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Whether you have a published book or a starter, don’t count on luck or word-of-mouth or create a listing for it on Amazon and expect it to be a bestseller just because you’ve self-published it. Instead, take a look at these 7 proven marketing tips that will help you and assisted authors increase their online sales.
Build A Website
It’s important to have a dedicated website to spread the word, while also building an email list for email campaigns.
Understand that you will start with zero traffic, but it will increase with consistent promotional efforts.
A website is the first thing you should focus on. Give potential readers a place to quickly and easily find all the information they need.
Selective Social Media
Depending on the content of your book, figure out the social media in which your audience is available.
On social media, find groups relevant to your topic, join them and engage in authentic conversations, without promoting your book. Allow natural connections to be made as it is important to share your knowledge and build your reputation as an expert on your topic.
Amazon Offers and Reviews
If you are selling on Amazon, be sure to take advantage of every space and feature they offer to increase your chances of being discovered. Be smart with keywords and key phrases in your description.
If you want Amazon to recommend your book to others, it is crucial to get good reviews from your early customers. A decent number of genuine reviews under any book adds credibility. Don’t be afraid to ask readers who purchased your book to help out by leaving a review.
Email Promotions And Online Advertising
There are many approaches that can be taken for email promotions. These include the likes of MailChimp campaigns, to partnerships with book promotion sites that send emails to their own subscriber lists.
Online advertising campaigns consist of everything from paid social media promotions, to Google ads, and Amazon ads. If you’re not already familiar with this territory, you may want to consult with a professional, as the simplest mistakes can get costly, and there’s a lot of research and experimentation that would need to take place on an ongoing basis.
Give In Order To Receive
Helping people without expecting anything in return has a way of bringing about good karma. As an author looking to sell your book online, that would mean offering value to your prospective audience well before your book launch, in an effort to naturally get their support upon launch.
New authors must orient their personal brand ahead of time to what they plan to publish long-term.
Build trust and familiarity with the audience by publishing articles, and give away eBooks for free for a period of time, which will result eventually in higher sales.
Flywheel Effect
The flywheel effect refers to factors setting wheels in motion and building momentum. This is an ideal scenario when it comes to marketing the value of your book.
Once the book is out and people like the value of what they read, this will lead to requests for the author to speak to large audiences and bring a copy his book to add credibility to the lecture itself.
Outside Assistance
If you don’t have time to manually market your book, you can easily seek outside assistance.
Working with a good publisher helps a lot as they do so much of the heavy lifting that an author probably wouldn’t even know was needed.
Source: Forbes
