How to TRIPLE your BOOK SALES in SEVEN DAYS ~ At long last, Penelope Prudence had finally completed her ‘work’. Seven months in the making, she finally cruised over the 50,000 word mark and, after much deliberation, chose to label it ‘novel’ over ‘short story’ and ‘novella’. It was the last hundred lines that tipped the balance and there seemed no point in going for the full 120,000 words. Good gracious, no. At that size it might have made a bookend. Anyway, desperate Penelope needed to be an overnight success. Of course, she’d downloaded all the free ‘How I sold a thousand ebooks in three months books’ - knew them backwards, actually, and had followed the instructions to a letter. But now she asked for my experienced advice. Three stages, said I. Number One - The Book Cover! Ah, yes, well Penny paid £75 for a ‘unique’ image of a bare chested male and a scantily dressed woman revealing a hint of bosom and a handsome display of thigh for her woman’s romantic fiction book cover. Colourful, it’s so unique it looks well beside all the other bare chested men and long legged scantily dressed beauties in corsets and bodices bounding from the Amazon pages. It’s just a good job it’s not vampires, zombies and weirdos, sorry werewolves, because then it would be uniquely different and show blood curling scenes of half-crazed skeletons emerging from the cemetery to wreak havoc upon the world - next to all the others. Nope, my idea of a camera and brief to my best friend to come up with a good image over a pint in the pub was lost in a search for ‘uniqueness’. Or to be precise... Repeated uniqueness in a different colour. Stage Two: Ahh, well, that’s about editing the book. Penny had already paid close on a thousand pounds for ‘professional editorial services’. The book had been away for a month and when it came back.... well, how do you respond to your partner when they point out.... ‘Err, spelling mistakes on page 7...... page 12...... err.... page 38..... How much did it cost again?’ Oh dear, best not mention the copyright page then. Why not? Well there’s no sign of an understanding of copyright; no mention of copyright law or electronic or distribution rights... No..... Mind you the acknowledgement pages are excellent - all three of them. Wonderful how Penny mentioned everyone from Aunt Matilda to Bob the postman not forgetting Gertrude at the Book Club... Oh, the book club... We’ll come to them later. Penelope, your family and closest friends have between them 4 honours degree, 3 diplomas, and 26 ‘o’ level school certificates. Six of them are members of the local library and are avid readers. Why did you select a total stranger from cyberspace to edit your book? And Gertrude, the book club chairperson could have done it. Well, she would be chair because her granddaughter works in a book shop. Judith is club secretary, has to be secretary really when her husband’s brother is a solicitor. And then there’s Jeremy, the Treasurer. He’s treasurer, of course, because his next door neighbour’s uncle works for an accountant so he has good contacts. I told Penny, of course. A good briefing to your people to tell them exactly what you want them to do is best served next time. Step Three. Marketing. Oh Heaven! She’s on Amazon. But what a drama queen. Well, it was the tags you see. Three coffees, two phone calls, four emails and a half a bottle of wine later and ‘thriller’ was selected to be the primary tag. Well, 14 tags later - you’re only allowed 15 - there were major problems... Nowhere for romance and / or love. Well, I told her she was an author now. Life is full of decisions. She would just have to live with it. Tears, but to the market we will go; and all is not lost. And then there was the video trailer advertising the book on you tube... Only £50 from the lady down the street especially selected because her husband is a part-time photographer’s assistant doing saturday weddings! No worry! You see, according to the free ‘HOW TO’ book Penny did as advised and built up 1,127 friends on Goodreads, 2,468 followers on twitter, and 1,346 likers on Facebook so she could realistically sell nearly 5,000 books at the launch with all those great contacts.... What? You only know 20 of them! You could have a BBQ at home, rent the library, hold the event in a book shop.... No, the book says Cyberspace is the place to launch.... Okay, Penny... Why not take a break and spend the night reading for a while. Indeed, you could have a browse through my collection of 146 free ebooks that have been sent to me through cyber space - each with a note saying ‘You needn’t review it unless you want to LOL’... Actually, Penny, there’s the trick. Give your book away for free to everyone you know in cyberspace - all 5,000 of them. Yep, look I have friends in Amazon’s top 100 who have sold hundreds of book in a day for free and truly hope that someone might read one - one day. Free? Well, actually it’s cost them a fortune to sell because they buy their free book of Amazon and send it to you at 86 pence a time. mind you they do get 70% back from Amazon don’t they? They are in the top 100 Amazon free books, sorry ebooks, much better than being in the top two million and selling books. One makes nothing but feels good and the other makes something and feels crap. Which do you want to be, Penny?..... Famous.... Oh, just sell more than one this month. Okay, so at 86 pence a book plus a few hundred free giveaways how many do you need to sell to break even when the book cover ..£75...Editing.... £1,000....Video trailer £50..... What? You’ve lost your calculator.... Oh dear! ‘Hey the BBQ is ready, Penny.’ ‘Here comes, Gertrude....’ From the book club? Ahh, the beauty of middle England and its green and pleasant land. ‘Damn!’ said Penny. ‘Of all the bloody cheek that snotty cow Gertrude turns up with..... Jeremy...... And Judith (Penny smiles)..... How nice of you to pop round.... Oh yes wonderful... it’s going really well... What... you want a signed copy? ... And you want to buy a copy too Judith.... Both signed... Of course, I’d be happy to oblige. Getting quite used to it now, actually. Not a problem, of course, I‘ll take a cheque... Well,....Err ...Mmm..... A glass of wine Gertrude? Jeremy?... Lager is it? Darling, (shouts) Can you help with the sausages..... bit of a rush here with the books....’ Well, there’s three more than last week for a start... ~ (Pre KDP Select for those who recall such an era)
Posted on: Wed, 28 Aug 2013 20:16:28 +0000
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