Marketing on the Internet is rapidly becoming big business. Millions of people use the Internet each day. Advertising opportunities are wide open for the computer literate entrepreneur. But, can you sell books on the Internet and is it worthwhile going to the expense of designing and setting up your own web site?

While the Internet promises new opportunities for sales and marketing, at the present time it remains an uncertain source of direct retail sales. As with any form of book marketing, the Internet is most successful for books with a targeted audience. For example, books about computers, science fiction, and sex sell well through the Internet, which has a younger audience than other marketing venues.

Although there has been a rush of commercial web sites going up on the Internet, actual sales volume has not been growing nearly as fast as the Internet itself. It is true that some vendors have been successful, but they are usually specialized and experienced in the unique rules of online marketing. Many more businesses are using the Internet to support and expand their marketing and promotional efforts in the “real” world.

However, until they can overcome the problems of online commerce, and until the consumer comes to accept Internet shopping as routine, sales for the average vendor on the Internet will continue to be unpredictable.

There are a growing number of companies that offer to promote books to Web browsers—usually a listing of a title on a site that acts as an online bookstore. These services are affordable and require little work on your part except for adding their name to the usual marketing that you do. Most of these sites take orders and forward them to you for fulfillment. If you decide to take advantage of this type of marketing, make sure that you are dealing with a well-known, well-established Internet presence, such as Amazon.Com.

With careful planning, you can open your own site on the Internet, providing information, sales opportunities, and an interactive forum for anyone interested in your book. There are generally two ways of going about setting up a site on the Internet: low cost home pages and more expensive web sites.

A private home page, which comes with most online services, such as AOL, allows you to post information in such a way that anyone who is on the Web can access it, but you will be limited in scope and content because such services do not allow commercial postings or transactions on a noncommercial web page. Even if you cannot sell or directly advertise on such a site, you can create a high-profile environment from which to broadcast information, such as your news releases (see also Usenet news) or how interested parties can directly contact you. Your site can also be an access point, providing links to other sites of related interest, such as online bookstores carrying your book.

A commercial web site can be expensive to maintain, but will allow you greater freedom in promoting and selling your book. This is advantageous if you know that you have a large, general target audience.

Publishers are looking to the Internet as a way to promote and sell their books. There are ways to track how many "hits" a site has in a day, but whether that translates into sales of books is difficult to establish. For now, small publishers and self-publishers seem content to use the Internet just to promote their books and/or offer information. Sometimes web sites are just used to establish credibility and a professional image to present to the public.

Each publisher must decide if the cost and time involved in setting up a web site will generate a response that will satisfy the company's long term goals. However, the Internet has not yet become the most important tool that a publisher or self-publisher should use to sell books.

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