Robert Lee Brewer, the editor of Writers Market.com and its Market Update Newsletter. He writes dozens of articles on writing and marketing in the publishing business. Brewer can be contacted via e-mail at robert.brewer@fwpubs.com.

We understand that not all of us are at the point in our writing careers where we are ready to start promoting our work either through the Internet, as Robert suggests, or by other means, but for those of us who are ready (and those of us who soon will be), Robert's article provides some valuable insight.

Nine Ways To Promote Your Writing Through Your Web Site

Robert Lee Brewer

Writers need to think about more than marketing if they want to be successful in today's economy. It's just a fact of life. Another fact of the writer's life is that writers need to get online if they want to market themselves effectively and efficiently. While most great books eventually get noticed through word-of-mouth buzz, there are things you can do to ensure you get fame and fortune during this lifetime.

By establishing your own web site, you can get noticed the world over in a relatively short time. And don't worry, you don't need to be some cyber-recluse to achieve your writer goals. Often, you just need a friend or relative to help you figure things out. Or you can pick up a 'dummies' guide. It might be the smartest thing you ever do for your writing career.

Here are nine things to keep in mind when you're ready to get online. By following my advice, you should increase your name recognition and writing sales in no time at all.

1. Make sure your home page is user-friendly. One mistake writers often make on their web sites is to make them too gimmicky. Why? I really don't know, because when people are online time is very much on their minds. Mostly, they don't want to waste time trying to figure out what a link means or waiting for graphics to load. If you offer samples of your writing on your site, call the link "Samples of My Fiction" as opposed to "Fabricated Specimens," which says nothing about where the link leads.
2. Make your books easy to find. If your site is user-friendly, this will be easy to do. All you need is a link called "Books By Me" or "My Books." After all, potential readers can't buy your books, if they don't know they exist.
3. Link to selling points. Whether you have to link to your publisher's site, Amazon.com, or another page on your own site, make absolutely sure that your site offers visitors the opportunity to purchase your books from your site. The easier you make the process of buying your book, the more that readers will appreciate it when they read it.
4. Offer a newsletter. Most web sites offer e-mail newsletters now and for good reason. It gives you direct access to your potential readers on a regular basis. You can do this on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis-just make sure you do it consistently. For best results, tie the newsletter's focus into the subject of your books and writing.
5. Add new material regularly. At least once every month, you should add something new to your web site as far as content is concerned. Write a monthly article, diary entry, or whatever. If you don't make regular changes to your web site, people won't visit it as often, if at all. What's the point? They've seen everything already.
6. Offer article links to newsletters and web sites. A great way to keep yourself motivated to write regular articles for your site and to make sure that they are of high quality is to think of them as marketing tools. If you write articles of high quality, you should be able to convince various web sites and online newsletters to link to your articles. This not only creates more exposure for you as a writer, but it boosts the number of visitors your site will receive.
7. Offer a press release. There is a great need for new material online. Press releases will help editors and freelancers fill this need. Quick tip: write the press release as if you are a journalist trying to cover a story. That is, just report the facts that might be of interest to a reader without a bunch of adjectives and superlatives describing the greatness of your books.
8. Provide a "Contact Me" link. Believe it or not, many sites do not offer visitors a way to contact them, even via e-mail. This is a big mistake, because all types of people may visit your site from editors to agents to other writers. If they're interested in contacting you and can't, you may be missing out on a big-time opportunity for furthering your career as a writer.
9. Get an easy to remember URL. When it comes down to it, word-of-mouth advertising is the most effective way to make sales. As a result, you want your web site to have a domain name that is easy to remember-preferably a "yourname.com." If your name is already taken, think of a domain name that relates to the subjects covered in your writing and use that.

After you've done all these steps, do one more thing. Make sure the web site reflects your voice and the voice of your books. One thing that turns consumers on more than anything else online is a personable voice. If you can show people that you really care about what you are doing, they will usually respond in positive (and profitable) ways.