GUEST POST BY PETER BOWERMAN, AWARD WINNING WRITER AND SPEAKER, author of bestseller, the Well-Fed Writer, and Well-Fed Self Publisher.
SPOILER: this blog post is a bit of a good humored rant about book sites, author sites and other issues of critical interest to today’s PR-savvy CEOs and business leaders.
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A LinkedIn user in the nonfiction author forum asked not long ago: Do you need a book web site too, in addition to social media?
Peter responds . . .
You absolutely, positively need a web site.
And take a look at your question for a moment. It implies that a web site is in the same category of marketing vehicle as Facebook, Twitter, etc. And it’s not at all.
A web site, when done well, is a combination of storefront, PR/marketing department, (able to speak and sell to different audiences), info center, knowledge base, resource archive, blog, cashier, info-capture tool, electronic product-delivery system, and a lot more.
What other vehicle can do that much? And unlike FB and Twitter, it’s not going to get polluted by spam and over-exposure as those vehicles can (as one of the other comments on LinkedIn points out). Too many people on Twitter and FB are just mass-promoting, without building a platform, and the result is, it’s hard to get heard.
No question, you CAN promote effectively on FB and Twitter and a lot of people are, but because of all the dreck that’s found its way into those venues, often, peoples’ experience of them is compromised, and their eagerness to go there for the information is being dampened. But a web site is a web site – it has no such baggage.
Catch up with Peter Bowerman at his web site, the Well Fed Self Publisher, or register now to ask him your questions in person at Write2Market’s January event for business leaders, GETTING YOUR BOOK OUT: Get your business publishing questioned answered for good.
NOTE: This great guest post was first published in the LinkedIn nonfic author forum and portions of that LinkedIn dialogue are reposted here for your amusement and possibly enjoyment.