Image credit: serezniy / 123RF Stock Photo
Are you an author who wants to sell more books? In the past three weeks I’ve had the same conversation with 5 authors or would-be authors. They all want to sell more books.
I’ve also spoken to two would be authors which boils down to this. If you want to get paid to write, you have to learn how to sell yourself. They don’t want to hear this but it’s true. No one is going to come knocking on your door begging you to write or begging to buy your books.
They have to know your books exist.
How Do Readers Find Your Books?
As an avid reader myself I rely on word of mouth referrals. Either from my friends (in person or on Facebook) or via Amazon’s “since you read this you might like this” service.
In other words, referrals.
That’s how social media (networking) works. Someone posts a book recommendation, or they go on Facebook and cull their network for reading suggestions. They go to Good Reads and interact with like- minded readers and/or they read Amazon reviews. They’re looking for hints of what they may like from other people who have liked similar books.
Social media isn’t designed for sales like a sales page on a website is.
It’s designed to grow a community and positive word of mouth referrals. The research shows both in my own experience and from what I read, selling directly from FB doesn’t work. What does work is building that community on FB, and Google +, Good Reads and getting plenty of positive Amazon reviews.
It builds community, people who are in a position to rave about your books and pass along recommendations. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.
It also helps your books to get noticed because you Google looks for just this kind of positive influence in order to deem you “important and useful”. It’s a growing component of SEO (search engine optimization).
A Snapshot of One Successful Author
I know a successful book author. He writes a million (!) words a year for the Young Adult market. He makes a solid living from his writing. What makes him different from you besides his sheer volume of output?
Marketing.
Not only is his audience clearly defined, teens who like zombie thrillers, but he also spends plenty of time on Facebook.
He writes for 45 minutes and then jumps on FB for 10 minutes. He does this all day long, hour after hour. If he spends 8 hours a day writing, he also spends at least 90 minutes a day on Facebook. He shows behind the scenes ideas, asks questions, replies to comments and debuts new book titles. His fans are passionate and it shows.
Does all this sell more books? He has dozens of titles in print and recently sold the movie rights to one.
Do you know what his secret is?
- Have the right content for the right audience (Marketing 101)
- Work that social
- Have persistence
It’s other words, it’s putting a marketing plan together that aligns with your reality (resources) and sticking to it. One thing that’s been working for my clients is an hour strategy session to help them develop that plan and move forward. Others use the time for crafting a social media strategy or getting training on those tools. What can I help you with?
