Many authors are worried about what would be the reason for having poor sales from their self-publish books on the market. Check this out and I will tell you the one thing stopping your books from selling on the market and to help you find more self-publishing tips.
Today's article has three points and you're going to want to stick around. Because the third point is a secret to the one thing you need to start doing if you're going to want to see your books get selling.
The topic we're discussing today is, the one thing stopping your books from selling. When you first got started you're excited to get your book onto the market. And start seeing these massive sales coming through because you know your book is such of high quality.
But when you do put it on the market it doesn't see any sales. You get an initial bomb because friends and family start to buy your book and maybe some other people you know who are close. After that, the sales drop down to almost nothing.
Therefore you're going to want to stick around because I'm going to tell you exactly the keys to turning this around. Grab a copy of my free Self-Publishing Checklist. From my own story, when I put my first book onto the market it was completely packed with information.
It was a non-fiction book on achieving your goals, it tells the very strategies I used to this very day. And gave my Coaching clients as well information from this particular book Achieve Your Goals Now (Powerlist). When I first got it onto the market.
I knew it was going to be an amazing bestseller there will be going to be tons of people interested in it. Because this book was completely packed with information except for one problem which is I don't have an audience but that's another story.
The second thing is, piles of people would want to buy it right when it is released it's that correct? Well, I was completely incorrect all I got was crickets. Like I've mentioned before maybe some friends, may be some family they want to be supportive of.
I call this in one sense, "pretty purchases" this is a unique phrase that I've come up with. Because what's happening is that opinions like "Okay, let see if we can help you get some sales on your books" your close friends are like "I'll buy a copy".
Then if you ask, "Oh, it's wonderful" well then why there's nobody else buying your book? It's because the book is of poor quality? And it starts getting into your head. Making you think that maybe your sales have something to do with the quality of your books.
If you make small changes maybe a little change here at the back cover or maybe add another chapter. That would be something that would cause things to change it would turn over a new thing. And suddenly, sales would start coming in but in reality that would have very little impact.
Check out this related article: Top 3 Book Marketing Strategies
The thing is that I modified the title using the keyword tool KDSpy to tell me which keywords were the key ones that are the ones I use. You can see my affiliate links below in the description of all of my YouTube videos KDSpy. The title itself contains keywords people were searching for related to achieving goals.
In addition, I started running ads against it based upon Publisher Rocket that's the one that I use for the ads. That's the difference between those two ads somebody was asking for it, one is for use for the keywords for the title itself and the other is for the ads keywords.
Then I'm going to be using Amazon ads as we running keywords against it. The other one is that update the description to a powerful compelling description. That will be selling the benefits and not the features of the books.
And also not revealing too many of the secrets that go into achieving your goals. By changing the title and following best sellers examples of how they did it the structures, the frame, or in bullet points. What then happened? Well, I started seeing a jump in sales.
They start to come in even though I didn't any have an audience. Proper keywords, a great cover, and a description that just pops off the page. This combination together resulted in seeing a jump in the sales from my second book that I put onto the market.
I reached the best sellers that are several times just by using these steps. The question is if you're not even an expert and nobody even knows you, how's this is possible? It's back to the keywords and the cover.
Build An Author Platform
Proper keywords and cover will compensate for any other issues that you're facing concerning your book. Let's get into it, the one thing stopping your books from selling. Number one, no one knows who you are so you're going to need to build an author's platform as what we would call it.
I've spoken with people regarding this exact issue they say "I have an author's platform" I have so many followers on Facebook, Instagram, or whatever it might be. The question is, that's not the issue. The issue is how many people would buy your book when you put it onto the market?
So that we're building a following of people who are interested in our book. And what exactly is the value that we're bringing out there. In a thing they'll like and trust us which is necessary when we want to see the sales coming in for our specific book.
That's something that a lot of people underestimate. You think "Oh, I have lots of friends, family, and followers on Facebook and Youtube" but it is connected with exactly your books? Because if it isn't, then those people they maybe like you.
They may like your funny cat videos or whatever also you might be posting. But don't think for a second, they translate into people who are going to purchase your book. Those are two separate things so this author's platform is completely missing.
These are the absolute reasons so everything else we're going to do is going to be associated with building that author's platform. I was giving an example of how you can optimize your book for non-fiction. You can do fiction as well but with so much more with non-fiction.
Check out this related article: Non-Fiction Book Content Editing Breakdown
Without having an author's platform getting sales, that's also an option. The second point is to set your expectations low on your first book. Do not even envision that you're going to be seen thousands of sales.
The goal of our first book is to give us something for which as we're building our authors platform we can direct them to that. Because our author's platform is all about people who like our book. But how are they going to like our book if we don't even have it on the market?
So we need to get the book on the market. We're going to optimize the book, we're running ads and bringing people into it. And we're going to get people onto our email list. We're slowly building up a list of people who have read our book.
Will help us with reviews and will continue to buy future books that we've come up with. But if you don't have any books on the market well how exactly are you will suppose to build up an author's platform? Because the whole point of it is the people who like your books.
But if you have any books well there's not much for them to like, right? You can't build an audience if you don't have something for which the audience is built around specifically your books not your funny cat videos.
Moving onto our secret answer of the day, the third one is that you need to start building an audience today. Not tomorrow, not the next day, get your book on the market where your readers can exactly buy the book. Then we start building the audience immediately.
For all of you out there you know who you are. We've been discussing when is the right time to get your book on to the market or maybe you should right new books. No, get a book please get your book on the market even if it's poorly none or whatever.
It would be a sort of level of standard but as I'm saying 3-5 stars is fine to get it on the market. Get the book you've written on the market and then let start building that audience today. When is the best time to plant a tree 20 years ago?
When will be the second-best time well it would be today. We would like to build a brand around ourselves in our books a long time ago. Because now would be so much easier it's a lot of hard work.
Now it is easy if you go through these steps that I'm teaching here but it's a lot of hard work. The next thing is you're going to where your readers are. You're going to find Facebook forms and other places where people are interested in exactly what your book is about, what type of book you have.
Do Some Content Marketing
Do not spam other authors they don't care about the books that you're coming out with. They may be supportive but they're not going to be your customers. They're not buying all of your books.
This is one thing I've seen a lot of authors making this exact mistake. This is something you should not fall for the trap go find where your audiences hanging out. And hanging out there, interacting with them, being helpful, and giving them samples of your book.
Then your profile you should always show exactly, "Oh! I wrote this book and it gets delivers this value" You see an exciting story or maybe it's solving a problem if it's non-fiction. In reality, fiction is solving a problem also.
It solves usually boredom or looking for new ideas or looking for some escape. There are sorts of reasons people read fiction so don't think that your fiction book isn't solving a problem. They definitely are.
We watched movies not because it's charity work but because it solves something about us. Something entertainment or making your life more meaningful, something along those lines. We're going to be pushing our books like that.
We're going to let people know, "look, our identity as an author and it associate with this type of book" that is an incredible thing. Finally, use content marketing in ads to find people.
If you don't know how to do content marketing which is we're putting content on the internet whether videos, podcasts, or blogs are all free which is what I do. Then we'll make it possible for the search engines to lead people who have no connections with us.
Check out this related article: What Kind of Self Publisher Are You?
We talk about the one side we are going in groups to meet people. The other side is just producing content that we're pushing out there. Then people are coming to us via the search engines and people who share the links that we are posting.
There are two or like triple strategies so we're going to those groups, we're creating content. And teach you exactly everything you need to know step by step in my amazing Content Marketing Made Easy Course below in the description of all of my YouTube videos. You can find a copy of that.
As you're going through the steps of this course and if you don't like to be on video no problem. You can just do a podcast or if you have a problem with that you can do just a blog if you prefer writing. You have lots of options available to you as to how you're going to reach and find people.
And then what's amazing as I sleep Google sends traffic to my website and pulls people into my ecosystem. Some of you are watching right now, are finding me exactly because you're doing a search or something and then it shows up.
That's one of the powerful things you can do when it comes to your books. People want to know there's a person behind the book and want to hear your stories. They want to understand what motivates you each day when you wake up to write more books.
Produce more videos, or whatever it is you're doing. That's the power of content marketing then the final thing is we want to make this easy for people to find you. That's what a bit of a dizzy I know a secret of today was about of five or six things.
But I sometimes want you to get these things on your head upon what you should be doing daily. We should be putting creating new books and we should be marketing. Figuring out how we can get in touch with people to let them know about what we've already done.
My question for you is, what is keeping your books from selling? let me know what you believe it is down below in the comments of all of my YouTube videos. I want to know because I can make better videos in the future.
If you let me know what it is that you're struggling with. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.