I assume you’re reading this because success for you is defined, at least in part, by sales and revenue. therefore, in this section we will see how to make money with books.
(1) Write more books
(1) Write more booksThis may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many authors assume they can make a living from just a couple of books, or even just one book.
You are reading: How to make money with books
but look at all the other businesses out there.
Are there any retailers that base their business on a small number of products? Does any publisher base their income on a couple of books?
If you look at the top earning authors in the world, they generally have a large number of books and have been writing for a long time. many write several books a year. if you love writing then this shouldn’t be a problem for you. this will be the fun part, and here’s some more good news.
The more books you have, the LESS you have to market them because you’ll have an audience ready and waiting, critical mass on the digital shelves and multiple streams of income.
If you have twenty books, and each book only sells a couple of copies a day, you’ll still make more money over time than someone with just one book. a book with a big launch you may have a spike in sales initially, but over time the numbers will drop, unless another book comes along to boost the signal.
And of course, as you write more books, you’ll also become a better writer.
2. write books that people want to buy: by genre or category
It doesn’t matter how much marketing you do. if you write in a genre/category that doesn’t sell, then you won’t be able to make a living from your writing.
hard, I know. but true.
of course, you must write the book of your heart. I certainly did with my first book and also with a couple of my novels. that’s important to your creative integrity. but if you’ve been writing poetry and literary stories for years, don’t complain if you can’t make a living from what you write. they’re for love, not necessarily money, and we all need both!
If you want to know what people are buying, take a look at the top-selling books on Amazon.
or cut the process short and check out the data at authorearnings.com that shows that 70% of the top 200,000 ebooks are in the fiction genre, including romance, mystery/thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy. How can you write at the intersection of what people love to read and what you love to write? That’s the key.
I read a lot in multiple genres, including poetry and literary fiction. but when I felt miserable at my day job, I would read thrillers to escape the misery of the day. it was the way I could forget about my own life for a while and live vicariously somewhere else. that’s what books are to many people. then I write
so I write those kind of thrillers now, because I love reading them, and so do a lot of other people. they are also very fun to write. romance is a genre that sells better, but I don’t read romance, so I won’t write it. you need to immerse yourself in the genre to write it well. you can’t fool hardcore readers!
spend some time looking at the subgenres and how they’re structured.
I know a lot of writers hate “boxes,” but you have to pick two subcategories when you self-publish a book, and your agent will want to know what you’re writing about if you want a traditional deal. you need to know who your comparison authors are and this will help you research genres and find out what sells best.
For example, I write books that fall into the supernatural thriller, conspiracy thriller, and action adventure. my books don’t fit into the medical thriller or espionage. literary fiction is also a genre and there are many sub-genres within the category these days.
See Also: 35 Best Halloween Books for Kids-WeAreTeachers
Check out the rankings of the best books by subgenre to determine which ones are best sellers. Take a look at the covers and titles, as well as the sales descriptions. what are the images used? What are the expectations of the audience for these types of books? What do best-selling books have in common?
How does your book compare and what can you do to improve it?
3. Write books that people want to buy: by search term
3. Write books that people want to buy: by search termPeople want a book for entertainment, inspiration, or information. If you’re not yet a branded author, your nonfiction book is more likely to be discovered if you answer someone’s question or help them solve a problem.
so how do people find these books?
They search by category in bookstores and also use the search bar to try to find something relevant. they type keywords or keyword phrases into amazon or google and see what comes up. amazon is a search engine for people who are actively ready to buy, so you definitely want your book to appear in relevant searches.
try this.
go to amazon and change the search filter to kindle store to focus specifically on ebooks.
now type ‘how’ and see what happens.
you will get a dropdown menu of the top search terms starting with these words.
write ‘how to market a book’. You should find my book on the first page. the title of that book was designed to aid detection. I didn’t call it a smart thing. I simply titled it with the best possible search term to describe the content.
However, I learned this the hard way.
My first book back in 2008 was called How to Enjoy your Job or Find a New One. Not the most inspiring title, right! In 2012, after leaving my job, I updated the contents and re-titled the book. It’s now Career Change: Stop Hating your Job, Discover what you Really Want to do with your Life and Start Doing It.
The book ranks high for the search term “career change” so people find it even though I don’t do any marketing for that book and it doesn’t relate to my online platform.
Try this search idea for your own topics. it’s amazing what people are searching for, and this exercise might give you more ideas for writing other books.
4. write a series and hook people
There has been a change in our consumer culture, in the sense that people are now used to binge-watching and reading. they want to watch the entire boxset over a weekend instead of watching an episode a week for months. when the last series of game of thrones came out, we watched it for a few days because it’s an amazing show and we wanted to immerse ourselves in it. We weren’t alone in this binge-eating behavior and the same goes for books.
so if you have a series of books and people buy one and they like the characters, they are likely to buy the next one and follow you through the series. this maximizes your revenue per customer, whereas if you have stand-alone books with no related characters, people may read one and then not go back to the rest of your books.
Many authors speak of five in a series as a true turning point for consistent sales. the goal is to be addictive. romantic authors in particular do this very well. Check out the series by Bella Andre, Barbara Freethy, and H.M. Ward to see how the real pros do it.
It also works for non-fiction, for example, S.J.Scott has lots of books within the habits niche that each tackle a specific aspect of creating better habits. People who buy one of them are likely to buy more.
You can also keep promoting the first in the series to hook people. It doesn’t matter if the book was published a while ago because it’s always new to someone. once they discover you, at any point in the series, they are likely to come back and devour the entire background list. I’m sure you have as a reader. I certainly do.
You can also use a free ebook to introduce people to the series, as I do with Stone of Fire, ARKANE #1 which is free on all ebook stores. It’s a taster that will hopefully pull people in and there are eight other full-priced books for them to move onto.
You can also type faster if you type a string. you don’t have to reinvent the characters or the world, you just have to come up with a new plot, and that helps add books to the list, which brings in more revenue.
5. think global, digital, mobile and long-term
Most authors have a narrow vision of where they want to sell their books. consider the local physical bookstore, or sales nationwide. but the world is changing and if you own your rights you can sell your books all over the world.
The biggest market for e-books is still the US, UK, Canada and Australia, but I’ve now sold books in 84 countries and my books are available for sale in 190 countries.
Currently, the sales in sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Asia are quite small, but a year ago those sales didn’t exist. The rise of the mobile hyper-connected economy means that readers are discovering books through apps. Many of those people don’t live near a bookstore, so online retail will be the way they consume entertainment, inspiration and education. Your books can be read by people all over the world – now that’s exciting!
So if you’re worried about the flattening of the US e-book market. In the US, keep in mind that the rest of the world has only just begun. The next ten years are going to be extremely exciting for global sales and I personally expect this to be a larger percentage of my revenue each year. make sure you are positioned for this change.
6. write in multiple genres and multiple lengths
think more broadly about what you can write. don’t limit yourself to just one genre.
This kind of siled thinking comes from traditional publishing, where authors needed to stay within one brand so that the marketing team would more easily sell their books on a specific bookstore shelf. But the world of online sales is more nuanced and now there is no limit to what you can do.
Having books from different genres can also guard against the ups and downs of the book sales roller coaster. my nonfiction sells better some months, my action adventure other months, and crime in the dark winter months! I intend to cover more genres to continue this spreading effect.
I also find it easier to switch between fiction and non-fiction during the day. I can only focus on writing fiction for a few hours, so I can “clean my palate” by writing nonfiction for a while. uses a different part of my brain and this means I can write more books over time.
You can also use multiple author names for different genres if you wish. this works well if you have diverse audiences. For example, I use J.F. Penn for my thrillers and Joanna Penn for my nonfiction, since the audience crossover is fairly small. if you write children’s and erotic books, using different names is also a good idea! but otherwise, there are no rules.
In terms of length, the digital world means that readers are less sensitive to shorter works. You won’t get a print deal for a novel (about 20,000-40,000 words), but you can definitely sell it as an online e-book. Novels, or shorter nonfiction books like this one, are easier for readers to consume and offer great value at a cheaper price. they are also much easier and faster to write.
7. consider upselling
There is a set price point for books. It’s usually between free and around $100, with most prices hovering around the low end, under $15. People have been trained to only spend that much on books, despite the incredible value out there. inside.
If you write nonfiction in particular, consider how you could repackage that material into multimedia courses that people are willing to pay more for. People value video and audio more than text, so they will pay more for the same information packaged in a different format.
Taking this even further, people value personal time and community more than any of these, so if you sell consulting services, events, or access, you’ll be able to sell even more. I’ll talk more about these options in part 2.
8. grow your own email list
There are so many options with marketing, but the best-selling authors I know, the ones who make a lot of money from their books, only do a few things consistently.
They write a lot of books on popular genres and grow their own email lists. They offer something attractive for free on their sites and communicate with readers. they send out emails when books are available and are able to rank at the top of bestseller lists through sales to their fans along with paid advertising. For more details on this, check out the replay of the webinar I did with Nick Stephenson: www.thecreativepenn.com/nickjo
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