TL;DR
Sell Your Books: Marketing Without the Hype. Most book marketing advice is written by people who have never marketed a book. Gurus who decided book marketing was a profitable niche. Bloggers recycling tips from other bloggers. Coaches who will happily take your money to tell you things that sound good and do not produce sales. 660 pages, drawn from 113+ books published and 54+ ghostwritten.
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The one-page overview: the argument, what the book covers, and where to buy it.
I have been in the indie publishing trenches for over a decade. I have published across multiple genres, run thousands of dollars in ads, built email lists, and launched books that succeeded alongside books that flopped spectacularly. I made every mistake in this book and learned from most of them.
The book that sold twelve copies, then fifteen thousand
In 2013 I quit my job as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s, packed up, and moved to Florida to make it as a professional writer. My first book was on cybersecurity. I published it, told a few people, and waited. It sold maybe a dozen copies.
I had written a decent book and done nothing to put it in front of the people who needed it.
Then I worked out LinkedIn. I had a cybersecurity book. LinkedIn had an audience of professionals who worried about cybersecurity every day. I stopped waiting and started showing up where my readers already were. Three days later the book had sold 15,000 copies and hit number 43 in all of Kindle.
Not because the book got better. Because I found the channel.
Keep reading
The Writing Hub: publishing, marketing and the business of being an author, gathered in one place.
What is inside
Part I, strategy
- What you are trying to build, in plain terms
- Identifying your reader before you write to them
- Building an author platform that generates leads
- Pricing and positioning for the market you are in
Part II, tactics
- Covers, descriptions, launch teams and launch parties
- Reviews, social media, Amazon advertising, newsletters
- Podcast tours and speaking opportunities
- KDP, IngramSpark, Draft2Digital, and the wide versus Kindle Unlimited decision
Part III, the harder situations
- Marketing a large catalog
- What to do when a book simply will not sell
- Marketing with ADHD
- Scams and vanity presses that target authors at every stage
Part IV, expanding revenue
- Audiobooks
- Selling direct through Payhip and Shopify
- Special editions and Kickstarter campaigns
- Promotional tools including BookBub
What it does not pretend
The book includes the Facebook ads money I lost, the Amazon advertising landscape that was far more profitable five years ago than it is now, the platform that terminated my account without explanation, and the client who built a launch team through years of relationships before his book existed.
It does not pretend the game is easy. It explains how hard it is, what realistic timelines look like, and what separates the authors who build sustainable careers from the ones who publish once, wait for sales that never come, and give up.
Who it is for
Worth your time if: you would rather be writing than marketing, and accept that marketing is part of the job; you have published and the sales did not come; you are running ads and cannot tell whether they work; you want real numbers, not bestseller secrets.
Not for you if: you want to go viral; you believe quality always rises to the top; you are looking for a shortcut and not a system.
Ready to start?
The Ghostwriting Book Service: if you would rather not do it alone.
Frequently Asked Questions
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About the author
