Okay, I know I'm probably not the best person in the world to hold a course like this, but I'm not the worst either, and let's face it, writers need help. So, I'm going to go over some things we all should be doing to help increase sales.
1) Have an online presence. Yeah, if you're here, you probably already know this one. If you can afford it, have a website with a dedicated URL that goes something like yourauthorname.com. If not, get a free site without a dedicated URL or a blog or something where people can find you if they do a simple search.
2) Update your online presence as soon as you have any news to update it with. New book release? As soon as you have a cover, slap it up there with info on the particulars. As soon as you have buy links, get them on there, too.
3) Create a social networking presence. The more people see you out there, the more likely they are to be able to buy your books. It doesn't have to be hard and it shouldn't be a major chore. I use Facebook and Twitter. I'm already on FB all the time and I try to remember to get to Twitter a few times a day. It helps that my FB page status updates feed my Twitter page.
4) Network. And by network, I mean get your butt out there and talk to people. NOT about your books - at least not at first. Interact with them about stuff. Make friends by leaving comments and responding to comments. 'Like' posts and pages on FB. And for godsakes, be REAL. People can spot a fake coming from a mile off. If you're real and friendly, the people who like you will tell other people about you and your books.
5) Goodreads. If you aren't a member, get thee hence. As soon as you have a cover and a blurb and a tentative release date, get your book listed. Even if it's months out. Then when people hear about your book, they can go to Goodreads and put it on their Want to Read list, which will remind them when your book actually releases.
6) Take advantage of your Amazon Author Pages. Yes, pages plural. US and UK - unless you can write in other languages, then do DE or IT or FR or JP or whatever other country. I can't wait until Amazon let's me do a page in Canada and Australia.
Yeah, all this in addition to making sure your book is edited into the best piece of reading material it can be, and in addition to having an awesome cover that will draw people to your work. All this in addition to actually writing the books. It's worth it. Because it'll bring sales. And I don't know about you, but no sales makes for an inability to create more books around here. I talked on Monday about the money side of things, and my investment so far, but the financial well is not infinite and when it goes dry, there'd better be something flowing in from somewhere.
So, get out there and market. And if you're already doing all of the above and still not seeing sales? Well, I'll try to talk more about that in another post. Meanwhile, hold tight, stay the course, and keep writing books that you can then put through the machine. Sooner or later, the sales will come. We would just all prefer sooner rather than later. Right?
Any questions? Suggestions? Ideas?
Well, I do 1 and 5, and half of 6 - I'd forgotten about the UK page.
ReplyDeleteI *still* haven't managed to blog about my new book. Sheesh!
Thanks for the shout-out on FB!
You do #4, too, Deb. You comment here, we became friends, and I try to talk about your books when I can. And I bet I'm not the only one you network with - even if you don't realize it. To me, all networking is is making friends and helping friends who might then help you. Of course, I don't go into it thinking of who can best help me, but it sometimes works out that way.
DeleteI see you blogged about the book this morning! Go you!