Monday, October 13, 2014

How To Sell Your Book In 10 Steps


1.      What do you want people to do for you?
The best way to get someone to take action is to give them an action step.  Guide them.  Tell them what to do and make it easy for them to do it.  Don’t overwhelm them with options.  They can sign up for your blog, follow you on Twitter, connect with you on Facebook, download your YouTube video, buy your book, share your website with others, and on and on.  Focus people on what you want to happen.

2.      Do you know what people need from you?
Don’t sell people what you have – sell them what they want or need.  Ask them questions to discern what’s truly of value to them – and then present what you have through this prism.

3.      Keep it positive
The world’s full of negatives, shortcomings and losses.  Focus on the positive benefits that you and your book offer.  Complaining about a problem is less valuable than having a solution.

4.      Show others that they come first
It’s not about you, but them.  Help them, listen to them, praise them.  Let them know you care and understand them.

5.      Schedule a certain amount of time daily to sell
It can be just 15-20 minutes a day, but make the effort to do something, every day, to push the sale of your book.  Some days maybe research and list-compile other days could be calls and emails.  Another day could be you meeting with someone.

6.      Have a plan to succeed
Having no plan is a plan for failure and a bad plan is not much better.  Put your ideas on paper and make sure you address key issues such as: PR, advertising, sales, social media, website, distribution, appearances, media, bulk sales, etc

7.      Get others to sell for you
Third-party endorsements are helpful but even better than that is to get others to sell for you.  When people share your links, they are helping.  When people become an affiliate and collect a commission for selling your book, you both win.  Think about turning others into sales partners.

8.      Use social media regularly – with a measured purpose
Tweet at least 6-8 times a day.  Post on your blog at least twice a week.  Be active on Facebook.  You need to be on a number of social media sites every day, pushing content like blog posts, videos or podcasts.  Measure your number of connections and track how you are doing.

9.      Go where your customers are
Don’t bother selling steak to vegans, but rather find out where your customer hangs out – both online and in the physical world.  What stores do they shop at?  What conventions or events do they attend?  Which sites do they get their information from?  Be where they are.

10.  Show enthusiasm and passion
High energy sells.  People like to fee alive around someone who is very spirited and confident.  Your passion can be infectious.  The more you seem happy and tuned in to things, the more others feel comfortable around you.

Sell books like you’d sell anything – dedicate the time, effort, resources and attitude to making your book a coveted item.  When you show others a reason to buy or care – and you show them value – sales will come.


Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer, Media Connect, the nation’s largest book promoter. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2014

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