As a writer, it’s easier to work in the writing business than it is in the book-selling business. You need to keep growing your business by writing more books, while marketing your current catalog to potential buyers. It is an ongoing task. While we would all love to spend our days creating and writing, we cannot afford to stop marketing to our readers, because every day hundreds of new books flood the market and voracious readers are always ready to try the latest offering.
The best-selling times for any product are Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. Other themed days, for example Valentine’s Day for romance writers, can generate sales if you apply specific marketing techniques.
These busy trading periods are not the time to discount your books or give them away. Now is the time to kick the marketing machine up a notch to take advantage of the fact that people need to buy gifts for their friends and loved ones and are looking for ideas. Christmas especially can be a stressful time of year, so take some time early in the year to work on a marketing campaign that focuses on specific needs to help readers make a decision. Use terms in your marketing like “a great sock supplier” and “a man’s book that has it all” to attract distressed buyers.
Instead of cutting your profit margins by discounting the price of your books, try adding value. If you sell paperbacks, offer to wrap your book in Christmas paper and tinsel and ship it directly to the buyer so that all they have to do is place the gift under the tree. Print some inexpensive bookmarks and offer a free bookmark with every book purchase. If you’ve written a series of books, from an e-book perspective, make an offer to readers that if they buy the first book in your series, you’ll give them the second. That way, the reader gets something for free and you get the copyright on the sale, so the ‘gift’ has cost you very little. The customer feels that they are getting something for nothing and you are building a relationship with your readers who will be more inclined to buy your future books.
Because people are more open to buying new things when they are in a rush to fill out their holiday lists, you may attract a lot of new readers, so be sure to follow up on them and add their names and addresses to your mailing list. email so you can alert them of any new releases.
You should have your marketing campaign ready to start before any high peak sales period, and also take some time afterward to review the numbers. How many more books did I sell? Where did the sales come from? Take your time now to get ready for next year.
The effort you put into creating a targeted marketing campaign will be reflected in your sales figures.
Make no mistake: writing books is a business that includes both marketing and sales. Unless you want to pay a professional to advertise and market your books, thus eroding your profit margin, you will have to learn to get your name out there, and keep it there, if you want to sell books.