Book Marketing Truths

• September 1, 2020

Here are 13 rookie mistakes that kill your book sales:

1. Self-publish your book and wait by the phone – Ugh, been there, done that, it doesn’t work.

2. Traditionally publish your book and wait by the phone – also not recommended. Books don’t sell themselves no matter which publishing route you take.

3. Not establishing your platform sooner – you need reach and visibility to sell books (and anything else for that matter!)

4. No book proposal – Even if you plan to self-publish, creating a proposal serves as a blueprint and roadmap for your book marketing success.

5. Having only books in your arsenal – A book is a “gateway” into all your other investable opportunities. Make sure your high-fee offerings align with the content of your book.

6. Going it alone. You need book endorsers, launch partners, possibly even contributors to help you build a community of promoters around your book.

7. Using expensive PR firms – almost every single author regrets doing this for the simple reason that their campaigns do NOT generate book sales.

8. Paying for “Amazon #1 bestseller” campaigns. As you may know, a dirty sock became an Amazon #1 bestseller and there are a ton of scammers and goofballs promising “guaranteed” bestseller status. We’ll reveal why that’s not the point — and how to hit your goals regardless of this phony metric.

9. Not branding the book. Your book is your brand and you should be able to build your business around that book and its ideas for the next 3-5 years.

10. Being afraid of sales. Don’t worry about hawking your books. Focus instead on selling your ideas, value, impact, results, outcomes, and gifts – and selling everything (including your book) becomes much easier!

11. Buy into an anthology. For most authors, this is a shortcut that seems very appealing until you realize it’s a money-making ploy for the so-called “publisher” and you get very little juice from being in a book with 20 other authors who couldn’t cut the mustard on their own, either. Sigh.

12. Marketing overwhelm. Having no idea what to do – when to do it – how to get it done – and thus ending up frustrated, confused, and doing next to nothing to market your book. Lack of marketing leads to a lack of sales leads to a lack of monetization. That’s called a doom loop.

13. Mistake size for value. If you’re writing your first (or next) book, don’t give in to the false assumption that you have to write a 300-page tome. Many of the highest-grossing and bestselling business books of the past 20 years weigh in at less than 125 small-format pages.