Marketing your books
22.11.16
So you have finally published your book. You have a great book that is professionally proof read, has a great cover etc. The hard work is over, Right? Wrong!The next step is marketing. The average ebook doesn't sell a lot of copies, some say 200 in its lifetime. The actual figure is less important than the general idea.
There are more e books out there, books are competing with electronic media (everyone seems to be on their i phones now days), traditional publishing is in decline and the price for e books is falling, many are giving them away for free.So even if you get a deal with a publisher , you will be expected to market your books. At first it will feel completely foreign.In such a short article, I will be dogmatic and concentrate on a few brief tips.
1. Unless you are going to write a lot of books in a popular Genre, that is in fashion, you probably won't make a lot of money.
2. Kindle exclusivity or also publish through Smashwords? The rewards for going exclusive are shrinking. I have seen arguments for and against. The most persuasive that I have read suggest that it might be more worthwhile initially or if you only have one book. One experienced writer with several books tried both ways and made less money by being Amazon exclusive. Also Smashwords allows free coupons for reviewers and give aways.
3. Reviews: very important but, don't cheat. The main ones you want are Amazon customer reviews. Join Libarything and arrange one of their members give aways here. Ask (new) reviewers in your Genre, consider an ethical service that will advertise your book to a pool of volunteer reviewers.Don't worry about the one star review trolls, they are expected and prospective readers are not deterred by them once you have a few reviews. Never respond. I had one whose comments were half sensible. It warned readers to aspects of my book (rather long) before they read it and I thought it was helpful in the end.
4. Free books? As a strategy for selling books, this is becoming less effective. It is best if you have written more than one book and you sell the first one free. I'm less sure if you only have one book. It may raise your profile if you can't do this in other ways.
5. Target all your promotions: Whatever you think, you do have a target audience of people most likely to become buyers. Don't waste your time "pimping" to people who are not readers or are not readers of your Genre! Forget about family and friends or people at your club. (Unless they are going to like your sort of book). In fact, you don't want them reading it. Sure a few might read it with an open mind and some of them will be pleasantly surprised and even become a fan but don't let that mislead you into thinking this is how it's done.
My books are Sword and Sorcery Epic fantasy, it is a narrow Genre , but it does me no good promoting my books to readers of romance books.
6. Give aways and sign up list no one will sign up to your email list unless you give a worthwhile gift (mine is a free book). Don't harass those on your signup list.
7. Social media the more time you are on social media the less you feel like shouting out "buy my book" .It is a turn off . Form relationships. Again concentrate on areas you target audience frequents. Authors also read and mixing with them is fun and you will pick up a lot of valuable tips but remember if you can to look for your target audience, authors of your genre. Linked in is a good site for tips and networking but not selling.
8. Book Competitions? I have won the two competitions I entered. Makes for bragging rights but affect on sales is modest.
9.
Join Goodreads and booklikes a lot of your readers are there!!
10. Join free book promotion sites eg AMC for Book Marketing & Selling Tips for Authors , http://newfreekindlebooks.com.
http://www.readfree.ly
11.Promotions By this I mean sites with their own mailing list and audience that promote your discounted or free books. You may not break even with these. Join "K boards" (Kindle Boards) and search under the paid site you are thinking of using. Here is some free sites here from Readers in the Know. Caution: when I clicked the Book Bunny link it told me my computer was infected (it wasn't), some of them no longer have free spots but it was a good list.
12. All these things cannot be repeated too close together in time with the exception of twitter and some busy facebook sites where your post is buried within minutes it is best not to promote to the same site (see 10) too frequently. For promotion sites that send out newsletters, not more than 3 monthly. You have collected all your customers, you have to wait till they fill up with new ones.
Thank you for reading this blog.If you like Sword and Sorcery Epic Fantasy please feel free to drop by my main page Home Page for free books, including the prequel to my series free for a signup and posts like the Song of Troy, and how to get free books from Smashwords
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