3 Powerful Ways To Level Up As A Self-Published Author

Sometimes it can be a challenge to stand out from the crowd of self-published authors.

It seems as if almost everyone is publishing their own writing these days. One of the things which sets self-published authors apart from traditional writers is the need to be business savvy. This includes marketing yourself and your work in a way which is best able to connect with your readership.

It’s not enough to be just another vanilla author with an unimaginative online presence. To really stand out from the crowd, you need to be imaginative and put as much thought into crafting your author brand as you do into crafting your written works.

Try these three easy ways to level up your online presence as a self-published author.

Create A Simple, Clean Author Website

One of the best ways to add legitimacy and authority to your author activities is to create a simple website.

If potential readers search for the name you publish under on Google, it is impressive to have a proper, .com, author website show up in the search results.

Creating an author website has a number of benefits. It’s quick, easy and cheap to create, and anyone can create one, regardless of their level of technical knowledge.

Once created, an author website is a place where you can promote your latest or upcoming work, connect with your readers and build your author mailing list.

Ideally, you should use WordPress for your author website, as it is widely compatible with a lot of different plugins that can help make your author site even more epic. Choose a simple, clean theme and try for a minimalist approach. Users will appreciate a site with a simple design which is easy to navigate. Avoid a cluttered, confusing website at all costs.

Make Your Author Bio Shine

Considering writers are masters of using the written word to express their ideas creatively, it’s remarkable how many vanilla author bios there are.

You should use appropriate language when writing your author bio to connect with your readership. If you have an older demographic, you should write in a very different style than if you were writing for a young adult audience, for example.

You should also inject some of what makes you unique as a person into your author bio. Don’t be afraid to talk about your likes, dislikes and hobbies. It’s a lot more interesting for readers to get a feel for your personality than it is to read another boring author bio which states that your dream was always to be a writer.

Don’t Be Afraid Of Video

A lot of writers are shy when it comes to using video to promote themselves as an author. This is totally natural. The act of writing, and the act of sitting in front of a video camera and trying to come across as likeable and interesting are entirely different things. However, overlook video at your peril.

Video has a number of promotional benefits which other forms of media don’t. Firstly, you can sure your personality and character far better in video than you can through text. This means that video really allows you to convey your author brand to an unrivaled extent. Secondly, video can be used to drive traffic from a YouTube channel to an author website or Amazon sales page, and vice versa. This means if you aren’t doing video, you are potentially losing out on traffic.

Final Thoughts

Picture how well you’ll come across to a new reader after following all of the above advice.

If you’re serious about making it as a professional self-published author, you need to make the most of every opportunity to get across who you are as a person and as a writer.

Doing so can help you stand out from your competitors while making a genuine connection with your readers.