If you want to make money out of your books then you need to make sure that you are on the correct route and most especially you're following the trends in the self-publishing world. Check out what are the latest self-publishing trends of today.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around because the third point is a secret that you aren't going to want to miss. Regarding what is the huge winner in 2021 with trends in self-publishing?
The topic of today is what are the latest self-publishing trends? As an author or self-publisher, you've put your book on the market. You're considering putting your book on the market but you've discovered that not all books.
In fact, most books that go into the market simply don't make any money. Perhaps it's because they're not following the trends, those are necessary to win at self-publishing. So what exactly are we going to do about that?
The answer is by exploring certain trends, the types of trends where we're able to make better decisions with what we're doing. Both with our time and our money as authors and self-publishers. To make sure that we're getting as much profit off of the books that we're putting on to the market.
We want as many readers as possible to read and take in our books. Buy our next books and leave reviews for those books. So, how do we go about doing that? The answer is we follow the trends.
This is what we're going to look at in today's article. You can grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure that you are not skipping any of the important steps necessary to win self-publishing.
When I first started self-publishing, I attempted to do it without being plugged into a community. I completely underestimated how important it is to be around other self-publishers and authors. People who are looking to accomplish the very things that you have already achieved.
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But how exactly are we going to go about doing that? I had no community, I didn't even know it was important to have a community. I thought a community would be people I know personally who are in the self-publishing game.
But I didn't know anybody who was doing the self-publishing side of things. I was all alone but I had some books talking about how to do that. I thought that would be enough, I was incorrect.
So I started listening to podcasts by authors. They were commenting on what it's like to write books and all of these sorts of things. But some things were missing.
Then I discovered the second community of people who are putting books on Amazon. These are by marketers and people who are looking to make money online.
These people were not looking so much to get their ideas into the world. Or the stories that are in their head out into the world. Rather, they were looking to see "can I make money off of this?".
Run Ads In Various Areas
We have two different groups of people. One group is focused on getting their books out and the other group is like "Can I make money doing this particular strategy?". Both of them are putting books out.
But the thing that I began to understand was that these marketers were the ones who were very interested in the latest trends. Not just any trends like "should I make my cover blue or black?". But rather, the idea of recognizing that the trends are on Kindle going on in the world.
That these will drive traffic and the marketers are following closely. Specifically the numbers, so seeing which things led to sales and which things caused a loss of losses with their books. Then share the information and putting new books out and continually testing since they weren't writing the books themselves.
Some of them would do it themselves but others would just hire ghostwriters. They were able to improve the quality of their books. To make sure they were following the latest trends to make more money.
The marketers were the ones who end up making more money because that was their number one goal. The other group was interested in getting their books out. They both have also an interest in terms of looking at things like the author's side is looking at.
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What about traditional publishing and how is indie publishing doing? All of these sorts of questions. But at the end of the day, they were not moving the needle in sales by doing that.
Whereas the marketers were like "how quickly can I get ads against what we're doing here?". The trending issue was more important for one group than the other group. That was something I thought was amazing.
I found both communities helpful to follow and I still follow what is coming out of these different communities. Very very helpful in terms of making my books sell as many copies as possible daily. What are the latest self-publishing trends?
Let me get into the number one, running ads in different world regions. I have discovered that when opening it up, Amazon has made it easier than ever in the old days. There was again the marketing community that was sharing how exactly to get our ads into the different markets.
By putting our books into those different markets, we're increasing the sales. They already are in those markets if you have them on Amazon and these other distribution channels. However, getting your ads on there is a lot easier now.
They do not make equal sales across the board so this is a trend that has been hitting in the last several months. I make more book money off of my books in the UK than I do in the United States. But it used to be the opposite.
Friction Is A Key Thing
This is the point of a trend, things are switching around. The second trend we're going to look at is translating your books into different languages. That is getting your books onto the market and hitting your ideal target.
Making sure that we're doing it in different countries, in the languages that they like to read. It comes at a cost but the payoffs can be enormous. This especially is important since the US and the English market are being saturated on Amazon.
I still should say that I make sales with my English versions in the other regions as well. But if they had been translated into those other languages, it would make less friction. And friction is a key thing when it comes to sales.
We want it to be as easy as possible. This is the reason why you want to start by getting your books on Amazon Kindle in the first place. There's as little friction as humanly possible.
The third and secret answer of today is that experimenting with different publishing channels is incredibly important. To figure out what is hot. And what is hot yesterday may not be hot today.
Different publishing channels have their advantages and disadvantages. Currently, based on My Number One Trend for 2021, Ingram Spark is incredibly hot. It is a huge winner when it comes to trends.
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If you're able to get your books on there, that would be highly recommended. The downside and this is the barrier it's that you need an ISBN unless you're in the US, they'll give it to you for free. Also in other countries like Norway or Canada where we can also get them for free.
Then the second thing is that you need to have them. You have to pay them to publish the book unless you have a promo code. They regularly have them, they just hide them around the internet.
You need Google for them and you'll do it or ask below in the comments. I'll let you know where you can find what is the latest promo code that you can use on Ingram Spark. You can publish your books for absolutely free and that is the price.
I enjoy publishing my books on Ingram Spark, about 5 books every month or every other month. I get my books out, I've been doing it slowly because it takes time to register the books. The website itself has bugs and issues with it.
However, that's not a problem. Because it's very easy to get the books out onto there. So which trends currently are worth paying attention to?
I want to hear from you now. Go ahead and let me know below in the comments which trends you're following and have found success with. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.