How To Succeed As An Author!
What exactly does an author do to properly succeed?
Authors are our family. We cherish them as we are also writers. Self-publishing is a hard pill to swallow. Research shows that there are around 1.42 million books published on Amazon on a yearly basis. That is a lot of freaking people publishing books, right? Well, it is because it has become to easy to self-publish. In fact, Kindle has its own program where it allows for very, very easy publication. Does CreateSpace still exist? If they do, they are easy, too.
So how do you succeed as a self-published author?
We discussed content marketing. It is the best way to do it. Content marketing is the lifeblood of a self-published author. Because it is a known statistic that the average self-published book will only see 200 sales in its lifetime, the best thing to do is follow guides online (not like this one). There are a number of ways for success as a self-published author, but the best bets are not ads. You have to be as creative in your marketing as you are when writing!
Creative ways to breed success as a self-published author.
Creative ways to succeed include more than social media posts. This means doing more than the average. When my book: “Port Risk” was launched (it was a tale of true proportion about drug smuggling through The Everglades in Florida), I had the idea of dropping the book from planes (featured in the book as a method for drug smuggling) over a nearby beach. Obviously I would have gotten arrested in doing so, but do you see where I am going with this?
Find your core market segment and send them free copies!
There is no guarantee of success for your book, but let us take an example. I have a book I published about video game design development for students. I targeted 1,000 video game design schools and colleges across the country, drew up a cover letter and a press release, and inserted several copies of the book in paperback format. I offered a licensing deal where every student could have a copy for $500 in total. This was not much of a profit scheme, but it was surely a way to look at things. If you have a market, go to it.
Find ways to partner with other authors in your successes.
The best advice for a self-published author is to team up. Just like a networking event for businessmen that hand out business cards, the same goes for authorship. Promote your book everywhere you go, and that includes with other authors. Offer a partnership: you post on your social media channels in exchange for them to do the same. In fact, there is an even more lucrative and successful way of doing this, but it is nothing new (see below)…
Utilize other people’s social media followings for success.
A lot of people have thousands or even tens of thousands of followers. A tactic has always been to pay them for posts about your work, and this is not a new theme. However, it can work. Be creative about it, but do not overcharge. We are working on an idea called The Funnel that allows for creative marketing tactics for authors, and will link you to it soon. It is an example you could do yourself, as well. See the below succession of what I am talking about…
Remember we said be creative about your marketing tactics?
Fun one: create an app. Then, use that app to sell your book. Put other authors on the site for free and market the app, not the book. This is not as expensive as it sounds, but you can either spend thousands in unsuccessful ads or you can be creative and find new ways to market your book, like making a game for it (a quest to locate the missing item in your book as a game, for example. The idea of gaining loose yet rigid attention is absolutely key.
Go about investment and crowdfunding to market your work.
Most self-published authors spend so much time thinking about how to sell their works that they forget they can do better. Funding a marketing campaign can be absolutely successful, but you do need a budget to work with. If you want to really get deep into your marketing efforts, do not spend your money on marketing via ads or via content marketing. Rather, build a business. Did you know Circle 5 Books (this website) was originally an attempt to market a book? We decided to sell our own books while also selling that of others. We even had a thing called The Funnel that is still under development. Make your book a business rather than a product, and even offer services!
The obvious website but less-obvious ads will add up over time.
Most have a website, but they forget to market the darned thing. Ads work if you know what you are doing. Using Facebook Ads and not Google AdWords, for example. If you can find $100 a week, or can find investment for more, go about setting up Facebook Ads. The trick is to target the right demographics and to try and not sell the book. Rather, sell your website and your services. No author should focus simply on the product. Rather, they need to focus on writing content or books for other people, as well. Just like Circle 5 Books!
Lastly, learn when it is a poor investment and cut your losses.
Ever do so much marketing without success that you continue anyway? If you see your book is not being sold, do not blame the industry for being competitive; do not blame other more well-off authors; do not blame yourself. Just realize not every book is worth reading, and that may include your own. Remember, if you do not see success, the best course of action is to cut your losses and simply try again. Find out what others want to read, and write it. It is really that simple, and maybe soon you will see great success!