Selling your book is all about getting yourself noticed. If no one knows who you are, then you’ll sink beneath the wave of all those other indie authors writing books. It’s a tough market out there! So how can you get yourself noticed and stop yourself from drowning?
Get Blogging!
You need to create an online platform for yourself. Creating a website where you just advertise your book isn’t going to generate much interest in you as an author. If you’re not a big seller, then why would people be interested in a book you’ve written? What other options are there?
Consider writing a blog. What’s a blog? I see them as mini articles that will be of interest to others. There’s no point writing blogs about your book. Again, people won’t be interested in reading that. STOP OVER PROMOTING YOUR BOOK RIGHT NOW! You have to give readers something they want and at the moment it’s not going to be your book. Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re not that interesting just yet. There are a ton of subjects you can write about instead, but I suggest you find a niche, something you know a lot about and can write regular blogs on.
In my case, I write blogs offering advice to other indie authors, or those who are thinking about writing a novel. I’ve often enjoyed reading help guides from other authors and if I like what I read, I might check their book out. That’s what you’re aiming to do.
Keeping the Pace Up
You can’t write one blog and leave it at that. Readers will want new, fresh content on a regular basis, so be prepared to put time aside for blogging. It also helps your google ranking which is very important to get noticed. Google likes new content and your site will climb the rankings making it easier for people to find you on a Google search. I advise you make a long list of potential subjects, at least thirty, so you have thirty ideas ahead of you so you don’t stall after your second or third blog and give up.
I’ve found that writing blogs can be very addictive once you get going and set yourself a target. When I first started blogging, I posted a new blog everyday for a week. This allowed me to get a lot of content on my site. I then slowed this down to creating three blogs per week and I’ll try and get these three written in one sitting and pace out the posting of them through the week.
A blog has to be a good length, but not too long. Make sure you give your readers quality content they’ll find useful or interesting. Aim to hit between 500 and 800 words and you can’t go wrong.
Make sure you have a website with a blog page. I use Wix because it’s easy to use and anyone can put together a simple website with very little technical knowledge. You can also use the free blogs on Goodreads when you have an author profile set up. You can link your external blog on your Wix site with Goodreads very easily and I’m going to show you how.
Go to your Goodreads author profile and find the blog section. Start a blog, but click that you have an external blog. It will ask for the URL, but you have to put it into a certain format. For my blog, I typed https://www.kevingroverfiction.co.uk/blog-feed.xml
It’s as easy as that.
Once you start producing blogs, don’t forget to share them on your social media accounts. It gives you more interesting articles to engage your followers with instead of constant posts asking people to buy your book over and over. This is a sure way to lose followers because most aren’t really that interested.
Have a tip to sell more books that worked for you? Write about it! Have a method of writing you think will help others? Why keep it to yourself? Generate interest in yourself and the sales will come.
Kevin Grover is an indie author of supernatural thrillers. His books are on Amazon and his website, Indie Bookshelf, shares various tips and experiences about his indie career.
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