There is so much information about self-publishing online that it could make your head burst if you kept consuming it. Everyone has some special way to self-publish and a lot of it is based off of what they’ve heard someone else teach. There are things you can do to sell a few books, get spikes, and/or become a “#1 Amazon bestselling author,” but these strategies won’t help you sell a consistent and decent amount of books. The stats say the average self-published author will sell less than 250 books. From what I’ve seen, this tends to be true.
I wanted to self-publish my first book in mid-2011. I had a service business in the vendor industry for 12 years and I wanted to write about what I had experienced. I studied all of the information I could get my hands on. I followed all the steps and put together a professional book. When the book was published, I was SUPER excited. I told anyone who would listen that my book was live on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. I tried hard to “market” the book to the almost zero audience that I had. No one bought the book. I sold five copies in the first six months.
When I thought about why my book wasn’t selling, the answer became crystal clear: I had no audience and no one knew the book was alive. I then spent most of my time building my audience. Here’s the thing, most authors don’t sell books because they have no audience. They think that being on social media is enough and that’s how they’ll market their book. It’s always difficult once you realize that social media isn’t enough. The organic reach of social media is nothing and it’s hard to get people to care about your book. You need much more than social media to build an audience. Your main audience are the people on your email list.
Building
I started building my email list at the beginning of 2012 and that was the “missing” piece of the puzzle. By the end of 2012, I had an email list of 6,500 people or so. I had sold 45,000 copies of my two books through my email list, social media, guest posting, getting interviewed on podcasts, and speaking at events. To date, my books have sold over 100,000 copies. They have hit major bestseller’s list and brought me other business. The books continue to sell through the passive efforts that I make.
Here’s the message that I want you to takeaway: social media is not enough and not your full audience. You need an email list, you need to get interviewed on podcasts, and you need to write for other websites that have lots of traffic and can give you exposure. Here are some action items:
- Be a guest on a podcast. Every morning, Radio Guest List and Podcast Guests will deliver a list of shows looking for your expertise to your inbox.
- Guest post on blogs. There are blogs that get millions of visitors each month. In 2012, I guest posted on 60 blogs that brought half a million visitors to my website. Here is a great list of blogs you can guest post for.
- Get exposure from large publications. You can be interviewed or write for sites like Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, SUCCESS, Forbes, and so on. You get exposure to millions of potential leads and customers. Writing for these websites builds authority, grows your social media presence, and leads to book sales. Here is a podcast episode that walks you through how to do this.
I have written in-depth posts about all of these things here and on large publications. Don’t get caught in the trap that too many authors fall for. Build your audience with more than just social media and you will sell books.
Are you an author marketing a book?
I self-published my first book in mid-2011. I had no idea what to do, but I was super excited to get my dream out to the world. The book flopped–it sold five copies in the first six months and three of those were to friends.
I wanted to sell this book badly, so I started looking at book marketing programs. There was a course by a well-known Internet marketing person who was teaching authors how to become a “#1 Amazon bestselling author,” and how that would lead to lots of books sales. I bought the course.
This was 2012, so book marketing was a little different, but I was disappointed. I found out–after paying $600–that becoming a #1 Amazon bestselling author is super simple. You pick low competition categories in Amazon. In some of these categories, you can literally sell four books in an hour–you buy them yourself or someone buys them for you–and you outsell all of the other books in that category. You then become a #1 bestseller author in some random category for one hour, maybe two. You screen shot that and push that as your social proof. You can even put a badge on your website.
I think there ARE some good uses for being a #1 Amazon bestseller but I quickly found out that it rarely leads to consistent book sales. The average book buyer who doesn’t know you won’t see that status and be impressed enough to buy your book.
At the end of the day, I started selling books when I built my email list. To date, my books have sold over 100,000 copies and counting. I’ve hit bestseller status but in a different way. My books have risen to as high as #64 in the ENTIRE Kindle store, not just a category. My books have made major bestseller lists like Publishers Weekly. And there have been days when I outsold my heroes.
I believe in consistently selling books using strategies that can work for any author, not just the big names. Strategies that are evergreen. That is what I will be teaching in my class, Results Self-Publishing. It official launches today.
Results Self-Publishing is a class that WILL give you very practical and tangible results. You will learn how to write more effectively, how to write books, how to build an audience for your books, how to consistently sell books, the ins/outs of self-publishing, how to build a business around your book, and how to get a traditional book deal.
There are only ten spots for hungry authors/future authors who want to hit major lists and consistently sell books. Details here.
