The Excerpt and the Buy Link

This is the Marketing Coordinator of Changeling Press and part-time participant in Phoenix Rising Promotions with a small rant.

As you can well imagine, I post a lot of excerpts for other authors. One of my main problems I face on a continual basis is that of buy links. An author will willingly send me an excerpt, but other than the title, I’ll have little to go on. In some cases, I may know the publisher, such as when I work specifically for Changeling Press.

However, even then an excerpt without a buy link included means extra work for me going to find the work, getting the buy link and then including it in the post. How likely am I to work that hard if I have other excerpts that do include the buy link? I’m human, and I don’t want to work any harder than I have to.

This also applies to the readers. If the buy link goes directly to the book and link to purchase said book, are they more likely to buy? You betcha! The readers are even less likely than I am to go searching for that book if they have to click more than a few times with the mouse. The author does him/her-self a favor by making it easy for the reader to buy.

While this is not true with my present publishers, I have worked for a publisher with a very un-user-friendly website. It was difficult to find the author, much less the books unless they were a current release. If the reader wants to explore the author’s backlist, the buy link must provide that information, especially if the book is part of a series.

Make it easy to sell your books. Make it a habit to include the buy link EVERY TIME YOU CREATE AN EXCERPT. Make it a hyperlink to ensure your readers have to do little more than click the link.

Don’t waste the reader’s time –or mine—or they won’t waste time on you.