7 Action Steps for Authors
Who Aren't Selling 100 Books a Month
How To Go From Selling No Books to Selling Books Every Week
I have great programs for authors who aren’t selling their books…I’m writing this because most info out there is totally useless…
My gift to you:
#1: KNOW YOUR PURPOSE: Remember why you wrote the book in the first place. Did you write it to keep it on a shelf? Or did you write it so that people would read it?
If your book is a trophy, that’s fine. There’s no shame in that. But if you wrote your book so readers would read it, then you have to continue to work every day to sell your book.
Be, Plan, Create
#2: BE THE SHOPKEEPER: When you are marketing your book, you shouldn’t be in consumer mode. You need to stop seeing yourself on the buying side of the counter and start seeing yourself as the shopkeeper. You are the seller now, not the buyer. You are the one who is fulfilling the customer’s needs by giving them goods in exchange for their money. We are all trained to be consumers, so it actually takes some effort to put ourselves in the mindset of the shopkeeper.
#3: KNOW YOUR PLAN: What is your plan for your book? You basically have two choices here. You can give your book away to every reader so that you don’t have the stress of marketing OR you can learn to market your book and sell it to readers.
If you choose to give your books away, I hope you’re independently wealthy, because otherwise you’re never going to have enough readers to make any kind of impact on the world. You just won’t have many readers.
If you choose to sell your book, then you’re going to have to get over the “Oh, but I feel uncomfortable selling my book” issue and just do it. The fact is that the ONLY WAY for you to get readers is to SELL your book. Reality dictates selling, because you don’t have enough money to give all the books away.
#4: CREATE A STRATEGY: You need a marketing strategy. We’re going to get really basic here. I go into a lot of the ‘hows and ‘whats’ in my programs. But this is where we all start.
Your strategy first and foremost needs to be to:
- KNOW who your readers are. Who are the people reading your book? What do they care about? What do they need? What do they want?
- GIVE your readers stuff that helps them. Think about #1 and then help them. All of the things you wrote in #1 represent problems that your readers have. Now it’s your job to solve a problem they have. Listen and talk to your readers, and give them information, encouragement, and/or stories that help them.
- ASK your readers to buy your book. You have to ask for the sale. You cannot just put stuff out there. ASK for the sale. In marketing speak, asking for the sale is called a CTA – a Call to Action.
KEEP READING BELOW…
Now Do…
#5: TAKE ACTION: Now it’s time to take action. What action will you take every day to do all three of the things in your marketing strategy? How will you do each of the three parts of your strategy every day? To take action effectively, ask and answer these two questions EVERY DAY and then DO IT:
- How will you get to know your readers better today?
- Where are you in the GIVE GIVE GIVE ASK cycle?
- If you are on a give day, answer the question “How will I give to my readers today?”
- If you are on an ask day, answer the question, “How will I ask my readers to buy my book today?”
#6: EMBRACE THE TENSION. There is an inherent tension to marketing and selling. When we ask someone for something, we automatically create tension between them and us. Why?
First, all of the activities of marketing and selling are ultimately about the sale itself. We all know this. Secondly, when we ask for the sale, we are putting it out into the world, directly to our potential readers, that we want something from them. We’re also offering them something, yes!, but we aren’t certain at the moment we ask that they actually want what we’re offering.
Therein lies the tension. We don’t know at the moment we ask if they want to buy it. And there’s tension on their end – now they are faced with the necessity of saying ‘yes’ or ’no’ to us.
- Three things to note about this tension. There’s no avoiding it. You need to just suck it up and deal with the fact that there’s going to be tension.
- People are way more forgiving about the tension you create than you imagine – IF you’ve been GIVING to them like I mentioned above.
- DON’T cut the tension. Do NOT try to make it ‘better’ by relieving the tension. The tension has to be there, and it is up to the reader – the consumer – to decide how the tension is resolved. You don’t control this part of the process.
Your job is to just breathe and wait for your potential reader to make his/her decision about buying the book.
Have Fun!
Look, this is your book that you’re offering to readers. You spent a lot of time writing this book. You love this book and its contents. You must! Or you wouldn’t have spent so much time writing it. So please, for the love of all that is holy, have fun when you’re talking about your book. Let your natural joy about the book come through!
Now Go Out There and Get Started!
Okay, that’s where you start.
Are you ready to do this?
Every day, you have only TWO things you really need to do!
You can do this.
Yes, there are all kinds of particular ways of doing this, but for now don’t worry about that.
Just get out there and do it.
