Help! I want to sell more books!

Congratulations on writing your book! That is a HUGE achievement. Be proud of yourself.

What’s that I hear? It’s been out a week and you can’t retire yet? I’m afraid you will be waiting a long time.

In 2018, 675 million print books were sold in the US, 190.9m print books in the UK, and is valued at $312m and NZ$1.8 million in Australia and New Zealand, respectively and  e-books and audiobooks  were selling more (Statista 2020). In the last couple of years, there has been a change, print is back in fashion, and ebook sales are dropping. 

That’s a lot of competition, and most new indie authors stick to Amazon KDP. 

I understand why, it’s easy; a complete package from uploading your manuscript, to arriving on your reader’s doormat, and with Kindle and Kindle Unlimited being the biggest ebook platform, you would be crazy not too!

But what about those readers who still like to use their indie bookstore, or even one of the big companies like Waterstones? If you are publishing, printing and distributing solely through the big ‘A’, then you can’t get your book to them.

There are many ways to do this. 

You can use an alternative printer (search for a local company) and a separate book distributor (again, there are surprisingly many).

Or you can ‘GO WIDE’.

This means you are expanding you net, rather than going direct to just one such as Apple books, Kobo, Nook, KDP, Google Books and Ingram Spark as well as Draft2Digital, Publish drive and StreetLib, USE THEM ALL.

What are the benefits of ‘Going Wide’?

The main one is increased awareness. You are building you brand and your readers across multiple platforms. And it’s not just about using multiple platforms, but formats and territories too. Most are free to upload and get your books out there, the differences come when the book is sold.

By no means am I saying leave Amazon, but by ‘GOING WIDE” you can build a stronger foundation for yourself as an author and importantly your books.

‘Going Wide’ means you book will be able to reach indie bookstores like our own, Bell, Book & Candle, which sells books by indie authors only. As an indie bookstore, we get our books direct from a wholesale, which makes sense when you think of it. ‘Going Wide’ means you book will be able to reach indie bookstores like our own, Bell, Book & Candle, which sells books by indie authors only. As an indie bookstore, we get our books direct from a wholesale, which makes sense when you think of it. In the case of Bell, Book & Candle we use Gardners.

Yes, it takes a little more time, but having you book available in more places, making it more accessible is great for you, your reader, and Indie bookstores.

If you enjoy reading the facts and figures, you can take a look here.

Check you local bookstore and see where they get their books from, most will be happy to tell you. 

Design and have a marketing pack ready, with flyers, posters, images for their website, photos of book covers and details of the book (including the all important 13 digit ISBN) the blurb, release dates, author bio etc. Having this ready for each of your books will help speed up the process, and from a bookstore point of view, you are more likely to be chosen for any feature spots as it saves them a lot of time trying to find all the info ( at Bell, Book & Candle, we have a Facebook group for authors to do exactly this!).

Have a plan!

Marketing plans are necessary for every book you publish,

As an Indie Author, chances are if you are starting out, you are doing the whole show single-handedly. Bravo! It’s hard, I know, but don’t make it harder by not being prepared.

What is it they say…

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Benjamin Franklin

Tune in tomorrow, for the second in the series, and my how to write a marketing plan and details on a very short video course, you can watch whenever you want to,

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