Writers, If You Want To Write Books, Then Write Books
Why working on books might be more important than anything else
If you want to be an author and write lots of books, write lots of books.
So often get caught up in social media posts or blog posts. We think we need to be everywhere at once trying to grow a following or build our email list. Some of these things have merit, but we keep telling ourselves the same narrative:
“We need to establish an online presence to be able to sell books.”
“Without an email list, we won’t be able to sell books.”
“Book publishing is so crowded, I have to do (insert thing) in order to make it.”
After self-publishing a few books now, I don’t think any of these things are true anymore. They might be helpful. And you might make a crap ton of money early with a huge following or email list, but you don’t NEED these things to sell books and grow a following.
Selling 1,000 books with an email list of sixteen subscribers
Last week I decided to jumpstart my first book, Productivity Success, by updating the keywords categories and free promotion. I got this idea after my most recent book has become so successful with regular purchases daily over the last few months.
Here are three things I learned from my jumpstart experience:
- From 2019 when I first published my book until Feb 20 this year, I had just 240 copies shipped.
- From Feb 21 to Feb 23, I have had 902 copies shipped. That’s almost 4x as many from the previous two years.
- Social media engagement and email list building have grown over this time.
What I learned from my jumpstart experiment is that I don’t need a massive email list to succeed. I can move books by doing the right things. And while book publishing might be crowded, I became a #1 Bestseller in multiple categories.
This has helped me understand that we can take a new direction to write online. It means we can publish our books and grow a following without all the tedious blog posts and social media posts.
Most of all, it provides me, and hopefully you, with the encouragement to keep writing books.
The New Direction for Writers
If you want to be publishing books, it’s time you took a new direction.
I have concluded that writing to build an audience first might be helpful, but writing your book and building an audience can work too. We don’t need to put off to tomorrow what we can do today.
Conventional thinking tells us to grow a following first, then sell a product or publish a book. This was fine and dandy when traditional publishing ruled all book publishing. But, things have changed.
Conventional thinking tells us to grow a following first, then sell a product or publish a book.
Now, you can write your book online in the form of online content on multiple platforms, collect email subscribers, and still put your book together to sell once it is done.
You don’t have to wait to publish anymore. Now is when you can post your books before you have a massive following. I have been able to ship thousands of books without more than a couple of hundred email subscribers.
You don’t have to wait to publish anymore.
It’s time for you to write and publish your book. Don’t wait any longer. You are in control. All that is left is to make it happen. And here’s how you do it…
How to Ship Books without a Huge Following
There are a lot of pieces to publishing a book. You know the ones that everyone typically talks about, though: Solid book cover, hiring a great editor, and great content. We all know this, but I have three things that tend to go under the radar.
№1 — Keywords: Unlock Search Sales
In my first book, I just picked generic keywords for my book. It is a book that doesn’t sell unless I share it. The book probably doesn’t show up in any search results anymore because it is in a cluttered genre.
I decided to do more research with the keywords in my second book. While I spent hours figuring out the best ones, I finally broke down and bought a program that did all the information gathering for me.
It’s called Publisher Rocket, and I highly recommend it. It does all the work for finding highly searched keywords, how much competition there is for your book, and what the average sales are for books with that keyword.
With the right keywords, your book will continue to appear in search long after launch, and during your launch, it will push it up the list.
№2 — Categories: How to Become a #1 Bestseller
Again, my first book tanked in the long run because I went with overly saturated categories with books from huge authors and publishers. As I went on to my second book, I read that it was helpful to use categories with fewer books, especially ones where books aren’t selling.
Now, I could easily have spent hours researching this, but I used Publisher Rocket to help me figure out which categories to pick. I learned there are a lot of related categories that have very few books sold, so you can become a #1 Bestseller without selling a ton of books.
It is essential to become a #1 Bestseller because it will help you show up on many lists for Amazon and move you up the search results when keywords are being searched. Plus, you can now say you are a #1 Bestseller, fantastic and authentic!
№3 — The Right Promotional Plan
I have launched four books. Two books became #1 Bestsellers upon launch. One book failed miserably as I tried something absolutely off the wall. The fourth book was on a bestsellers list but didn’t become a #1 bestseller until applying this plan.
My plan focuses on the FREE book promotion on Amazon plus promotional email lists. This promotion has worked twice now and led to ongoing sales over time. This is the basics:
- Set a three-day FREE promotion on Amazon
- Find a book promotion email list for a while; your book is free.
- Find a book promotion email list for the first day it goes back to paid.
This is all I do, and I ship thousands of books with residual sales after that. The plus side to this is that the books become #1 Bestsellers, and so they continue to sell because the algorithm loves bestsellers and books shipped (both free and paid).
Final Thoughts on Publishing Books
Self-publishing can seem overwhelming. It will seem like a lot of stuff you have to consider. If it’s your first book, that is 100% true. However, you can start to make a difference for yourself and others by getting over your fear and start publishing.
I want to encourage you today to consider self-publishing your book this year.
If you don’t know where to start, I have a few resources to help you. However, most of it starts with your writing. But, I will leave you with this one post to help get you going:
Are you struggling with headlines in your articles?
Writing good headlines can be hard sometimes. It happens to all of us. We create a great post and can’t wait to publish it, but it doesn’t feel right.
I have been there, and I can help you.
It is a matter of practicing great headlines. I have created the Headline Treasure Trove, which has 100 headline templates to help you with your headlines.
Download the 100 Headline Treasure Trove today!
J.R. Heimbigner is a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon who loves helping people grow in their faith, find productivity success, learn about investing, and help writers become authors. You can connect with him on Medium, his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Ko-fi!
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