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Using Tech for Book Marketing

Kate Gingold from Sprocket WebsitesKate has been building websites with her husband Don since 1996 for all sorts of clients, including authors.

Kate regularly writes about online marketing for Sprocket Websites and provides tips and techniques for entrepreneurs and small-business owners. Since being an author today is not really different from being an entrepreneur with a small business, most of those tips are just as useful to authors.

Kate is an author herself. She writes books on local history, including the award-winning "Ruth by Lake and Prairie," a fictionalized account of the true story of Great Lake pioneering to the shores of Chicago and beyond to found Naperville, Illinois. 

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Ruth By Lake and Prairie

Author Tips and Tales

An Author’s Basic Google Analytics Report
Kate Gingold Host
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An Author’s Basic Google Analytics Report

Stereotypically, authors work with words rather than numbers. Of course there are plenty of wordsmiths who are also comfortable with figures, but lots of authors still steer clear of anything that sounds too much like math. Google Analytics, now called GA4, does have numbers involved, but you shouldn’t be avoiding it.

Google Analytics is a free tool that tracks the traffic on your website. The latest version of Analytics, GA4, has been rolling out since 2020 and the old version is now obsolete. Some website-building programs might already have their own brand of traffic measuring tool, but what Google offers is probably much better.

The way you get Analytics on your website is to copy a snippet of tracking code that Google gives you and paste it into the html of your site. Google has pretty clear instructions on this, but if you aren’t technologically comfortable, it might be better to ask your web designer to do this for you. They might already have added the code for you – go ahead and ask.   

The code can’t be seen by humans, but Google’s spider bots keep track of all comings and goings. You can log into your account to see everything being reported or have certain reports emailed to you on a regular basis. Again, talk it over with your web professional to find the best way for you to access the information.

There are SO MANY reports that you may be overwhelmed and tempted to ignore it all. Don’t do that! Instead, take a look at a few key reports. 

Overview in the Reports Snapshot is a great place to start. It shows you how many New Users came to your website over the past 28 days as well as the total of All Users. Plus, you can see their Average Engagement Time. Of course, you want to see those numbers grow every month. 

The Views by Page Title report tells you how many pages visitors look at and how long they spend looking at them. If they aren't lingering long, it could mean they aren’t finding much of interest. If your website has a lot of blog posts and calendar events, that could be a bad sign. But if you send folks immediately to buy your book at Amazon, it's not necessarily a problem. You just won't know for sure until you measure and analyze. 

There is much, much more to be learned from GA4 on your website, but rather than overwhelm you, we’ll break it down over a couple of months. Next, we’ll look at some of the other reports that will help you plan your book marketing. 

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Full disclosure:  Writing for Sprocket Websites is my day job, so if you have questions about digital marketing, I'm happy to help!

 

Marketing Author Interview

Following a presentation for In Print Professional Writers Group, Kate's husband (and publisher!) Don was interviewed by author Louise Brass for WBOM Radio. During the conversation, Don shared many of the marketing tips from his presentation. You can listen to it online here.

The Sprocket Report

The Sprocket Report is published every other week with Internet marketing tips, tools and techniques. The archive features articles from 2011 up to the present. You are welcome to read how business owners are using technology to market themselves and apply those tips to your author business.


 

 

Get a Book Siging Checklist and our Sprocket Report

Kate will be happy to send you her brief Book Signing Checklist. Treat your book promotion like a business - because it is!

AND, since much of your efforts will be online, she'll also enroll you in her Sprocket Report, an email newsletter sent every other Tuesday, that includes 2 Internet Marketing tips and a post from a guest blogger on related business.

No worries! She won't use your email address for anything else, and you can unsubscribe from the newsletter anytime, but the checklist is yours to keep.

Any questions of Kate? Leave them in the message field and she'll get back to you ASAP.

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