Would you let B&N bully you?

Some of the more loyal readers to Obie Joe note the, uh, primitive nature of our blogroll. In some ways, the intent reflects the loyalty to a few sites, and in another way, it's an avoidance of paying the devil its' due for return favors.

If you're an author with an involved site/blog intended to gather your audience and move sales, you've had to consider the bargain of referral links. As well as the balance of these referral links to your own e-commerce goals. Does the inclusion of an Amazon button take sales from your e-cart? Plus, the heavy-handed suggestion from B&N to include their button has worried several more of the entrepreneurial authors.

The answer is do a bit of both. To place your book in the most comprehensive marketing plan, it's best to include all buttons, including, Indiebound (to refer to a local bookstore to handle your sale). But here's the thing: make your deal the best. Grant the best discount (at least 40% off retail price), throw in swag (free bookmarks, gumballs or stickers), and decent customer service. Most people don't mind clicking on your shopping cart, if the price and convenience is about the same. So, go ahead, welcome all buttons, but make sure to make yours the prettiest.

Controlling one's content

We've been working with a new client who wants to gain greater control over her book's online marketing potential (as in, life beyond Amazon). She had a web site, which was OK in look and content, but the site lacked the most critical component to selling your own book: an e-commerce portal. If a reader on the site wanted to buy the book, he was pointed to other online vendors, Amazon or Borders. While there's nothing wrong with those sales, why shouldn't authors instead capture their web site visitors and make them buyers exclusive to the author?

Adding a PayPal or other shopping cart button is easy to do. Even more effortless if an author uses a blog format for their web site. Most authors don't need to develop a web site from scratch. Instead, Obie Joe recommends using a template from blogspot, or WordPress and go. Many of these templates can be customized with the latest in e-commerce tools for just a few hundred dollars.

Even better is the ease in which authors can update and control the content of the site themselves. Having that ease makes the task of responding quickly to a marketing potential -- say, an article about the rise in YA vampire novels -- successful.