OnlineBookClub.org

This poll is for authors who have a book that has been released and is available for sale.

Most authors don't sell 50 books. Yet, I have guaranteed that any author who follows the 10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book will sell at least 100 copies. So let's have a poll to help track results.

If you have read and followed all the steps in the 10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book but not sold 100 copies yet, please contact me and I will give private one-on-one help.

I started with zero Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr follows. Working on building a network. What is considered "critical mass"? How much of your sales would you attribute to social media?

AetherPirate wrote:I started with zero Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr follows. Working on building a network. What is considered "critical mass"? How much of your sales would you attribute to social media?

Quality matters a lot more than quantity.

In fact, one can easily buy fake Twitter followers of Facebook Page likes for fractions of a penny. But they are useless for marketing and can be humiliating since online tools can easily reveal what percentage of ones followers/likes are fake. I once saw a Senator's page--if I remember correctly--revealed as having bought thousands of fake likes to make him look popular.

One of the tough battles you have getting started is that the first followers you get are people who are already your fans, so there is not as much value telling them about your book since you probably already have. The trick is to kind of use--and to use groups on social media (and hashtags on Twitter)--to hopefully attract new fans who never heard of before who would be particularly interested in your book. I discuss how to do this in the 10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book, but if it wasn't clear or detailed enough, feel free to contact me privately to go over your specific situation.

I'm here to help.

I like the way you write about things and explain things with promoting books as well as to just be yourself and learn from this site and possibly other sites where possible. I'm currently in a re-write and am using a free tool but not sure if I want to state what the name of it is because I don't quite know if we can on this page or not. But anyways it will be in the format of an eBook for now. I already have it out in paper format but it didn't sell very well for several reasons and I feel the main reason is because of the lack of advertising/marketing. It is on one of the best websites around but nobody knows about it so no sales or very few sales at the moment. So a re-write is necessary for this to be better and a better plan of action when it comes to marketing/promoting the book. I liked the idea of Twitter. I will be creating a Twitter account specifically for my book. This way it will hopefully land a fair amount of buyers. What other ideas do you feel could work best if not better than Twitter. I use Facebook but don't really know how to promote on their because there are so many things that they do or don't want you to do on that social site.

TrinityWoods wrote:I like the way you write about things and explain things with promoting books as well as to just be yourself and learn from this site and possibly other sites where possible. I'm currently in a re-write and am using a free tool but not sure if I want to state what the name of it is because I don't quite know if we can on this page or not. But anyways it will be in the format of an eBook for now. I already have it out in paper format but it didn't sell very well for several reasons and I feel the main reason is because of the lack of advertising/marketing. It is on one of the best websites around but nobody knows about it so no sales or very few sales at the moment. So a re-write is necessary for this to be better and a better plan of action when it comes to marketing/promoting the book. I liked the idea of Twitter. I will be creating a Twitter account specifically for my book. This way it will hopefully land a fair amount of buyers. What other ideas do you feel could work best if not better than Twitter. I use Facebook but don't really know how to promote on their because there are so many things that they do or don't want you to do on that social site.

Hi @TrinityWoods,

Thank you for your kind words.

Have you already read the 10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book? I do mention other methods of social marketing than Twitter. I'm happy to answer more detailed questions you or anyone has after reading the 10 Step Plan.

kinda excited. I bought this book long back when it was free but didn't give a try due to my schedule but a guaranteed 100 sales looks promising, starting right now!!!

What do you think of running anAmazon ad campaign? Has anyone tried it? Worthwhile?

AetherPirate wrote:What do you think of running anAmazon ad campaign? Has anyone tried it? Worthwhile?

The simple answer is that it is not worth the money, based on my experience.

The longer answer is that nothing will be worth the money if your product isn't going to go viral and almost anything will pay off in the end if it does go viral. When specific illnesses spread, it's less how strong people happen to cough and more how contagious the germs in people's coughs are. A gross analogy but an important point, I think.

Thanks, I'll continue to try and infect people other ways

I'll be selling 100 books. Now I've sold 86 books. )))

-- 29 Feb 2016, 17:42 --

The longer answer is that nothing will be worth the money if your product isn't going to go viral and almost anything will pay off in the end if it does go viral. When specific illnesses spread, it's less how strong people happen to cough and more how contagious the germs in people's coughs are. A gross analogy but an important point, I think.

I also heard that advertising on Amazon does not justify itself.

I've been lucky to have sold over a hundred book - but there was a huge learning curve to get to that point. I published my first book at the end of 2011 but it wasn't until I had two books and a novella out that I started doing any real promotion/marketing, because one book sells the next, which sells the next. I wouldn't worry so much about 'advertising' on sites as much as finding readers. Give that first book away for free and see what happens with sales of the second (and third, etc.).

I just passed two thousand recently and working up to three thousand. It's a wild ride trying to get support from people, but it's fun getting to know them and see what they think of something you spent so much time on.

I'm into the third printing of my first book, a memoir. That's over 500 printed copies sold. As for the digital versions, my first book continues to be a strong seller. I have sold over 100 printed copies of my following 3 memoirs but I believe it's the topic, along with launching the first book via Facebook when Facebook was better for authors (3 years back) that started the ball rolling. That said, I had been blogging on the subject (child sexual abuse/incest) for over a year before publishing the book, and had TV interviews on my local TV station on its release. It all helped established me as both an author and advocate/speaker on the subject. Paid speaking engagements followed with sales each time. So, it you put in the work needed for promotion, you can sell over 100 books. But it's definitely not a case of "write it and they will read!"

Quick update! Passed the 3,000 mark and I have a book coming out in about 3 weeks that should skyrocket my numbers!

Scott,
I bought and read the 10 Step Plan. And I am following it. However, the big sales boost seems to come from kindle book giveaways. I am not a self-published author. My novel was published by a smaller publishing company, but they essentially run the marketing and own the book rights etc (not copyright). sooooo, I dont think I could give away $1 kindle copies of my book in I wanted to?

And as for the kindle giveaway to boost sales ranking, does that pay off in the long run? Or is it short lived boost in amazon kindle ranking for the sake of having people read your book?