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Between 600,000 and 1,000,000 books are published each year in the U.S. alone.
How do you stand out in that kind of crowd, much less sell multiple copies of your hard-produced book?
Forget email lists.
YOUR BLOG IS YOUR GOLDEN ROAD TO SALES
Blogs have SEO, comments, and can be graphed either by you or by Google.
When you send an email out, it’s dead.
When you write a great article, it stays live forever and gets page views years down the road.
HOW TO HAVE A POPULAR BLOG
Be aware of what your reader base wants out of the internet. People go to Google to find the answer to their problem.
If you write the answer to their need, Google will direct them to your blog.
If they like what they read, they may make the leap to try one of your books, especially the latest.
Be like the most popular girl in high school: GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE to build interest.
You will have to write your blog posts for free for years perhaps before people are persuaded by your post prose to BUY your books.
Yesterday's post, WHEN LIFE KNOCKS YOU DOWN, got 1100 visits as of this moment.
Kindle sales of my latest book, THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD, have doubled as of this writing.
USE THE DRUNK WRITER APPROACH TO YOUR BOOK LAUNCH
Stagger ...
Stagger your Kindle, paperback, and audiobook launch.
This allows you to talk about your book three different times in three different ways!
Oh, did I tell you?
THE NOT-SO-INNOCENTS ABROAD is now out in Kindle format.
I will set out again soon on my "Don't You Hate Book Tours?" Book Tour starting next week.
This time focusing on my Kindle edition.
ANY OF MY FRIENDS THAT WOULD LIKE TO HELP ME IN THIS, I WOULD DEEPLY APPRECIATE IT!
Again I will be helping you, my friends, with those posts. Here's a major flaw I see in so many book tour posts:
PEOPLE DON'T BUY BOOKS;
THEY BUY BOOKS FROM YOU!
REMEMBER THAT.
So stop hawking your book,
and start selling yourself.
People want to see CIVIL WAR, not for the plot, but because MARVEL DID IT.
BATMAN V SUPERMAN had a similar plot, but it stained the brand of DC.
It will be hard for DC to overcome the inertia of that dismally plotted movie.
Make your posts entertaining, pertinent to your readers, and have fun with the process.
Your book tour posts are like a job interview:
make yourself sparkle and hinting that you are a great person to know and hang around with.
EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!
KDP SELECT. Ugh! Do you know how much you get per page read? Half a cent per page!
But enroll anyway.
You will get a major ranking boost right away.
You will be able to give away FREE copies of your book to prime the pump.
Then, switch horses in the middle of the stream.
Take your new book out of KDP and put in one of your older books.
Readers need a free entry point to sample your writing.
Give it to them with one of your older books in KDP.
Now, go on out there and start writing to win!
Hi Roland - this makes such good sense ... be yourself and do what you can ... without swamping everyone - or being everywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe blog and the A-Zs are excellent ways in to sales ... good luck with your onward and upward writing ...
Cheers Hilary
Thanks, Hilary. I think many blog visitors are weary of the tidal wave of book tours and Twitter BUY ME's!
DeleteThanks for your friendship and support. :-)
What great advice, Roland. Thank you for sharing that. I've read so much about marketing that my mind is frazzled. You've put it into perspective. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteYou're on a roll... roll freely and much good fortune *smiles*
ReplyDeleteSome very good observations. And, every Tuesday I do an #AuthorLove post on my blog. If you ever want to feature one of your books I'd be happy to have it.
ReplyDelete@Kathleen01930
Blog
Nicola; We are our own worst enemies with our writing. Have fun with our dream or it will turn into a nightmare. Take it by the numbers, experiment, and work to make your readers laugh and have a good time with your posts and books, right?
ReplyDeleteShadow: Thanks for the well wishes. I am trying to make these posts fun and helpful to all of us! :-)
Kathleen: Thank you for the offer! What Tuesday will be good for you? Name it, and I will send my guest post, open to your edits, of course. :-) I promise to be a fun guest!
You're the second person I've read recently arguing against the mainstream by saying fugghedabout email lists. I believe the other was Anne R. Allen's blog. I've been trying to be a good little writer/blogger and craft a semi-regular newsletter, but my heart sings when I hear there's a chance that maybe I won't have to :) The arguments for email lists make sense. I don't know why I am hesitating. Clearly my heart's not in it. Maybe I should listen to my gut and just cross it off the list.
ReplyDeleteEmail Lists and Newsletters are the Pyramid Schemes of the Indie Author World. If you started them at ground level, then you saw profits. Now? Not so much.
DeleteSame with Twitter BUY ME's and Facebook Ads.
Everyone's inbox is stuffed with newsletter; everyone's Twitter is one long column of spamming. And FB? Now, unless you pay, your book posts will lose themselves in cyber oblivion!
Your blog is your key to sales. Write entertaining, informative posts on subjects readers are interested in. Those posts will translate into interest in your books in your sidebar.
Google Search sites that do reviews of books in your genre. Comment on said sites with short, clever comments. Get your name known by those readers who read your genre.
There is a reason jungle cats lurk by water holes -- go where the prey (readers) are. :-)
Ha! It's good to be the predator, I guess?? I think my sticking point is seeing my overflowing inbox every day, and how often I hit Delete without even opening, and wondering how that is any different than a Twitter stream or a FB News Feed . . .
ReplyDeleteAs I have a Nook, anytime a writer puts something in KDP, I lose access to it.
ReplyDelete