This tends to confuse a lot of people, especially beginners so let me give you a couple of pointers on producing a book that will possibly sell, since there are no guarantees. None of these steps are easy or quick. Prepare yourself for that. If you actually want to sell a book, instead of just stroking your own ego, strap in for the long haul because that’s what it’s going to take.
First off, you need to produce a good book. Your first book will not be a good book. Your fifth book will almost certainly not be a good book. Maybe your tenth book might be, but there are no guarantees. On average, an author writes six books, fully edited and finalized, before they get anything near anything that will likely sell. It takes that long to learn how to write well, and along the way, you have to read voraciously because reading good books is how you learn to write good books. Then, you need time to develop your own style and voice. All of this takes time, certainly years of your life. This is not a short-term project. If you want it today, give up now because you’re destined for failure.
Once you have a good book, fully professionally edited, etc., then you need to get a professional cover. Note, I didn’t say an AI cover, you need one that is specifically set up for your genre, that will appeal readers in your genre so they will take a look at your book. Your cover sells your book and you need to be looking for a professional cover designer, not just someone who can draw. You’re not hiring the artist, specifically, you’re hiring the expertise. You need someone who knows your genre inside and out and can produce a cover that will appeal to likely readers. Far too many people either cheap out here or just go with “my friend can draw” and their book flops. You need to produce a book that looks professional because whether you like it or not, everyone judges your book by its cover.
Third, you need to make your book sound professional. That means an excellent blurb If someone’s eye is caught by your cover, then the next selling point is how you describe your book. Whether you’re talking about a blurb on Amazon or a back cover pitch, it has to be something that makes the person purchase the book. If you’re not willing to do that, don’t bother because your book won’t sell. A blurb is a short summary of the story, written in such a way that it grabs the potential reader and doesn’t let go. It’s really the first step in your marketing strategy.
Finally, after you have a great looking book that readers like and that sounds professional and attention-grabbing and you’ve published the book, or at least are in the process, you need to worry about your marketing. Marketing is not optional. If you write it but don’t advertise, nobody will buy your book. You need to understand how to market, where to market, who to market to and when to market. You need to understand your target audience, and your audience isn’t “everybody”, where your audience is and how to reach them. Marketing is one of the hardest things to do, outside of writing the excellent book in the first place. There are courses you can take on advertising, but a lot of it is trial and error and keeping on top of it from day one. If you don’t have a marketing plan in place before you publish, don’t publish at all. It isn’t something you can do “someday”. It has to be done right away if you want it to be effective.
Writing books for sale isn’t easy. Nobody has ever said that it is. You need to be a professional at it and far too many people I see, they’re not. They have unrealistic expectations, they think that if they throw some half-assed mess on Amazon, it will sell because they bothered to put in some effort. That is just a short cut to failure.
Some of this will get easier as you put out more and more books. Name recognition and good word of mouth sells a lot of books without you having to do anything but keep producing. That doesn’t mean you stop advertising, that doesn’t mean you stop producing quality, it means that things are a little easier after the first couple of books. Easier does not mean easy. It’s never going to be easy. It will always be a challenge. If you’re not ready for that challenge, then don’t bother trying to sell books at all because you will fail. Even if you are ready, you still might fail because most people who try, never succeed, just like most small businesses fail in the first 5 years. The consistent best rise to the top and there is a lot of luck involved. That’s what you’re getting yourself into. It can be done, but it can only be done by people prepared for the slog. This is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Anyone expecting it to be so, they are just wasting their time.
If you think you’ve got what it takes and are dedicated to making your books the best that you can possibly make them, then sure, give it a shot. There are no guarantees but I think the people who care the most and are willing to put in the most effort, those people can make it in the end.
