1. Commitment to Marketing –Unfortunately, simply having your book available on Amazon is not enough to inspire 
sales when there are millions of titles competing for the attention of readers. Books don’t sell without marketing. Book marketing requires consistent, on-going effort. Successful authors do something every day to promote their books.
2. Willing to Invest – I see a lot of new authors trying to cut corners. They look for “the best deal” on book production services, attempt to bootstrap their marketing efforts, and end up wondering what went wrong. If you’re self-publishing your book, it is essential that you invest in professional editing—not a cousin or a friend who is willing to help. The fact is that we do judge books by their covers, so your cover design should be award-worthy. Your book should look like it just came off the press of a major publishing house, and then you need to be willing to invest in marketing. Trust me; successful authors don’t just get lucky. They make a financial commitment and do the work.
3. Dedicate Time – The reality is that most authors have day jobs, yet there can be plenty of excuses for not having time to promote books. Successful authors make time to support their books or they hire the right people to do it for them.
4. Pursue Media Coverage – Getting noticed by the press builds credibility and helps you sell books. Successful authors pursue media by hiring publicists, sending out news releases, and being news-worthy.
5. Leverage Technology – Successful authors blog and use social media. The fact is that these are some of the best ways to reach people in today’s technology-driven world. Stephen King used social media to build buzz around his ebook “Mile 81” by giving away copies to influential Twitter users. Wayne Dyer has an assistant who tweets out motivational quotes and event announcements. Jack Canfield has over 150k fans on his Facebook page. Social media helps you build an audience, and blogging drives web traffic. Even authors who have already had a tremendous level of success use these resources for maintaining momentum.
What can you do to step up your efforts and market your books like the successful authors do? We look forward to hearing about your success story!
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Boy am I glad you listed commitment to marketing, this is something most authors need to learn early on. The hard truth is that the bulk of the marketing efforts will be the authors responsibility. The good news is that once the author finds the right system, the sky is the limit. Getting booked on Good Morning America is not out of the question, no matter who you are. OK, thanks and good luck, Edward Smith.
I think repetition in the message is important. Pimping a book once or twice will seldom generate results. People need to hear a book’s pitch 7 or 8 times before actually making the decision to purchase. I see this in other, intangible areas too. I wonder how many people pimp something once or twice and then abandon their efforts. Stick with it…stick with it.
Professional editing is a must! Friends and family can help bring your manuscript a long way, but it helps to have an unbiased review from a hired stranger!
You said it, Laura!!
I don’t care how good a writer you are, how committed, or how relatively successful. Chances are, you’re not going to single-handedly support a family on the vagaries of the literary marketplace. Sure, you might get lucky and sell a few thousand copies of your title, or even get picked up by a publisher. If you’re really fortunate, you might be one of the chosen few who sees income in the six figures from the sale of a single book. But unless you’re Stephen King, can you realistically expect to launch hit after lucrative hit with the same certainty as you’d produce a paycheck? Hardly.
Knowing this, I have come to embrace my writing as a purely pleasurable indulgence. Up until now, I have deliberately limited its cost to forfeiting precious sleep and foregoing irreplaceable time with my family. But now, after two disappointing rounds in the self-publishing arena, I am beginning to suspect that, to become a successful writer, one must be willing to spend money on becoming well-known.
Which is why, this time around, I am seriously considering hiring a publicist to help launch my latest novel, “The Floater.” Such folly will admittedly set me back a few thousand dollars—money I may technically be in a position to spare, but which my conscience tells me is sheer wastefulness. Because what will this outlay really buy besides a pricey ego boost from doing something so-called professional writers do? Even if my launch is a smashing success, I’d have to sell thousands upon thousands of copies to recoup that expense; chances are, I won’t.
If (more realistically) my campaign is a flop, exactly how foolish will I feel having invested that much money on a purely creative pursuit? In an unrelenting recession, I can easily see myself wishing I had left that money in the bank to pay bills. I suppose the real question is, What price am I willing to pay to promote my passion? Isn’t writing the real passion? That part is free, so can someone please explain to me why it isn’t enough?
I feel your pain, Sheryl, and wish there was an easy answer. It is hard for authors to justify the cost of publicity and promotion because you’re right, it’s very difficult to earn it back a few dollars at a time. But what’s the alternative? To do nothing and hope that someday you get lucky? I guess it all depends on your goals and what you can afford to do. Marketing is an investment, though it comes with its fair share of risks. At the end of the day, for me, it’s still about the creativity and knowing that your work affects how your readers see the world. Focus on that and it’s all pretty rewarding.
Thank you for that, Stephanie! Yes, I suppose it really does boil down to what you can afford to do. You really have to view marketing and publicity as the cost of “getting the word out,” because even the most brilliant book will do no one any good if languishing unnoticed on amazon. And if one is compelled to write, then the natural extension of that is to want others to read our work.
I am forever conflicted by my desire to attain a measure of success as an author, vs. the practicalities of earning a living when profiting from my writing is all but impossible.
Thank you for the article. For the most part I understand this information. I am 3 months into my writing career and had to use a trusted friend to do editing. She did a good job and challenged me to make the writing for my first self-published book much better and more on message. Thank you Mark, though, for your comment. I need to remember to keep at the marketing. Send out more messages about the book. Instead of just one that says its on sale. I’m composing a tweet now and an email to my supporters about the book talking about it in another way.
These are all great tips to follow. Marketing is hard work, but I know that without it most authors will not have any tangible success to speak of. Most of us aren’t Stephen King or any other ‘persona’ of note, so we need to do everything we can to promote our own works. Great post!
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