Tag Archives: selling books

13 Easy Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

stack of books for sale picture
Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

You’re going to have to free yourself of magical thinking if you want to start selling more copies of your books. Why? Wishing that you’d sell more books won’t get you book sales. It’s not enough just to want to sell your books. You have to take smart actions. This might help. Think of selling books as another artform, of sorts, a measurable artform.

Furthermore, selling books is a mix of online and offline marketing and promotion. That is, unless you plan to only focus on selling books through a single retailer like Kobo, Apple Books or Amazon. If you want to go wide, you’ll want to list your books with a wide range of online and offline bookstores and retailers.

Work with Book Distributors to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

Another action that you’ll want to take is to list your books with a broad range of book distributors. Ingram, Baker and Taylor, Bella Distribution, Heritage Group Distribution, CBL Distribution, Casemate and Publishers Group West are among dozens of book distributors. If you’re new to the book world, distributors get your books to online and offline bookstores and other retailers.

Because of the role that they fill, book distributors are as close to a must as you may get if you want to go wide and start selling more copies of your books. Therefore, entering into a contract with legitimate book distributors is an early step in the book sales process. Want to keep yourself honest? Create a spreadsheet and track which book distributors you contact, including the date and form of outreach (email, telephone, snail mail, etc.) that you use to introduce your books to distributors. Follow-up with distributors you haven’t heard from.

Before you reach out to book distributors, create a marketing strategy. For example, your marketing strategy might highlight social media marketing efforts, including the number of social media followers your literary accounts have. Other items you could include are scheduled book signings, public speaking events, scheduled book club discussions and the numbers of books you’ve already sold.

Although these aren’t part of the 13 easy ways to be start selling more copies of your books, they are keys to early and ongoing book success. For starters, write a great story. If you’re writing nonfiction, do sufficient research and lay discoveries out in an easy-to-understand way.

Due Your Due Diligence

After all, it’s what’s inside the front and back flaps of your book that readers most want. So, nail the book writing part. To ensure that you pull this off, make sure that an experienced and talented book editor reads your manuscript before you publish it. Another tip is to run a spell and grammar check on your manuscript, even before you send it off to a skilled book editor. Working with an editor who is familiar with the type of book you wrote (mystery/suspense, romance, science fiction, etc.) can yields great results.

Next, create an engaging synopsis, book title and book cover. Don’t skimp on these actions. They will play a direct role in your book marketing efforts and your book sales. Here’s another tip that I want to share with you.

Years of book marketing has taught me the importance of researching book editors, book publicity specialists and book marketing services before a deal is inked. The last experience that you want to have is discovering that you just paid two or three times more than you needed to for editing, cover design or book marketing services. You also don’t want to ink a deal with a specialist who does shoddy work.

Hence, do your due diligence. You’ll thank yourself later.

Easy Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

And, now for those 13 easy ways to start selling more copies of your books. Steps shared in this article deal with promoting a book that you want to market and sell online and offline.

  1. Create a website that you’re committed to updating at least weekly – Years ago, you could have simply designed an author website to sell books on and walked away, letting the website pull in book buyers. Those days may be over. To keep your author website relevant, update it no less than once a week. Ways that you could do this are to add a daily writing tip or fact about a character from one of your novels to the author website. Or, you could add a quote from one of your characters to your author website. Just commit to updating a data point at your website once a week or more. And, add strong meta data like targeted keywords to your website.
  2. Start a book blog – At this blog, you could write about book conferences, book festivals and book signings that you’ve recently attended or that you’re planning to attend. You could also share insights that are related to your latest book. Another step that you could take is to post feature interviews with other writers at your blog. As with your author website, the point is to keep the blog updated. In fact, you could link your blog to your author website and keep both updated with this one easy step. That’s what I do at chistell.com. This single, easy step pulls in thousands of potential book buyers a week at chistell.com.

Additional Ways to Start Selling More Copies of Your Books

  1. Send postcards and direct mail to bookstore buyers – Even further, build relationships with bookstore buyers. These relationships can make it easier for you to get your new books into bookstores months from now. To keep these relationships healthy, consider sending book buyers (including library book buyers) holiday greetings.
  2. Reach out to military exchanges through organizations like RangeMe to see if you can sell your books at military stores.
  3. Teach a course at a local college. Ask if you can sell and sign your books at the end of the course.
  4. Schedule and conduct podcast and radio interviews – Yet don’t just conduct interviews. Make sure that you interview on podcasts and radio stations that pull in your book’s target audience.
  5. Design a literary newsletter – Building a newsletter can help you to develop your own mailing list. Consider adding a free newsletter subscription form to your author website. Items to include in your literary newsletter are diverse, ranging from feature author interviews to book reviews to upcoming book events to discounts to holiday messages. Sign up for The Book Lover’s Haven to get a feel for more of what you could do with a literary newsletter.
  6. Attend book events – It’s true. You could sell thousands of copies of your books online, without leaving home. However, it’s also true that getting outside and attending book events is a great way to introduce your books to new readers. In fact, you could sell dozens of books at book conferences, book fairs and festivals.

Even More Ways to Gain Book Sales

  1. Use Sign-Up Sheets – When you attend book events, bring sign-up sheets with you. Let people know what you’re using the sheets for. As an example, you could use a sign-up sheet to grow your literary newsletter subscriber list. You could also use a sign-up sheet to email in-person event attendees information about your books, including how to order copies of your e-books.
  2. Feature your books on book promotion websites. Again, do your due diligence before you pay for services at book promotion websites.
  3. Do newsletter cross-promotions with other authors whose books are in the same genre as your books.
  4. Newsletter book market services – Pay for newsletter book marketing services. Make sure that you work with newsletters that have a high open-rate. It may not do you much good to pay for an ad in a newsletter that boast 10,000 subscribers but only has a 3% open rate. Also, work with services that have tapped into your book’s target audience.
  5. Zone in on Social Media – Just 10 to 15 minutes a day on social media can increase your book sales. Test different social media sites to discover which sites generate the best return for your books. Also, pay attention to what days of the week and times of the day are best to post book marketing material. Examples of this material are book covers, book reviews and book quotes.

Amazon Ads and Selling Books

Other actions that you could take to start selling books are to add your book cover, book title and author website URL to your email signature line. Definitely ask family and friends to tell people they know about your books. Reaching out to school book buyers is another way that you could generate book sales.

If you’re promoting a book that sells on Amazon, consider taking out Amazon ads, namely sponsored product ads. You could also build an Amazon store to introduce your entire line of books to readers. But don’t just start Amazon ads. Budget for the ads. Study relevant keywords. Be patient during this process, as this isn’t a quick process. Take your time and find dozens of relevant keywords. You also might find success with relevant Amazon ad categories.

Stay Motivated

It could take one to three weeks to start seeing results from your ads. So, keep your daily spend low or no more than $5 a day when you start working with ads. Download and review monthly reports until you start to notice which keywords, categories and similar products are working to bring in book sales.

Above all, don’t be dreamy about this. In fact, don’t be dreamy about any part of the book marketing process. It’s work. There’s nothing magical about it. Before long, you’ll witness the link between your efforts and the results that you’re seeing. Should a step not yield good results, consider altering a part of the action or replacing the action (in-store book signings, discussion board link shares, etc.) with another action.

Keep at it. There are readers waiting to read great books!

Repurpose Marketing Content to Attract Readers and Sell More Books

Posted on by

By Books Author Denise Turney

black man surfing laptop for book marketing details
Photo by Greta Hoffman on Pexels.com

Eager to save time as a book promoter? Repurpose the marketing content at your website. In addition to saving time, when you repurpose marketing content, you attract readers using at least two data forms. Learn how to turn blog articles and other content into videos, posters, postcards, interviews, quizzes and press releases to sell more books.

Mapping Out Your Online Book Marketing Plan to Sell More Books

Let’s look at what makes an online book marketing plan, particularly the process of scheduling marketing content development and distribution. During this review, keep your goal top of mind. Your aim is to sell more books.

The below schedule is a general scheduling example. As you focus on selling more books, you’ll add specific actions to your content schedule. Pay attention to how many of the below steps use content you’ve already created.

  • Monday – Rewrite five existing blog posts, adding SEO phrases into the posts. As a tip, type phrases related to your book’s focal areas into Google. Examples include science fiction games, romantic mystery for retirees and novels with the best travel destinations. See how many search results come up for the phrases. Scroll down the search results and check the “People also ask” section in Google. These could become new blog article titles or article headings for repurposed content.
  • Tuesday – Develop scripts for social media videos that cover a month of video production. Use re-written book descriptions to fill-out the video content. After you write the social media video scripts, write a description for each video. Plug two to three SEO phrases that surfaced during your Monday work.
  • Wednesday – Shoot a month of social media video content. You’ll be working with lighting, sound and background branding materials. For example, you might shoot videos in front of your company logo. Depending on how long the videos are, this could take four or more hours.

More Ways to Sell More Books

woman in black coat
Photo by Christina Morillo on Pexels.com
  • Thursday – Start writing content for your next four weekly literary newsletters. Include a video in each newsletter. Also, add a feature interview in each newsletter. And incorporate coupons and product/service discounts into the literary newsletter. To make your newsletter robust, fill it with data, price discounts, part of a rewritten blog article, etc. that book lovers appreciate. Use crisp subject lines, the type of subject lines that stir emotion, to encourage newsletter opens and reads, a step that can help you sell more books.
  • Friday – Schedule social media marketing feeds. To save time, use an automated social media posts scheduler like Hootsuite, Vistaprint, Buffer, etc. While scheduling social media posts, add a mix of videos, quotes, information on upcoming events, feature interviews, newsletter releases, etc. To bring social media marketing posts alive, embed not-to-be-ignored pictures into the posts. Images and videos attract book lovers, helping you to sell more books.

That’s just a start. Keep reading to discover ways to maximize your online and offline marketing efforts without spending a lot of time.

How to Repurpose Existing Marketing Content

This is where repurposing your existing marketing content really comes into play. To sell more books without investing an hour or more a day into your marketing efforts:

  • Add quotes to images on your author website and distribute as flyers on social media. You’ve seen those posts on social media, the ones with flowers, a sunrise, a woman climbing a mountain, etc. that are topped with a motivational quote. This time, let the quote come from a blog post, press release or interview that already exist at your website.
  • Place existing book covers on drinking mugs and t-shirts and sell those at your author website. Another thing you could do to sell more books is to use this swag as giveaways.
  • Upload products designed with your book covers to Etsy, Pinterest, etc. to attract readers and sell more books. Make sure your author website URL is on each product.
  • Edit book marketing videos into short snippets. Upload the snippets to TikTok, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
  • Distribute existing marketing videos across a range of video platforms. For example, you could distribute your marketing videos to YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook Live, iHeart Radio, Google, Apple, Spotify, etc.

Organic Ways to Repurpose Marketing Content and Sell More Books

  • Build marketing videos into mobile holiday catalogs, sharing the videos on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. As with other ways to repurpose material to sell more books, the most you’ll generally do is edit, cut and paste existing marketing material.
  • Use published blog articles to create free e-books. Add your author website URL to the bottom of each page of the e-book. Also, add a page that list all of your titles to the back of the e-book. You could sell more books by simply showcasing your titles to more readers.
  • Create bookmarks and branded calendars that include snippets from your published blog articles.
  • Develop speaking presentations and trade show brochures using material from your literary newsletters, press releases and book descriptions.

To keep content at your author website fresh, re-write 10 blog articles a month, starting with older blog posts. As with your other marketing efforts, be consistent. In addition to repurposing marketing content, create new videos and blog articles. It’s an effective way to attract new readers and build relationships with these readers which, in turn, helps to sell more books.

photo of people using laptop
Photo by Canva Studio on Pexels.com

Implementing Your Book Marketing Content Plan

Building out your online book marketing plan takes time. If you’re pressed for time, you could hire an experienced marketing writer to create content for you. And, of course, you can repurpose your existing content.

Stay on track with a marketing calendar. For instance, you could start with the daily schedule presented earlier in this blog post. Then, plug in article titles, SEO phrases, image quotes and video script topics. Also, add due dates, getting clear about when you’ll complete action items.

Keep going. And stay open. Be flexible. Take free online book marketing courses from people who actually sell hundreds of books a year. Over the course of a year, you’ll find areas in your marketing plan that you need to tweak. Take advantage of new technologies, saving time and making it easier for you to attract readers and sell more books.

These 3 Keys Lead to Book Marketing Sales Success

Posted on by

By Novelist and Books Writer Denise Turney

man standing inside library with rows of books holding and reading book
Photo by Mark Cruzat on Pexels.com

Congratulations on your new book! Considering the work that goes into writing a good book, your achievement is worth celebrating! A meal at your favorite restaurant, a visit to your favorite jazz club, an afternoon at the beach or an evening enjoying a live stage play — wonderful ways to celebrate writing a new novel. And celebrate you should, because soon focus on book marketing sales success goes into full swing!

Book Marketing Sales Success Resources

If you’re an experienced novelist, you already know that selling books is not magic. In fact, as part of your book marketing efforts, you may have already started contacting book clubs, bookstore book buyers, librarians and book bloggers, sharing details about your new book.

Good digital marketing companies that focus on books you could use as a marketing resource include sites like Book Bub, AALBC.com, Reedsy, Goodreads and Bargain Booksy. Pinterest, Facebook and TikTok are other resources you could use to introduce your books to more readers and book buyers.

Book marketing software resources range from Storiad, Bublish, Publish Wide, Book Buzzr, Book Baby to Publish Drive. To save yourself time, use social media schedulers.

Book Marketing Schedulers

Among the social media schedulers there’s Loomly, Buffer, Hootsuite, VistaPrint Digital Marketing, SproutSocial and CoSchedule. Strengthen social media marketing by using Net Galley and other resources to get book reviews, going so far as to email family, friends and beta book readers, asking them to write a review for your new book.

Give reviewers an Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of your new copyrighted manuscript. If they love your new book, they may be great first-person book marketers, sharing details about your book with their colleagues, neighbors and friends.

Admittedly, even with schedulers and other resources, consistently selling lots of books is work. This is where the three keys that can lead to book sales success are important. Simply put, even if you get book reviews, engage in direct book marketing strategies by mailing postcards, print newsletters and book catalogs to book buyers, it may not be enough.

Road To More Book Marketing Sales Success

You still might not generate enough sales for your book to hit a bestseller list. Put in 10 or more hours a week marketing your book only to yield low sales and, after six months, you could wonder if it’s worth it. You might even wonder if you should keep writing and selling books at all.

This is the time to exercise the 3 keys that lead to book sales success. It’s now that you need to call on creativity, tenacity and perseverance. You need to create new book marketing strategies. And, you need to tweak existing book marketing actions. Examples of this include analyzing Amazon book sale reports, social media posts engagement and connections between book reviews and book sale spikes.

Additionally, it means that you try different direct marketing strategies. For instance, you might start your own literary podcast. Or you might design and use a car magnet on an older vehicle. Sending book buyers holiday greetings, blogging and paying for ads on influential book blogger websites are other choices that you could take.

Examining 3 Keys That Lead to Book Marketing Sales Success

In fact, creativity goes beyond writing books. Creativity is a huge part of the book marketing process. Throughout your writing career, you’re going to have to shift, pivot and make creative changes.

Tenacity is another must in order to experience a rewarding book writing career. This applies whether you write fiction or nonfiction books. If you’re tenacious and confident, you won’t abandon creative marketing ideas too soon. You’ll know when to hang in there and when to step away.

Even more, you’ll be persistent. But you’ll be persistent with your book marketing strategies in smart ways. In other words, you won’t hammer book buyers with one book ad after another. While using social media schedulers and good digital marketing companies, you’ll take time to actually engage with book readers and book buyers, and you will consistently measure the results of your book marketing efforts.

Engaging Book Buyers

For example, to introduce your books to more readers, you might post motivational quotes, questions and polls in literary newsletters or on social media. Other actions you might take include responding to visitors’ comments and thanking followers for Likes. To generate interest in your new book, you might run giveaways. This doesn’t just work with Amazon book sale efforts.

In fact, you can run book giveaways at your author website. And you can run book giveaways as part of online radio interviews. Book conferences and book festivals are other places where you can run book giveaways, particularly as part of contests.

Another key that leads to book sales success is perseverance. If you’re aim is to write books full-time, perseverance is a must. Book writing and book marketing are not for the feeble of mind. As a book writer, you’re entering a field that calls for toughness.

There’s a lot of competition. More than 1 million books are published each year, according to BK Connection. Then, there are the more than 12 million books already in print (or in audio book or e-book form). Even with the numbers of avid book buyers, that’s a lot of books to sale.

Keep Advancing Smartly

If you don’t persevere, you could throw in the towel just before your big break arrives. You could also start to believe the way your book sales are currently going is the way they will always go. And that doesn’t have to be the case, especially if you keep monitoring your results, pivoting and making smart changes. So, believe in your creative abilities, research book marketing tools and book marketing strategies.

Also, attend free marketing webinars offered by companies like Constant Contact, Amazon Marketplace, LinkedIn and Social Butterfly. Attending these free webinars is a great way to get up to speed on online marketing for beginners. Local chamber of commerce’s also hosts free online marketing webinars.

As you persevere, you can grow your book catalog. This alone can attract new book buyers, netting you more book sales. Readers will start to become familiar with your writing style and your personal brand. Don’t be surprised if your reader base grows, especially if you continue to sharpen your craft.

Then, you may start to generate book sales from your backlist. As your catalog grows, keep marketing your backlist. There’s a market of readers who look for used books for sale and old books for sale. Marketing your backlist is also an effective way to maintain interest in you, as a writer, allowing you to create traction for each new book that you release.