how to sell more books

What Seth Godin Can Teach Us About Book Publishing

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This post by Jennifer Tribe originally appeared on clearprose communications on 5/14/14.

If you’ve ever read anything by Seth Godin, you know he’s not a man who’s content to just go with the flow. He’s been questioning and analyzing the business world — “poking the box,” as he calls it — for decades.

He applies that same inquisitive nature to publishing, too. Godin is the author of 17 bestselling books that have been translated into dozens of languages. He’s worked with a traditional publisher and he’s experimented with self-publishing. In other words, he’s been around the book block quite a few times.

Godin’s commentary on the book publishing industry is some of the sharpest I’ve read, and his techniques for crafting and promoting a book are often ingenious.

If you’re a non-fiction author, you’d do well to tear a page from Godin’s playbook — here’s how.

 

1] Understand that the idea is the thing

In Godin’s world, a book is a vehicle for an idea — the idea is the product — which means that right now, the traditional publishing industry is focused on the wrong thing.

[Publishers] will only thrive if they understand that an entirely new business model will have to be built and understood. And it will have nothing whatsoever to do with paper. It will be about ideas.Which is what book publishing was supposed to be about all along, right?

 

Click here to read the full post on clearprose communications.

 

Giving Readers What They Truly Crave

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This post by Joe Wikert originally appeared on his Digital Content Strategies on 8/11/14.

Publishers need to take a page out of the retailer playbook. You’ve undoubtedly noticed how good certain online retailers are at suggesting additional products related to the one you’re about to purchase.

Amazon is arguably the king here with their “Frequently Bought Together” and “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” recommendation sections. These elements typically appear just below the product image and above the product details. That’s prime real estate on the Amazon product page so you can bet these elements drive a lot of add-on sales.

You’re probably familiar with content recommendation links and widgets that have sprouted up all over the web the past few years. Taboola is a leader in this space and they specialize in offering links to related content from other publishers. For example, if you’re reading an article on USA Today’s website you’ll see a headline towards the bottom that says “Sponsor Content” followed by links to a handful of related articles from other sources.

I believe this is simply scratching the surface of content recommendation and we’ll see much more sophisticated cross-pollination in the coming months and years. I also believe many of these will be human-curated and implemented via a lightweight post-production model. An example will help illustrate.

 

Click here to read the full post on Joe Wikert’s Digital Content Strategies.

 

How I Made Record Sales in August

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This post by Elizabeth Barone originally appeared on her blog on 9/20/14.

I’ve been meaning to do this sort of write-up for a while, but I’m always hesitant because I don’t want it to seem like I’m bragging or whining. Here’s the thing, though: writing is my full-time job. Just like any other business, it’s important to track what is and isn’t working. I also strongly believe in sharing information; I don’t see other authors as competition. Being that I’ve been sort of coaching a couple of authors new to indie publishing, I think it’s even more important for me to share what I’m learning.

I’m going to share my actual sales numbers and income. I’m a little nervous about this, because I am far from making a full-time living off of my books. But I would like to track what I’ve been doing and swap some ideas with you.

Let’s get started.

 

August Releases
Becoming Natalie (Book #3, Becoming Natalie Series)

Becoming Natalie: The Complete Collection (Books #1-3 in the Becoming Natalie Series)

 

August Marketing
Uploaded Becoming Natalie to Kindle, iBooks, and Kobo for pre-order and added links to series sales page on my website.

Serialized Raising Dad on my blog, posting a new chapter every day.

Gave away the first five ESX books via my email newsletter.

Offered a signed limited edition ESX postcard to email subscribers.

Posted a gallery of photos from the real life setting of the Becoming Natalie series.

Posted a cover reveal for Becoming Natalie.

Made an effort to update my blog at least once a week with relevant pop culture or social topics.

 

Click here to read the full post, which includes MANY more marketing bullet items, actual sales results and further analysis, on Elizabeth Barone’s blog.

 

Put Calls To Action In The Back Of Your Books To Sell More Books

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This post originally appeared on the Book Marketing Tools blog on 5/5/14.

There are two different kinds of book marketing, active marketing and passive marketing, and both are important.

Active marketing is when you go out to tell others about your book through blog tours, giveaways, free promotions, tweeting about your book, and more.

Passive marketing is setting up fan building and book selling mechanisms once, which will help you to continue to sell books passively once they are all set up.

A combination of both of these forms of book marketing will definitely help you to sell more books.

 

Use Calls To Action
Putting calls to action in the back of your book is a form of passive marketing that will help you to sell more books. Once you set up these calls to action and you publish the update to your books, you’re done, but they will continue to help you to sell books.

If a reader makes it to the end of your book, they are going to go somewhere. Direct them where you need them to go. If you can direct them in a specific direction, then you are likely to keep them as a reader. If you don’t, they may move onto the next book in their reading list, then you will have lost the opportunity to continue to sell to them.

 

Click here to read the full post on Book Marketing Tools.

 

Becoming a USA Today and New York Times Bestselling Author

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This post by Carolyn Arnold originally appeared on her blog on 3/18/14.

It’s every author’s dream to reach the bestseller lists. I have been fortunate to reach bestselling status on Amazon and Barnes & Noble with my Madison Knight Series, and Brandon Fisher series. For this, I am deeply grateful.

But what I want to discuss today is taking things to that next giant step. I’m talking about becoming a New York Times or USA Today Bestseller. I believe that’s the goal of most authors.

Speaking for myself, I would love to attain this for more than the fame or money that comes with it—it’s the ability to reach even more people, to entertain, to bring relaxation into people’s lives. The fact that as an author, I have my books as a legacy to share with others touches me on a spiritual level. You also never know the full effect your books have on other people. How privileged we are as authors. I am grateful for this every day of my life. You may feel the same way and wonder, how do I go from here to there?

You may have noticed how things are changing in the publishing industry. It’s not just traditionally published authors hitting these lists—it’s the self-published author as well. Typically, we’re used to seeing fiction works standing on their own, but these days even book sets or collections are making best-selling status, giving the contributing authors bragging rights.

Taking from a recent telephone seminar with Jack Canfield and Steve Harrison, I am going to share what they taught.

 

Click here to read the full post on Carolyn Arnold’s blog.