An ideal world would be one in which you hit publish and the readers come flocking. However as Mark Edwards recalls, getting from five copies a day to topping the Amazon charts takes a great deal of work. “We blogged, used Facebook and Twitter, posted on forums and networked like crazy with other writers and readers,” he says. “We submitted the book for reviews on sites and did everything we could to let people know it existed. It took a long time -- four months from publication to the top 10, spending two or three hours on it every evening. It was exhausting, but worth it in the end.”
The "Customers Also Bought" panel in iBooks is a powerful sales tool, and reviews can help your sales soar.
“The biggest problem is getting noticed,” Edwards says. “There are so many thousands of books being self-published with the books from big publishers.” There are several ways to stand out. Your book description is crucial: “We doubled sales in one hour by re-writing the blurb”, Edwards says. Sites such as Amazon enable you to use tags to describe your book, and the more specific the better, so for example if your book is tagged with "women sleuths" rather than just "crime" then you’ve a better chance of appearing in a particular genre chart.
There are multiple keys to success, Allan Guthrie says. “Getting the covers right, having an edited manuscript, having a properly formatted manuscript, getting the product info right, getting the price right, getting decent customer reviews, informing as many ebook readers as possible about the book – those are all key factors. Sadly, there’s no magic formula.”
What works for one author, or even for one book, might not work for another author, or another book. As multiple-million-selling self-publishing sensation Amanda Hocking writes about fellow author JL Bryan: “By all accounts he has done the same things I did, even writing in the same genre and pricing the books low. And he’s even a better writer than I am. So why am I selling more books than he is? I don’t know.”
It’s an art rather than a science, but there are several things you can do to boost your chances. Your Facebook friends and Twitter followers can help spread the word, and if you’ve got multiple things to publish that can help boost visibility – a short story here might sell a novel there. Some writers embark on virtual book tours, writing guest posts for blog authors, and others network like crazy in ebook-themed message boards. Many writers say that traditional forms of marketing, such as advertising and getting your photo in the local paper, don’t sell books, but you could have a go anyway: if a particular tactic doesn’t work, you just try something else.
There are stacks of good ebook review sites such as Adarna SF, but they’re busy and can’t review everything.
One of the most important sales tools is reviews: as with apps, the more positive the review the more likely somebody will take a punt on an unknown author. Reviews by people you don’t actually know can help your book soar, and dedicated ebook reviewers often repost their reviews to Amazon, Shelfari, Smashwords, Goodreads and so on. There are review sites for all ebooks and specific kinds of ebook, so for example Big Al’s Books and Pals covers all genres while Adarna SF concentrates on futuristic fiction. You’ll find an enormous list of ebook reviewers at Simon Royle’s Indie View, which also showcases self-published books.
Be aware, though, that you’re among thousands of people trying to get reviewed; some sites’ to-read lists are months long, while others are so busy that they often stop accepting submissions altogether. And if you’re lucky to get a review, don’t be upset if it’s less than flattering. When Jacqueline Howlett took issue with Big Al’s Books and Pals’ two-star review of her book The Greek Seaman – a review that suggested she wasn’t very good at spelling, or writing – her poorly written, misspelt responses made her an internet laughing stock. Cackling internet users posted devastating reviews of Howlett’s book on Amazon, and The Greek Seaman is no longer on sale.
Reviewers often post in several places – reviews posted to Shelfari are often posted on Amazon too.
“Don’t respond to bad reviews,” Edwards says. His advice is to “be nice to everyone… and try not to become too obsessed with your hour-to-hour sales. It’s about the long game.”
If marketing your book sounds like an enormous amount of work, well, that’s because it is. As Amanda Hocking writes on her blog, selling lots of ebooks doesn’t happen by magic. “I don’t think people grasp how much work I do. I think there is a big misconception that I was like, 'Hey, paranormal is pretty hot right now,' and then I spent a weekend smashing out some words, threw it up online, and woke up the next day with a million dollars in my bank account,” she writes. “This is years of work you’re seeing. And hours of work each day. The amount of time and energy I put into marketing is exhausting.” Hocking has since signed a huge deal with a traditional publisher.
Goodreads is an excellent book recommendation service and also offers a range of promotional tools.
Self-publishing isn’t for everyone, Guthrie says, which is why he’s set up a digital publishing company. “Some authors are quite happy, and have the time, to do it all themselves, which is great. But other authors find that arranging for their manuscripts to be edited, copy-edited, formatted, converted, having the cover designed, keying in hundreds of metadata fields into spreadsheets, uploading the ebook files to distribution channels, arranging blog tours and interviews, producing their own book trailers, and sending out hundreds of review copies isn’t that much fun at all and eats heavily into their writing time.” Self-publishing can be lucrative – but you need to work at it. As JA Konrath, whose ebooks made him $150,000 over six weeks this Christmas, writes: “If you want to have extraordinary sales, devote an extraordinary amount of time to it.”
