SELLING YOUR NEW BOOK
Now that you've uploaded your book to one of the print on demand services, blogged about it, plastered your social network feeds with links to it and sold copies to every one you know, you may well be sad looking at sales figures which don't quite take your breath away, so what should you do now?
This can be a position that unfortunately some authors may find themselves in, sales are nowhere near the expected (and hoped for) levels, the page ranking within the book store keeps dropping and gradually they slip to the bottom of a very large catalogue of books. This can be both confusing and frustrating, you still have a fixed belief in your work but you're scratching your head as to why it’s not on the first page of Amazon.
To help you we’ve put together a list of the top things which can be done to help turn the sales around of your book, with focus (and a bit of work) you can reverse the fortunes of your work and get it closer to the best seller you always knew it was.
This can be a position that unfortunately some authors may find themselves in, sales are nowhere near the expected (and hoped for) levels, the page ranking within the book store keeps dropping and gradually they slip to the bottom of a very large catalogue of books. This can be both confusing and frustrating, you still have a fixed belief in your work but you're scratching your head as to why it’s not on the first page of Amazon.
To help you we’ve put together a list of the top things which can be done to help turn the sales around of your book, with focus (and a bit of work) you can reverse the fortunes of your work and get it closer to the best seller you always knew it was.
1) Your Book Cover Design
You expect us to say this, but, if you’ve not had a professionally designed book cover then get some honest feedback on your current design. If you attend a writers group ask them to give you their thoughts on your cover (DO NOT use close friends or family for this), if you want your book to sell you need to be able to be objective when it comes to your own book (don’t waste time taking anything personally – it’ll only lead to more of the same). It’s tempting to try and save money and use a DIY cover, but look at the top sellers in your genre on Amazon, they’ll all have one thing in common, they look professional and install confidence in the prospective reader, for your book to sell it needs to do the same.
2) The Edit of the book
The edit of your book is one of the most important factors within the manuscript and one which will take a great deal of patience and hard work too. Most writers at first edit their own manuscript and will get to the stage where they’ve re-read it many times over, after this it is still worth getting a professional to look at your work (you can get too close at times to see any errors). If you have a badly edited or un-edited book for sale, it can prove disastrous with the reviews which some of your readers may choose to give you.
3) Your chosen On-line Categories
There is a temptation that you'll want to rebel against putting your book into a ‘genre’ or ‘category’ as you’re sure it will appeal to everyone and all readers, the sad but realistic news is that you have to and alas not every reader is going to like your work. When you’re told this it’s a bit of a slap to the face and maybe a bit of a reality check, however (as stated prior) DO NOT take things personally, you have to stay objective. Getting your work into the correct genre online will ensure that the readers who will most likely buy your work will be able to find it. Once you can stand back and objectively see the book’s genre then you will be able to use the correct categories online and use the best keywords for its advertising and promotion.
4) The Sales Page of your book & as an Author
Uploading a book on to Amazon gives you a golden opportunity to create your very own sales page, this not only gives the details regarding your book but also allow you to promote and really draw the reader into your work. There are so many examples where authors haven’t used this page to its full capacity and they have lost out as a result. This page should hook your potential reader, it should have in the Editorial review a piece from yourself really selling your work, spend some time on writing the page and do some research, Amazon also has some great examples, a quick look at the best sellers list will give you plenty of inspiration.
5) The Cost of your book
Choosing the right pricing level for any book can feel like a confusing prospect and one which can benefit from having an open mind, if you are publishing your first book and have it priced at $10 eBook & $20 paperback then you will struggle to sell, without a history of reviews or other work on offer the reader may just move on to the next book which does. So getting the price correct will make a big difference, however, there’s no need to panic, most of the online book stores will let you set your own pricing and enable you to change it. Dropping your price to a more realistic point should counteract the drop in profit margin by the increase in sales (so you shouldn’t lose out). However it is good to have an open approach to your pricing and be happy to try several options over a 3-6 month period, you can even dabble with free promotions to increase the awareness of your book.
6) How many books have you written?
A great deal of self-publishing authors have more than one book out upon the shelves at any one given time, they draw from the sales of several books which in turn creates a larger online ‘footprint’, this increases their chances of being discovered by more readers. If you currently have one book for sale and you’re happy then that’s fine, but if you are writing the next one you’ll be pleased to know that this will also help in mutual sales of both books (Amazon will even email buyers of your first novel when you launch your second).
7) The more reviews the better
Obtaining as many reviews of your book as possible not only builds confidence for the reader but also helps with how the book will be ranked within the pages of the online book store. The trick is in getting more of them, so how do you do this? One great way is to give copies of your work away to people who read that genre and encourage them to just leave a review online for you. Also, running a four day promotion on Amazon where the eBook version is free to download, you can then get friends and family involved via Facebook and Twitter to get the book for free but just leave a review, if they pass this on to their friends via social networks it can get you reviews very quickly and lead to those all important sales.
8) Shout about your work!
As well as using Twitter and Facebook, what else have you done so far in the promotion of your book? Did you have a launch party, send out a press release, attend book signings in your local book store, go to book fairs and festivals to sell your work, advertise online, build a website to promote it (there are many cheap & easy options to do this), get on to blogs and forums to promote and sell? The likelihood is that if your work’s not selling you haven’t done as much as you could in its promotion. But isn’t too late, most of these ways to promote your book won’t have to cost a fortune and we have articles in ‘The Writer’s Room’ about organizing them too, they’ll just require some focus and a little work from yourself.
The key point in the promotion of your book is that it will be as successful as you want it to be, with continued effort your book will sell and it is possible to make a career out of writing, but you have to want it.
