How can I sell more books?

by Chris Day

These days is it so easy to get a book printed and to fill a garage with boxes of them, but the one thing that stumps to many self published authors is getting their books from there into the waiting arms of their perfect reader.

There many other authors too who have managed to master the system and have successfully launched their book on Amazon or one of the many other book retailing platforms. When they search on Google, they find their book easily, but are still not generating sales. Knowing, as they do, how good their book is, why on earth isnÔÇÖt it selling?

In reality, there are many many thousands of excellent books in all genres that are readily on sale, but are not selling. So what can an author do to make a difference?

The buzzword these days is ÔÇÿDiscoverabilityÔÇÖ.┬á For people who donÔÇÖt know you, who have never read any of your books, have never found your website, or met you, but are searching for the stuff you┬á are writing about, how can they discover you even when it is not you that they are looking for?┬á Crack that and everything else falls into place.

Marketing your book actually starts before youÔÇÖve written it. Strange but true.┬á There is no point starting to think about marketing the day the printer delivers your books. You need to start long before that by having clarity on who you are writing for, and what is it that they would willingly pay good money to find out.

These days the internet is awash with free information and data, so simply stating facts that can easily be found on Google or Wackypedia isnÔÇÖt going to bring them beating a path to your door. What has value is ‘applied knowledge and experience’, rather than the raw knowledge itself. If it is a non-fiction book that you are writing, then fill it with case studies and examples.

Fiction is a different area. If you look at what established authors are doing, their blogs are posts are not about their books or their subject, but more about themselves. They are building a following by being an interesting person who is worth following. People are more likely to look for what you have written if they find you interesting and entertaining. Be easy to find by using short stories in publications and on websites and encouraging them to link back to your web site or blog.

Every author should have a main website with their own name as the domain. This is your main base on line and contains all the different facets of who you are, your articles, blogs, philosophy, opinions, hints and tips. It should also have a shopping cart to sell all your products.

In addition to that, you should also have another website which has the title of your book as the domain name. This satellite website is ÔÇÿanother rod in the pondÔÇÖ in your quest to be found.┬á Micro-sites can do one of two things.┬á Having attracted traffic they could simply provide a link to the relevant page on your main website.

Alternatively, they could offer a valuable knowledge gift – usually┬á downloadable,┬á which can be obtained when the visitor registers to receive your newsletter regular news letter.

You can drive traffic to it by using YouTube.┬á By creating short video clips which give the answers to┬á problems that a potential reader of your book might be searching for, you will be found by people who have not yet heard about you, or your book. All they are searching for are answers. Make sure that you know the key words that people in your marketplace will be using – and then add these to your YouTube clips.

By demonstrating that your know your stuff, and giving them the gift of knowledge in your video, you are positioning yourself as an expert on your specialist subject. You then give a ‘call to action’ by pointing them to your ‘landing page’ when they can download an ebook on the subject. As they have to register for your newsletter in order to receive it, you now have the opportunity of following up and developing a relationship with them – and turning them into customers for your knowledge products.┬á┬á This is yet another way to be ‘discovered’.

Generating sales is an active not a passive process.┬á You won’t sell books by being a hermit. Never let a day go past without doing something new to raise your profile, increase your circle of influence and grow your following on social media.

You need to be seen as the go-to person on your subject. Another way of doing this is to get out onto the speaking circuit.┬á you can start small by doing workshops. These are a great way of fine tuning your material – and finding out exactly what people what to know about.

The other advantage of workshops is that you are creating new material by responding to people’s questions. Always audio record your workshop to give yourself the opportunity to transcribe those moment when you were on a roll, and then repurpose this as content for blogs, articles or even part of a new chapter of your next book.

Another way of raising your profile is to register on the websites – like www.expertsources.co.uk, where journalists will visit when looking for an expert to interview for a topical story.┬á Position yourself in this space and you could find yourself on a national television news programme, like author and social media expert Antony Welfare. His new book ‘Social Media essentials for Authors’ is full of other valuable techniques for spreading your influence.

As the saying goes, if you are hungry, there is no point in sitting with your mouth open and hoping that steak and chips will fly in.  You have to go to the bar and order it.  Getting discovered by more people is a day by day, step by step process and it does take time. It is the price you need to pay for the success that will come your way if you get it right.