9 Lessons from 10 Years of Book Marketing
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I’m stepping away from the topic of website design today to celebrate a personal milestone.
Amazingly, it’s now ten years since I published my first novel, Saving Saffron Sweeting.
Wow. That went fast.
Five other books followed, before I realized that while writing is “fun”, what really gets me out of bed in the morning is building websites for other authors and speakers.
So while I’ve never “officially” stopped writing and publishing romantic comedy for Anglophiles, the reality is, I have no work in progress at the moment.
Nonetheless, for the whole of the last decade, I’ve been paying attention to the world of books, and specifically, what it takes for authors like you to succeed in selling your book, once it’s published.
My top lessons from 10 years of book marketing
1. There is no end to the supply of books being published
When I published my first book in 2013, I felt like I was late to the party. The “smart kids” had loaded their books onto Amazon a few years earlier, self-publishing was booming, and I assumed I was joining at the peak. I speculated that there were thousands of authors with finished manuscripts in shoe boxes under their beds, and that they would dust these off and publish at exactly the same time as me. In a few years, I thought, the supply of new books would tail off to a trickle.
Wrong. From my vantage point, there are just as many authors stepping forward to publish a book. Some statistics indicate the number of books published is growing, not declining. And this research from Berret-Koehler even says,
And here is the truly shocking figure: the annual number of new titles published each year has grown by more than ten times in the past sixteen years.
So, if supply is stronger than ever, that’s a sobering lesson about what it’s going to take to get your book noticed.
2. You need to be honest about your goals
There are many wonderful reasons to publish a book, including having a personal record of your story, helping others, showing your expertise, marketing your business, and making money.
In my experience, authors can be coy. As a group, we tend to claim we just want to see our work “out there,” whereas we’re actually hoping for a New York Times bestseller. You might even say you just want to “make back the money you spend” when in fact you quite fancy a book deal, or better still, a movie.
When my first book came out, I didn’t intend to write another. But when I discovered that I quite enjoyed it, and even better, readers liked it too, my goals changed. It’s fine if your ambitions evolve. However, you must be honest with yourself. If you want to make money —serious money— at this, you’re going to have to treat it like a business. More on this in #5.
3. Many of the experts and services that tell you how easy it is to publish your book “forget” to tell you how hard it is, to sell more than a few copies
Again, it’s fine if you only want your book to get into the hands of a few special people. But if you do want to reach a bigger audience for your book, you need to get your head out of the sand and understand that your work does not end when the book is published. That, honestly, is the tip of the iceberg.
There are hundreds, if not thousands, of businesses that exist to help you publish (and sell you the tools and knowledge you need). It’s in their interests to make it seem like an easy, fulfilling, and lucrative process. I could argue that they’re doing you a disservice by failing to mention that most books only sell a few hundred copies.
The average book published today is selling less than 300 print copies over its lifetime in the US retail channels — Berret Koehler
Instead, I say caveat emptor: for goodness sake, if you plan to write and publish a book, please educate yourself about the reality of what goes along with it.
4. Most authors are woefully unprepared to market their book
Especially if you choose the independent publishing option (I did, for several reasons, and I never regretted it), the effort involved in writing and releasing your book is huge. I get it. So much so, in fact, that I wrote Indie With Ease, a self help guide to help authors manage the stress and overwhelm that often accompanies self publishing.
The amount of work involved in getting your book published, combined with (I think) an unwillingness to tune into the reality of selling it, means I see many authors stagger across the finish line of releasing their book, only to look up and see the mountainous task of marketing that awaits.
And, no, sorry, but even if you land a book deal, your publisher won’t do it all for you!
Publishers have managed to stay afloat in this worsening marketplace by shifting more and more marketing responsibility to authors—to cut costs and prop up sales. — Berret Koehler
Unfortunately, many first-time authors have zero experience or enthusiasm for marketing, let alone any ability with the online tools like social media, email lists, and websites, that are the must-haves in your toolkit.
And don’t even get me started on timing!
Simply put, you’re a fool if you publish your book and then think about marketing. Yet this seems to happen more often than not.
The best book marketers start before the book is even written, or if not, then months before the publication date. Not 3 months after, when you realize your precious baby isn’t selling…
5. You must invest either time or money in book marketing. Often, both.
So, you’ve staggered across the finish line. You’re tired. Possibly, you spent a lot of money getting your book released. And now —what a shock— you find you have to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start marketing the wretched thing? Ouch.
No wonder I see you showing up in author groups and online forums, asking for a quick shortcut to start selling your books by the truckload. Well, sorry, but here’s the next piece of tough news: you’re going to have to spend time, or money, to promote your book. Preferably, both.
I recently heard an author ask for tips, and he stated he has neither time nor money to spend. Either he’s delusional that his book is a special flower, or he’s just delusional. I don’t know which.
6. It’s shockingly hard to make a decent income from just one book
If you worked on your manuscript for years, or it’s a highly personal work, you might feel that one book is all you have in you. That’s fair. Nobody says you need to churn out additional titles, just for the sake of it.
But know this: making good money from just one book is brutally hard. Yes, I know we can consult the bestseller lists and find one-hit wonders there. I know there are amazingly good books that took ten or fifteen years to write. Nonetheless, the majority of authors who make even a modest living from their work have multiple books. You’ll be incredibly lucky if you release just one title, and find it pays your bills.
For good reason, the 20 Books to 50K movement (Facebook group here and Las Vegas event here) promotes the economics of multiple titles are your best route to a sustainable income.
Alternatively, your book can serve as a stand-out business card for your consulting or speaking business.
Your book can be the jumping-off point for online courses, workshops, or coaching.
But one book, on its own, without additional streams of income, is unlikely to make a dent in your monthly bills.
7. Memoir is especially challenging
It saddens me to say this, but marketing a memoir is especially challenging. In many cases, it’s your only book. (See #6)
Often, you wrote it as an important journey of self-discovery and reflection, not because your experience is actually one-of-a-kind. (Sorry.) And, if you’re on the mature side when you publish your memoir (and it stands to reason you might be), you may not have much natural comfort with the necessary technology and tools to help you market it. Again, I’m sorry.
Information on writing your memoir is pretty easy to find. Resources for how to do a great job of marketing it are more scarce.
This piece from Author Marketing Experts is a decent place to start. Among other great advice in this article:
Marketing a memoir means you have to have a unique selling point —and— This may sound harsh, but when you’re marketing a memoir you also have to consider what you really have to offer aside from a good story.
8. The hot new way to market a book inevitably keeps changing
Don’t torture yourself trying to keep up with the latest “silver bullet” method of selling books.
Instead, look out for marketing tactics that instinctively appeal to you, especially if you’ve got evidence that your readers are paying attention to that method.
Ten years ago, I had wonderful success by:
Reaching the quarter-finals in a novel writing contest hosted by Amazon
Inviting book bloggers in my genre to read and review the book
Landing a BookBub sponsored deal
Between now and then, things have changed. Amazon Ads were the hot thing a few years ago. Last year, Bookstagram. This year, it might be BookTok, although the “miracle” of AI is creating so much buzz, I have to wonder if the robots are talking themselves up.
One thing to know: by the time someone brings out a training course showing you how to mimic their success with a method, you can assume that thousands of other authors are already piling in to try that tactic.
9. If you stick with it, you will eventually see results
My advice here takes a tough love stance because I hate to see authors like you run a marathon, and then find you actually signed up for an Ironman.
(Marathon = 26.2 miles.
Full Ironman = 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of cycling, and then the 26.2 mile run.)
I keep seeing you staggering out of the water, elated and exhausted, only to realize you still have another seven times that effort ahead of you.
So the great news to end on is, if you are honest about your goals, and you’re willing to treat the process as long and gradual, you will eventually get results.
Stephanie Chandler of the Nonfiction Authors Assocation once said you should plant a book marketing seed every day. Whether you can do something every day, or you plant a handful of seeds once a week, over time, your efforts will add up.
After all, ten years is a long time
My first book, Saving Saffron Sweeting, now has over 1200 ratings on Amazon.com, with an average of 4.3 stars.
Although it took me a decade to get there, that’s pretty cool.
Do my books pay my bills? No. (Honestly, I’ve stopped counting.) But day after day, new readers are discovering my work. Some of them love it.
And if you can pace yourself and keep going, the same will happen to you.
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