Achieve Self-Publishing Success

Self-publish your book if that’s what aligns with your priorities. You can achieve conventional success using this widely available, technically free option. This article will mostly focus on the sales equation for self-publishing books because that’s where most self-published authors fail.

Without any further generalisations, let’s go into the specifics:

Make it Easy for people to Buy your Book

If they can’t find it, they won’t buy it — it is as simple as that.

Make your books discoverable. Have a single page website or a linktree page that leads people directly to your book’s page. You have one, maybe two clicks — use them wisely.

Don’t make your readers search for your book and all the formats it is available in.

I personally don’t have books to my name yet; I still have a ‘books’ page on my website. Have something like that up on your website/profile.

https://binatisheth.com/books/

If they don’t trust it, they won’t pay — it is about security.

Providing shipping address and credit/debit card information to someone they don’t know will deter prospective readers. Instead of self-hosting your book, use trusted platforms like Amazon, Flipkart, Kobo, Gumroad, or Barnes & Noble. Place these links on your social media, bios, author websites and ads. You can also use PayPal or UPI but know that people will be skeptical. Provide a direct link to buy your book.

Start (or Use) your Mailing List

Mailing lists are trust based partnerships where people share their email id with you in exchange for value. If you deliver on your promises, the trust they have in you increases. Either start a mailing list or leverage the one you already have to market your book way before it is ready for publication.

Tell everyone to, “Check out my website for updates about my book!”, before your book is ready. Send people real-time updates, your BTS (behind-the-scenes) processes and such, to keep them interested.

On your website, mention how you’re working on a new book and provide your newsletter subscription link for updates.

Don’t spam people — you might lose your subscribers. Provide value and occasionally, drop in a line mentioning your book.

You can also leverage paid adverts to market your newsletter which will then be used to market your book direct-to-consumer.

Advertising

Traditional publishers market their book titles heavily. Most self-published authors don’t. You need to get over this illusion of people magically discovering your book. Largely speaking, organic reach is dead everywhere. Unless you try something insanely creative (such that it goes viral), adverts will be the thing that’ll help people discover your book/s.

A/B test your advertising copy till you find the ones which have an ROI (return-on-investment) above 100%. Then start throwing your marketing budget at it.

Amazon ads are good but what truly sells books on Amazon is their ‘Also Broughts’. We will discuss this in the Amazon specific article.

Meta (previously Facebook) is currently the underrated champion.

Some Meta advertising tips:

• Make a 3D render of your book showing your cover and title: If people see a book and click a book, they’ll mostly buy the book.
• Canva/Figma fun: Try making creative, short, punchy ad-copies to capture the short attention spans on social media.
• Target Specifically: Think of keywords like books, TV shows, books about ::genres::, ::genres:: and movies, etc. Add them to the targeting information you select. Meta allows longtail keywords (example: books about a regency era romance). Use this and target broadly as well as specifically.
• Target Behaviours: Try targeting e-reader devices and users. Think Kobo, iPad, Kindle owners. These people definitely read books so they probably buy them as well.
• Target Languages: Target whatever language your book is in speakers across the world, say, English speakers in Germany.
• Enable Targeting Expansion: Meta’s algorithms are intrusive but successful. They will find the users you target with your selection.
• Link one thing Consistently: Provide a link to you product page.
• Monitor your Backend: Check the royalty dashboards (once a week) to check how well each ad is performing. Check the CPC (cost per click), disable the high ones and boost the low ones.
• Give it Back: Put back most of the money you make within the first week into your advertising budget.

TikTok is another platform you can use to organically market your book. BookTok, Bookstagram, BookTube and BookTwitter will be separate articles.

Reviews

This one is hard but the uncomfortable truth is people mostly don’t review the books they read or DNF (did not finish). Statistically, 1–5% of your readers will leave a review. Even the people you send ARCS (advanced reader/review copies) to might not review your book. Keep selling books. 1% of 100 books = 1

1% of 1000 books = 10

Sell more books and the number of reviews you receive will increase. The key here is advertising. Advertise your book.

Ignore the negative reviews (if they come). Do not engage with negative reviews.

Realistically, if a book has all 5-star ratings, your prospective readers might get suspicious about the integrity of the 5-star reviews. See this silver lining within the negative review and push through.

Audio Books

Invest in creating an audio book. Around 20% readers prefer to hear books. You have the book. Now, narrate it. If you have the budget, hire someone to narrate your book.

Audible will organically market your new audiobook if it is selling well.

Try the PFH (pay per finished hour) option instead of a royalty split.

Freebies

I have a freebies page on my website because people love free stuff. Provide some free stories, a sample chapter or a few to entice prospective readers to buy your books.

KENP — enable or not

Kindle Unlimited (KU) is a ‘it depends’. I recommend enabling it because I recommend selling via Amazon.

People without KU will pay full price.

People with KU will read your book on their Kindles, turning pages. This will boost your book internally to other KU readers. Someone who bought a KU subscription wants to read and has the device to read — to me, that’s a win-win.

Foreign Markets

Ads and Amazon don’t discriminate — if you have the goods, they’ll boost it.

Competitively price your books by looking up the price ranges of books in each territory. Advertise accordingly in each of those territories.