Day 25 Author Blog Challenge

If your goal is to sell books, you must view your book as a business. In what ways do you treat your book as a business? Where could you improve? What resources could you leverage to improve your book business?

 

It may seem odd that, while books are my business and treated as such, my primary goal is always to write books, or whatever I’m working on at the moment, selling them is a secondary goal. The reason for this is I sometimes write for a very limited audience, as in writing a family history, where the market may come down to a few hundred at the most. This is my choice.

To generate a paying market, while staying within my preferred nonfiction area, I’ve written to a specific market with a ‘how to’ book, How to Make Plastic Ribbon Lampshades, which I sell through Amazon, Kindle and occasionally on eBay. I don’t do anything to market this book as the subject matter draws potential buyers as this is the only publication of its kind. I sell this book at the $19.99 RRP while many sellers offer it from between $30 - $50. This saves me from having to do any sales work with this book as buyers most often seek out the cheapest on offer – and that’s me.

With The Little Book of Poetry Terminology $15.95 RRP, and The Little Book of Writerly Words, $19.95 RRP, the story is pretty much the same, where those looking for books of this nature will find them without too much trouble and a quick comparison of process will bring them my way. Both of these books sell for double that through other outlets.

 

All my books are advertised through my blog, Pinterest, Facebook and other opportunities as they arise.

There’s much I could do to improve my business, but I’m content to coast along, writing to my own deadlines and receiving cheques from Amazon as they come in.