{"id":139300,"date":"2024-11-01T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-01T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/?p=139300"},"modified":"2024-11-01T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-01T10:00:00","slug":"how-to-sell-a-book-if-youre-billy-no-mates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/how-to-sell-a-book-if-youre-billy-no-mates\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Sell A Book, if you’re Billy No-Mates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week, I explained that the trick of selling on Amazon is to achieve steadily growing traffic and sales over 4-7 days. In effect, you\u2019re priming Amazon\u2019s own algorithms to take over the task of marketing your book for you \u2026 and Amazon turns out to be rather good at doing just that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how do you get your traffic in the first place? We\u2019re going to look in turn at promo sites, Facebook ads, and mailing lists. Today, we\u2019ll look at the simplest and easiest tool of all \u2013 namely, the promo site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These sites aren\u2019t just useful to newbies \u2013 they\u2019re nigh on essential. They bring the readership that you don\u2019t yet have. Plus, they\u2019re cheap. Plus (with one exception) access is easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Beast<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest, best-known book promo site is Bookbub<\/strong><\/a>. It promises readers that it will help them get \u2018Amazing deals on bestselling ebooks\u2019, and that\u2019s just what it does. (And, to be clear, the site is all about ebooks. Now, of course, you can happily sell print books on Amazon\u2026 you\u2019ll just find yourself selling 10 or 20 times as many ebooks, so that\u2019s what this email will focus on.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In effect, Bookbub runs a massive mailing list \u2013 the biggest in this sector, by far. That mailing list is divided up into genres. So if you join Bookbub as a reader, it\u2019ll ask you what books you\u2019re interested in. In your specific case, you\u2019ll tell it you like Literary Fiction, Crime Fiction, and Swamp Monster Steamy Romance. Bookbub will then send out regular emails which will notify you of selected books in those categories when they are on special offer. So, a book that might normally sell at $9.99 as an ebook could be available, for one day only, at $0.99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bookbub is offered a LOT of books. The books that are chosen for the emails are editorially selected and standards are high. Unsurpisingly, if you like your steamy swamp monster romances, and you find a classy and bestselling title sold at a fraction of its normal price \u2013 you\u2019re likely to jump on it. Loads of your fellow readers will do the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an author, this is bookselling gold\u2026 just relatively expensive gold. If you\u2019re in a major category \u2013 like crime, for example \u2013 a Bookbub Featured Deal will cost you upwards of $1,000. You might think that\u2019s pretty dear for a promotion of this sort\u2026 but on the three occasions I\u2019ve had a Featured Deal with my books in North America, I\u2019ve repaid the money by tea-time in the UK, which means barely midday in New York, and not-even-properly-woken-up time in California. The deal lasts all day, and the effects of the deal last even longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So: if you can get a Bookbub deal, then do. And really, a disciplined author should put in for a deal at least 5-6 times a year. There\u2019s no harm in knocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, the only real problem with Bookbub is that you have no guarantee at all of being accepted \u2013 and the odds are against you. (They used to say they take no more than 1 in 5 books offered. I think that ratio has gone down and is, in any event, increasingly biased towards authors with a well-established following.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That means, it\u2019s good to know how The Beast works. It\u2019s good to apply for promos. But it\u2019s also good to have a back-up. And that\u2019s why we need to get to know\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The little sisters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are literally dozens of book promo sites, many of which are simply useless. But there are still a good few sites with meaningful email lists and a meaningful capacity to drive sales for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The best sites do change from time to time, so I always check out the latest information from David Gaughran<\/strong><\/a> and Nicholas Erik<\/strong><\/a>. Both of those guys are in the market a lot, for their own books and for campaigns they manage on behalf of other authors. I basically trust them to know the good sites and make honest recommendations to others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Be aware that the various sites do have their differences. Freebooksy, for example, will only handle books that are being promoted at $0.00. Bargainbooksy will handle promotions of $0.99 and similar. There are also sites that handle only specific genres. And so on. Prices are relatively affordable and should certainly be within your budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucially, these sites are essentially non-selective. That means, if you\u2019re a newbie author without a huge pre-existing following, you can still use these services. Indeed: not just \u201ccan\u201d, but \u201cbloody well ought to\u201d. It should be the very first layer of your promotional campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promo stacking<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You\u2019ll hear indie authors use the phase \u2018Promo stacking\u2019 \u2013 and it\u2019s what I recommend. But the phrase is just a little misleading. A stack is a set of things piled vertically, right? A stack of books, a stack or ironing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that tends to suggest that if your overall book promotion campaign is going to run Monday to Friday, that you should \u2018stack\u2019 all your promo sites on (say) the Monday. And that\u2019s not right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Promo stacking means using multiple different promo sites, but spaced out so you can add traffic throughout your promotional period. BargainBooksy for Monday, RobinReads for Tuesday, Fussy Librarian for Wednesday, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For under $200 you can build a five-day promotional campaign that will get your book out in front of thousands and thousands of readers. You shouldn\u2019t leave things there \u2013 we\u2019ll talk about more powerful strategies in subsequent emails \u2013 but even pro marketers working on big campaigns for authors making seven figures a year will start with the basics: bookings on promo sites running through the term of the campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s easy. It\u2019s low cost. And it works.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don\u2019t forget the basics<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All that said, please don\u2019t forget the basics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By far the biggest marketing failure made by newbie authors is to hurtle through to the very end of the selling process \u2013 booking promo campaigns, designing Facebook ads \u2013 when the preceding plumbing is woefully leaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So:<\/p>\n\n\n\n