The most successful marketing venture for me was a website. Because I had so many books to focus on and it was so time-consuming to promote each one individually, I decided to start a website showcasing them. I then began to invite other authors to showcase their books for free, too. In no time at all the website was showcasing hundreds of books. I had to divide pages into genres – children’s books were the most popular – followed by thrillers, non-fiction, and science fiction. Even with a policy of no romance or erotica – purely because of space – I was soon overwhelmed. I did not have the knowledge to be able to produce a streamlined website, and eventually closed the site down. But this was by far the most successful with sales.

One of the authors suggested I become an Amazon Affiliate. This meant that I could use their code to show each book, potential customers would click on the link, and the link would take them to the Amazon listing page with all the book information and option to buy. I would receive commission on each sale. This made it easier to feature books, but I was getting so many requests to list books because it was free that the website would take ages to load, which wasn’t ideal when trying to attract potential customers and readers. I found I was spending hours every day adding new books and trying my best to streamline the system.

Eventually, I found that I could become an affiliate for other sites and add their links, which meant I could make money every time someone purchased from them. So I signed with relevant ones such as writer’s resources (including Readers’ Favorite).

To my amazement, I found that I could include best-selling authors to the site, and get paid when someone purchased the book. Not only that, but having John Grisham and James Patterson books featured meant that search engines began to pick up the site, sending even more authors my way.

In the end, it was a victim of its own success. Had I had the expertise to run the site properly, it would have been an incredible resource for authors and a great source of income. I considered the possibility of making a charge to the authors to feature their books, but again that would have involved a complete revamp of the site, and it was already exhausting me. For a technophobe such as myself, I had taken on a venture that I had not expected to be so successful or to grow so rapidly.

For the right person, with the appropriate knowledge, this might be an idea that appeals. The only outlay is the cost of the domain name. The rest is just hard work.

There are, of course, numerous other resources that could be added, such as ebay (you will need to become an affiliate), and of course you can have adverts from Amazon and sell author-related products such as software.

For entrepreneurs, and those with a good knowledge of IT, this could be the way forward.