by Sherrie Wilkolaski
Attention all authors! You are in the business of publishing, even if it's your own title. Whether
you want to face the music or not. I know, I know...you probably just want to keep your head down and write, but you also need to be positioned to sell your books and manage your audience. Here are five of my favorite online tools that every author should use to keep their book business in line:
1. PayPal.com. Show me the money! For book sales that you're doing from your website, via email or in person at book signing events, you need a simple way to process payments. PayPal is cost-effective. You can take credit cards online and you can also process payments from your smartphone. You can also exp
ort your monthly sales easily. Which brings me to my next point...
2. Quickbooks. Accounting is important to keep your finances in order. If you're out there making sales, you need a simple way to keep track of your business expenses, so using an online software like Quickbooks, will keep your business organized. You can import reports from PayPal and enter in the royalties from Infinity.
3. aWeber. Capturing leads (those readers who want to keep up with you and who will keep buying your books) you want to have a simple way to capture online registrations from your website and aWeber is $19 a month AND it doubles as a newsletter software, so you can simply take your list of author contacts (your leads) and you can send out announcements, newsletters, etc. using their online templates. Great way to market upcoming events and the release of your next book!
4. Google Voice. Get yourself a free online phone number to use to promote your book. You can have the calls sent to your cell phone or home office number and you can set you office hours. Yes it's FREE!
5. USPS. Business address. If you're not interested in using your home address to promote your location, head to the United States Post Office and get a PO Box OR hit your local UPS store to get a real physical address (it's not a PO Box) and spend a few more bucks and that will give you the ability to list your busines location in more free online directories...like Google. Positions you to better market and promote your book on a local level.
Authors you've taken the first step in partnering with the right publishing company (thank you for choosing Infinity Publishing, we appreciate it :) ) so why not go all the way and make sure your business is set-up right, so you can spend your time marketing your book, writing more books, and less time worrying about what to do when someone hands you a credit card and you're not prepared to make the sale.
These are just a few of my go-to tools that make running a business just as simple as publishing. What is your favorite online business tool?
Image courtesy of svilen001
