Marketing Tips to Sell More Books

I was talking with a friend of mine when he said, “Writing a book is only a small part of the job, the bigger job is selling the book. I always thought that it’s the publisher’s job to sell the book but they only work in the background. You are the face of marketing.”

If you are planning to write a book, you have to plan your marketing strategy in advance. While you have to be disciplined as a writer, you also need to have a disciplined approach to your marketing strategy that reflects your personality and the kind of book you are going to write.

Book-marketing is not an exact science but it is nothing less than that. It’s a combination of a wide variety of efforts that each play a role in an indie author’s success.

I am jotting down a few points that will help you sell more books.

Be consistent

First and foremost, it’s important that whatever you do, you do consistently. So often indie authors try to do more book marketing than their time can allow. Focus on what you can do the best and be consistent. Trust me, you will make greater strides and sell more books if you remain consistent in your efforts.

Have a clear social media strategy

Figure out what’s working for you and what’s not. It’s good if you can manage to be everywhere but it’s absolutely not important for you to be everywhere. Be only where you are comfortable and express yourself naturally.

Do Videos

Making quality short videos is very easy nowadays because mobile phones have great cameras. It is also for sure that videos are here to stay and the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter or Google are so deigned to show the videos to maximum people. You can also do live videos as it sends a notification to your fans and they are most likely to view it.

Create a VIP reader group on Facebook:

One of the best ways to grow fans is to make them feel special. Creating an exclusive invitation-only group is a great way to accomplish this. Fans love these groups, especially when you give them early access to books, gift card promos, contests, and exclusive content.

Network with other authors:

This is always, always a great idea. Join online groups, go to writer events, or join local author groups. Networking with other, similar authors is not just good business, but can help you brainstorm new ideas. Plus, you’ll get a chance to see what others are doing that’s working (and what’s not working), and most likely expand your knowledge! You can also ask a few authors to tweet about your book at the time of book release.

Be a contributory author in online magazines, blogs, websites

Solidifying your position as a thought leader or an insightful person should be a top goal for your book marketing plan. Contributing content via guest blogging or guest posts helps you give a visibility and ultimately helps in selling your book. If you want to write for friedeye you can mail us at letters@friedeye.com

Give interviews

This sounds more simple than actually it is as you cannot approach someone for taking your interview. So, where do you start. Add people who write about books and interview people to your facebook friend list and sooner or later they will approach you.

Smart Pricing of the book

It is a difficult ta sisk to do as an author. You can never be satisfied with the price of the book. It’s a fact that you cannot put a price to the effort to write a book but the market works very differently. You have to price the book at a price which works. Researching the price of similar books in sites like Amazon or Flipkart will give you a proper idea.

Have a website

It’s very important to have a website if you are going to make a career as an author. The press and agencies will look at your website to know about you. I have written an article on what to include in a website and you can read it here.

Email marketing

Don’t have an email group. Create one and start sending emails to them. Don’t be bland and simply push for selling your book otherwise your mails will end up in spam. You should try to make it personal and make the recipients feel special to be part of the email group. You can talk about the book occasionally in a smart way.

Book excerpts

Excerpting a chapter at a time is a great way to bring readers into your story. I have already mentioned about contributory articles and VIP groups. You can post the excerpts as a contributory author and in your VIP groups with some extra content.

Book events

We often talk about bookstore events and literature festivals while those are great but as an indie author it’s not easy. Talk to local colleges and universities and try to see if a book-reading is possible. Teenagers nowadays share everything in social media and it will give you a free publicity.

eBook Promotion

Most authors don’t do enough of these. I don’t mean that you need to do freebies all the time, you can also just discount a book.

Look over these ideas and create a road map and possibly even a book marketing calendar to plan which strategies you wish to take advantage of to sell more books, what you’ll need to do to accomplish each task, and when each step should happen. Since, you are a creative person you can use these tips to execute it in an innovative way. I hope the article will help you and sell more books. If you still need any help you can contact us.

We welcome your comments at letters@friedeye.com