Send to Kindle

By:  Karen Baney

Okay.  So, I don’t really know the sure-fire way to double your sales as an author.  But, I can share with you what has been working well for me over the past three months—months where I’ve double my sales each month.

First, and most importantly, none of the following suggestions will be successful if you haven’t written a great novel and you don’t have a good cover.  Those two things are absolutely critical for your success as an author.

That little disclaimer aside, here are the three things that have helped me the most in the past three months.

Twitter

After much nagging from my hubby, “Are you on Twitter yet?  You need to be on Twitter.” I finally broke down and got on Twitter.  The first month I was on it, I could hardly figure out what to do with the thing.  I mean 140 characters is frightening to a word smith.  How was I going to say anything in that short space?

So, I started reading other people’s blogs about Twitter.  I learned about hash tags, how to schedule tweets, what kinds of things to tweet, and how to engage with others.  The first month I was on Twitter, my Amazon sales ranking went from somewhere around 108,000 to hovering around 35,000. Pretty good, say you?  I thought so.  And I doubled my sales from the previous month.

(Yes, my hubby was right – just don’t tell him I said so.)

But that wasn’t the only front of my marketing efforts.

Blogging

Yes.  I just said the dreaded “b” word.  But, let’s get real.  Blogging does help.

I’ve finally gotten into a routine with blogging.  I started a series highlighting the main characters from my Prescott Pioneers Series.  This blog series runs every Wednesday.  I include a photo (purchased for less than $5 at iStockPhoto), the character’s stats, and a few insider secrets that only I as the author know about the character.  My fans love it.  It also gives me a chance to promote my books in an interesting way.

The other blog series I started was a Friday post just for authors about various writing topics.  This is a great way to network with other authors and some of them may even buy my books too.  If nothing else, they will have learned something from my posts.

I’ve also recently added an author spotlight series on Mondays, where I feature interviews with other indie authors.

During this time frame, my Amazon ranking went from 35,000 to about 11,000.  Oh—you guessed it—I doubled my sales from the previous month getting very close to that 1,000 book a month barrier.

Then, the next big thing hit…

Cross Promotion

I finally had enough money coming in from my sales that I could spend a little extra on marketing.  So, I started snooping around to find some cheap ways of marketing.  Well, in that process, I connected with Melissa Foster, best-selling author on Amazon.  I was invited to participate in a big promotion.

This promotion hadn’t even launched yet, and I saw tremendous benefit.  I’ve connected with 36 new author friends.  We’ve been helping cross promote for each other over the past month.  I’ve also learned from them ways to work smarter and not harder (like scheduling tweets, getting my book on various websites, etc.)

Since meeting this great group of people, my Amazon sales rankings have jumped from 11,000 to hovering around 2,500.  Wow!  I call that a success.  And… I doubled my sales from the previous month, finally breaking the 1,000 books a month barrier by a significant amount.

While I can’t guarantee you’ll see the same results, I hope I’ve given you a few ideas on how you, as an author, can market your books and reach out to new readers.

The Revolution – A Footnote

In the two weeks since this post appeared on another blog, I’ve experienced something I never thought I would:  an explosion of interest in transparency.  People have been emailing me with questions.  Authors are banding together to form cross promotion groups.  I’ve completely lost track of how many times this article has been tweeted about (and even if I don’t personally thank each of you, please know I sincerely appreciate your help in getting the word out).

One of the best outcomes of this article is that I am now a part of Grace and Faith 4 U.  This brand new author community is quickly becoming a great place for Christian authors of all genres to meet, get to know each other, and help promote each other’s work.  My heart is overflowing – I have wanted this type of support from the day I typed my first word of my first novel.

Will you join me in this revolution?  Become a part of Grace and Faith 4 U (FB Page: Grace & Faith Author Connection)or start your own group!

Self-published author, Karen Baney, enjoys sharing information to help authors learn about the Business of Writing.  She holds a Masters of Business Administration from Arizona State University and has worked in various business related career fields for the past 20 years.  She writes Christian Historical Fiction and Contemporary Romance novels.  For more information about Karen or her books, visit http://www.karenbaney.com.