3 Keys to Selling Your Self-Published Book

Let’s face it; selling your self-published book is really hard. Every year there are 600,000 to one million books being published on Amazon. I wrote about this for Entrepreneur Magazine.

Most authors won’t sell more than 250 copies of their book. If you have self-published, you know it’s hard to sell books. There’s a ton of information out there about self-publishing, but a lot of it isn’t very helpful.

It may be hard, but it is possible. I had no audience in 2011, but through some hard work I was able to sell over 82,000 copies of my two self-published books. I did it, and I know that you can too.

I know how hard it is so today I want to let you know what will really help you sell your self-published book. As I always say, you have to test what works for you, but these are the tips helped me sell books.

1.  Create a killer product

It all starts with a good book. You can be the best marketer in the world but if your book isn’t good, it won’t be long before the bad reviews start piling up. Good writing can depend on the person, but there are some other things that create a killer book.

A good cover. People do judge a book by its cover and with 14 million books on Amazon, you need a cover that will stand out. Getting a good cover doesn’t cost as much as it used to. It can be as simple as putting a job for bid on 99 Designs. You will get a hundred covers submitted that you can choose from.
Good formatting. Again, hire a professional! Whether it’s hiring someone on Fiverr or using 52 Novels, the company that I used and recommend to my coaching clients. You will get negative reviews for bad formatting.
Get your book edited. This is the biggest regret most self-published authors have, they didn’t get their book edited. Yes, it costs money, but it will be worth it not to see negative reviews complaining about the grammar.
Your best work. A book is your legacy; your kids can be reading your book to your grandkids. Dig deeper when you’re writing. Create a professional looking book.

It will cost you some money to put a killer product together. If you don’t have the funds now, I would wait until you do. Too many people put books out there that aren’t ready. If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it right.

 2.  Create a killer marketing plan

This is easier said then done I know. Let me be perfectly honest with you. There is a lot of advice about how to self-publish well, but at the end of the day the only thing that sells books is growing your online presence.

It’s a number game. Let’s say you have an email list of 1,000 people and you convert 99% of them to buy your book. You will have sold 999 copies, but then what?

A good marketing plan not only sells books, it has funnels that are designed to keep selling books. There are a lot of aspects of a good marketing plan, but the most important is the launch of your book.

A book lives and dies by the marketing. To get the maximum exposure for your book, you should do a full-blown book launch. What does this mean? You should form a launch team of about 100 people.

These 100 people are bloggers and website owners that will help you promote the book during the launch week. Your goal is to get concentrated sales during a specific week to drive the book to best-seller statues and help it in Amazon’s algorithm rankings.

These 100 people will leave reviews for your book on Amazon and anywhere else your book is sold. They’ll promote your book on their social media pages, on their website and email list.

You walk away with 100 reviews, and your book being exposed to a greater network than you could have reached on your own. During this launch week, you should also offer a few freebies to entice people to buy your book. The freebies are what you will give your launch team as a thank you for their help promoting your book.

The former CEO of Thomas Nelson Books, Michael Hyatt, did a great job proving this strategy. I have also used it with tremendous results. After the launch, you should keep building your audience, which will help books continue to sell.

3. Create steady sales

This is the key to selling a self-published book. You’ll get a good push from the launch but then what? The goal is to sell your book without shoving it down people’s throat; it’s a delicate balance.

One thing you can do is self-publish more books. Every successful self-published author has more than one book. People really like series so if you can turn your first book into a series, you will get steady sales.

Another thing that really helps steady sales is getting exposure wherever you can. Do interviews. Write guest posts. You have to get featured in as many places as possible.

To this day I do as many interviews as possible and write for a ton of places. There is a ton of opportunity to get exposure online if you’re willing to do the research and find those places.

The message that I want you to take away from this post is to create a killer book. Get as much exposure as possible so that people know you have a book. As you build your audience continue to promote your book.

All it takes is a small devoted group of people who get behind your book. If you look at the successful self-published books, they started with that devoted following.

You can sell your books today and you can build the sales to where they can support your family.

What is and is not working selling your book?