My first introduction to the online romance community happened in about 1999 or so when I found the All About Romance website. Up until then, I’d had no one with which to discuss my love of romance novels, but through the small handful of interactive sites like AAR that existed back then, for the first time people like me had a forum for meeting other romance readers to discuss our favorite topic. Most people still didn’t have much access to the Internet at that point, so these sites were fairly small, but the regulars were talkative, and what they lacked for in numbers were amply made up for by their sheer exuberance.
Fast forward almost ten years (yikes!), and the online romance community has exploded. Readers, authors, and even agents and editors and other industry professionals are connecting with each other on a daily basis, and the websites that allow them to do this are so numerous that it boggles the mind. In the late 90s it was rare for an author to have a website, and the ones that did often had some sort of bare bones, homegrown, and not terribly professional looking site hosted on a free space like Geocities—oh, how we all loved Geocities! Today, however, it’s rare for an author not to have a website. A lot of aspiring authors even have sites, and the published ones that haven’t invested in their own dot com often at the very least have a blog.
Because, well, pretty much everyone these days has a blog. Many people even have more than one blog, and it’s been several years since group blogs were a novelty. And while people still claim that the majority of romance readers aren’t online (at least not in the form of participating in the online romance community), compared to ten years ago, there are an awful lot of us. This is why debut authors today are advised that they must have a website and they must do online promotion. The days of authors ignoring the power of the Internet are long gone.
But here’s the rub. Lately, it’s seemed to me that the number of people in the industry who come online to promote their products (i.e. authors and publishers) has grown far more in proportion to the size of their target audience. Authors these days are facing a pretty tough struggle to get the attention they want. Is it a competition? Hell, yeah. While it’s possible for readers to visit a great number of sites on a regular basis, there are only so many hours in a day. They have work, family, other commitments, and let’s not forget the time away from the computer to actually read the romance novels they come online to talk about.
So we all have to adapt. A few years ago, when my clients asked me what was the best way to draw traffic to their sites, I repeatedly used two words: contest and blog. Run a contest, I said, and readers will flock like pigeons to a pile of bread crumbs. Who doesn’t like winning free stuff? Start a blog, I said, to get readers to come back to your site often, so they’ll keep your name and your books at the forefront of their minds.
These days I sing a different tune. You should absolutely get yourself a professional looking site with content that readers are interested in. Want to do contests or giveaways for fun? Go ahead, but don’t expect it to help your sales numbers in a significant way, and don’t even hope that it’ll substantially increase your traffic, either, because it won’t—unless you offer up as a prize something crazy, something worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars. (And even then, you’ll mostly just draw the attention of professional sweepstakes entrants who won’t give a fig about your books.)
Ditto on the blog. Keep it for fun, unless you have that magic touch that brings in the crowds. Some authors do have a huge following on their blogs, but let’s face it, most of them are already fans that would be buying the authors’ books, anyway. The biggest draws for readers seem to be reader blogs, probably because they feel more comfortable talking freely on those sites, and the regular Suzy Author thinking she can compete in such a field is probably being just a tad unrealistic. There are too many blogs out there and not enough of an audience to make more than just a handful of them wildly popular. And as more and more author sites, blogs, message boards, and such are popping up, the harder it will be to get noticed.
I don’t discourage authors from doing online promotion, but I’m also honest when they ask and tell them that very little of it will work the way they want it to. Some investment in making your book visible to the romance community is probably worth it, especially for unknown/debut authors, so do some research into the sites that offer ad space (check their traffic stats, ask author friends for advice, etc.), and pay for as much as you feel you can afford. Heck, even invest in a trailer if you must–but for goodness sake, don’t invest too much, because in my not-so-humble opinion, paying for a trailer is not so much like putting part of your advance into a high-interest savings account as it is burying your $$$ in the ground and hoping it’ll grow into a money tree.
Just do as much as you can without breaking the bank or putting your deadlines in jeopardy. And then you forget about the Internet, and you sit down and write the best damn book you can, because absolutely nothing sells like an actually good book that everyone starts talking about. Word of mouth still works best, even in the 21st century.
So, tell me. Have your romance community surfing habits changed? Do you visit as many blogs as you used to? Do you enter authors’ contests? What does it take for an author to really get your attention? This curious mind would love to know!
No related posts.
The readers have moved from the static web and are exploring virtual worlds like Second Life. I’ve been trying to tell everyone that for a while now
. It’s a wonderful place to actually MEET readers and have conversations with them, to do readings and workshops and yes…do research for new books. Where else can you actually BECOME a shapeshifter or ride a pirate ship or visit a working dungeon? Okay, so the last does exist in real life, but the others…not so much! lol
Websites are wonderful but on occasion, have to go offline for a while (my own, for example as we switch providers. The task of moving the entire thing is taking several days as we wait for others to do what needs to be done). Yes, Second Life also goes offline on occasion, but rarely the entire grid anymore. Your region might require a restart (a 10-minute process) and that’s all the time you’re out of touch.
I make a profit each month in SL doing readings and workshops. Shortly I will be setting up my own island dedicated to erotica writing (looking for authors, btw, who might be interested! Email me if you are)…THIS is the web of the future!
*climbs down off soapbox*
Thank you
(ps. without my website working, you can email me at dhunter1616@yahoo.com for the moment)
Hi! I’m new to the comments section, but I’ve been lurking this site for a while.
I’m actually writing my honors thesis next semester about the Internet and book marketing. I haven’t found too much in scholarly articles about it (some, but there could be more), so I’m really looking forward to reading everyone’s responses just to get a real world look at what people feel.
As for me, I don’t read as many blogs as I used to. I tend to only read author blogs that are written by a lot of authors (like The Goddess Blogs), so you get more bang for your buck. I’ll only read them if I’ve read and liked some of the authors before.
I’ll enter contests on blogs that I’ve commented on before. But, you know, it’s daunting to comment on a blog (right now, I’m a little nervous about posting this) where there is an established community. You feel like an interloper.
I good way for me to get interested in an author’s site or blog is for them to be a guest on a blog I already read. If I like what they say, or if they offer free books, I tend to check them out on their own turf.
As a two novel a year writer,
my blog is meant to keep readers entertained between novels.
It also allows me to explore secondary characters I won’t ever give a full book to.
Oh, and play with being a pantser.
I don’t have a website.
My blog IS my website.
I don’t understand the need for both.
Promo should really be designed for the target reader.
My readers (businessgals) don’t hang out on Second Life.
They DO hang out on wealth building forums.
They don’t like contests (can’t be bothered).
They do like to know ‘insider’ info.
It is all about knowing and respecting your reader.
Jessie E,
If you need some contacts for your article,
I have buddies in the biz.
Send me an email
(the link is on my site)
Diana, I bet Second Life is going to be fantastic for you.
I have to ask, as an author when do we get off the ride? I remember when my oldest was in Kindergarten and it seemed like every month there was Something New for these kids to buy. Knuckle Bones, Milk Caps, Pokemon (still there), Beany Babies, Yo-yos, Razors (the scooter thingies). I can remember his childhood by having to buy the toy du jour. For writers it’s bookmarks, magnets, rubbers, chocolate-it’s endless.
I’m going to stick with writing, and freebie stories and content on my site. You know who’s rocking it? Holly Lisle. She’s on fire with her marketing ideas, and knowing what I do about online businesses and (in my industry) the most productive websites-she’s hit the nail on the head.
You’re speaking in general terms and that’s fine. I encourage authors to explore more information about the Internet which might be specific for the subgenre they write in. For example, if you write Science Fiction Romance you better know your readers are going to be computer saavy. They like all the techy stuff and MySpace and all that. They want cell phones that flip open just like Captain Kirk.
SFR is the second hottest selling subgenre in eBooks, or so I’ve been told. Where do they get these eBooks? On-line. Erotica is the first highest seller, I believe. So, if you’re an Erotica author, pay attention.
Also, consider region of country. I have no scientific data, but I would guess Alaska, my home state, is one of the highest Internet-users in the country. Most of us live too far from a regular bookstore to shop in person. We love our computers because they’ve brought us closer to the outside world than we’ve ever been. You might want to consider this if your book has international appeal too.
Figure out where your potential readership likes to hang out and go there for ideas. It’s true authors’ websites have a hard time attracting new visitors these days, I believe, though some can and do. These authors have learned to capitalize on their personal strengths. If you haven’t and don’t think you can, join a group blog for your subgenre instead. Also, find out if there are reader blogs devoted to your subgenre and comment on them at least once a week to let them know you care.
Many polls have revealed that readers depend on each other’s recommendations when buying new books more than anything else. Find out which book review blogs your subgenre of books are reviewed a lot at and jump into the queue.
We review all genres at Enduring Romance, except Horror and Erotica. I’m booked for 2008, but my fellow reviewers are still open, I think. Their names and preferences are on the left sidebar of the blog. Don’t be too shy to contact us. We’re used to it.
Oh, one more thing which might be of interest to this topic, we’re throwing a Cyber-Launch Book Party for Science Fiction Romance extrordinaire Linnea Sinclair at the Enduring Romance blog on August 7th. We always have a blast at these parties. Fantasy author, Lisa Shearin, holds the record for comments and Linnea holds the record for actual visitors. If you want to know what these parties are, you’ll find the link to the old parties in the directory.
As a reader, I don’t think blogs are really worth having as a promo thing. Nowadays, I don’t read author blogs except for the ones whose authors I know off-blog.
Messageboards? I moderate an author’s messageboard and unless you manage to get everybody there in the first place, not much point.
I do think you need a separate website if you already have a blog. The focus on a website is giving out info about the work, the blog is for the personality.
First off, thanks for the introduction to Second Life. Don’t know that I’ll ever visit, but it’s interesting to know they predictions of the cyberpunk genre continue to be coming true.
As far as what catches my attention with book marketing, it’s actually a lot of the old standbys:
While occasionally I see something on readers blogs that gets me interested enough to pick up the book, I do rely more on word of mouth than anything.
After that, it depends on the books availability in major stores where I browse often. Then, it depends on what the cover looks like (I know this is a terrifying thought for authors who have little to no control over their cover art)—I will rarely browse a book on the shelves that has a crappy cover. That’s not just in the romance genre, but across the board. And as “crappy cover” is so subjective, I’m not going to try to explain my criteria here (although you can probably catch some of my preferences on the entry here called, “The Old WTF Show Continues”).
Finally, having a good synopsis in the back matter is extremely important. Give me enough about the book to get me curious, and avoid too much camp.
That’s my two cents.
Word, word, word, and WORD!
If you have products for sale, you need a web site that has more information about those products than can be found anywhere else, in one centralized location. Provide excerpts for try-before-you-buy. Got a series? Readers definitely want the chronology and relationships between the books spelled out. Provide links to every seller you can find, print and e versions, to make it easy for readers to buy from their seller of choice, in the format of their choice.
No, a web site isn’t going to attract random people off the net and convince them to buy a book, but it can definitely reel in a reader who heard about your book and seeks you out to learn more.
General consensus among readers is that good books and word of mouth are what sells books. As near as I can tell, the primary purpose of writer blogs, trailers, bookmarks, etc., is to appease the publisher when they ask, “What are you doing about promotion?”
Kimber An makes an excellent point…whatever venues you choose, go where your audience is. Because my kink in erotica is BDSM, I have links to my website on several non-fiction BDSM sites. I belong to several lists in that area as well. I don’t spend time or money in other genres, because I don’t write for them. At least…I don’t write for them yet.
As for blogs vs websites…I can easily see where that could be a duplication of services for some authors. It truly depends on how many Web 2.0 services you want to get into (have a MySpace page? What about Facebook? Twitter anyone?). You can spend HOURS on ANY of these. The key word here is balance.
Balancing writing time vs promo time. All of the above are time-suckers. What writers need to decide is 1) how much time they wish to spend promoting and 2) which avenues of promotion are going to work FOR THEM.
For me? Blogs don’t work. My website works (when it’s up…grrr), my online newsletter works, and Second Life works (and Twitter is starting to work). Experiment! Play around! Trial and error are often the best ways to see what’s good for you:)
I visit the same blogs everyday, or most days depending on work. I like chatting with other readers and the authors. I do enter contest. I still think a well written book is the best way an author can keep readers. I have many auto-buy authors, but with new authors a long as the book is well written, I’ll look for their books in the future. Contest and blogging will only take you so far.
I visit several blogs daily. Some directly affect my buying habits, especially those that showcase the writer’s voice i.e. Jill Shalvis. The only contests that really work these days are the ones on Fresh Fiction. I’ve often picked up books after reading the blurb when entering their monthly contests, but I wouldn’t enter the contests if I didn’t get the reminder e-mail from FF.
Anyone else finding themselves going to fewer web sites than they used to because of the wonders of RSS feeds? Seriously. Web sites I used to visit religiously I barely remember to check now because blogs have gotten me totally addicted to RSS feeds.
Yeah, I’ll admit that I’m a lazy person. But I love signing up for a feed, going to one place (my Google Reader) and reading ALL the new content that is available.
To me, the most important thing about a web site is that it’s easy to navigate and gives me the information I’m looking for. All the other stuff is nice, but if I can’t find out when your next book is coming out, or find out which books are related in a series, then all the blogs and videos and contests won’t help me. They’ll just annoy me. I’m amazed at the number of author sites that are so hard to navigate that you can’t find this basic information! (Or that haven’t been updated in years, even when the author has a new book out.)
And a request from someone with an old computer. Please make your web site accessible for older browsers! Even if I can’t see your videos or your javascript introductions, I’d still like to find out when your book is coming out. I haven’t updated my old computer because I spend all my money on books! :->
I’m still trying to figure out what works for me so far as promotion online goes. I live online anyway and have for about twenty years, but there’s a difference between where my main/social persona hangs out, where my writer-talking-to-other-writers persona hangs out, and where my writer-talking-to-readers persona hangs out.
When I first got online, I hung out on GEnie, and RomEx was one of my main areas. That was the RWA’s online home at the time, and there was a huge (for the time) group of published writers, aspiring writers and readers who hung out there together. It was a one-stop community for the romance world online, and was wonderfully convenient, as well as a lot of fun. Nowadays we’re scattered all over the map and just finding people is tough.
I’m also with Wendy in that I visit very few web sites now. I have a list of blogs in a feed reader, and friends lists at my various journaling sites, plus my publisher’s Yahoo groups. That’s more than enough for me to keep up with regularly. If there were an RSS feed for new material on web sites, I’d probably sign up for some of those, but as it is, keeping up with blogs is just so much easier that the web sites lose out. I only visit them now if I’m looking for some very specific info about a book or a series or a world, something like that.
Angie
It’s impossible to be hooked into all the online romance communities so I think where one starts out is probably where they stay. There are lots of good ones and new ones popping up everyday.
I have a few writer loops that I belong to. I read messages in daily digest format only.
Blogging is definitely my downfall. I recently reduced the number of blogs that I read by half only to find that a few weeks later, I had surpassed the original number. Some are author blogs; some are group blogs; some industry blogs, like agents or editors; some unpublished writers. I’ve found a world of support and encouragement through the blogging community. It’s also where I get the vast majority of my news and information relative to author happenings, new and upcoming releases, book excerpts, changes in publishing, etc. The good thing is that Google Reader lets me roll through all these blogs much faster than the blog subscription service I used to use. And I use my blog to share my writing journey as well as to pass on the many tips and useful information that I find or to feature authors/books.
I don’t frequent author websites although I always look for one when I read an author for the first time. If I liked the book and I find the website both informative and easy to use, I bookmark it. I can get back to it easily and, when I get around to having my own website, I have examples of sites that I liked at my fingertips.
I love talking about books and ideas and since at least half of my personal reading is romance, I had to look online to find fellow readers. It was the Bitchery that first snagged my attention: their cover snarks and HABOs sometimes have me laughing so hard I cry. Through them I find RTB, which I visit daily. Now I’m becoming a faithful Eloisa James reader at BN.com’s site. (I love it when a scholar talks romance literature in everyday language.)
It’s only in the past three years that I’ve been using the ‘net as a reader, and in the past year that I’ve actively participated (by commenting on sites like this one). For me, author sites are most useful for seeking out an author’s complete backlist titles. (Wading through Amazon.com can sometimes be a pain in the ass.)
Jessie E., I have about a dozen years of book marketing and publicity experience under my belt. And have been working in the digital book publishing landscape for the past few years. If you still need industry contact feel free to email me at bookgirlsd(at)yahoo(dot)com. I would love to read your thesis when it’s completed.
This is a great discussion! I agree with those that say an author’s web site is crucial. There’s tons of content an author can add to her site that it would be hard for readers to find elsewhere, stuff that could actually result in additional sales, particularly back list and upcoming book info.
A blog alone won’t be as well organized as a regular website. I’ve visited the blog of a few authors that have only that and no web site, and trying to find information was so frustrating that I just gave up.
as mucha s i can, espicaly here, i come here alomst everyday. in enter them.
I agree that if an author has a blog, they still need a website if only for those “booklists” and organizational tips. I ought to have enough books out before too long that I’ll need to do a “list” separate from my “books” page. And excerpts and stuff like that. I have a few (like two) authors whose websites I check out a couple times a year to see if they have any new excerpts up. The other authors, I just buy their books when I see them at the bookstore.
I am actually reading more blogs now than I used to–mostly because sometimes I have a little downtime at the p-t dayjob and browsing blogs is a good thing to do then. I visit this one, the SBTB blog, teach me tonight, the 2 be read group blog (http://toberead.wordpress.com ) of the published authors RWA chapter (since I’m one of the bloggers), and a few others. I’m going to have to start catching E. James’s stuff too, sounds like. I really like that academic stuff…
Although I’ve been online 10+ years, I’ve only recently found authors and reader blogs/forums. I went nuts at first, and subbed to all sorts of newsfeeds — I hate newsletters, but understand why they’re still necessary, but why not have BOTH?
I even tried the contest thing, but quickly lost interest because so many of them are for a series LATEST release.
Why on earth would a new reader want to read the latest release?
Those contests are nice for established readers for sure, but it seems not many authors think about using contests to draw in new readers
Like with newsfeeds and newsletters, how about having a newest-release contest, AND a
first-in-a-series-contest?
I’ve unsubscribed from most authors’ blogs now; it’s too much promo, like non-stop ads on TV.
I use reader sites and social library sites to read book reviews to decide who I’d like to try out.
Then I go to the author’s site, and WHY WHY WHY don’t most authors put their book series in a clearly numbered list so new readers will know which is the first book
One last thing on contests: Please make the book available in Lit, PDF, or some other kind of downloadable format. Those online viewers are just AWFUL
As far as trailers, I’ve seen a few that were OK, and even though they’re basically a back-cover blurb done with movie-filter text-effects with some special effects between scenes, and photos done with panning effects, they’re still interesting to watch.
I’ve read that authors are paying to have trailers made. I guess it’s time consuming to write, but many of the trailers I’ve seen aren’t that difficult to learn to make using freeware software. I hope they’re not paying a lot for those movie trailers.
Hi Vibeke:
I usually lurk, but had to come out to say great post!!
Promotion, period, whether on-line or otherwise, is a daunting task!! As a new author with a zillion other things on her plate, on-line promotion has been a God- send and has worked fairly well for me coupled with a few other marketing techniques.
And you’re right on target with your statement about the amount of time readers can or are willing to dedicate to surfing websites, blogs, or anything else an author can come up with to bring notice to their book.
However, your assessment about good old-fashioned word of mouth recommendations says it all.
It might take longer than we’d like, but readers will eventually gravitate to authors who consistently produce quality reads.
I think an awful lot of authors are beginning to find the blog/PR thing is eating up precious writing time. My blog consumed the same amount of words as a book last year and I’m beginning to ask myself if it’s really worth the time involved or whether this comes under the “no one but a fool ever wrote for anything but money” heading.
If people want to find me I have a website that’s updated every month and a newsletter with a monthly draw.
Time and words are the author’s most precious commodities. It maybe time to husband them both a little more carefully.
Argh! It took me until this year to start a blog. At that rate it’ll take me until, I dunno, 2015 to become involved in virtual communites, by which time people will have started meeting in hyperspace or through telepathy or something.
I have to admit, though, one reason I started a blog was so that when I did become published, I could tell people about my books without feeling as though I’d created the blog for the express purpose of advertising. I’ve seen one or two blogs like that – they were all about the books, where to buy the books, what readers had said about the books, and even conversations between the books’ characters about how the author had created them. Not much fun. I like blogs with advice or funny stories or warnings or reviews – in other words, something besides promotion.
After watching publisher/author Yahoo groups die a slow death (a few may have a little life in them yet), being told Myspace was essential, and then figuring out pretty quickly it’s not, I’ve settled on doing what I like. I blog when I like (most recently on this very topic), about what I like, and try not to fret over the rest. I haven’t seen book sales affected much at all by contests, loop promotions, etc. I think it’s the cover, the publisher, the title, and whatever small group of readers I have that pick up anything I write. There’s a glut online of romance writers, and I don’t think it’s possible to capture the attention of readers in a way you could, say, three years ago even. I’m trying to write a better book instead.
>What does it take for an author to really get your attention?
I discover many new books from reviews on reader blogs.
Finding a niche and exploiting it works, too. I enjoy a lot of books that are off the beaten path.
Ah, well, all pretty daunting for a newbie author.
I have a website, still under construction, and a blog that I’ve written to only twice. From what I read above, I should keep the website and dump the blog. Well, maybe.
I’ve been trying to promote for only 2 months now, and I agree, online promoting takes up an incredible amount of my time. What with the day job and still trying to write, the whole thing is daunting.
Maybe several posters above were right–write a good book, and the readers will find out. I certainly hope my first effort is good enough.