7 Point Plan to Help You Sell Your New Book

One of the most important parts of publishing a new book is selling it to an audience. Self-publishing has made it easier for more authors to publish their work each month, which can leave you feeling as if your work has been lost in a sea of thousands of other print books and eBooks.   
 
Often, a lack of preparation can result in a lack of sales. Therefore, preparation is key to selling your work, and is almost as important as the actual writing of the book itself.  Before you decide to publish your work online, its essential that you prepare using these 7 points.   

• The Book Cover  
  

Everyone has heard the phrase ‘never judge a book by its cover’. However, your book cover is the first thing that potential readers will see. To make the reader want to buy your book it ha to be engaging and relevant to the genre of book that you have written. Often, the best way to do this is to hire a book cover designer, who will have the experience to make the perfect book cover design for you. If you’re thinking of publishing an eBook, Canvas Pro is an excellent tool to use. It offers higher resolution JPEG and PDF files, and has a wide range of images which you can use to create a cover suited to your book. High resolution is particularly important for readers to actually see what the cover is. A blurry and unclear design will put off potential readers, leading to a loss of sales.  
 

• The Book Description  
  

Once you’ve created the perfect book cover, the next step is to write the description of your book. The book description is the second thing that the reader will see. To pique the readers’ interest, without giving away the entire plot, it has to be well written and engaging. Although they are short, the book description is the deciding factor for whether a reader will want to read your book. A badly written or rushed book description may give off the impression that your story line is not that well thought through, which may put off potential readers.                                                                     
 

• Categories and Keywords 
  

When publishing online, keywords are a great tool to help potential readers discover your book. Broad terms such as ‘Romance’ aren’t a very good way to get your book noticed, and your work will get lost in a sea of other romance novels. For potential readers to discover your work, it is vital that you use specific keywords. Publisher Rocket is a great tool which suggests the most profitable keywords, and also tells you what categories readers are searching for in real-time. There are also a number of tutorials online which can help you find the best keywords for your work to be found more easily--and these work for Amazon Ads too. 
 

• Editorial and Customer Reviews  
  

To sell books you have to have reviews, but in order to get reviews you have to sell books. The way to combat this may be to ask your friends and family to review a book shortly after it has been published. Making use of beta readers can also massively benefit you by getting you the reviews you need. Even if you only have five reviews, your book will sell way better than a book that has no reviews, so make sure you nag everyone you know to leave you a good review! 
 

• Amazon Author Page  
  

An Amazon author page is a great way to build up a good relationship with any potential readers and attract them to your work. Don't just treat the author page as an introduction--use it to highlight your writing, reviews and other data you may have. Make sure to keep it up to date, as no one wants to read about something you wrote 5 years ago! It is a form of self-promo for any new work you may be writing, and can be used before releasing a book to get people excited about new releases.  
 

• Pre-Order  
  

Another way to get people excited about your new upcoming releases is through pre-orders.  Pre-orders allow people to get excited for your upcoming work while giving you time you time to ramp-up your pre-launch marketing and check that everything is perfect for your launch day. Most authors will set up pre-orders for their upcoming work around a month before it is actually released. Again, make use of your friends and family by asking them to pre-order your book to improve your pre-orders and sales.  
 

• Book Promotion            
  

The obvious and final step to help boost your ratings is book promotion. Most book promotions usually start the day your book is released, and continue on a planned routine or frequency. The first day, week and month are the most critical to your sales. There are a lot of different ways you can promote your book, by using either paid or free book promotions. A good promotional tactic is to use social media. A lot of authors use social media to promote book launches or upcoming books. Sometimes they will even promote other people’s work. Try to build up a good relationship with authors who write books in the same genre as you to help promote your book and reach a larger audience. If you choose to use a paid promotion service, such as WhizzBuzz Books, be aware that they recommend you book in advance to ensure that they are available on the day of your book launch.  
 
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