How to sell books - Part 1
It might come as a surprise but I knew none of this stuff when I first set out. I just crammed a whole lot of words down on the page and flung it out into the world. I also didn’t learn these facts all at once. It has taken a long, long time to figure them all out, while staring sore-eyed at diminutive royalty figures and wondering what I was doing wrong.
So, I’ve decided to write a short piece, split into three parts, to help the newly published, or about to be published, authors and help them navigate the rocky road to promoting their book online.
This guide is far from comprehensive and, rather than draw on previous articles from the web for self-help ideas and strategies, this article only covers those actions that I learned and put into action. I go through some of the things I’ve done to spread the good word about my books. It’s also probably far from a complete list, as I’m always finding new ways to gain a voice, but hopefully it will help. This first part covers getting the foundations right before you build.
Promotion, it’s a pain but it’s got to be done, and it takes commitment.
Product is Everything! Make it look good, cover, content & layout, online image.
The elephant in the room - Amazon is king
Promotion, it’s a pain but we’ve all got to do it; and no, I’m not talking about your team in the Premiership going up! Publishing your book to an online book store really is only the first step. A big one, granted, but still only one step in a long line of actions that need to be carried out. What comes next is a slog, touting your work, over and over again, to an unsuspecting populous, and in many ways this is tougher than writing the book in the first place. Also, unlike writing, promotion is not just one thing. It is multifaceted, using many different fronts to achieve the goal of putting your book into the hands of as many paying customers as possible. Don’t believe for a second that once your book enters the store’s database that eventually through word of mouth a new classic will be born, bringing riches and glory upon the righteous author. No, it will plummet into the depths of the dark servers, never to see daylight again. Ok, maybe not that bad, but you know what I mean.
So, it takes commitment. You can’t expect to traverse far with only a couple of hours effort. The real world doesn’t work that way. It’s an on-going, never-ending push. If you don’t put in the effort, you won’t see the results. It’s that simple.
But how do you know what to do? I hear you asking. Case in point: I was talking to a colleague a few months ago. We got talking about self-publishing. He announced that a couple of years ago he had published a children’s book but had failed to ever sell a copy outside of his circle of family and friends. He said he was frankly amazed that I had managed to make any headway at all. When I questioned him about his experience it quickly became apparent that he had used the ‘chuck it in and see if it swims,’ approach. Now don’t get me wrong, this was not some lazy fool with no ambition, far from it. No, what he was lacking was the knowledge on how to push his work forward through the realms of online publishing. What he needed to learn was how to promote. It sounds simple, but when you’re new to the game, simple can look like an impossible mountain to climb.
Product is Everything! First and foremost, what you are trying to sell has to look the part. It’s a simple statement but one that can get overlooked. Spend the time getting your submission right. Of course get the spelling and punctuation right, but I mean more than that.
Make sure it has an eye grabbing cover - by all means use friends and family to test out a variety of versions but they are biased and will want to please you and ultimately will only tell you nice things. Try asking a book club or local library group to review your book to get honest, unbiased useful feedback. You might not always be pleased to hear what they’ve got to say but their advice is gold dust and will help you produce a better quality product. Find the one that really sells the premise of your work; after all, the front cover is your billboard. It’s where you set out your market stall and tout your wares.
For Blast, my second book, I mocked up six different cover designs before settling on the current one. If you can’t make a cover yourself then there are services on the net that can help. For example:
Even Amazon has a cover maker program built in while you submit your work. Also, one very, very important thing: When you settle on your cover design, make sure you create it with enough resolution; meaning, if in doubt make it bigger! You can always scale down a large image to a smaller one, but the reverse is quite often a disaster. Low resolution images look terrible and reek of unprofessionalism. Remember, this cover is probably going to be at the core for your promotional exploits for a long time, so ensure it stands the test of time. It might need to be used on posters or banners. Make sure the original image has enough resolution to meet future needs. Here’s a line from the Amazon’s guide to creating a cover:
The ideal size of your eBook cover art is a height/width ratio of 1.6:1. This means that for every 1,000 pixels in width, the image should be 1,600 pixels in height. To ensure the best quality for your image, particularly on high definition devices, the height of the image should be at least 2,500 pixels. Ideal dimensions for cover files are 2,560 x 1,600 pixels. Note: The minimum image size allowed is 1,000 x 625 pixels. The maximum image size allowed is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels.
Now a final word on the product. Be careful about pagination and layout. For example, I’ve seen a lot of books where the author has spent long hours getting everything right, only to forget to switch off automatic line indents when centering their chapter headings. It’s little things like that that grab the readers eye, and not in a good way. If in doubt, go over your work one more time, even if you swear blind that its perfect. I promise you, you’ll find something; and if you don’t, someone else will! You might think about hiring a professional proof reader - Trust me, they’re priceless.
The elephant in the room - Amazon is king. It seems stupid to say it. Everyone knows it, but it’s worth taking a moment to think about it. Make sure you’re using your efforts and resources in the right place. You might own an e-reader from another manufacturer, you might feel you have a loyalty to that company. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean this is where you should push hard to make your voice heard. It’s a simple truth - Amazon’s KDP marketplace sells more books than any other vendor … a lot more! It pays to push hard here. This is the place where you will sell more books, period.
Of course there are other markets, Kobo, Nook, Apple iBooks to list but a few, and they all have their place; but the Amazon Kindle is still a huge force to be reckoned with. Also, remember Amazon produce printed books as well. (Note: refer back to the bit about resolutions for cover designs. It makes a real difference here. Remember, bigger is better). You might think you’re in the writing game but really it comes down to numbers, maths, (math if you’re an American), and algorithms. Remember those classes at school. Who’d have thought they’d play such a big part in your adult life? Then again, you don’t need to worry, Amazon will take care of all the sums but it’s up to you to promote the heck out of your book.
Next time - We get down to the nitty-gritty of how to actually promote an online book. Topics include:
What can KDP & Author Central do for you?
Author Central, do I need it?
What the hell is KDP Select
How does the ranking system work? Not a clue, but here’s what I’ve experienced