Its pity that many good books fail miserably, while some “not so great” books become best-sellers.Yet why do a course in miracles teachers fail to sell? It’s all about marketing.
Book sales have increased steadily, but so have the number of books published. Even though book sales have increased, it is less likely that a published book will sell more than a few hundreds copies.
On the other hand, some authors make millions with their books. Is that just good luck and a coincidence? Certainly not!
I studied hundreds of books and tried to discover why some books became best sellers while other good books failed miserably. What I discovered was a very clear pattern: some authors know how to advertise their books and make them “viral”. Making your book “viral” is really the secret.
Thanks to the Internet (and Amazon!) things have changed. A one man company can make a viral book marketing campaign and reach thousands if not millions of people. However, you need to know what to do. Old marketing doesn’t work anymore.
Unless you have a lot of spare time and energy, please don’t invest your time to do local book signing events, pursue your family members to buy your book, place an expensive ad to a magazine or try to get a book reviews to local papers. All these work — to some extent although they are really time consuming and out-dated strategies. Your (ROI) return on investment will be low.
Few years back, my friend published a book and after few months she was frustrated. In two months she sold 170 copies. She knew that I was on Internet marketing and she called to me for help.
I asked her if she did any marketing. She told me “yes”. I asked what she had done. She had done some traditional marketing stuff: She went to book events, printed business cards, approached local newspapers to get reviews written and so forth. She really had spent time and money to market!
