No one emails me from my new website

iwannabepublished said:

I created a website several months ago to promote my books. The site receives about 40 views every day. The company I use keeps track of sources used to arrive at my site. However, there are almost no entries. As a result, I have no idea how people find their way to my site. I guess my site is not interesting enough to intrigue anyone to send me an email regarding anything on my site. Can anyone suggest a way to generate more interest? The site is - kenteicherbooks.com

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I'm moving this to the Book Promotion Ideas and Advice forum, where it's a better fit.

People aren't going to email you to say hi, or to engage. Email is useful but it's not going to tell you much about whose using your site.

Put your site in your AW sig: See this FAQ.

Read this this thread in particular about how to engage and promote without being annoying.

You need to proofread your site; the top page has a minor typo. Also, you should link the specific references you make to books on that page to the subpages that relate. Don't make your reader find the right link.

You can't expect people to just go to your site; you need to have traffic. That can be related to site content, say a blog or reviews of other people's books you like.

It can also be because you engage elsewhere, off your site, on places like AW, where you absolutely aren't pimping your books, you're engaging honestly, but you have a link to your site, or to a current book. People will check your profile/link if you're interesting and genuinely engaged.

Very few people will email you even if the site was really popular and everyone was buying your books. Most people just don't do that sort of thing. If they're intrigued by your books, they'll buy a copy. They're not going to email.

The most reader response I get tends to be Twitter, because it feels more informal so people are more likely to send a quick tweet. But even there, it's not that common.

I send out a newsletter every month. I get hits off things inside of it, so I know people are opening and reading it.

I've had one email off the newsletter in thirteen months.

People don't tend to engage over email. The majority of readers aren't going to engage at all. Talking with readers can be lovely, but what you want are sales.

The only time I email someone on a site is if I can't find information I expect to see. Even then, I only do so in rare instances.

Also, in my whole life, including before email was around, I might have contacted a grand total of maybe three writers (excepting here on AW). As others have said, fan-emailing isn't really a thing anymore, if it ever was. Comments on a blog or replies on social media seem the thing (although I don't do much of either)

It happens, I’ve had my writing website for over 5 years and only received correspondence once - from an international publisher who couldn’t access my gmail because they were in China.

With social media these days it’s really easy to see what a favourite writer is doing, the website contact is a bit obsolete. I rather keep it just in case there’s some extraordinary reason I can’t communicate any other way.

Open a FaceBook account, put a link on the opening page of your website and on the other pages as well.

Your opening page needs to look like the opening pages of other writers. Put pics of your books at the top, and edit out the how-to instructions in that paragraph. Everyone knows to click on a pic to navigate to other pages. No need to explain it just to fill a space.

Here is a good example of a professionally presented site: https://www.prestonchild.com/books/series/

Check how they present themselves on their other pages. https://www.prestonchild.com/faq/

https://www.gerrold.com/

https://www.gerrold.com/bio/

Keep your bio short and in third person.

Inviting people to email you is nice, but most readers won't. Just put a "Contact" link at the top with an email address and leave it at that. I know you would love fan mail, all writers do, but you won't get much. I'm fairly well known, with twice your traffic and got one mail last year.

For direct interaction with readers get them to friend or follow you on Facebook. You have pics of the places you've been. Post one to FB and tell people a bit about it. Did that experience inspire a scene in one of the books?

You can promote all you like on FB, but don't overdo it. Non-stop promotion is guaranteed to bore readers.

Post positive things, be amusing, avoid vulgarity and politics, there's a lot of it already there and people want a break from it. I recommend avoiding pics of what you're eating. I stopping following an excellent writer because that was ALL she posted. Nothing about her books at all, just lunch. Stopped following another writer and real world friend because he posted 20+ times a day about every little bit of minutia that happened to be floating through his head. I doubt he had any time to write.

If you have a cute pet, include a pic now and then. Several writers do that. One of my friends puts up posts from her cat, who is really a visiting alien who is studying the strange hairless ones of this planet. https://www.facebook.com/jodylynn.nye

Here is another FB wall to study. He has a good balance of content. https://www.facebook.com/TheKJA

In Settings you can control who is allowed to post on your wall. I do not allow others to post on my wall, but that's my choice. I allow everyone to post comments, not just Friends. You can delete inappropriate stuff and block trolls. Your FB wall is an extension of your living room, and people generally respect that.

Put in friend requests to favorite authors also on FB and leave comments on their walls when appropriate.

NEVER post a link to your books or website on another writer's wall. That's considered extremely bad manners and is a fast way to get booted and blocked. Some idiot's response when I posted that I wasn't feeling well was to say HIS books would cheer me up! He thoughtfully included an Amazon link. I booted him so fast he felt the breeze.

Join writing groups on FB. Follow their rules. If they say no promotion, then respect that. If anyone is interested in your books, they can go to your wall and follow links from there. Join fan groups that have nothing to do with writing. They have groups for TV shows, other writers, discussion, etc. Again, don't overtly promote your stuff. You can say you're a writer when appropriate. They can visit your wall if they're curious. Have fun.

You will get the engagement with readers there, not in emails.

You can avoid FB ads by installing "Fluffbuster Purity" -- no, really -- which filters them out. FB is ALL about ads. FBP has a FB page with links. It's FREE.

I suggest not buying FB ads for your books, waste of money. You won't get it back in sales.

When my first book was published (a kids book, back in the early 90s) I was completely out of touch with everything that was happening to it because my young son was extremely ill and we were living-in at the Kids Hospital. When I got home, there was a whole bunch (not massive, but a whole bunch) of letters from kids saying how much they'd loved the book.

Ah, those pre-email days. They were lovely

I get emails all the time for one of my website addresses. I have had offers to transfer Nigerian oil funds, British lottery winnings, Bill Gate's give-away contests, offers to promote my web site and offers to buy my domain name. So far, nobody's come up with my $3.6 million asking price.

Jeff

In the social media age is having a website, twitter, etc etc, necessary for an author? Or recommended?

halion said:

In the social media age is having a website, twitter, etc etc, necessary for an author? Or recommended?

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This gets discussed a lot. general consensus around here seems to be "a professional looking website is advisable, but any specific social media platform engagement is optional" (for writers of fiction).

On a busy day, my website records four views, excluding my own. Congrats on your 40! Obviously, I'm not in a position to offer advice to increasing your traffic. This is merely to let you know you could be doing worse, so you must be doing some part well enough that you'll want to keep doing that.

If you want people to email you, you need a call to action that gives them a reason to.