Do not say, “Buy my book!”

Always with the questions...

What was the question?

Over the past few weeks, I have been inundated with questions and visited a few blogs whose posts asked the questions. Authors want to know what to do to sell their books. No, I am not going to sell you anything. Instead, I am going to tell you for free.

This will be a primer for the beginning author selling online. Please do not stop reading and start implementing. Read it in its entirety because some aspects are revisited for further application or caveats you may not have considered. The goal is to turn shoppers into buyers.

No Begging

None.

Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: No begging. You cannot stand for your dog to beg at the table or your child to whine in the grocery line. Why would you think your readers are any different? Do you like the schmuck who calls during dinner to sell you carpet cleaning? So, why do you think telling someone to buy your book every time you connect would be a winning approach?

  1. Because you have fallen for it before.
  2. Because publishing houses do it.
  3. Because you have no idea what else to do.

1. I hope you liked the book or were interested in it before you saw and succumbed to the command.

2. This is probably the best reason not to do it.

3. We are going to fix that.

Now, I am not saying to never ask for sales. There is a specific way to do it without smashing your audience over the head, thus rendering them incapable of understanding what you wrote.

Reviews

Not sure a book is for you? What is the first thing you do? Read the reviews. These are from people (you presume) read the book because they were interested and bought it. Honestly, some of them are. If you are waiting for reviews, you are missing out on sales.

The casual shopper stumbles onto your book by browsing or by a link. Shopper has no idea who you are or why they should buy your book. What are the reviews they have to help them? Hmm.

  1. Give away 10-25 copies of your book.
  2. Include your best friend, your favorite BIL, your cheerleader, your writing teacher, are you getting this?
  3. When you send it to them, send them a link to where they can review the book.
  4. Ask for a good review.

#4 is not bad form. A bad review, especially if you only have three, can cost you customers. Ask the people to whom you give the book to contact you if they do not like it rather than leaving a bad review. Your goal in the early going is around ten good reviews.

It is all in the timing.

What is worse than no reviews? Getting 40 in two days and then never getting another one…ever.

Remember those people who did not give you a review right away? Ask them if they forgot. The trickle-in reviews a few months after your book goes on the market (and throughout its sale) do wonders for the authenticity.

It gives the appearance the book is constantly selling. Yes, it shows the shoppers you are headed for a best seller. Your book is instantly more attractive.

Who can you get to do these reviews?

  • Your oldest blog follower
  • New blog followers
  • A new IRL Quaint
  • A blogger who only does book reviews
  • One of your social media followers
  • Mate

Well, that did not work.

A marketer (or author who has sold oodles of books) told you to post the link to your buy page on every social network and keep posting it. That advice probably netted you a handful of sales the first time you did it. It is not so effective now, is it?

How many people have you added to the platforms where you plastered your link? Continuing to send out the link (especially in absence of anything else) to the same people is like dialing the wrong number everyday expecting someone different to answer.

Stop promoting the buy page. Start promoting the book reviews. Yes, you still want people to buy your book, but you need to reassure them others have already bought and enjoyed it. Plus, they will have some idea what the book is about and why they would want to read it. You have at least ten links to share now…not just one.

This is the core of buyer confidence. No one wants to be the first one to buy something and then discover they hate it on top of feeling they were roped into buying in the first place.

When begging is acceptable…and expected.

The following places are acceptable and expected places where shoppers are going to actively look for a buy link:

  • Gravatar
  • Info page on all social media
  • Email signature
  • Website
  • Fan page
  • About me on blog

If your social media houses more than just your family, they are not going to be perturbed by the occasional blast with the buy page. For the record, 18 posts a day is not occasional…neither is every other post.

Professional Publicist

You are saving money by being your own publicist. You need to act like a professional. Do a little reconnaissance. Drop in on some public relations websites to pick up some tricks they use. Stop thinking like a writer who wants people to buy your books. Start thinking like a publicist who wants to sell books.

Personal Aside

I currently have all of my books out of circulation. Why do I think I am qualified to give advice on this? Without the benefit of the giants (Amazon and Barnes & Noble) I sold more than 1,000 copies of my first book in less than three months. I did it by hand. When someone paid, I sent them the book or ebook.

I never spent a penny on marketing.

I am returning to the world of book sales soon. Not only will my books be available on M3 but also those of authors who have been interviewed for the Writer’s Spotlight. If you are interested in marketing your book with M3, email me about scheduling an interview.

~~~~~~~~~~

If there is any interest in more information about marketing books, art or albums, posts of this type can become a series or a weekly feature. I have information about niche myths, getting others to sell for you, networking and advanced promotion.

If you really do not want to see any more posts like this one, please comment below. If you would like more or different information, you can comment below or email.

~~~~~~~~~~

When you Tweet or +1 this post, please use the hashtags #authors, #books and #marketing.
This is a hint from a future post.

(c) Ann Marie Dwyer 2012
Copying and redistribution of this post through the “WordPress Reblog” feature are strictly prohibited. Please email for excerpts or link directly to this post from other original blogs giving full and clear credit to the copyright author. Additional details are located at The Office. Page linked at the top of the blog.


Previous Post
Leave a comment

52 Comments

  1. Great advice for any artists, whether an author, musician (you can be sure I’ve seen all of these wrong approaches taken by bands to sell their CDs… including one of mine some years back heh) or artist.
    On a humorous note I and one of my best friends -okay my only best friend- will many times exclaim ‘Buy My Book!’ after uttering a particularly hilarious yet ridiculous piece of logic. Or diatribe.
    I saw you subject line and cracked up immediately.
    Thanks Red

    Reply
  2. authormjlogan

     /  February 24, 2012

    One thing that always bugs me, you follow someone on twitter and get a direct message from them – thx for following buy my book at smashwords

    Reply
  3. Yes a very interesting read my great friend, and with good advice like yours clearly is there will be many writers and readers following further additions to this posting. There are many authors that go down the road of self publishing, and in publishing lingo the ‘Never to go There Vanity Presses’ spring to mind and I would not recommend any of those.

    I guess that times are changing with e books and the like, so some of those might be worth investigating further, of course I am a tad old fashioned and still have faith in the old school of publishing one’s work, but as you will already know this option can be extremely slow, almost snail pace as it were 🙂

    Over the next few days or so I will be trying to catch up with all of your postings Red but you are so quick off the press I must admit that I am getting rather swamped, however it is always a pleasure to call into your world of wickedness, well not exactly wickedness but as my imagination expands and reaches into the depths of your writing abilities I can see that there is much more to be revealed, so keep up the excellent work Red and don’t hold back on anything too wicked in the processing of all of your disciplines 🙂 😉 lol

    Have a really exciting weekend you two 🙂

    Androgoth XXx

    Reply
    • I am certain we shall, Andro. I plan to reveal quite a bit in this venture. The questions which have sprung up today are quite good, and not fodder for Friday Follies…which I expect I shall see you on momentarily.

      Hope you have some wicked plans this weekend, yourself 😉
      Red.

      Reply
  4. I actually left this page open all day so I could find it to forward to an online friend.
    Thanks, Red,

    Reply
    • You are welcome. This one is finally beginning to make the rounds. Thank you for sharing, EG!

      Reply
  5. Madison Woods

     /  February 25, 2012

    I’m talking about this topic and Twitter as a tool on my blog tomorrow, so I’ll post your link for a reference. If you want to give me a short paragraph to summarize these views, I’ll post it with your link. (my email addy is madison at ancientearthwisdom dot com). I agree with you, hate the spammer effect of authors hawking books.

    Reply
  6. Begging is such a big turn off! Thank you for putting it out there!

    Reply
    • I am going to reveal quite a few of those irritating secrets. We just need to make sure it falls into the right hands!
      Red.

      Reply
  7. Fantastic advice. As soon as I have my book done (hahahahahaha) I will be in touch to beg you for an interview 😉

    Reply
  8. Seriously, this is my favorite type of article. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply
  1. Writerly Business Plan – Twitter as a Tool « Madison Woods
  2. The Buy Button « Momma's Money Matters

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

CommentLuv badge

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.