Home Columns

Promoting Your Book Through Banners
by Dawn Seewer

A good banner ad can go a long way towards increasing reader awareness about your book and facilitating further sales. But before you begin copying and pasting from your book to create a banner ad of your own keep these tips in mind:

Don’t try to cram your entire back cover onto a 6-inch long ad.

Too much information at once tends to overwhelm the reader. You’ve got just a few words to make your impression so be concise and use a few choice sentences that stimulate the brain or evoke some emotion.

Include more than just a review.

While noting that your book has received a four star review will no doubt impress the reader it won’t give them any idea what the book is about or inspire them to click to learn more. Combine your glowing review with a short hook from the book.

Include your URL.

If you have a web site be sure to take this opportunity to display it. Even if the reader doesn’t click on your ad they will still be exposed to your web site address and perhaps remember it next time they are surfing online.

Use animated ads when possible.

The animated ad sports a series of still images that run in a continual loop to create the illusion of movement. Each still image can contain a separate message and a separate image allowing you to offer more information than the single still shot of the static ad.

Avoid scaling down your book cover.

Most banner ads are only about an inch in height making it impossible to determine any kind of detail from a book cover sized to fit this space. Instead try using part of the image from your book cover such as a close up of character’s face. Or go for a separate image that is representational of your book such as a pretty rose for a romance novel or a smoking gun for a mystery.

The most important thing to remember about the banner ad is that its quality should be representational of you and your work. The image you portray with your banner ad is just as important as the one you portray on your author site and within the pages of your book.

Hints

Get involved in a banner ad (or link) exchange program with other authors. Not only can this increase traffic to your site, the more links you have coming into your site the higher your ranking will soar with search engines.

Steer clear of generic free-for-all banner exchange or link programs. These services do not give any thought to your target audience and your ad is more likely to show up on a site featuring dog food than a site of interest to readers.

Only considering paying for ad space on web sites that will be frequented by your target audience (your readers). Be sure to find out what the click through rate has been for ad previously posted on the site then weigh the cost versus the amount of hits that ad obtained.

Copyright © 2004 Dawn Seewer

Kick start your imagination, ignite your creativity, and begin your journey towards becoming an outstanding writer. Grab a copy of WEEKLY WRITES: 52 Weeks of Writing Bliss! from Amazon.com and receive 2 free e-books to encourage and nurture the writer in you. You'll also receive Write Memories, a journaling workbook available for free only to WEEKLY WRITES book owners. And finally, as a WEEKLY WRITES book owner, you'll have free access to e-mail courses such as JOYFUL WRITES: Celebrate Your Life through Writing For excerpts, reviews and what you need to do to receive the 2 free e-books, Write Memories and sign up for free e-mail courses, just head on to the Weekly Writes Book Official Site. (Clicking on the link will open a new window.)