Whether you are the publisher or author of your book or whether you hire a publisher, the success of your book depends on the how well you market and promote the book. Yep, for all intents and purposes, YOU are responsible for promoting it. Publishers are usually too busy to make sure the necessary resources are in place to make it happen. Unless you are Tom Clancy, Steven King or other well-known author, the marketing falls on your side of the court.

One of many methods you really need to implement, but should also be high up on your list, is having a dedicated website for your book. By dedicating 1 book per website it will make your marketing and promotion of that specific book easier to manage. No distractions, no other products or books. Your marketing and promotion should be simple yet specific and therefore if a potential customer is looking for your genre of book, you don’t want to give them other genre choices or confuse them with other types of books on your website.

By having your own dedicated website it will also help with your credibility and give the appearance that you are serious and professional. A properly designed website will look and feel professional, it’ll communicate with individuals in your genre and as a result you’ll sell more books.

Spend some time and effort in choosing the title of your website. A website name that is as close to the title of your book would be extremely advantageous. First, it’ll be easy to remember. Second, it’ll help elevate your book in search engines (Google, Yahoo, Msn). If you can slip a keyword into your website url, that would also help get your book ranked higher in the search engines.

Here’s how I implemented the title of 1 of my books into my website url:

http://www.MasteringNicheMarketing.com (Title of my book is: “Mastering Niche Marketing”)

Now, do a search in any search engine (Google, Yahoo, Msn), using Mastering Niche Marketing in the search box. Notice how many results there are and how highly ranked they are? Quite alot, right?

So if you haven’t yet decided to create your own website you must consider it very seriously. If you don’t have the skills to build a site, then you should hire a designer and they don’t have to be expensive to design and create! A simple website will provide a platform for your ‘message’, and can be a very powerful medium of communicating to your readers.

If you aren’t sure what your webpage should look like, study how other authors in your genre have designed their webpages, that’ll give you a couple ideas on what to do with your site.

Eric V. Van Der Hope

There is a common phrase that’s used that couldn’t be further from the truth when it’s related to the topic of purchasing books:

“You can’t judge a book by it’s cover”.

But can you . . . ??

When it comes to purchasing a book, for the most part people DO JUDGE the book by it’s cover!

And this is why it’s so important you design a book cover with the proper format and effective copy that ‘talks’ directly to your target market.

A good book cover will sell the book, even if the book is a piece of crap! Really, I’m not kidding . . . !!

Your book cover is what will sell your book, whether you think so or not. You may have even experienced purchasing a book after having read the front and back cover then discover after reading through it a bit that it wasn’t what it ‘advertized’.

Doing the proper research by visiting your local library and or bookstore and comparing similar books, then hiring a good book designer that’ll take your concept/idea/design and convert it into a physical cover, there should be no reason why you wouldn’t be able to create a professional looking cover.

With the proper formatting and color, the effective use of a catchy title and sub-title, the proper use of testimonials/reviews on the front and or back cover, a few bullet point copy that’ll trigger an emotional response from the potential customer, perhaps a picture of the author . . . all of these contribute to an effective book cover marketing strategy.

I know of both authors and publishers who have simply re-designed their book cover (but didn’t change the content of their book) and experienced a complete 180 degree improvement in book sale results!

By putting extra effort into the design of your book, you’ll probably without a doubt notice a surprisingly positive result.

So let’s re-visit the title of this book marketing lesson:

“Book Cover Marketing – An effective Book Marketing Strategy?”

Answer: Absolutely!!

Whether you decide to publish your book the traditional way (via the large or small brick and mortar publishing houses) or you decide to self-publish, it’s advantageous to think through your publishing plan at the earliest time in the process of authoring your book.

You should be making it your priority to identify your ideal readers (the individuals searching for your information and who want answers to their questions) and you need to learn and find out how to reach these potential readers/customers. This is where your responsibility to start marketing your book begins!

For the most part, the success of your book is hinged on this aspect of the marketing process.

Most bestselling publishers & authors increased their chances of success exponentially by following this one strategy alone.

They learn how to focus on HOW to MARKET their book before they even write it.

Potential readers will have questions and how you decide to address their concerns in the book will have a direct effect on the market you are targeting and how well received it is or not.