. With
this service you reserve the name of your page, such as
DeadRedNovel.com, but you don’t really have anything stored
there. You store all your web pages, files, pictures and links
on, let’s say, AOL, MSN or AT&T. Whenever someone types into a
browser the name you have reserved, a web-page-transferring
company such as “Name Secure” automatically transfers that
person’s browser to your actual web-page address.
Sound
complicated? Let me explain, using my book’s web page as an
example. I selected and paid the company {NameSecure.com}, $15
per year for the name “DeadRedNovel.com.” Now, all of my web
pages, pictures, sounds and the rest that go with my web page are
actually stored on my AT&T web space. Yet, when someone types in
DeadRedNovel.com or ReadDeadRed.com, they are automatically and
without ever knowing it transferred by Name Secure to my AT&T
location in order to view the web page. Whew, that was a
mouthful!
Put another
way, if you store you web page(s) on AOL, for example, the “true”
address would be;
http://members.aol.com/username/webpage.htm. That is a
lot to type and nearly impossible for anyone to remember. Yet,
by using a web-page transferring service, a person would simply
enter the name you have selected and automatically be taken to
that lengthy address or URL.
* * *
So now you
have been introduced to the internet, web pages, web hosting, and
many of the features involved with promoting your works to the
world. This may have sounded complicated and technical, but
through trial and error you will get through it. There is a lot
of help available for free on the internet about creating,
hosting, and getting through the entire process. Although most
of what is associated with having an internet web page can be
free, certain services will require a small amount of money.
Again, if one is completely computer un-savvy and technologically
challenged, then there are dozens of companies out there that
will do everything for you. Although there may be a charge for
their services, it is a small price to pay for the potential of
having millions of people throughout the world be able to read
about and purchase your novel. Additionally, there are dozens of
books out there (let’s help other authors make a little money
too), such as “The Internet for Dummies,” that can be very
helpful.
I cannot
stress the importance of having your novel out there on the
internet. Without a good web page, millions of people will never
purchase, read, or even know about your book. Unless your name
is Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, or William Shakespeare, you
will need all of the free or nearly free advertising available to
promote you work. The internet is an invaluable source of just
that free promotional space. Choose carefully your ISP, your
name(s), and who you use to help you along. Look what other
aspiring authors have done in using the internet to promote their
work. Get ideas and create of few of your own. After all,
aren’t we authors?
By Nelson Andreu
Author of Dead Red published by American Book Publishing.
