Buy the book or I'll break... your thumb - not

Hmm - despite what the title says, one doesn't want to resort to mob style tactics to sell books.  Of course, I'm not even built to be a physical threat to anyone anyway - so there goes that option.

 Seriously, what does sell books?  Is it giveaways like bookmarks, pens and lipstick holders?

Hmmm - got more pens then I need and last I looked, the house was flooded with bookmarks, some of them, many of them - mine.  And besides I was trying to simplify.  Apparently that means less stuff!

Okay, so again you ask - what sells books?  Will you quit reading if I say right now I don't have the magic answer?  I don't think there is a magic anything unless you have the name - you all know the name, the one that is immediately recognizable like if Queen Elizabeth II decided to write a book or better yet, any number of music or movie stars.  Wait, what do you mean some of them did?  Sigh - as if the market wasn't flooded enough. 

Ring of Desire - Hot or Not in the Dead Sea?

But what else sells books, since most of us aren't destined for fame or even infamy?  I know the obvious things - market presence, known name to consumers and of course a fabulous product that everyone knows about - and sometimes good old-fashioned luck; right time, right place.

Maybe it's consistency and baby steps that gets the job done.  Like my dad, whose been unable to walk since his accident.  To get him moving again we're going to try, rather than a big push to physio and standing up immediately,  pedaling or moving around using your feet to propel a wheelchair.  But whether he pedals or doesn't, walks or doesn't, it is all dependent on my dad's frame of mind, a dicey thing these days, you'll know if you've been following this blog, but maybe that wheelchair will be the magic number that gets him slightly more independent.

Ring of Desire - Hot or not in Petra?

I think selling books is much like that - keep moving forward - write another book, send out a newsletter etc. etc..  But first,  I apologize to Dad right now for comparing promoting to his walking but I know "back in the day", he'd get it and be the first to say I should use the comparison.  Of course he'd add one of his interesting catch phrases which I won't repeat here.

So lets talk about my latest marketing venture.  My e-books were price slashed on Amazon from $4.99 to .99 cents through to the end of October.   I thought sales would be immediate with a few well-placed online ads.

Wrong.

A - the ads may not be not as well-placed as I thought.  Because on day two, no one was getting it.  So going on the recently read theory, that seven ads equal success (where do they get these numbers?) I carried on - and on, and, on. 

From the Dust/Ring of Desire - Hot or not in Swaziland?

The other day, the numbers on Amazon blipped and then they lurched and then they peeled downward by hundreds of thousands.  Smaller numbers on Amazon are good - very good!  But sitting as far up on the queue as I was means you have a lot of room to move.  And even a few sales can give you a big number jump.  So what happened?

Only one thing for sure - a book sold.   "Heavenly days" as my MIL would say.  Now how many books?  Well, I tried the free trackers and they couldn't even verify what I knew for sure.  So maybe I sold five books or ten or... thousands - okay pull me from my "happy place".  I sold a few and I can live with that if it consistently does that from now to the the end of the month.  Because you know, I may be biased, but they're good stories.  So, meantime I'm going to keep getting the word out and  I'm going to be happy if I can continue to shave a small whack of numbers off my Amazon rating and get my books noticed by their darn algorithm!

And thanks to all of you that took the chance - and forked out .99 cents.  Not bought under diress I hope.  Not that there was any threat to your thumb if you didn't - really.

Ryshia
www.ryshiakennie.com