Book Marketing Tip #1: Update your email signature

NOTE:  In January 2018, an updated and expanded edition of The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide was released, offering 65 book marketing ideas and new "Deep Dives" sections exploring social media strategy, how to work with beta readers, and how to earn free press coverage. 

To download the new Smashwords Book Marketing Guide for free, here are the coordinates:

Amazon
Barnes & Noble
iBooks
Kobo
Smashwords

The new 2018 edition of The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide is also available as a serialized podcast on the SMART AUTHOR podcast, starting with Episode 10.

Click here to access all SMART AUTHOR podcast episodes.






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The information that follows on this page is from the 2013 edition of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide, which will remain here for historical purposes only.



Book Marketing Tip #1:  Update your email signature

Your email signature is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal, yet few authors take advantage of it.  Most of us send emails to dozens if not hundreds of people each week, and each of these people (often friends, family, business associates, fans) represent potential customers for our book.  By updating (or creating) an email signature, you’re providing email recipients a low-key, unobtrusive path to discover and purchase your book.  Nearly every email program and service allows you to create a single email signature file, usually a simple text file, that then automatically appends to every email you write.  For your email signature, add a direct hyperlink to both your Smashwords author page and maybe even your book pages, so it’s easy for your readers to go straight to your book.  To find the direct hyperlinks, go to the Smashwords home page and enter your name into the search box, which will bring up a listing of your books.  Click on a book.  Then cut and paste the URL of the web address of your browser into your signature.  Next, click on your hyperlinked author name from your book page.  That will take you to your author profile page, and from there you can cut and paste the exact address of that page into your signature. 

Note that when you compose an email, your email program or service will automatically compose the email either in plain text or HTML.  If it composes an email in plain text, you can list your hyperlinks in your signature as plain text, such as http://hyperlink.com, and most receiving email programs will automatically make the link clickable (this is what you want).   A clickable link usually appears as blue and underlined.  If your email program composes your emails in HTML, however, it’s not enough to just list the hyperlink, because it won’t be clickable by the recipient.  To ensure it is clickable, you should make the link clickable in your signature file.  If this sounds confusing, study the help files associated with your particular email software or email service, because no single software or service handles this issue the same.  After you compose your signature, send a test email to yourself to see if your hyperlinks are clickable or not.

Here’s what my signature could look like:

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Mark Coker
Founder and CEO
Smashwords, Inc.
http://www.smashwords.com

Co-author of Boob Tube, a satire on Hollywood celebrity
My Smashwords profile:  http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/mc
Sample or purchase Boob Tube:  http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/3

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