Why No One Is Buying Your Book and What To Do About it.

Have you stared at your book ranking and sales data and wondered why no one is reading your work? 

Are you disappointed that your story hasn’t caught fire or hit USA Today’s front page? If you answered yes, I want to share a secret with you. I want to tell you something, and it might hurt your feelings. I don’t mean to be cruel, but I have to be honest.

No one has ever heard of you.

Readers do not know you exist.

That can change, but for now, you have to know the truth. You have to face the stark reality that you’re not famous, you don’t have a cult following, and you’re not a New York Times bestseller—yet.

One of the biggest obstacles for indie and small-press authors to overcome is finding readers. You may have a great book cover and your prose may be razor sharp, but let’s face it, you are one in a million. Hundreds of thousands of books are published every year, and as a new author, it’s not likely that readers will search your name or your book’s title.

Sigh.

Depressing, isn’t it? Well, it can be if you’re subject to resignation. But if you are the type of person who sees an obstacle as an opportunity, you may have what it takes to climb out of the literary abyss and into the public arena.

The problem with publishing is that unless you have a platform or a method to reach out to readers, you are like a grain of sand on the beach. People will walk on you all day long but never know you’re under their feet. If you publish on Amazon, your book is thrown into the ocean of e-books and will splash around until readers start buying. When they purchase your book, it’ll stay close to shore, where other readers can see it. But if you don’t plan for a beach party upon publication, your book will drift off to sea, and eventually end up in the South Pacific, stranded on a lifeless island. If your ebook is ranked in the 300,000+ zone, this is you.

If you publish on Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!, iTunes, or Smashwords, it’s even harder to get noticed, because the sheer weight of new books will push you deeper into the water.

So what can you do? What does it take to lift your book above the crowd and get the notoriety you deserve?

Good question. When I have the secret formula, I’ll bottle it and sell it to you for a thousand dollars per ounce. Until then, it helps to know that you are not being flat out rejected by the world, but you are, rather, unseen. Understand that, and embrace it. Knowledge goes a long way when you are problem-solving. Don’t take it personally. Accept your reality and work to improve your position in the crowd.

Of course there could be a few details like cover design, price, blurb, and editing that need fixed. But I'm talking about those today.

You need to figure out how you’re going to be an author that readers recognize. You have to build a platform. You have to brand yourself. You have to go into the big world, put on a pair of stilts, and start shouting “Hey, everyone, look over here! I write suspense novels with jaw-dropping twists. Anyone interested?” When you do that, someone will turn around and say yes. If you wrote a good book, they might recommend it to someone else. They could also write a review and encourage others to buy it. But don’t stop there. You have to keep walking clumsily through the crowd, hand-selling your work to readers, bloggers, and reviewers everywhere.

If you’re no good with stilts, try the trapeze. If that doesn’t work, hop on a unicycle or put on a clown suit. You may not get it right the first time around, but with a little trial and error, you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t. Just remember, what works for me may not work for you. I’m a lion tamer, and that’s somewhat daunting to the vast majority, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Besides, you could lose your head.

Getting noticed, especially when you only have one book published, can be a slow process, more so if you are not actively building your platform. The truth is, there is no quick answer to growing an audience. Building an author brand and platform takes time, maybe months, maybe years, and it takes multiple books and creativity.

Amazon’s KDP Select program is one tool that can boost an unknown author’s visibility tremendously. However, until your book appears on other book pages and gets serious traction, it will float away from shore until it manages to hit another spike via your marketing efforts or an unknown cause.

If you look at the top right-hand side of my blog, you’ll notice that I've almost hit five hundred followers. I’m excited about that because several months ago I didn’t think I’d reach one hundred. Five hundred looks like a lot, but there are other blogs with a whole lot more subscribers than I have. There is always a bigger duck in the pond.

Don’t compare yourself to anyone else. Take an honest assessment of where you are and chart a realistic course that will keep the wind to your back, blowing you toward shore, where the readers are. You might hit a sandbar on occasion, but that’s okay; authors wearing clown suits and splashing around in the ocean are likely to get a little attention.

This Post is an excerpt from my way cool book, The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe. Read my latest review where an author claims I helped boost his failing book to #16 in the free store.

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe. 

 

Pioneering Plot Lines Offers Peak Performance

One thing I've learned by tweeting and supporting other authors, is that not all books are created equal. 

Of course we all have our unique writing style, idiosyncrasies, and personality styles that make each of our books different. But sometimes I think novels suffer from un-originality. Reading is a great way to improve your prose, no doubt about it, but some would argue that reading too much of one genre or one author can taint one's ability to be truly innovative.

They, whoever they are, also say that there are no unique plot lines. They say it is nearly impossible to create a new plot structure, one that is unlike any other. And they, who ever they may be, are probably right. So the question is, how can you write a novel that is fresh and different or a new take on an old plot?

Answer: Write about you. No one else has ever lived your life. No one has ever been you. God made you with a secret recipe, some with sugar and some with extra hot peppers. So start there; in your own back yard, with your garden variety experiences.

That's what I did.

I wrote a fictional short story that's based on an actual experience I had while camping with my family and it turned out to be quite a unique story, with dramatic twists, lots of action, and crazy characters that spring to life. The story's called The Rumblin'. It's free today so I hope you get a copy and read it. It'll only take you about 25 minutes, but they'll be some of the best minutes of your life, I gaw-ran-tee it or your money back!

Here's the low down. And believe me, these were actual events…

In the summer of 2010, I took my family on a camping trip. We set up camp, started a fire, roasted hot dogs, etc. We knew there was a 30% chance of thunder showers but went anyway. Well, guess what? Within the first 3 to 4 hours of our weekend excursion, the sky turned dark, the wind picked up and a huge wall of black clouds came rushing at the campground like a bull in a clown convention. The camp owner buzzed through the campground on a golf cart, urging all of us to come to the cellar of the camp store before the storm hit. We did.

If you're an outdoors person, you'll know that there are a variety of characters that enjoy camping. Well, with all of us packed in there, pets and all, the writer in me began to imagine what it would be like if we were trapped. What if we couldn't get out? What if a tree fell on the building and it caught on fire? What if one of the campers was a killer? Sounds crazy I know. But that's how my writerly mind works; I can't apologize for that.

Anyway, while huddled up with my family, I started characterizing the other detainees and the kids and I  had a few frights and laughs. Before long, the rain dried up and we were set free. When we returned home, I wrote the short story of The Rumblin'. I hope you enjoy it. It's short, but fast paced, filled with a great cast, and very suspenseful.

The lesson? You don't have to be like everyone else. Live your own life and take those "Twighlight Zone moments" and turn them into fiction. You can't get any more creative than that.

Incidentally, The Rumblin' (17 reviews/4.4 stars) is FREE today and so is Reunion, my supernatural thriller about a group of kids who survive a school shooting and later reunite, PTSD and all, in their old school… and it's haunted! Enjoy!

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe. And follow me by email, I love it when you folks join my team.

 

Is There Such a Thing as a Best Day to Promote Your Ebooks

I've been fortunate to meet some really cool people in the ebook industry in the last year or so. Many have been extremely generous, helpful, motivating, and all around kind. One of those folks is Anthony Wessel from digitalbooktoday.com 

Anthony spent several years working in the book industry, overseeing multiple book stores. Part of his job was to study sales trends. He's been an invaluable resource and friend. Today I'm going to serve up some information he shared with me in a phone conversation, and in a comment on my previous post. 

A question we often hear is, "When is the best time to promote?" The easy answer is ALWAYS. The sarcastic answer is, "When you feel like it." But in Anthony's experience, there are basic sales trends that can indicate peak selling days and seasons. The most obvious time to expect a greater return on your marketing efforts is Christmas. But is that the only holiday to consider? No way. There is a year full of opportunity for indie authors.

Look at your Calender. Watch for every holiday. Have you noticed how every few weeks your local grocery and retail stores switch from one holiday to the next? Well, as marketers, authors should take these peak "promotional days" into consideration. It's worked for retail, so it should work for book sales, right? The way Anthony puts it is, there is always a promotion gong on. And isn't the the concept behind KDP Select; offering a "free" promotion, or "price leader" on a regular basis.

So how do you target your promotions? In my opinion, you have a window of oportunity that varies with each holiday.

Personally, I think there's a lag time for ebook sales; "lag" being the day(s) following a holiday. This lag, I believe is the time period between the actual holiday and the days and week that follow when new Kindle owners begin playing with their gadgets and actually start buying books. I saw this after my first KDP free day on Dec 24th. My sales increased on Christmas Day and continued to rise for the next few days, not slowing down after the first of the year.

For a rundown of the holidays that remain in 2012, look at the list below. Mark your calender and plan your promotions accordingly. You should also consider how your book is unique to the holiday. For example, if you write books that take place in Mexico, you might throw some extra promotion the first week of May in celebration of Cinco de Mayo. Olay!

April:

April 15 ~ Tax Day

April 22 ~ Earth Day

May:

May 5    ~ Cinco de Mayo

May 13  ~ Mother's Day

May 28  ~ Memorial Day

June:

June 14 ~ Flag Day

June 17 ~ Father's Day

July:

Independence Day

August:

Back to School Deals

September:

Sept. 3   ~ Labor Day

Sept. 11 ~ Patriot Day

October:

Oct. 8   ~ Columbus Day

Oct. 31 ~ Halloween

November:

Nov. 6   ~ Election Day

Nov. 11 ~ Veteran's Day

Nov. 22 ~ Thanksgiving

December:

Dec. 24 ~ Christmas Eve

Dec 25  ~ Christmas

Dec. 31 ~ New Year's Eve

Jan. 1    ~ New Year's Day

Obviously there are other holidays between January and April. Planning ahead for these events takes some serious forethought because many promotional sites like The Kindle Book Review, KindleNationDaily.com, digitalbooktoday.com, WorldLiteraryCafe.com fill up a month in advance so you can't promote effectively if you wait until the last minute.

Hopefully, looking at the big picture might help you navigate your marketing plan. What's that? You do have a plan right? Anyway, Happy promoting. And welcome to the new world of today's author, where we do it all, writing, selling, accounting, analyzing, and marketing.

Speaking of promotion, if you'd like to enter your book in The Kindle Book Review's Best Indie Books of 2012 Contest, go here ~> CONTEST. We are awarding cash, promotion packages, and giving away a Kindle Fire loaded with tons of the best Indie Books! Everyone wins; authors and readers.

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe.

What's Next For Indie Authors… After KDP Select?

Okay, I'll say it… it's the big elephant in the room, anyway. Authors everywhere are wondering what's coming after KDP Select. Word is there are over 100,000 authors enrolled in Amazon's hottest marketing platform, and more are coming everyday. So what happens when the program is saturated beyond it's current level?

I know you're worried. I hear authors every day talking about the delays in their "free day" and less than stellar sales compared to one or two months ago. The Amazon brainchild is a great idea and can work wonders for indie and newly published authors with little to no platform, but what happens when it is no longer effective? What happens when there are 150,000 or 200,000 or 300,000 authors fighting for a successful free promotion?

To answer that question I've come up with a few predictions.

Prediction #1:
Obviously Amazon has plans to expand on their promotions because when you schedule your "Free Book" promotion they ask you want kind of promotion. Well, there is only one at the present time. This tells me they've planned for additional promotions in the future. As a book promoter I know there are hundreds of ways to spin a new promotion. And with Amazon's resources, the sky is the limit. I believe they can offer a wide assortment of "promotions" like a free public announcement in their daily news letter, or a feature in a "HOT Prime reads" email blast. Basically Amazon has the power to promote anyone they want and if they want to promote you, if you have good reviews and a nice cover, you can become a bestseller, on the house.

Here's what I mean. Amazon's algorithms include lots of great stuff that everyone wishes they understood. Mathematically, it probably looks something like this only far more complicated:

a123*n^2 +200*n+a5 is in O(n^2) where n = your book(s) and a = Amazon's promo of choice. 


Now just add water and you can either come out smelling like a dew dampened rose or a pair of sweaty socks. It all depends on what Amazon plugs into the formula. So I think Amazon will add promotions that continue the carrot-dangling effect we are all feeling now.

Prediction #2:
I think Amazon can create multiple levels of promotions. For example, if you're enrolled now, as I am, we could all be in "Phase One". When they reach a calculated saturation point, say 150,000 lab rats, they can move us into "Phase Two" and hold any new comers in phase one for a select amount of time. Phase two could very well be an entirely different set of promotions, or free days with additional options to choose from. I do not think more free days would be advantageous as I am less excited to use my free days compared to how I felt two months ago.

Amazon could effectively create "Genre Promotions" or "Rating Promotions" or reward authors with "Loyalty Promotions". Anything is possible with these turkeys; they're brilliant. They are way ahead of the curve. They are water, wind, fire, and ground breakers.

Prediction #3:
Enough authors will leave the program when it becomes saturated, leaving a more vibrant and robust community of authors who will once again thrive in the Select program. If this happens, you better believe Amazon will reward those peeps.

So if you're concerned with how you're going to market your books when KDP Select is no longer "da chit", fear not. In my opinion, Amazon is NOT going to tuck their tale and limp home to their dog house. They're here for the long haul, and they intend to be profitable, and yes, on the willing backs of authors like you and me.

I'm good with that. Amazon's quadroupled my royalties in the last three months, so they're my new best friend.

Unlike Barnes & Noble, Amazon is made up of forward thinkers and Ace MBA's. I've put my faith in a few significant things like God, the food I put in my body, and the people I love. But I would almost, at the risk of sounding sacrilegious, put my faith in Amazon's shrewdness.

The question is not what or how they're going to adapt, but when the new program will take place. Scott Nicholson and I both predicted that the Select program could have a six-month life span. But I think this program is pulling a Benjamin Button on us because it's growing weaker by the day. Therefore, I'm guessing that Amazon will roll out another program of some kind by mid to late summer. I also think there's a chance that Amazon is just waiting to release the next monster as soon as Smashwords or B&N attempt a counter attack. The result, in my opinion, will continue to benefit indie authors and readers everywhere.

If all of this confuses you, I'd invite you read The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe. This book is the 101, 201, and 301 of indie authorship courses. I filled it with stuff like this and more from cover to cover. Don't believe me, just read the reviews.

Finally, if you're looking for a new promotional opportunity, I highly recommend that you register for THE BEST INDIE BOOKS of 2012 at The Kindle Book Review, my sister site. This contest is designed to help promote quality indie authors. Even if you don't win, you will walk away with a nice title that'll look nice on any book page. Click here to learn more info.

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe.

When Do Writers NEED Readers?

Question: When do writers need readers?

Are you laughing yet? I don't mean laughing like I said something funny, but laughing as in what kind of idiot would ask such a stupid question? The answer is obvious… ALWAYS.

Okay, so that was a silly question. But what I really want to know is, if the answer is so simple, why is it so hard for writers to find what they need the most? Why is it so complicated to get the masses to read our work? The answer to that question is simple; usually because no one knows who we are. If you don't believe me you should read the chapter "Why No One is Buying Your Book" in The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe. I hear the author knows his sh**.

Anyway, I've come up with a great way for all of you self-pubbed…. eh hem… I mean Indie Authors (with caps) to get noticed. And so far it's working. My new method is bringing in one new reader for every new author. That doesn't sound like much, but in the context of my method it is absolutely brilliant.

I love that word ~> Brilliant. Brilliant sounds so distinguished; especially when it rolls off the tongue of one of my UK pals. Anyway, I digress. Squirrel!

So what's the new method? What's the new marketing wiz kid come up with this time? Well, I'd tell you but I'd have to kill your neighbor. Why your neighbor? Because you'd be a suspect, and not me. And then you'd go to prison, because I'd fix it so all the evidence would point to you because I didn't really want to kill your neighbor in the first place. I just want to keep my marketing secrets private, not go to jail. Geesh.

Actually, I'm not like that. Actually, I'd only write about killing your neighbor, but I'd still tell you everything. LOL!

Okay, all jokes aside, I want you to know what I've come up with and why it's working. So now that I have your attention, I'm going to be serious for as long as I can stand.

The Marketing Blitz that I've constructed isn't new, but I'm using it in a new way. The tool is the writing contest I've initiated at The Kindle Book Review…. The Best Indie Books of 2012.

Here are a few ways this contest is going to help you sell your books:

• I've made it easy to be recognized. The contest is designed to weed out any books that miss the mark ~ poor editing, poor writing and story telling, etc. But it is also designed to recognize all of the books that make it through our initial screeners. Those who clear the screeners are entered as a "Semi-Finalist". So you can see how this can benefit you; your book gets screened, given a quality stamp, and you do not have to win. You can use the "Kindle Book Review's Best Books of 2012 Semi-finalist" title on your book page, giving you instant credibility. And in truth, if you make it past the screeners, you have accomplished a level of professionalism that your audience is looking for because our reviewers are avid readers and quite discerning.

•  We are Giving away Books. Freebies always grab reader's attention. Currently, we've received as many "reader submissions" to win the kindle and join our mailing list as we have author submissions. This is an excellent trend! This tells me that these folks are interested in indie books and viewing the books advertised on our site. Some have commented already that they are eager to find new authors. And that's what we all want. Isn't it?

• Most writing contests are strictly aimed at authors. This contest is aimed at both writers and readers. So not only can you follow the contest to see who advances, but so can readers. If you don't think our new mailing list followers aren't interested in who the best indie authors are, you are sadly mistaken. Kindle and Nook readers love buying books that are well written, and at indie authors prices (99¢-$4.99). And why shouldn't they when they can get equal pleasure from a quality indie author who sells for less.

• If you win, or at least make it to the finals, you will have some serious leverage working in your favor. Think of the glory. Think of the tweets! I can see it now... "Your Book Title ~ Winner of The Best Indie Books of 2012 - Your Genre!" Can you see the crowds swarming to your Amazon page? Okay. Slap, slap, slap. Wake up! It doesn't work like that, stupid. However, accolades and awards do help sell books.

So if I haven't convinced you yet, listen to this. We have made it easy to submit. We have made the process very simple. You'll need a Kindle formatted book. But if you don't have one, we've even provided a link to a site that can format your .doc file for free. We really tried to make this as simple and painless as possible. Never mind the fact that you could win a hundred bucks AND free advertising! We're also giving away a Kindle Fire, loaded with some of the best indie books out there. 

I truly hope you take advantage of this cross-promotional opportunity.

One more thing. PLEASE OH PLEASE, help us promote this contest with tweets, blog posts, facebook "likes" and shares. This contest is as "grassroots" as it can be and it will, in the end, help promote all indie and small press authors. So on behalf of all your fellow brothers and sisters in the indie author movement, and those registered in the contest, we thank you.

Jeff Bennington is the best-selling author of Reunion, Twisted Vengeance, and The Indie Author's Guide to the Universe.