When I first started learning about internet marketing, I heard this phrase “landing page” a lot. What’s a landing page anyway?
And why would an author need to know about it, whatever it is?
I quickly found out that “landing page” can be any web page, on a free-standing website, on a blog site, or anyplace else that’s used as a destination to send people.
It’s where you want them to “land.”
For instance, if I’m going to lead a group of authors on a tour of the best pubs in Amsterdam (commonly known as a “pub crawl”) I might set up a page on my blog describing the trip, telling people why it’s going to be a great experience, and providing a way for them to get more information or sign up to participate.
This will become the “landing page” for that tour.
It’s where I’ll send anyone who asks about it, I’ll link to it in any articles I write about the tour, and I’ll include it in any emails I send out letting people know about this unique opportunity.
Unfortunately, Books Don’t Sell Themselves
You can see that having a landing page for a product or service or special event makes the marketing a whole lot easier.
And that’s why more authors should be using landing pages for their books, especially when it comes time to dive into your book launch.
All too often authors skip this step, and do something else instead, like:
- Write a blog post about the book
- Create an “ad” and put it into the sidebar of their blog
- Add it to a big “books” page on their website
But none of those things, good though they are, can replace the efficiency and marketing power of a dedicated landing page.
Until now, creating your own landing page hasn’t really been all that easy for most authors. If you try (and I have) you’ll run into problems like:
- having difficulty making a page your WordPress site that looks and functions properly. You can spend many hours wrestling with this and still end up with something that doesn’t work the way you want it to
- buying special software that promises to let you design your own web page, but in fact becomes yet another tool you have to invest time in to learn how to use
- hiring a designer or developer to create a page for you, with numerous meetings and lots of development time, not to mention what could be a significant cost
But there are new solutions coming onto the market all the time, and one I’m pretty excited about is Booklaunch.io.
This looks like about the best solution for authors who want to quickly and inexpensively set up landing pages for their books, and I can’t wait to tell you more about it.
So if you want to know the kinds of things that go into an effective landing page, and how having one can help your book marketing efforts, there are 2 things you can do right now:
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Photo: bigstockphoto.com
Thanks for this Joel, I’m a bit late but saw your post on Google. Just wondering, are authors willing to pay for landing pages done for you services? Say you have a group of designers do your landing page so you don’t have to do a thing, does that help? Thanks!
Hi Marilyn, Yes, there are certainly authors who are willing to pay to have a landing page for their book designed. Good luck with your site, it looks great.
Thanks for your feedback Joel, love your blog posts, keep them going!
I used Booklaunch and liked it though I found the lack of customization quite frustrating. I was using the Free account and it said we could design as many landing pages as we wanted.
I was sad to discover that this has changed and that now we have to pay as soon as we need another one. :(
Hi Joel. Thanks for this. After reading your article I signed up for a premium account (not with your coupon code, though, as I was too late to the game for that). I found booklaunch.io easy to use, but I have a question about SEO. After setting up my booklaunch page, I set it as the static home page through my wordpress dashboard. I just got a notice from Google via webmaster tools stating that my webpage is suspect because the home page is redirecting to a different page and may “mislead visitors to your website.” Is there a way to make this NOT look like a misleading page?
Hi Michelle,
I would definitely not redirect your home page elsewhere. Just set up a menu with the Booklaunch page linked to a menu selection and you should be fine. Use the home page to welcome visitors, introduce yourself, say what the site is for, etc.
Thanks for your speedy response, Joel. Unfortunately, the plot thickens, and not in a good way. When I try to go into wp-admin to make it so that my home page doesn’t redirect to the booklaunch.io landing page, I am no longer able to access my admin panel. I get the blank screen of death. I’m regretting using booklaunch and have apparently lost access to even be able to take it down (making the page no longer be live just makes my entire website be a big blank). I know you didn’t sign on to offer support for booklaunch,io users, but, since a)you’re a very trusted source! and b) your endorsement is leading a lot of folks (like me) to book launch, I imagine this isn’t the first time you’ve heard that booklaunch.io is messing with users’ admin panels. Any advice on how to fix it? Thank you in advance.
Michelle, I’m sorry to hear that. I have no idea how to fix the problem, but if I were you I would get in touch with the Booklaunch team, they are very savvy about web development. I also always have a WordPress technician on call for times like that, and they have bailed me out numerous times. To be honest, I haven’t had any other reports of problems with Booklaunch, so I’m not sure whether others are having a problem with the technology.
Actually, how do we get the promo code for the discount for the template? (With the Learn Scrivener one, it was immediately available.) I haven’t got one after purchasing the launchpad…
Hi Mirtika,
You should have received an immediate email with all the details, but that may have got caught in the spam or junk folder of your email.
Email me at [email protected] and I will resend it to you.
Thanks
Joel, you’ve had some great offers and helps in the past, but I’m really disappointed with this one. Booklaunch has been pushing this really hard–lots of blogs I subscribe to have been talking about it–but I question what benefits it will really have and the entire implementation of the site, pricing, etc. I fear that on all this blogs what I am basically seeing is advertising, not an objective review of the site and its possibilities. This is a copy of the email I just sent to Booklaunch:
“Hi,
“I’m really frustrated with my experience at Booklaunch.io in the last week. Was the site purchased by Author Marketing? Before I started hearing of Author Marketing being involved, I set up a free page. I was working on it Wednesday and the colors that I designated did not work. Specifically, the tan background that showed in the preview of the top section is showing up white. And the page is loading in such a way that lines run through the photo of my book for several seconds.
“I am on the mailing list of Joel Friedlander, but I was unable to attend his teleseminar yesterday. Today I read his email about the ‘deal’ you are offering customers together with him and I find it is no deal at all! Last time I looked at pricing (I think I just did this Wednesday), premium membership was $9 per month. I see that today (without any notice that I am aware of) the price has gone up to $12 per month. And the ‘deal’ through Joel Friedlander is for just over $8 a month. (I already made a 3D book cover for free thanks to Derek Murphy). So what gives with the pricing?
“All that is more or less complaining. Here now is my technical issue.
“I went to log in today to check the normal premium price to see if the deal made sense. Instead of letting me log in, Booklaunch created a whole new account for me and I can’t get to my old account which already has my page created. Apparently the program is not smart enough to determine that there is already an account through my email address and other info. So how can I get to my page?
“Also, is the page really live or is the site still in Beta? My page is not appearing in the first several pages of hits when I search for my name and book title through Google, which makes the free page basically worthless.
Connie Rossini”
Sorry to complain here, Joel, because I’ve been helped by your site so many times and sent so many other writers here. But I think your readers need to know that there seem to be multiple issues with this new tool before they put down a lot of cash.
Hi Connie,
You’re right. We are promoting Booklaunch a lot right now to many different author communities and groups. You may even see a few different pricing models, specials, and deals going around. You are also right about the technical issues, as with any new technology product there is bound to be things to improve. Let me try and explain and hopefully shed some light on both:
Pricing – The regular pricing model is a Premium Tier that costs $12/mo or $120/yr (a 15% discount compared to monthly) The promotion we are doing with The Book Designer adds value for a Free 3D Book Cover and $37 coupon to BookDesignTemlates.com and we discount the yearly price to only $97/yr. This is a limited time offer for TheBookDesigner community.
Login Issue – I believe we resolved your technical issue with logins and multiple accounts. If not please email me at [email protected] or [email protected] and I’d be happy to get that resolved for you. We’ll work on making the login process more savvy to cut down on the chance of multiple login.
SEO – We are live and so is your page. I found your page here: https://booklaunch.io/ConnieRossini/54559e7eea42439e50a871cc I do see your page indexed with Search Engines so that is good too. Although it does not rank in the top few pages, SEO takes time and data. I would expect it to start climbing the rank soon. We’re constantly optimizing to make SEO better and drive more traffic to authors pages.
Overall – We’re trying to build a product that truly serves authors. While what we have is not perfect we also have a very dedicated team that wants to help authors. Like with any technology product there are bound to be issues, but our team is here to help ([email protected]) and is constantly releasing new features and improving current ones.
I hope this answer finds your well and if you have any more questions, concerns, or issues please don’t hesitate to email me directly at [email protected]
This is great Joel! I just made myself a gorgeous landing page with Booklaunch.io over the weekend. It’s truly simple to use and absolutely stunning. But, I have no real idea of how to use it or what to do with it, so I’m thrilled about the webinar. See you then.
Here’s my new landing page, if anyone wants to take a look:
http://tinyurl.com/Half-Halflaunch
What a beautiful page, Leslie! We’ll definitely help share it to the Booklaunch community. Colors look fantastic. See you at the webinar! We’ll be doing some Q&A afterwards so feel free to ask any questions.
One strategy that might work for some is linking to those blog promo posts or book launch posts, like I do on my ‘My Books’ page:
http://www.bigskywords.com/my-books.html
This approach ensures that people who are interested won’t have to wade through your categories or use your site’s search bar.