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How to get 1,000 Ebook sales

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How to get 1,000 Ebook sales? That’s a question I often ask myself. Look around the various blogs about self publication, and it seems to suggest that once you’ve hit around 1,000 sales on Amazon, the website’s algorithms will take over and help to make your work more visible. Note that this isn’t total sales, but sales for each title. While, of course, selling more of one title is likely to help sell other works too, pushing up your overall sales figures, it is 1,000 per book that you’re aiming for.

This can be an astronomical figure to reach, especially if you’re only selling tens of books per month. Inside Evil was published in March and I’ve not yet cleared the 100 sales barrier. Interestingly, in my latest giveaway on Elle Casey’s blog, Inside Evil was one of the most sought after titles, so the book itself seems to be in demand and attracting attention. It just doesn’t get noticed by people browsing on Amazon. And, without a lot of luck, I’m warning you, growing to 1,000 sales will be hard work.

But, how can you achieve this feat? How can you reach that target? I’m not entirely sure myself, having not gained those dizzying sales heights yet. There are variety of methods that I’ve come across, and some may work for you, others may not. Here’s some of my findings.

Forums

Some people advocate joining lots of forums, putting your book in your signature and then talking, continuously, about yourself and your work. This doesn’t work and WILL NOT SELL ebooks. You’ll quickly get a spam notification and be ejected from the boards.

However, there are some forums that you might be persuaded to join, such as Kindleboards, the official Kindle forums at Amazon and the Kindle Users Forum. Whilst you’ll get all manner of help and tips at these places, I wouldn’t look for a lot of sales here. Generally, these boards are occupied by people like you; authors wanting to find how to sell ebooks and unlikely buyers.

LibraryThing & Goodreads

My use of LibraryThing and Goodreads has been haphazard at best, largely due to the fact that I hate both website’s interfaces and I find joining in conversations extremely confusing. LibraryThing is great for doing giveaway’s, but though I’ve noted a few reviews trickling through, these haven’t turned into sales. Meanwhile, though I’ve had a very few ‘adds’ on Goodreads which may have possibly led to a miniscule number of sales, my Goodreads ad campaign was a complete failure and I didn’t make one sale from the investment.

Word of Mouth

This is a very obvious way of selling, but if you don’t tell anyone about your book, then how can you expect sales. Word of mouth is vital for sales. Tell friends and family about your book. When you go to parties and meet new people who ask what you do for a career, tell them about your writing and mention your novel’s name..who knows they might just go home and download it. Put a link to Amazon in the signature of your email so when you’re emailing people, you have an unobtrusive marketing ploy ready to go. This has been my best sales tactic to date, helping to push Inside Evil higher in the Amazon charts and therefore being more noticeable.

Twitter

Some people swear by it, others don’t, but I have found that Twitter has got me sales. I have recently opened a new Twitter account devoted to only my writing. Whilst I have a personal account with over 1,000 followers, I tend to have verbal diarrhoea on that feed, and whilst those 1,000 followers don’t care about me talking non-stop about the Olympics or saying slightly rude things when I’ve had a glass of wine too many, I really don’t want my main group of readers and authors bombarded with this. Of course, many may want to, so it’s worth tweeting that you have another account, but to keep all my professional and book related stuff in one place, I now use GWakelingWriter.

One of the good things about Twitter is that you can easily interact with readers. If someone tells you they’ve bought your book, thank them, ask them for feedback. RT their comments if they’re positive reviews. Use Sample Sunday (a writer’s RT group which helps spread book samples on, you’ve guessed it, Sunday’s) to reach a larger audience. Use Writer Wednesday to follow and RT other writers. Most of all, ensure that the majority of your tweets are personal, RTs or links to informative articles rather than constantly links to your own work. This will turn people off immediately, and your Twitter account will never get off the ground.

1,000 ebooks is a hard task…

Selling ebooks is no easy task, and shifting these first 1,000 ebooks is monumentally difficult. I read blogs all the time offering advice on how to get sales, with each and every post saying, ‘once you’ve reached 1,000 sales you can use X, X and X to get increased earnings,’ but what about the climb to 1,000? What about the depressing screen of Amazon’s Beige Bar of Shame when it’s staring at you mid month because you’re yet to have  a sale? What about selling five or 10 copies a month and realising that it’ll take you years to reach that elusive 1,000?

I’ve used the above processes to get a few sales here and there, but nothing that has finally swept me along at pace. I’ll soon be releasing a new book, The Tower of Souls, and I’m hoping that it’ll attract more people to the series. However, for the meantime, it’s the slow plod along. What do you use to try and increase sales? Found any tactics that worked? I’d love to discover new areas that I haven’t tried…and we can all look forward to pushing our sales and cracking that 1,000.

The importance of choosing the right book reviewers

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Getting readers to review your books on their blogs is a great way of spreading the word. I have to admit that I haven’t seen a huge spike in sales after reviews are released, but it is a good way to get your title’s into readers hands. This is especially true if you have a number of titles because even if none of the book review readers buy your novel, perhaps the book reviewer themselves will come back for more.

There are huge lists of book reviewers to be found on the web. A great place to start is the Indie Book Reviewer, a place where you can find hundreds of eager readers who want to take your novel and blog about it. As you go through the listings you’ll discover that many people are simply swamped with books and cannot take on more reads, resulting in your pool of possible reviewers shrinking considerably. This can cause you to simply contact everyone that is open to taking on books. However, this may not work to your advantage; a fact that I found out this morning.

There are always going to be people who don’t like your books. Fair enough. I don’t like every book that I read either. However, it is important to try and choose reviewers who have a great looking blog, lots of followers and who are actually interested in the genre AND style that you’ve written in.

This morning I had a three star review from a reader who mentioned that Inside Evil’s pacing wasn’t very good and that there wasn’t enough back story in the book. Looking into her history, I saw that she marked similarly for all books which didn’t give back story or lots of superfluous information. She also mentioned that it took her longer than normal to read the book because she just couldn’t get into it. In my rush to find reviews, I’d simply just found a name, an email and sent the book out. Of course, EVERY reader is entitled to their opinion and I’m grateful for the honest review, but if I’d done my research, I would have discovered that perhaps this reader wasn’t the best candidate for my work.

You can then compare this to the wonderful four star rating that I also received today from The Book Barbies. Whilst the pacing was slow for the reviewer mentioned above, the reader at The Book Barbies couldn’t put it down. She was devastated by the cliffhanger and is ‘dying in anticipation for the next book’. She even had a dream about the book after she’d finished.

You can never tell if someone’s going to love or hate your work, and it’s important to not become too bogged down by the details. After all, Twilight has 715 ONE star reviews on Amazon, The Hunger Games has 501, and even Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone has 88. However, when you’re searching for book reviewers, it can be worthwhile to take some time and establish a reader’s back history of reviewing and the genre and style’s that they love. It could make or break your resulting write-up.

The Difficulty of a title

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As you may have discovered in my previous post, I’m setting about finishing a science fiction novel that’s been cluttering my computer files for far too long. I started reading it today and really enjoyed it – ok, I’m very biased – but I very quickly got back into the characters and story. I do have one problem, however, in that the new work has no name.

A title is pretty darn important. Inside Evil was always there from the beginning and worked so well as it can be interpreted on various different levels for the book, from the ancient evil lurking in the woods, to the inner conflict that many of the characters have throughout the story. Likewise, The Tower of Souls came to me as I was writing and I now can’t think of any better title for the second in the series. However, the latest work just isn’t coming along.

Self publishing means that I can flit in and out of published works, change inaccuracies and errors when they’re highlighted, add appendices and epilogues as needed and even, as I’ve just done, change the listings to create one book into a series of books. However, a title sticks. It can be the first thing that readers see and so it’s essential to get it correct. Along with good cover art, an alluring title can persuade people to delve more into the details of a book and hopefully make them buy it.

The problem with my latest work is that I’ve already written it and nothing enthralling has come to mind. I have a working title, but it’s pretty bland and boring, and if I think that, then god only knows what readers will think. Perhaps I’ll pass it to my proofer with the title TBC, perhaps something will come to me, or to her. But, until that crucial element of self publishing is decided, cover art and the ultimate publication is going to be seriously held up!

The Next Project Begins

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The Tower of Souls is done and has now been given to my proofer for a final once over. All being well, it’ll be on shelves in the next few weeks, furthering Roberta and the residents of Ridgewood’s stories. So, with the manuscript completed, my mind is already moving to new things.

My next project will be a slight departure from Ridgewood as I complete the science fiction novel that has been lurking behind the scenes for many years. It’s already at 80K, and will probably end up at about 110K overall. I’m not very good at writing stand-a-lone stories as I get far too involved in my characters, and so I’m expecting this science fiction story to become quite epic.

With the title still TBC, my new project follows John Carlody; a widower who finds himself with one of the rarest golden tickets on the planet, the chance to get onto the world’s latest fad – cryogenics. The shy and retiring John finds himself thrust into the limelight, filled with mixed emotions over saying goodbye to those he loves and thrown into a future unrecognisable to the one that he left.

I’m excited to get back into this book and rediscover the characters who have been in my mind for so long. I’m aiming to have an Oct/Nov release, after which I’ll be back with the Ridgewood residents for the third in their series.

The Tower of Souls Cover Reveal

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There’s something about receiving cover art that makes the whole book publishing process seem real. Even when you type that last word of a novel, the excitement quickly fades to the terror of editing. It’s hard to think of your novel as a product whilst it’s just a small word document on your hard drive.

Today I got the artwork for The Tower of Souls, and it suddenly sprang to realisation that, by the end of next month, I’ll have written and self published another book. Two in six months. I’m quite impressed with myself!

Here’s the new cover, which I think has all the lures and attractions of Inside Evil’s artwork whilst distinguishing itself in its own right. What do you think??

The Tower of Souls Update

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The past week has been spent plunged into my fictional realm in a bid to complete the first draft for The Tower of Souls. Though it took me years to finish Inside Evil, it’s taken me a few mere moths to get back into writing. The last few days especially has found me hard at the grind stone, and anyone who is a regular at the Kindleboards ‘Thousand Words a Day’ thread will have seen that I’ve been managing several thousand words per day.

I can happily say that tonight I finished the first draft of The Tower of Souls! I’m so overjoyed that I’ve finished. It came to circa 70k, so after editing, where I normally end up actually adding words, it’ll probably be in the mid 70s. The race is now on for a proof read and first edit, before it goes off to a second pair of eyes for the first read through!

On track for an end of August release, WOOHOO! 🙂

Book Review: The Emporer’s Edge

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Book: The Emperor’s edge
Author: Lindsay Buroker
Available at: Amazon – FREE

Lindsay Buroker’s plan to get readers of her wonderful writing blog to give her books a look continues to work, especially because the first of the series is completely FREE. It’s part of a marketing ploy that works because Lindsay has another four titles in this series, and once you’re sucked into her steampunk world, you’ll be hard put to not to rush onto the next book within minutes. The Emperor’s Edge was my first meander into the world of steampunk and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I mean, what IS steampunk? Well, it’s an world without electricity and, if Lindsay’s books are anything to go by, it’s a place where emotional and physical turmoil are only moments away.

The Emperor’s Edge follows enforcer Aramanthe as she become caught up in a plot to assassinate Sespian; a young emperor who has become a mere pawn in the military’s bid to control Turgonia. Aramanthe is a strong heroine who finds herself caught in a difficult situation, her life’s wishes falling away before her eyes, and everything that she’s worked so hard to obtain being lost. She turns to assassin Sicarious for help, and pulls an unlikely team together consisting of a professor, Books, a male escort, Maldynado, and a mental sciences (magic) believer, Askyr. Thus, they take on a battle to save the emperor’s life, but as is always the case in a good read, nothing is ever quite that simple.

For my first plunge into the world of steampunk, The Emperor’s Edge was the ideal book. Lindsay does just enough world building to give readers the setting and concepts of the world without overdoing it. Her real skill is in writing conversations, and though descriptive are to be found, Lindsay relies on the people to set the pace, with all of the characters brought vividly to life as they try to become friends and comrades. This is a book that will throw up a few U-turns when you’re reading, ensuring that you’re never quite where the storyline may head. It keeps you guessing. It makes you laugh, even when the situation seems quite grave. And, it shows that even heroes and heroines are fallible and don’t always do the best thing for their cause.

Emperor’s Edge is a great read, and I’m looking forward to finding out what’s next for Aramanthe and her motley crew. Even better, if you’ve already spent your ebook budget for the month, it’s free 😉

Download at Amazon.

The importance of book reviews and word of mouth for ebook sales

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It may sound obvious, but word of mouth is one of the major factors that will help you sell books. I know this, you know this, but knowing and doing are two completely different things. When I first started self publishing, I debuted Inside Evil on a bit of a down low. It was my first novel, I didn’t know how it was going to be received and I didn’t want to put family and friends in that awkward position where they have to gush about loving your book whilst they’re secretly cursing the hours they lost having to read their loved ones trash. Luckily, it seems that I didn’t write 70,000 words of trash, but putting a book out there that you’ve slaved over is scary stuff.

Once you hit that self publish button, and for those who are organised enough to get a head start, the marketing and advertising starts. Forum posting, blog commenting, Goodreads ads and LibraryThing giveaways are all part of the process of trying to get sales; along with having fingers and toes crossed that a little bit of luck comes your way. However, from personal experience, the one thing you need to do to sell some books is to swallow your pride and turn to book reviewers, friends and family to spread the word.

Book Reviews

Some people don’t have a lot of luck with book reviews, but I’ve found that it’s been one of the best way to get sales. Most reviewers have a huge backlog of books to read, but getting on as many blogs as possible will passively spread the word of your novel, build some reviews and gain some sales. Most reviewers will post their ratings on their blog, Goodreads, Amazon and even Barnes and Noble, offering you the chance to reach blog readers and grow your range of marketplace reviews. On Goodreads this can help you to reach more people’s shelves, adding to the natural word of mouth spread of your book.

One of my first book blog reviews came in yesterday with a stunning 4.5 stars. A huge thank you to Krista at Breathe in Books for this review, and I’ve already noted an increase in sales which I expect has come off this sole review.  Don’t be persuaded to only go for some of the big book reviewers – get on as many blogs as possible to reach a wider audience.

Two great lists of book reviews can be found at:

Kristy’s Stories book reviewers post
Indie Book Reviewer

Word of Mouth

There’s nothing that says ‘buy this book’ better than a personal recommendation. In the best scenario you want readers to be saying ‘Wow, I read this great book. You should give it a go.’ However, you need a little help now and then, and it’s here that friends and family can help. There’s nothing wrong with asking for a little plug here and there. My sister put out a Facebook status saying that she’d read my book and loved it. She added the Amazon book link and I had several sales from people who were interested. Likewise, an author friend of mine Tweeted about my book, and I had several more sales as a direct result from that.

It’s understandable that you don’t want to rely on friends and family to spread the word, but you have to reach new fans in the first place so that word on your book spreads. Get two friends of a family member to buy your book and recommend it to others, and you soon have new and completely unrelated fans. This in turn will push up your Amazon sales rankings so that you can enter top 100 lists and become more noticeable.

Reaching new fans and getting sales is a difficult task. People will be far more willing to try a new author if they receive a personal recommendation. If, like me, you’re not very good at blowing your own trumpet, asking for help from family and friends can be a huge help to get your ebook sales snowballing.