Marketing Materials - A Marketing Website, Button One

27 September 2011, Marketing Materials - A Marketing Website, Button One

Introduction: I realized that I need to introduce this blog a little.  I wrote the novel Aksinya: Enchantment and the Daemon.  The working title was Daemon, and this was my 21st novel.  Over the last year, I gave you the entire novel in installments that included commentary on the writing.  In the commentary, in addition to other general information on writing, I explained, how the novel was constructed, the metaphors and symbols in it, the writing techniques and tricks I used, and the way I built the scenes.  You can look back through this blog and read the entire novel.

I'm using this novel as an example of how I produce, market, and eventually (we hope) get a novel published.  I'll keep you informed along the way.  At this moment, I'm showing you the marketing material I put together for a novel.

Today's Blog:  For unpublished novels, there are two other buttons you will want to include, and for published novels four other buttons.  Those buttons are, first, one that brings up an example of your novel.  Usually, this is the first chapter.  Most readers and publishers can tell if they are interested in your novel by reading the first few pages.  If your readers or prospective publishers aren't interested in your novel by reading the first few pages, you have a serious problem.  This is one of the reasons I don't recommend anything that looks like a prologue.  I will admit, I did include prologues in my published science fiction novels, but they are supposed to be humorous and interest the reader in the writing.  Their purpose is to drive the reader into the text.  I haven't heard any negatives about them from any sources, so I think they accomplish their purpose.

You can give an example of your first chapter by formatting it properly (see the post on formatting) and saving it as a pdf.  Most modern versions of word will save the document to a pdf--you just have to tell it.  You usually don't want to put the document out as a word document--they are too easy to change.

Save the document to your folder for documents on your website and make a link button to it.  This is really easy to do in most html editors.

I'll repeat my published novel websites so you can see examples:   http://www.ldalford.com/, and the individual novel websites:  http://www.aegyptnovel.com/, http://www.centurionnovel.com/, http://www.thesecondmission.com/, http://www.theendofhonor.com/, http://www.thefoxshonor.com/, and http://www.aseasonofhonor.com/. 

I'll write about button two link tomorrow.