As authors we want to know how to sell more books.
During a one-on-one call with my author, I asked her what her main goal is right now. And she answered “I just want to find what will work to sell more books”
I think that’s a common feeling for a lot of authors. Have you ever felt that way? I know I have.
In this post, I’m going to share how to deal with this dilemma and find what actually works to sell more books.
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The Mistake
You might be doing all the right things to market your book, yet you still feel it just doesn’t meet your expectations.
The client mentioned above is a new author. And she’s doing all the right things.
She’s setting up her author platform, she is building her email list, albeit slowly, she’s getting reviews for her book, and she has over 30 reviews now for her book. She’s indeed doing all the right things.
But now she feels a little discouraged and disappointed because she is not getting the results she expected as quickly as she had hoped.
Upon knowing what she did, I saw one mistake that she is making. And I see many authors making the same mistake, including myself.
Have you ever heard of the bright, shiny object syndrome?
It happens when we get distracted by something new, in this case, a new marketing strategy instead of focusing on one course of action until it is successful.
It may look like this:
- “I want to see how I can get into libraries.”
- “Oh, now I think I want to see how I can use Pinterest to get buzz for my book.”
- “What about hosting a Goodreads giveaway?”
- “I’m going to contact a bunch of bloggers and have them review my book.”
- “Oh, I think I’m going to try Facebook advertising.”
- “I’m going to try,” fill in the blank.”
Have you ever been there?
It’s when you are always trying something new, but you’re never giving any strategy enough time to really see the results from any one thing.
This is the mistake that most authors do. We do a lot of things and expect results from everything instantly.
Sure, there are big wins. A book launch, being featured on Bookbub, a group promotion can all bring a big spike in book sales.
The Tips
To be honest there is no easy button and there is no instant way. I want to be honest with you, I’m not about the hype; I’m about what really works.
What really, really works is building an author platform. It is building your tribe, a place for your lifers, or your audience to find you and to gather, and building a way for you to develop a relationship with your audience.
It is not hard. You just have to do the right things and be consistent with your efforts over time.
It requires patience.
Focus on One Strategy at a Time
What I had recommended to my one on one client and what I recommend to you is to choose one thing to focus on for the next X amount of days, or X amount of weeks.
It doesn’t mean you can’t do the other marketing tasks too.
Image is from the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.
It simply means you’re going to have laser focus and give the time and energy you have available on one certain marketing strategy for a certain period of time.
Everyone has different amounts of time and energy they can invest in marketing. So determine what strategy will work best for you.
I love the visual demonstration from the book, Essentialism. It shows the power of having focus vs. being spread out in many different directions.
Having focus is one thing I credit much of my success to over the last couple of years.
My client is a children’s book author, so I said, “it might be a really good idea to focus, for the next six weeks, on really getting your book into libraries.”
Talking, communicating, and connecting with librarians, learning the processes, seeing if they will buy their books is a good start. Doing library appearances could be great place for her as a children’s book author.
What is it for you?
Maybe you need to have a singular focus for this week. Not six weeks or 90 days, but try to focus on finishing one thing this week.
Maybe your focus can be to finally get your lead magnet setup, finally start building your subscriber list, your tribe, your audience, and your lifers.
Know and Determine Your Target Audience
Not knowing your target audience is like shooting an arrow without a target. It does not have any direction.
In my free 5-Day Author Platform Challenge, I lay the foundation of what I believe you need to do in order to sell more books.
On day two we dive deep into who is your target audience. Otherwise your marketing efforts will be like shooting in the dark and like marketing blindfolded.
I talked about all the different ways to really build a strong author platform, but it does take time.
So before you do any marketing strategy, you have to know who you are talking to, so that you will know what marketing strategies will be best for your audience and how to best reach them.
Build Your Email Subscriber List
Part of the things that you would want to focus on is building your author platform.
One thing that I consider as my biggest asset is my email subscriber list. So work on setting up establishing your lead magnet (email subscriber list).
We have a challenge each month and I have a little prize for the different finishers of the challenges each month.
This month there are already four of my authors who have finished setting up their lead magnets within the first week. Some have been with me for over a year but never set this part of their author platform up. Now they finally have done it!
So, if you just want step-by-step help and motivation and encouragement, join us at AuthorAudienceAcademy.com, I’d love to have you.
Once you have your audience, your tribe, you can then work on developing your relationship with them.
It doesn’t have to be hard. It doesn’t have to take all your time.
There are certain systems that you can set up one time, and then you can use those systems 24/7 to continue building your tribe.
Speaking is one of the best ways to sell books because people are getting to know, like, and trust you.
Find a Program or System That Will Work for You
There are a million different things that we could be doing, but what is that 20% that’s going to give you the 80% of the results?
You might be overwhelmed with all the information that you will find out about marketing your book and end up confused.
The only way you’re going to know is by focusing on one of these strategies, doing it, following through, and learning from people who have been there.
Find a program, a system that will work for you.
You can follow systems of other people who are successful in the field that you want to be successful in and have done what you want to do. You can learn from how other people do it and you can even learn from the mistakes that other people have done.
Take Action Tip
My take action tip for you today is to brainstorm a list of all the different marketing tasks and then prioritize it.
Prioritize what would be the biggest impact tasks, and find at least one thing that you can focus on over the next period of days or weeks.
Set a specific goal of when you’re going to get this task done. It has to be a very specific and very doable goal.
Whatever it is that you’re focused on, I’d love to hear from you in the comments below and how you’re taking action to move the needle forward.
I like to say, it’s not always about those big leaps, it’s all about inching forward. If you can keep taking that consistent action week after week, it will yield results.
So never give up.
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