Offer Content Extras Like Other Bestselling Romance Authors

You create this wonderful website, add in a beautiful book cover and spend weeks on your book blurb. Then you publish it thinking they will come!!

But they don’t.

Your book blurb isn’t the only thing you can add to your book page. I’m sure when you were writing your story, you ended up with a drawer full of notes about your world and your characters. You have files of first, second and even third drafts of your story. You have a scrapbook of doodles that show who your characters are and what they might look like.

All those notes, files and doodles can be repurposed into extra content for your author website. If you give your readers some of these notes and doodles, you’ll benefit too!!

It’s okay to offer content extras on your romance author website, your readers might even thank you for it!

Repurpose Your Content Idea into Fun and Functional Content Extra

As a voracious romance reader myself, I always wanted more information, more anything that let me dive deeper into who your characters are and what makes them tick!

I’ve downloaded many author booklists, character timelines or gone back to websites that have inspiration pics or charts to help explain your story!

But not all authors do this for their readers.

In fact, not many at all offer website extras for their readers.

But you can. You can repurpose your new content idea into a fun and even functional content idea that your readers are going to love to see and to have!!

As a long-time reader, I always wanted MORE, more content, more information, more anything about your book or your characters. I would’ve downloaded your booklist or gone back to see the pictures of the muses you used for your characters!

When you think about your extra content, think about anything you can make into a web page! Please note, we’ll talk about blog articles and email newsletters in another article.

Let me give you an example.

You want to share your inspiration pictures that inspired your characters and your world. You have a whole folder on your computer of pics that inspired each.

You can take those graphics (with permission, of course) and upload them to your website for your readers to enjoy

It’s as easy as that.

Now, because I’m also a content marketing consultant, I’d also tell you to format the size of each graphic so it loads easily and quickly when someone comes to your site. And I’d tell you to add in the meta data, alt tags and description for each pic you add.

So how then do you repurpose your idea into a website extra?

How to Repurpose Your Content Idea into Website Extras

Now that you’ve decided to give your readers more, you need to decide on WHAT you’re gonna give them. All of the ideas on The Complete List of Content Ideas are ideas that your readers wonder about and have looked for.

Here’s an example:

On an uber successful author’s website, she had a few inspiration pics that showed who a muse was of her main character but also a few fun house plans that were her inspiration for the locations in her story.

These images where just added to her website where I could look at them, even download them (even tho I didn’t!!).

Having these images on her site helped me to understand the corresponding book! And I thought it was an added bonus that I could enjoy.

You can offer your readers the same thing. You’ll find this idea here with the Inspiration Pics Template. Okay, I might have taken it a new level and want you to offer it to your readers as a downloadable pdf! The choice is yours tho!

Here’s a sample of what you can do with this template:

Your readers are looking for more information about your characters and your world. By you giving them something, any details you give them will endear you to them.

This website content extra (Inspiration Pics Template) encourages your readers to download the PDF. This action signals to the search engines that your site is awesome and should be rewarded. AND you’re solving your readers problems by giving them something you already had in your drawer.

That’s the whole point of content marketing – to solve your audience’s problems.

Here’s What Your New Content Gives You:

Take a closer look at your new piece of content. By giving more to your readers, you benefit too!

• Your content idea is clearly identified. Your name chart has a unique name, just like your book. This has a two-fold thought. Your name chart adds a new set of keywords, that you can use in your marketing. And you have a new piece of content that’s DIRECTLY relevant to your book and your website.
• Your content idea showcases your book. There are some author websites that have extra content. But they’re not organized and don’t show what goes with what. I’ve had to figure that out myself. With this template, your book cover has a clear spot to show that this content idea goes with this book.
• Your content idea has additional info about your book. The extra information you want to give your readers is clearly seen and organized in such a way that it can’t be misunderstood as to its purpose.
• Your content idea has your contact info. Sharing your email, website (and the link to it), and social media handles helps so your readers know where to go to buy your book.
• Your content idea is formatted and organized. Giving your readers a pre-formatted pdf helps you to appear professional and organized. And it just looks pretty!!!

Steps to Add to Your Author Website:

Adding your new content idea to your website is easy. I’ve seen it added several ways, but here’s a web page template of an author’s website.

Yes, all the usual content pieces are there: book cover, blurb, title and subtitle, and buying links.

What’s new is the section beside it. This has all the additional info you can offer to your readers. Look to your web designer to help you format this section.

If you use this template idea, you have an additional section that your readers can interact with. When they look at photos and graphics, along with downloadable pdfs, your static site becomes interactive and engaging.

By adding this new content piece directly to your site, you solve your problem by giving your readers more of what they want – more of your characters and more of your world.

This idea here, is to offer this new content at no cost to your reader. Meaning that you aren’t going to make your readers give you their email address in exchange for this new content. The marketing term is called gated.

Take the time to add this content to your site. For me (I’m my own website designer), I add the pdf into my Media section. Then I use the URL that’s automatically generated by WordPress to create a link for that pdf to be downloaded on my site.

The graphics can be added to a new page or use a widget that allows for this content to be seen by clicking a link.

Your Inspiration Pics are not the only thing you have to offer to your readers.

You can offer different content that’ll make your site dynamic!

Take a look at the different website extras you could offer to your readers. Follow the link below to find out more!

Each idea answers a reader’s questions and helps you too!

What’s Next…

Get the Essential Website Content Checklist here, FREE!!

If you’re ready to take your website to the next level, check out how you can Build Your Own Content Library and pick a content template that fits your readers.

Check out the Ultimate Guide to Building your Content to get tips on how to do-it-yourself!