Reaching your audience (and selling more books) is perhaps the crux of every publisher’s journey. This is why publishers look to an author’s platform as a measure of how many books they will sell. If the author has visibility and a built-in audience, an editor is more likely to say “Yes, we’ll publish this work—we’ll invest time and money because we believe it will sell.”

For the most part, the burden of platform-building lies squarely on the author, which is why an author website is such an important tool. It’s the best way to engage with and stay connected to the consumer directly. Done well, a website is the heart of everything—your home base—a tool that sells the author, not just the book.

Publishing has changed a lot in the last 20 years. Namely, authors have access to digital marketing tools that, combined with their website, allow them to develop an author brand and connect directly with their readers, thereby making it easier to build a platform.

What Is Author Branding?

Branding is a combination of authority, online visibility, and personal style. Combined, these things make an author more attractive to readers and, more importantly, memorable. Being memorable is the Holy Grail of the author platform.

An author’s website is the best place to build this authority and convey a brand story in a meaningful way. Of course, authors need to be clear on their story before they can tell it, which is why personal branding is such an important part of messaging. It aims to answer questions like: Who are you? What do you offer? Why should I care?

Potential buyers only need a few seconds to decide if they trust a website and want to know more. This is where your show-don’t-tell training comes into play. Develop a set of style guides that determine the colors, fonts, and overall feeling of the brand—the look. The look is just as important as the words because it drives the overall feeling. That feeling affects readers subconsciously in a way that words alone can’t convey. Plus, styles provide a consistent look across all platforms that make the brand recognizable and memorable.

Make It About Your Audience

Knowing your audience is more than being able to identify them; it’s also understanding their needs and their patterns. Personalizing the message so that it speaks directly to the reader’s needs is the best way to build trust, too. A keen understanding of your audience allows you to strategize and create content that provides value to your readers and keeps them coming back for more.

Providing value and connecting with your audience not only sell books; it gets your readers invested in you. This means that your website is way more than an online brochure, it’s a means to engage, connect, and build lasting relationships—loyal fans. Loyal followers will not only buy books, but they will also tell their friends to buy them as well.

Tell a Good Story

Effective branding relies on consistent storytelling and clear messaging. To draw people into your website, you need to tell a good story. Start with a hook. Make it about your reader. Then, once you’ve hooked them, keep them engaged and provide a clear call to action.

When a consumer lands on your website, they have one thing on their mind: What’s in it for me? Does this content serve my needs? Do I want to continue investing my time, let alone my money? A good website balances the value to the reader with proof that the author is a trustworthy authority on the topic.

Stay Connected

A critical part of your planning is knowing what your readers want. Then, you need to tell them how they can get it. Keep in mind that most people don’t buy on the first visit, so capturing their email is a good first step. And remember, consumers are more likely to share personal data with you if you offer something valuable. Again, make it about the reader.

If you don’t plan on sending out a newsletter regularly, offer a giveaway so that you can collect email addresses. But know this: Newsletters are powerful. Even if you only send out a newsletter once a quarter, it’s worth it. This is how you stay connected to your readers and tell them what you’re up to and when your next book will be available. Loyal fans want to be the first to know—they also appreciate giveaways like tip sheets, templates, character sketches, or short stories. Staying connected to your readers ensures that you stay top-of-mind and allows you to promote future books and additional offerings (more on that later).

Stay Relevant

Consider ways to add fresh, new content in the form of a blog with an incentive for readers to subscribe. Writing on platforms like Medium and Substack is an excellent way to build your audience, but it’s important that you don’t neglect your website in the process. A powerful website is your home base—where you control the narrative, and you get to tell readers what to do next.

Relying solely on third-party programs to stay connected to your readers can be a mistake, especially if that platform changes its format or algorithms. I’ve seen follower engagement plummet overnight due to changes in a platform. Your website is yours and yours alone. A direct line to your audience is the best way to stay connected for the long term. Also, this gives you the ability to track engagement and reader activity, which gives you the data you need to continue offering content and additional products they can’t get anywhere else.

A Little About SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Fresh content will keep readers engaged but will also be detectable by search engines, making it more likely for your site to come up in organic searches. The more content your site has about your topic, the more relevant you become to readers and search engines like Google.

While relevant searchable content is the best way to optimize a website, there are some other tricks of the trade that can make a huge difference. Alt tags, image descriptions, and captions improve your site’s accessibility and also make your site more detectable.

Your Opportunity for Direct-to-Consumer Sales

The only way to know if you’re connecting with your readers is to track and analyze your traffic. Understanding how readers engage with your content is paramount to understanding what else you can offer. If you’re not sure what your readers want, ask them. Communicating with fans by allowing feedback can be a powerful move toward building an online following and creating a sense of community.

Offering direct-to-consumer products will not only increase your bottom line; it will strengthen your brand visibility and give fans more reasons to engage with you directly. Fans love specialty items like T-shirts, tote bags, stickers, novelties, posters and original artwork, chapbooks, digital downloads of stand-alone chapters, special limited editions, subscription models, merchandise bundles, short stories, downloadable worksheets and tips sheets, templates, signed books—the possibilities are truly limitless. The key is to start slow and, most importantly, track your engagement. Your audience will tell you what they want—it’s up to you to pay attention.

Whether you sell directly to your readers or guide readers to online booksellers, by engaging with your audience on your website, you are controlling the brand story and building lasting relationships with loyal fans. That’s how to sell more books. Get people excited about the brand and build upon that momentum.

Once again, a powerful author website doesn’t sell books; it sells authors. That’s how you connect with readers. That’s how you build a loyal following. Make your readers feel heard and part of something special and they will follow you wherever you go as long as you go there.

Must-Have Content

Basic content that every author website must have:

• A powerful homepage that tells a story and guides readers to take action
• An author bio and headshot, a back story on why the author is passionate about their subject, or why they are an expert on their subject
• A one-sheet inviting people to invite the author to speak or appear
• Book cover and marketing copy, endorsements, awards and accolades, an excerpt
• Resources and book club questions
• Quick ways to buy—be sure to include more than an Amazon link, consider including a link to local booksellers, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and other online retailers
• A press kit with a high-resolution author photo and book cover, media bio, Q&A to guide interviews, and an “In the News” section to highlight interviews and features about the book/author
• A contact form to protect your inbox from spam
• Social media links: Make it easy for people to connect with you on social

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