A post from the Author Enablers:
Your new book is coming out soon, and you are going crazy thinking of ways to promote it. A dedicated website is tempting, as is a Facebook page. Your book is called Moby Dick: the Sequel, so you go online and register www.mobydickthesequel, grateful to see that it has not been taken. Then you start pushing your audience to this site via email, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Is this a good plan? It depends. It’s hard to argue with success, so if you get a lot of traffic to the site, that is good. But what happens when you write your next book, For Whom the Bell Doesn’t Toll? Do you need to start another website, www.forwhomthebelldoesnttoll.com? Do you have to manage both websites at once? Are your readers supposed to go to both websites? That’s expecting a lot of loyalty. When you message people, do you post on both at once? Is it the same post? Or do you tell your fans to abandon site #1 and head to #2?
Most authors won’t only write one book and will have other projects going besides books, such as speaking engagements, blogging, and the occasional massive movie deal. Given this reality (and hope), it is probably best if you create one website that is dedicated to you and all your work where you can do all of your promoting. That way fans of one book will learn about others, and will also be able to learn where you are and what you are doing, all at one handy site. Facebook pages are useful for this purpose, as well.
In short, you are a brand, and you want to brand yourself (in the marketing, not the cowboy sense).
Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry are the authors of Write That Book Already!: The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now. Email them your questions (along with your name and hometown) about writing and publishing, and don’t miss their column on BookPage.com.
Oh! One website. Please.
I know a couple authors who have multiple sites and it drives me a bit buggy… if I want to check in on them, I never know which way to go to get the freshest content.
There’s also a technique called URL redirect, where different domain names end up at the same web page. So I have a website using my name, I’ll also get a domain name with my book title and one using the title of the series. All will end up at the same page.