My heart bursts its banks, spilling beauty and goodness. I pour it out in a poem to the king, shaping the river into words. (Psalm 45:1)

Welcome to our new blog!

Note that this blog is primarily for members of CWOSA. Only those members who have signed up as authors to the blog are able to post on this site, although all may leave comments.

You may not pass on any posts from this blog without permission of the author, but you may pass on a link if you wish to share something written.

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TOPIC OF THE MONTH - SEPTEMBER

1. Read the topmost post, then click on "comments".
2. Read the last comment to see the most recent addition to the story.
3. Copy/past the entire story to date into a new comment box.
4. Add a further three words.
5. Click on Comment as. If you are signed in, your name will appear. Click on Publish.
6. If you're not signed in, click the small dropdown arrow, and select Name/URL. Give us the name we know you as, and click on Publish.

Remember! This is meant to be a story!
Have fun!

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

How To Sell Lots of Books

John Locke is a self-published novelist who has sold over a million copies of his e-books so far this year. He's had as many as 8 of his novels on the Kindle Top 100 list at one time, all priced at $.99.
 
How did he do that? In his Kindle book "How I Sold A Million Books In 5 Months" he shares some of his methods and I thought this group might find it interesting. Here's
a short link to the description page on Amazon: http://ow.ly/64amA
 
Briefly, this is what he advises:
 
* Define your General Target Audience - the people who love the kind of books you write and would buy them if they knew about them.
 
* Create your book - write specifically for your General Target Audience. He very consciously writes a novel that he believes will delight his General Target Audience -- and nobody else. He really doesn't care if he offends everybody else.
 
* Create your platform - when you create your platform (including a web site, blog, Facebook page, etc., you should do everything in your power to make it as appealing as possible to your General Target Audience.
 
* Launch your book - when you launch your book, you should do everything in your power to reach those people in your General Target Audience. If you accidentally reach other people too who somewhat like your book, that's fine, but your General Target Audience will be the ones who love your book and spread the word.
 
* Grow your platform - continue to focus on building an online presence that makes your General Target Audience happy. You'll focus on adding them to your e-mail database, and they'll be delighted to be there, because there's nothing they want more than to hear when your next book comes out.
 
* Market your book - focus on crafting a message designed to appeal to people in your General Target Audience. You reach them; they'll reach everybody else. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
 
I think he really makes a good point. He's not just "going fishing" and hoping for the best, but specifically going after a particular niche of people within a targeted group.
 
Something to mull over...
 
Val
 
Val Waldeck
Author of "Kindle Publishing Made Easy"
 
 
Posted by Val Waldeck at 11:30

2 comments:

  1. Lisa Harris16 August 2011 at 12:14

    Great stuff. Thanks for sharing this with us!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ann Goodfellow17 August 2011 at 09:55

    It makes such good sense. I was a bit reluctant to put my email address out on facebook - but I sense that it is a way to promote my writing. I'm certainly going to relook at that. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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