What to Do If Your Book Is Not Selling
EPISODE EIGHTY FOUR
There’s nothing more discouraging than pouring your heart into a book… only to watch sales stall or never take off at all. But before you assume your book is the problem, let’s take a closer look.
Because chances are, it’s not your writing. It’s your marketing.
In this episode, Marcus and I walk you through a 5-step Book Sales Audit to help you pinpoint exactly where things may be going wrong.
You'll learn what to look for, what to tweak, and how to breathe new life into your sales.
Whether your sales have stalled or you just want to make sure you’re set up for long-term success, this episode will give you clear, actionable strategies to move forward with confidence.
Evaluate your low sales with the Five-step Book Sales Audit
Step 1: Cover Check
Is your cover genre-appropriate and professional? If it doesn’t look like a bestseller, people won’t buy.
Step 2: Book Description & Hook
Does your blurb sell the story, or is it just a summary? Strong copywriting increases conversions.
Step 3: Pricing Strategy
Are you priced competitively? Sometimes a simple pricing tweak can make a huge difference.
Step 4: Audience Targeting
Do you know who your ideal reader is? What they are looking for? What they respond to?
Step 5: Visibility & Discoverability
Are your keywords, categories, and descriptions optimized for searchability?
Other Things to Keep In Mind
Sales fluctuate and that’s perfectly normal. If your sales go down a bit, it’s a great time to reassess and make some changes or adjustments.
How often are you posting or promoting? Staying at the front of your readers mind is key. Check to see when you last talked about your book on social media, with your newsletter, in your marketing.
Stick with it and give it time. Marketing your book is a long game. It’s not something that happens overnight. Stick with it and have a long term vision - don’t just focus around the release date.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Marcus dePaula: Jenn, what would you say to authors who are frustrated because their book sales aren't what they expected?
Jenn Hanson-dePaula: There's nothing more frustrating than working as hard as an author does on a book and seeing either very few sales initially when their book comes out, or if it's going downhill, and they just don't know what to do about it. There are some things that you can do to actually make sure that everything is in place, that your marketing is in order, and that you can actually improve those sales.
Marcus: There is a natural decline in sales after launch, obviously, but what we're talking about here is when it's not meeting your expectations at all, even when you're trying very hard to do your best with your book.
Jenn: It is very frustrating, especially when we've put that much effort into making sure that it's professionally edited, that we've had trusted feedback from others who are reading our book and giving us constructive criticism, and helping us make the best book possible. When we actually put it out into the world, and we think, "Oh, I'm going to get huge sales out of this." The,n when we don't see it, we take it personally and we think, "Oh, my book is awful," or "This book is doomed," when it's actually not. We just might need to make some adjustments in our marketing strategy.
Marcus: What I hear you saying is that there's a lot more to the book's success than the quality of the book itself. What are some of the factors that you have authors look at that could help them with their marketing strategy?
Jenn: The first thing that I always do is like a triage. It's going in and making sure that a few things are in place first before we make some major adjustments within the overall marketing strategy. The first thing that I always do is I look at their book cover, making sure that their book cover looks the best that it can be, that the title is very easy to read, that it matches within its genre, that it's not something that's completely out of left field. Yes, you can always be creative, and you want to make sure that your book stands out, but you also want to make sure that it feels similar or in the same vein as other books within your genre.
Marcus: It's not going to be off-putting to readers when they see it next to the other books on the shelf. Exactly. There's an example of an author that I worked with who had a lovely book cover, but the title was very small and it was in a weird cursive font. It looked cool, but even if you were to scroll through the Amazon feed, can you actually see the title? Does your book stand out? Does the title, I hate to use the word pop, but does it pop, does it stand out? It's looking at how it lands on the Amazon page. That's something that we don't obviously think about when we're thinking about the actual cover.
If it is something that you feel, "Okay, this doesn't really stand out," or if it is hard to read, then that is something that you can adjust.
Marcus: While we don't want to judge a book by its cover, the reality is, your readers are going to use that as their first impression of your book. You need to think about that.
Jenn: Absolutely. That does catch a reader's eye. We do land on that saying quite a bit, but it really makes a difference.
Marcus: What else can authors be looking at besides the cover to grab readers' attention in their book marketing?
Jenn: The next thing is to really think about the book's description and the hook of the book. Now the description is really what is written, like if you open up Amazon, and you see what the book is about. Many times, authors put whatever might be on the back of the cover, which can work, of course, but we want to make sure that you get them right away. Having your hook right at the top of the book in bold letters to really stand out and to really lay this out in a way that takes readers on the journey of what it is, those emotions that they're going to be getting when they read the book. That's really important for a fiction book.
For nonfiction, something that I would really focus on is including some bullet points, especially if you're giving some sort of lesson or if there's something that you are going to be covering, the transformation that readers will experience after reading this book. Having something that's skimmable that really jumps out at them is going to be important within the description and also in how you actually market your book. Whether it's in your social media posts or if it's in the copy on your website, it's thinking through how am I going to describe this book that's really going to capture their attention and stand out.
Marcus: Just like with the book cover, where people are going to see it on a bookshelf or on the Amazon feed or on Google search results as a thumbnail image, where are readers going to be experiencing this description and this hook that authors need to keep in mind?
Jenn: They're going to keep it in every aspect of their marketing. It is a framework that you can use within your website copy. It's in your social media posts on brochures, or wherever it is that you're going to be talking about your book.
Marcus: Table banners, displays.
Jenn: Exactly. It's everywhere that you're going to be talking about your book. It doesn't mean that you have to use that complete phrase or that description exactly everywhere. It's a foundation of how you're going to be communicating about your book. You can rework it and reorganize it a bit here and there, but it's really going to be that description that is going to draw people in and show them why your book is exactly what they've been looking for.
Marcus: As authors are coming up with the wording to include in their description, their hook, they have to be considering who they're trying to get the attention of, right?
Jenn: Absolutely. It comes back to something that I hound over and over and over again is, do who your ideal reader is? Authors tend to get a little too precious with it, thinking, "Oh, this is the only person that is going to be buying my book. I don't want to limit anyone." This isn't actually the whole market research of it. This is for someone for you to speak to, for you to really focus your attention on. What would they respond to? What would they find interesting? What would they find helpful?
When we can really focus on who it is that we're talking to, it's going to make coming up with that description that much easier, knowing what it is that they're going to be responding to, because not everybody's going to like your book, and that's okay. That actually makes the marketing easier because if you're trying to market it to everyone, you're having to appease so many different people and so many different tastes and likes. When you're talking to your ideal reader, it really removes those questions of what are they going to respond to so that you can hit it right on the nose.
Marcus: It's really putting yourself in your reader's shoes and thinking about what are they actually searching for in Google to solve their problem or when they're shopping for the next fiction book that they want to enjoy. What are they experiencing? What are they seeing online? What's going to grab their attention?
Jenn: Yes. That really leads to the next point of focusing on your keywords and the categories that you're putting your book in. The keywords are those words that people are actively searching for. If they are looking for a book on anxiety, you would use words like anxiety, like feelings, all of these different emotions that people are actively searching for help with. When we take the time to really research and to look for the best keywords and for the best categories to put our book in, it is going to make them discoverable. When we put them in a category or within keywords that are used a lot or that are very popular, we're going to get buried in with the mix of things.
We want to make sure that we're using the right keywords. That takes a little bit of research and a little bit of time, but it is definitely time well spent.
Marcus: Instead of using a broad keyword like self-help, you want to go a little deeper.
Jenn: Exactly. Getting into something that is a little bit more on the nose and not so broad.
Marcus: We've got our cover. We've got our hook and description. We're really aware of who our ideal reader is and what keywords they're going to be searching for online. What else should authors be looking at to take their marketing to the next level?
Jenn: Many times, when we see that our book isn't selling, we automatically think, "Oh, I need to cut the price." That is not the case. Looking at what books within your genre are priced at and pricing them competitively is going to be key. There are many readers who think, "Oh, if this book is free all the time, is it good? Is it going to be worth my time? Is it valuable enough?" Does this mean that you don't put a promotion on it and put it for 99 cents or something like that? No. It's really looking at how other books within your genre are priced and you looking at where you can fit that into how your book is priced.
It's not just slashing the price and thinking, "Okay, that's going to fix it for me."
Marcus: If you do a limited time sale, being very strategic of how you promote that sale, getting people to sign up for your newsletter, that sort of thing, not just slashing the price and expecting that to help your sales overall.
Jenn: Exactly. You have to promote that promotion. You have to let people know about it. Just assuming that Amazon is going to let people know that it's for sale is not going to happen.
Marcus: That's a great five-step audit that authors can do. What else do you have for authors that can help them when they're discouraged by lower book sales?
Jenn: There are a few things to always keep in mind. The first one is that sales ebb and flow. It is an up-and-down roller coaster. When we look at even the calendar, is it summertime? Are people on vacation a lot? Are they not spending as much time reading? It's going to go up and down. If it's a holiday season, there's a lot of people buying things at Christmas time. There are many, many factors that go into it being a high season and a low season. Just knowing that it's not going to be an upwards trajectory all the time, and that is okay.
Marcus: It doesn't all hinge on your launch date and all that stuff?
Jenn: No. That's one of the biggest surprises I think new authors face when their launch doesn't go through the roof or when sales just trickle in right at first. It is okay. It is not going to be the trajectory of their entire writing career. Many times, especially if you are a brand-new author, those sales might not come initially, but it doesn't mean that they can't go up from there. You have to keep talking about it.
Marcus: It's never going to be just linear, like you're saying.
Jenn: No.
Marcus: It's going to be-
Jenn: Up and down.
Marcus: -up and down.
Jenn: Every successful author has seen peaks and valleys, so you're not alone in that one.
Marcus: As we watch our book sales ebb and flow, we are hoping for that upward trend. One way that we can ensure that is not just showing up, but being very specific in how we're communicating about our book with our readers, right?
Jenn: Yes. You have to talk about your book. You have to promote it. If an author comes to me saying, "My sales are in the toilet," I'll go look at either their social media posts or their newsletters or wherever it is that they're marketing their book. If they have not talked about their book or if they haven't had a call to action for readers to go check out my book on my sales page or go to Amazon and check out my latest book or anything really driving them to the actual sale, yes, you aren't selling because you aren't telling people about it. That is honestly one of the biggest reasons why I see so many authors not selling books is because they're just actively not promoting it.
A big piece of pushback that I get from authors is, "Well, those posts, when I promote my book, they don't get as many likes or as many views." We're not going for likes and views. When we are promoting, we are taking the people whose attention we do have who are interested in your book and saying, "Here's where you can purchase it." I always talk about the three different types of posts that you should make, connection posts, promotional posts, and nurturing posts. The connection posts are getting those visibility, likes, views, and all of that. Then once we have that, we need to let people know, "Oh, this is what my book is about. This is what I have for you. Here's where you can go buy it."
Marcus: Then, finally, one thing that we talked about last time is the fact that there's no one silver bullet in our book marketing that's going to just immediately make a change. That this is a long game, and it's going to take time.
Jenn: Yes. The authors that I see the most success with have that long-term vision. They're focusing not just on the release. Around those three months of the release, they are thinking about how this is going to impact not only this book, but future sales of their future books.
Marcus: Like you say, this is a learning experience. I see a lot of authors not just get frustrated by the book sales themselves, but frustrated by the amount of energy and expense that they're putting into their marketing. The return on value can be that learning experience when you're looking at the long game and that extended vision for your overall career as an author, not just that one book.
Jenn: Exactly. It is thinking about it more as a career. This isn't just selling a single book. This is laying the foundation for your entire career.
Marcus: Like we talked about in the previous episode, it is going to be a series of small changes, having that expectation, again, that word expectation, that this is going to be a long-term thing that you're going to build over time. We're all in different places. Where can authors start?
Jenn: The first thing is to pick one of these strategies, one of these tactics, and it's making small changes, one piece at a time. If we were to go in and do all of these things all at once, we wouldn't know which of these things was it that actually turned things around. We want to make small changes, take some time to observe and see, "Okay, this didn't do it. Let's try the next thing." Small changes make a massive difference. Just taking one of these strategies, putting it to work, is really going to not only save your sanity, but it's going to help how you can make adjustments even long-term as you move forward in your writing career.
Marcus: We will put the summary list of what we've talked about in the episode notes at jenndepaula.com for you to go in and just pick one thing to take a look at this week to get started. Then let us know in the comments, on our website, on social media, on YouTube, what you picked and how it's going. Then also, let us know what other questions arise as you work on this stuff.
Jenn: Can't wait to hear from you, and we'll see you next time.