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Selling Books


I read a blog this morning that talked about book sales numbers, and what was needed for a traditional publisher to even take a second look. That number was 20K. Twenty thousand books sold, for a self-pubbed book, in order to be noticed. That’s a lot of books.

To date, I’ve sold over 100 copies of REDUCED; that’s in about six weeks’ time. Yes, I own a bookstore, and that certainly helps, but books have also been sold through Amazon. That’s not counting E-books – I’m estimating around 50 of those, plus the freebies/promos at around 700.

The average self-pubbed book sells maybe 100 copies. Total. Over months, or years.

Why? Because authors are, typically, bad at selling. As a self-pubbed author, you have to sell yourself, your image, your persona, AND your book. It takes time. Having industry connections doesn’t hurt either. And yes, I have a few. Not many, but a few. However, those 100 copies have been sold through ONE bookstore.

So how do you sell books? Let alone 20K of them?

Maybe, in the future, I’ll be able to answer that specific question, but for now, here are some ideas/tips on how to sell your book:

Create yourself

Start at the beginning. Introduce yourself online. It’s the easiest and cheapest way to connect to people, to potential readers. Blog, use Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, LibraryThing, whatever is cheap and easy. Have a website – an author website, at least, where you can showcase your work, link your blog, put up pictures, and SELL YOUR BOOKS! It’s simple to set up a PayPal account to accept payments, right there on your website.

Ask for interviews, send press releases. SOMEone is going to take you up on it, SOMEone is going to help you get the word out. You may not see results right away, you may not see them at all – but SOMEone is going to hear about your book, and tell someone else, and people are going to buy your book. Then read it. Then review it.

Speaking of, ask for reviews too! Use them on your website, ask that readers post to your venue of choice: Goodreads, LibraryThing, Amazon, etc.

Be consistent – with blurbs, author photos, taglines, usernames. Readers will connect those dots. Brand yourself, and your book.

Bookstores

Bookstores are difficult to break into. Most want established, or famous, authors on their shelves. It helps if you know some bookstore owners, but it’s no guarantee. I know a dozen of them – yet only 2-3 have invited me to sign. For now.

Send a review copy to your local stores. If they see it, in their hands, and look at it, they might take a chance on you. You could have a signing and sell a few books – or a dozen. Or none. But at least you’re out there, getting known, spreading the word.

Join groups

Meetups, writers’ groups, book clubs, volunteer organizations. All of these are places to meet people, talk to people, and mention your book. Be creative, and always carry your card. Oh, and a box of books! You can even get a nifty credit card reader for your phone.

I’m sure there are more ways to sell books – again, be creative! What are some ways that YOU have found effective?

 

The Book Blurb


This goes hand-in-hand with editing – your book blurb should tell the potential reader what the book is about.

Simple. That’s all it does. It’s supposed to make someone want to read your book. Why is it so hard?

I’ll tell you: because you’ve just spent a significant amount of time writing 80K words, more or less, and you’re excited about your novel, and your characters, and the plot, and…. So, yes, it’s hard to boil it down into 3-4 paragraphs. Short ones, no less.

You might have a favorite character, or scene, and you want people to know about it – but try to remember that you’re writing for a lot of people, different folks who like different things. Most readers want to know about the ENTIRE book, so you have to write a brief overview. Remember, back in school, when you had to write a report? Introduction, body, conclusion.

The book blurb is the intro to your novel. See, it’s simple. Compare non-fiction to fiction for just a moment:

An intro to a non-fiction report will say something along the lines of “first, this, then that, then it ends like this,” and the body of that report will detail this information. The conclusion sums it all up.

For fiction, the blurb is your intro but you don’t want to give away the entire story, and certainly not the ending. You would say something like “first this happens, and then this” and leave the reader hanging just a bit. Or end it with a question; the reader has to read the book in order to answer that question.

In other words, the book blurb is not an outline of your entire novel – it’s just a taste, a teaser. Think of movie previews you’ve seen. They show you some of the action, and emotion, but certainly not all. You see that preview, that trailer, and you think, “Wow, that looks good! I want to see it!”

Potential readers do the same thing. Think of your main points, the very basis of your story. You should be able to sum it up in a few sentences, for example:

REDUCED:

The goverment screws up. Some people have made plans, just in case things go wrong. They struggle to survive.

Then use your big-boy or big-girl words and expand on that, just a little, just to pique the reader’s interest.

But, for heaven’s sake, don’t overthink it either – just like editing, you can work and work on the book blurb and spend inordinate amounts of time making it “perfect” and delay that book release. Remember when you started your novel? You probably changed directions a few times, rethought some plot lines; same thing with the blurb. Work, set it aside, make the changes, and go for it!