5. Marketing is Your New Best Friend
You’ve just released your first star book filled with hours of entertainment and knowledge. You know this is what the public has been waiting for and it will be the next big ‘Twilight’ or ‘Harry Potter’ for sure.
You spend the next few hours sitting at your computer, staring at your views and refreshing the page every other minute. Five hours later and your biggest hit is starting to seem like your biggest flop as your view counter hasn’t budged from “2” (Which was probably both you).
Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Not selling a book in your first week doesn’t mean that it has a terrible story line and a badly photoshop’d cover. The biggest reason Indie Authors don’t make sales at first is simply because no one knows it’s out there!
Marketing your new book may sound difficult or even expensive to some. However, by budgeting a few minutes rather than dollars out of your day, you can see your sales rising from 0 up in no time.
- If your not already a social media hound, become one. Your friends are your friends for a reason. They care about you and your achievements and writing a book is a VERY big achievement! So why aren’t you sharing it to them? Just a simple “Hey check out my new book on Amazon and if you have time, leave me a review!” will help your search rank far more than any $0.50 a click advertising campaign.
- Connect with other authors. Every author has gone through this at one point or another. Search on the internet or in your local community for a writer’s group or book club. Talking with others who were once in your position can give you good insight and knowledge from their experiences. “If the mistake was made once, why re-mistake it?”
- Be Professional. Wherever your spreading the word about your new book, make sure you always act professionally. People will listen more to the polite author in a nice business-casual outfit than the person verbally slamming someone else’s book. In the same stance, a reader may feel more comfortable purchasing a book they haven’t heard much about from the user with a friendly picture of themselves rather than a random cartoon they pulled off the internet. You want to create a professional image of yourself in the mind of your readers.
4. It Takes Time to Build a Fan Base
Good things don’t come overnight and patience is most certainly a virtue in the writer world. Maintaining your positive attitude and enthusiasm with your three loyal readers will help you to attract more in the long run. Writing is a endurance race, not a sprint and you will only be disappointed if you go into it believing that your going to become famous in a week. Each new reader and fan is a step forward.
3. Don’t Skip the Editor
No one is perfect and even with a 10,000 word book you’re bound to make mistakes, it’s only human. A common rookie mistake is to skip the editor and speed your way to releasing the book. Don’t think that because you read your book through that you caught all your spelling, grammatical and content errors. It’s almost impossible to edit your own work as you already know the story and how it goes. If you don’t catch the error, your reader most certainly will and bad work leads to bad reviews… none of us ever want that.
Nothing is more valuable than an experienced editor and truth be, they are not as enormously expensive as most new writers believe them to be. The more you work with an editor, the more effective they will become at reading into the “voice” of your story and thus the more efficient they will become at editing your book. Some editors will even format your work along with your edit, such as Amy at theeyesforediting.com, to save you hours of hassle and hair ripping.
2. Freebies are Awesome
Just like with marketing, the more people who read your book the better. If someone likes your story and style they will want to tell their friends all about it… and what do people like more than reading books? Free stuff! A great way to get your book out to the world is to offer it for free for short promotion periods or giving it away in a contest. Some people dedicate their days to snatching up great freebies and then sharing it with all their friends so they can get in on the good deal too. Then if those friends like it and share it with their friends… See where I’m going with this? Your book could easily spread like wildfire over a short “Freebie Weekend”.
1. It’s Not Easy to Sell Books, at First
Just like it takes time to build a fan base, sales aren’t going to start rolling in by the hundreds overnight either. Making a career change to being a full-time author isn’t a decision you should immediately quit your day job for. There are hundreds of books out there and it can take time for readers to pick up yours. Don’t let this discourage you though, writing is it’s own reward in itself. Remember why you began writing in the first place, it makes you happy to see others enjoying your stories… even if those others are just your family and friends at first.
Kyra Starr Cato is a regular contributor to Dandilyon Fluff and the genius behind any tech wonders that may be found on this blog from the audio and visual whizzbangs to the quiet SEO magic behind the scenes.
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