Writing a book is not that easy, you'll surely encounter a lot of difficulties when doing it and when it's done you'll start to wonder, "What if my book doesn't sell at all?" Well, let me help you figure out the things you must know to succeed at self-publishing.
Today's question or problem is, what if my book doesn't sell? This is an excellent question that many people wonder about. And you're going to want to stick around because the third answer is a secret as to what you can do to make sure you do not end up in this problem.
So, many people when they're looking to first get started with self-publishing, you've written a book and you're ready to put it onto the market. But then you start to think "what if I put it out there and it doesn't sell any copies at all? Or maybe just one or two?"
And you've heard about a lot of authors who do write, in fact maybe a vast majority of authors who have written books and simply they're just not seeing any sales happening. And then you wonder, "well maybe I'm not a good author".
Or maybe it could be something with you don't know about the markets or you don't know if maybe the readers don't know who you are. There's a lot of worries and concerns that you may start to feel when you first get started with self-publishing.,
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And you're thinking, "maybe I should just wait a little bit" or maybe your book isn't high enough quality and you need to keep working on it. So all of these concerns can leave you wondering "maybe I'm not going to see any sales on my book".
And that is what we are going to answer in today's article. But before we get into the answers, check out my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. To make sure that you are following the fastest and best steps to get your book self-published and also make sales after you have published it.
So, let me start a little bit with my own story. When I released my very first book, I always ask "What if my book doesn't sell?" I wasn't sure if it would make any sales and the answer was it didn't. It made a few sales now and then.
I remember seeing one week or whatever, it was very exciting in the beginning. But then I began to realize that this is no way to make a living or make money out of books if you're just making a sale here or a sale there. So I wasn't very happy with that.
And over some time, I began to wonder if maybe self-publishing was not the right option for me. I took some courses though, that showed me the problem I was having which was with keywords and also with running ads.
Following The Patterns
Those were the two biggest things that created a huge series of problems that I had with regards to my specific books. So after fixing these issues, in particular, the keyword one which I used a program called KDSpy, was a key issue for me in making sure I was grabbing profitable keywords.
To make sure that I did not release books that were not for audiences. Or in other words, that there weren't any audiences for or interested in those books. I got better descriptions, I improved my titles.
Making sure the keywords were in there and following the patterns of the best sellers in those categories. I improved the covers, now most of my covers in the early days were just fine. I also started getting reviews on these books and running ads.
In alignment with the courses that I had taken, the books I'd read, the videos I'd watched, the blogs I had read, and the podcast I listened to. Putting that all together, I started to see sales jump. So, going from just a few here or there to seeing 10 to 20 a day.
The jump was overnight, a little bit dramatic when you started to look at it. I began to realize "wow this is something, you can win at the game of self-publishing". And that was encouraging.
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But remembering back, I started with just getting almost no sales on my very first book. Now, let's get into it. What if my book doesn't sell? Let me give today's three answers.
The first thing is this happens to almost all authors. When you're first putting your very first book onto the market you know nothing about how to properly do the book, running ads, or any of these other things. You might allow that to stop you from doing even putting it onto the market.
But of course, if each book you put onto the market is better in these areas, then you're going to increase sales as you go. But if you never put your very first book onto the market, you're already going to have a problem.
So the second question we have here is, is your book optimized? As we were discussing before, if you don't choose the right keyword you're simply not going to find that audience. Unless they already know your name and in which case you would make sales.
Build The Sales
If you have a platform already where you're already running and you have people who are following and reading your stuff, well then, they will read your book when you come out with it as well. But most authors don't already have a bunch of readers who are going to buy their books.
So they're going to be looking at keywords and looking at your cover and description to decide whether your books particularly are worth reading. That's another key issue, so are your books optimized?
The final is the secret answer today, it's that each book you come out with will be better and you will start to increase sales. You can also go back and improve your previous books to make sure that if you broke any of the key rules and strategies, you can optimize them anyways at a later point.
That's why I tell all of my students, "You need to get your Kindle book out as quickly as possible". I know you would like to spend years working on drafts of your book but the fact is you won't learn the things you need to learn until you get that first book onto the market.
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So if you're listening to me on any other subject on any other thing, this is the one thing I want to get through to you. That you need to get the book onto the market. Don't allow yourself in that internal voice telling you "it's not good enough, it won't sell anything".
Because in reality maybe you won't sell anything but if we can just get the first on the market, then we can start to improve from there. Start to build the sales and that's the thing. So our first goal is just getting it on to the market.
So, you as an author, are you worried, what if my book doesn't sell? If you are worried about that, that this is a concern for you, then write "yes" below in the comments. And if you are not worried at all, write the word "no".
That will help me know that this is helpful to you and also will give me an idea of where you're coming from which is very important for me. And check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.