If your sales figures are low many times it can be due to faulty or inconsistent marketing. Sometimes you just can’t get the word out to your audience. People are ready to read your book, but they have to know it exists. Ideally, you hire a book marketing consultant or try to “go it alone” and hope that book sales are the result of your efforts.
What happens when you’ve come up with the perfect book promotion strategy but no one is buying the book? Many times you just need to change gears. Maybe the activities you have invested your time into aren’t really reaching your target market. You have to figure out where your target market is “hanging out”, go there, and mingle with them. But, that’s not the purpose of today’s post. Today, we are aiming to reveal the two biggest book crushers. If you feel like you’ve tried everything to get people to purchase your book to no avail, you may need to re-evaluate your book and make sure that you’re not committing either of the following critical errors:
- A boring cover. Books really are judged by their cover. It’s a cliché we use very often here. However, we can’t stress the importance of that statement enough. A professionally-designed book cover can make you stand heads and shoulders above other books on the market (all other things being equal). A boring (read: template) book cover could mean that your book won’t be seen. In a sea filled with many fishes, you have to stand out. If you don’t, no worm for you!
- Lack of editing. Have you ever read a book that is filled with errors? Doesn’t it make it much harder to not only read the book but also take the author seriously? That book = your book if you choose not to hire an editor.
Either or both of these can kill your book very early in the game.
What other “book crushers” can you think of?
 |
ABOUT WENDY STETINA: Wendy Stetina is a sales and marketing professional with over 30 years experience in the printing and publishing industry. Wendy works as the Director of Author Services for Outskirts Press. The Author Services Department is composed of knowledgeable customer service reps and publishing consultants; and together, they all focus on educating authors on the self-publishing process in order to help them publish the book of their dreams. Whether you are a professional looking to take your career to the next level with platform-driven non-fiction, or a novelist seeking fame, fortune, and/or personal fulfillment, Wendy Stetina can put you on the right path. |
