One Important Step in Marketing

Most of you know that I publish books that my husband and I write. It means I wear a lot of different hats. The most difficult job, out of all the jobs that I do, is to try to convince potential readers to give our books a chance. Quite frankly, I don’t know what I’m doing, in that respect. I’ve taken classes, I’ve read books, I’ve gone to seminars, and I still don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s very frustrating.

One thing I did a few years ago was to set up website for my company. And last year, I set up a second website, just to deal with the e-versions of our books. That 2^nd website worked well enough to get me the beginnings of an email list, but even when I ran some ridiculously priced sales, I never sold any ebooks from that site. I finally figured out why; I had never set up the ‘accept payment’ part of the website.

It had a well-known e-commerce software package ready to be used, but I had never activated it. This spring, I spent the better part of a month trying to jump through the hoops to get that software activated. And that was with plenty of help from the support team of my hosting company. Trying to follow the instructions was as bad as trying to read a legal document. I was so confused!

But I got it done. At least, they tell me I have.

But it made me think… Had I ever set up the ‘accept payment’ part of my first website? I did not know. I knew I should look into that, and the sooner, the better. But a broken arm got in my way, and I couldn’t really do much on the computer. When the arm got better, life in general intruded… okay, I procrastinated, because I was afraid it would have the same well-known e-commerce software package attached to it, and I didn’t know if the support team for that hosting company would be as helpful. I very much cringed at the thought of going through that same confusing set-up process.

But, I’m happy to reveal, I took a deep breath earlier this week, and I tackled my original website. I did not find that dreaded e-commerce software when I looked at my website’s dashboard. I contacted the support team to find out how I do it. The chat bots didn’t understand my question, but I finally got a real person, who explained how to set it up and even gave me the website for doing so. Sounded simple, but was it really? I am here to report that it was as easy as setting up a Paypal account, and I got it done within half an hour. Hooray for me!

Now, how do I get people to buy something? That seems to be my perpetual question.

By the way, the original website is www.MoonPhaze.com, and the website for ebooks is www.MoonPhazeBooks.com. One needs a drastic overhaul, and the other needs a firm tweaking. Those will keep me busy for the next several months.