This morning I was listening the webinar “Alignment, Attraction, Engagement” by Danny Iny of Firepole Marketing. According to him, most books don’t sell 100 copies. This is across the board—not just eBooks. I was stunned. Last month, the first month that Women of the Way: Embracing the Camino was available, I sold 69 books. Granted, fifteen of these were to family and friends, but I still considered it a successful launch. So far this month, I have sold 83 books to strangers. If I don’t count the books I sold personally last month, this month’s sales is more 150% better than last month’s. Even more startling, two months after its release, Women of the Way has sold 50% more books than most authors ever sell. Since Danny Iny made that statement, I now considered my book wildly successful!
This got me to thinking, Why am I so successful? What have I done differently than other authors?
Since I knew from the beginning that I was going to self-publish, I realized early that I needed to generate a buzz about my upcoming book. I created a tribute to the women of the Camino that are featured in my book. I then transitioned this tribute into the Women of the Way Book Trailer. I developed Web sites for the book as well as this blog. I passed out business cards that described the book and the tentative release date. I started using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I went on a prerelease (book) tour, talking about the Camino de Santiago. At the end of the presentation, I would mention my upcoming book. In short, I did a lot of upfront legwork.
Since the book’s release on June 25, 2012, I issued press releases, gave interviews for the local paper and several radio stations, am active in blogs about the Camino and about writing, and continue to use social media. The day I tweaked the book description and my bio on Amazon.com and Smashwords.com, I sold ten books—the most sold in one day.
I just finished reading The Book Tourist: Seven Steps to a Wildly Successful Book Tour by Elizabeth Huntoon Coursen. This book is chock-full of sound advice for anyone looking to market their book. In it, Ms. Coursen explains that whether you are traditionally published or self-published, you, the author have the responsibility for making your book a success. I concur. Had I not “primed the pump,” I may only have sold my books to family and friends and been part of the statistics that Danny Iny quoted.
Yes, I am off to a good start. The challenge, now, is to keep the momentum going.
