My Best Book Marketing Tip

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My best book marketing tip is to choose a market where people already buy books before you write the book. The marketing can’t fix a market that doesn’t exist. Here is the story of a new author who booked a session with me and found that out the hard way.

What went wrong with Gary’s book?

A few months ago a brand-new self-publisher named Gary was getting started. He used a different model from many of you: ghostwriting. He hired writers, owned the rights to the books and handled the marketing. That is a legitimate business model, and the same idea runs through other industries, like music. It works when the writing is good enough and you learn what it takes to get a book to sell, because the marketing decides whether the book sells. If your book is not selling, see the one thing stopping your books from selling.

His first book was about the history of leadership, looking at leaders in different regions and periods for lessons on being a better leader. It wasn’t selling. He saw no copies move at all. He had tried drop shipping, trading and real estate before, and Amazon KDP looked like a way to make a living, but now he doubted that the method still worked.

What did he try first?

He fixed the formatting, which was slightly off. He changed the cover. He watched my videos and ran Amazon ads. Still nothing. Then he booked a session with me and said, in effect, “I give up, something is broken in the marketing.”

What was actually broken?

The market. The first thing I do with any book is look at its keywords in KDSpy: how many people buy books on this topic, and what the books that rank for it sell. Gary was certain historical leadership would be a good market, and he liked the topic. So do I. The formatting, layout and chapters looked great. The problem was that there simply aren’t books selling on historical leadership on Amazon. That doesn’t make it a bad topic. It makes it a bad market to sell books in.

That’s the point. If nobody is searching for the keyword in your title, and none of the books in your genre sell many copies, no amount of marketing or money will make the book sell. Raising bids on his ads brought few clicks, and changing the title and cover to make it more of a leadership book didn’t help, because the leadership books weren’t selling much better. He did see some clicks and some sales, just not what we hoped for. What we want is a book that, with basic marketing, flies off the shelves.

What should you do before you write?

Think about the niche or sub-niche first. Then decide what the book will be about, and choose the cover and title before you write much. It’s hard to get your mind around, but the market comes first, the content second, then the formatting. That order is a big part of the answer to whether self-publishing can be profitable for you.

Check the market the way I do: look up the keywords in KDSpy, then look at the books ranking for them and see what they sell. If the best-ranking books don’t sell much, pick a different keyword or topic. If a book stalls, these 3 reasons non-fiction books don’t sell are the first things to check.

Can ads tell me whether a market exists?

They can give you a signal, but they are a poor first test. Amazon’s Sponsored Products page says you can let Amazon target keywords automatically or choose them yourself, and that you can pull reports on the sales and performance of your advertised products (Amazon Ads). You pay only for clicks, so a run of clicks with no sales tells you something. Gary’s story shows the catch: ads cost money while you learn what the keyword research would have told you for free. Check the market first, then use ads to confirm it. That is my advice, not an Amazon rule.

Is a flop a failure?

Not if you don’t give up. Gary had already learned the skills and the keyword research. For his next book he will find a profitable keyword first, and that book won’t flop. I see the authors I coach give up too quickly. In Gary’s case the books were ghostwritten, but with books you wrote yourself it works the same way. If you chose a topic based on interest, not on whether a market exists, you have the same problem.

I saw a change in Gary: from “this method doesn’t work” to “I understand, I believe it works, we’ll stick to it and keep going.” If you are where Gary was after his first book, here is how to get motivated as a self-publisher again.

What is your best marketing tip? Let me know in the comments.

If you would like me to check your book’s market with you, book a free 25-minute discovery call.

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