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how to get more book sales

3 Book Marketing Tips That You Cannot Ignore

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Book Marketing

Do you ever have the feeling that you should be getting more sales for all of the work you put into your books? I am not talking about the desire to get more sales because everyone has that desire. I am talking about the authors who get few sales even when the books they published are masterpieces. Just like all self-published authors, I remember being on the same boat. I was wondering why I could not be making more sales for the books I worked so hard on.

Then, it hit me like a ton of bricks. For most authors, the content is not the problem, but instead, the marketing aspect is the problem. Few authors know how to market their own books. I kept on wondering why people were not buying my books, but then I realized that the only reason people were not buying my books was because they did not know about me. Are you on that boat right now? If you are, then don’t worry because the dock is near.

In order to get more book sales, you need to market it effectively. Some marketing tips are better than others, but out of all of the tactics I used, these are the big three that you cannot ignore.

  1. Offer rewards for the people who buy your books in bulk. This will encourage more people to buy your books in bulk. As more people buy your books in bulk, your book’s Amazon sales rank will get very low. Soon enough, your book may be a #1 bestseller on Amazon for multiple categories.
  2. Make your book free for five days with the free promotion feature. The free promotion feature did lose some of its shine when Amazon decided to create Paid and Free categories for the books. The logic behind Amazon’s decision was understandable because new, free books would suddenly become #1 bestsellers and bump all of the other book titles that have been making more sales at a consistent rate for many years. However, this is still a powerful method to get more reviews and visibility. At the end of all of my free promotions, I have always noticed an increase in sales.
  3. Keep on writing. The more you have to sell, the more options you present to the customer. The most successful self-published authors also have self-published over 10 books. If you are able to publish one book every 4-6 weeks, you would be able to publish 9-12 books every year. In addition, the more books you publish, the more books your returning customers will be able to buy.

These book marketing are powerful,. but you only get to tap into their true potential by implementing them. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional marketing tips that you would like to share? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

My KDP Free Promo Experience

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Amazon Kindle Logo

No matter how successful a self-published author becomes, there is one point when that self-published author struggled to make any sales. Just like any other self-published author, there was a point when I struggled to make any sales. During these times, I would be jumping up and down if one of my books made two sales in 1 week.

That is by no means something to live on. As a new self-published author, the process was hard, but there was something that helped me grow. Despite all of the hardships I faced as a self-published author, there was one glimmer of light that ultimately paved the way for my success.

That glimmer of light was the KDP Free Promo. I decided to try out the KDP Free Promo for a book I had just published. I figured I could get about 100 downloads, get some reviews, and then go from there. However, the book didn’t just get 100 downloads. In that 5 day period, the book ended up getting downloaded over 900 times.

The only things I did to promote the book was write a blog post and send out two tweets to about 70,000 followers in 5 days. Unlike my previous books, I paid a professional designer to create the cover for the new book. My book ended up becoming a #1 bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories.

In addition to having my book become a bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories, I got more reviews for my book in 1 month than I got reviews for all of my other books combined. After the KDP Free Promo, the book made more sales than any of my other books. For the rest of the month, I averaged 1 sale every day. That’s really good for someone who used to get one sale every week. The KDP Free Promo is definitely something to consider in order to get more people to know about your Kindle books.

 

Why You Need To Have A Platinum Priced Product

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Underpricing is a common tactic to use to boost sales. Self-published authors only charge $2.99 for their books to get a higher volume of sales. The people who underprice their products forget to create a platinum priced product. A platinum priced product is exactly what it sounds like, a very expensive product that will scare some people away because of the price tag alone.

However, having a platinum priced product will boost your volume of sales. Having a platinum priced product will make your lower prices look more attractive. If you wrote 1 book for $9.99, and you sold your other books for $2.99, the books for $2.99 would look a lot cheaper than they really are.

Brendan Burchard sells his Total Product Blueprint training course for $1,997. For many people, that training course will seem ridiculously expensive. However, when you see Brendan Burchard’s books, The Millionaire Messenger and The Charge both at under $15 for both Kindle versions, they look a lot more inexpensive for $2.99 books.

$2.99 is less expensive than $15, but when you have to choose between $15 or $1,997, changes are you will go with the $15. The $15 is a smaller investment which means less risk. In the end, some of the people who buy Brendan Burchard’s $15 books end up buying his $1,997 training course.

Brendan Burchard’s platinum priced training course makes his books look a lot more attractive. While free giveaways plays a part in this, both of Burchard’s books have over 150 reviews on Amazon (mostly positive). Instead of going cheaper, create a platinum priced product that makes the products you already have look a lot cheaper.

 

9 Ways To Get More Sales

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Increasing Sales

No matter what product you are selling, what niche you are in, or what your business is all about, you need sales in order to make a strong income from your business. However, many people are struggling to make sales let alone a single sale. There are books up on the Kindle have not been sold once. The main reason this happens is because the person who made the product does not know what to do in order to get more sales. I am going to provide the solution and share with you 9 of the methods I implement to increase my book sales. Whether you are selling books or toys, these methods apply to you.

  1. How frequently you create something new. The most successful self-published authors tend to be the ones who publish 1 eBook every month or publish 1 highly detailed eBook every year. The rate in which you create new products and the quality you can produce in that amount of time will determine how many potential sales your product could get.
  2. Market your product before it launches. If you want one of your products to get more sales, tell people about the product before it launches. I have mentioned my upcoming book Lead The Stampede in several of my blog posts. Each time I publish a blog post that references the book, people ask me when it will come out. To answer the question, Lead The Stampede will come out in Summer 2014.
  3. Write a blog post about your product that sells. In order to get more sales, you need to write a persuasive blog post. Instead of simply writing a description of your product with the big “Buy Now” button, give people a reason to buy the product. Here is an example of a persuasive blog post that resulted in one self-published author getting thousands of downloads for his book in less than a week.
  4. Build your credibility. An author who has written several bestselling books is going to get more sales for his/her next book than the author who started writing books a few months ago. In order to build your credibility, you need to get a strong following on a social network and have a popular blog. There are other ways to pull it off as well.
  5. Have multiple products available. Having multiple products gives you the possibility of returning customers. Once a returning visitor buys three of your products, chances are that visitor will buy a lot of the products that you create.
  6. Create a product that people would want to buy. Create products that people would want to buy. People only buy something for the quality. False! Fast food restaurants are not successful because of their quality. They are successful because of price and convenience. The three options you have are quality, price, and convenience (although all three in the same business always fails). I combine quality and price which means I produce quality products and sell them at much lower prices than the competition.
  7. Spread the word about your product using social networks. Find people who would be interested in your products and introduce yourself to those people. Spreading the word on social networks will allow you to get more sales and interact with those customers so you can ensure they come back for your next product.
  8. Get testimonials. The most successful products are the ones with good testimonials. Would you rather buy the product without testimonials, or would you want to buy the product with hundreds of positive testimonials? Most people would go with the product with hundreds of positive testimonials. When customers buy into the product, they are also buying into the testimonials about those products.
  9. Become a public speaker. By being a public speaker, you will be able to talk about your niche and inform people about your product at the same time. People are more likely to buy an author’s book after listening to that author talk about something in your niche for 20 minutes or so. The author’s signature also entices more people to buy the book.

There are numerous ways to get sales, but these are the 9 methods that I have used and seen good results. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional tips that you use to get more sales?

 

The Three Options Self Published Authors Have To Become Successful

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Of course, self published authors have more than three options. However, the only way a self published author will become successful is by choosing one of these three options. These options have different effects on sales and customer relations. All three work, but it is up to you to decide which one works the best for you.

  1. Publish 1 eBook every month. If you choose this option, then there are no excuses. You must be able to publish 1 eBook every month. That means getting the cover, writing the content, and proofreading what you wrote in just one month. These eBooks can be relatively short, and most of them range from 40-60 pages. If you publish 1 eBook every month, they need to be priced between $0.99 and $2.99. Publishing 1 eBook every month will get you more returning customers and a greater volume of sales.
  2. Publish 2 eBooks every year. If you choose this option, the launch for your books is much more important than if you publish eBooks every month. Publishing eBooks every month allows each eBook to attract returning customers. By publishing 2 eBooks every year, you will need to have at least 100 pages per eBook, and at this point, they should also be paperback books. If you choose this path, you would need to have at least 100 people eager to buy your book before it gets published. I have been using this method for my upcoming book Lead The Stampede. It has been mentioned in several blog posts and tweets. Charging for a low price ($2.99-$3.99) would result in a greater volume of sales.
  3. Do a mix of both. It is very unlikely that you will be able to publish 1 eBook every month while writing 2 eBooks every year that are 100+ pages that at least 100 people are going to buy on the day of the launch. If you decide to do a mix of both, I recommend publishing 4-6 eBooks every year depending on your speed. Publishing eBooks at this rate will ensure many people know about your launch and that you are able to get returning customers. This is the method that I am going with.

In order to become a successful self published author, you need to decide which of these options you are going to implement into your strategy. The successful self published authors implement one of these three strategies. Which one are you going to implement?

 

5 Ways To Get More eBook Sales

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eBooks and Books

Many authors who publish their eBooks have dreams of being able to get hundreds (or even thousands) of sales every day. However, the problem new authors face is putting in a lot of work and not making many sales. Some authors’ eBooks do not make a single sale until several months after the eBook gets published. However, it is possible to get more eBook sales. Not only is it possible, but it is also not as challenging as people think to get more eBook sales. These are some of the ways to get more eBook sales:

  1. Write eBooks frequently. Some authors publish 1 eBook every month. By publishing at this frequency, customers are easily able to become returning customers. However, as you increase your frequency, you need to be sure that you are not throwing away quality. If you do not publish 1 eBook every month, you do need to make sure that you are publishing multiple eBooks every year.
  2. Get more reviews. Contact the people who you know bought your book and ask them if they would like to write a review. If you ask a customer this way, the customer is more likely to say yes. Include your social networks in your book so you can have conversations with your customers. In addition, you can ask for a review at the end of your book. Say something like, “After you read this book, I would greatly appreciate it if you wrote an honest review for my book on Amazon.”
  3. Build the buzz. Many people make the mistake of not building the buzz. The people who have been reading my blog for a while know that I am writing a book called Lead The Stampede that will be published in the summer. That’s because I have mentioned my upcoming book in several blog posts. In addition, people have already contacted me on Twitter saying that they cannot wait for the book to come out.
  4. Use HARO to get pitches. After reading The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz, one of the things I noticed is that there were a lot of examples of other people using various methods included in The Pumpkin Plan. Mike Michalowicz got many of these stories from using HARO and submitting a query. I decided to do the same thing for Lead The Stampede. Several people’s stories will be included in Lead The Stampede. The people whose stories are going to be included in Lead The Stampede have asked me when the book will come out and want updates. I get more sales and promote others. It’s a win-win for everyone!
  5. Get the big guys and gals to review your book. If you get a review from one celebrity, that’s all you need. The people who have a deep respect for that celebrity notice the review. At the back of The Pumpkin Plan is a review from Seth Godin. It did not take me long to realize that The Pumpkin Plan needed to be on my reading list.

Those are 5 ways to get more eBook sales. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional tips you would like to recommend? Please share your thoughts and advice below.