THE Group for Authors! discussion

How to achieve greater sales of our books?
Is the book content is important? Or because of the sales ?? Or the readers of the books are to achieve sales?
Or there is a better way you know it?.

Book content is very important. If the book is good, the people who read it will like it and write good reviews which Amazon does take into acccount. I've seen a few very poorly written and not edited at all books with hundreds of great reviews and I shake my head, wondering how they could get so many when I can't even get through the crazy story/bad grammar/puntcuation...

They must have a big family and a lot of friends--though Amazon has refused to publish at least 11 reviews for my first book because, somehow they know my friend in Ohio is my friend, as if a friend didn't really read it or doesn't have an honest opinion... It is pretty frustrating.

Cover is also important. Readers may not download/buy a book because of a bad cover. Remember, it has to look good as a thumbnail. The two things self-published authors need to pay for: good editing and a professional cover.

S. Jackson wrote: "Book content is very important. If the book is good, the people who read it will like it and write good reviews which Amazon does take into acccount. I've seen a few very poorly written and not edi..."

If that were true, explain Twilight and Fifty Shades. :D

It looks as though those pesky mobiles are taking over. We may all need to take action now

ow.ly/LZXIv

I've probably become something of a cynic in my old age (!) but I don't think content is as important in today's publishing world. Marketing, promotion, and being in the right genre at the right time are critical.

As Martyn said...

It would be sad if content was not important, if fact, everything. But of course if you are famous content is irrelevant.

Thanks Janet for GOOGLE INSIGHT! I'm a retired Nat'l Park Ranger who now writes nonfiction books. I write books friends tell me need to be written; so I am banking on content still matters! My readers seem to share my books with friends who buy their own books; so It appears content still matters!

Content is king - no matter who writes it.

Content is extremely important, but not sufficient for success.
You can have the best product in the world, but unless people get to know about it, you won't sell any at all.

Getting people to know about it is purely dependent on putting it in front of a sufficiently large and well-targeted audience. This, for example, is what sites like Readers in the Know can do for you.

However, getting people to know about your book is only useful if those people are then sufficiently motivated to buy / download it.

For an indie author, getting people to buy / download a book on Amazon is probably about 95% dependent on your cover, blurb, pricing and review count, and maybe just 5% dependent on the content visible through Look Inside.

However, you'll never get the reviews and word of mouth that'll make your book a hit unless, once purchased, your content is also found to be excellent by those who have bought it.

So in brief, success in this game relies on the complex interplay of all these factors. You're right though in a sense, insofar as large numbers of initial sales can be made with poor content, but such success is likely to be short-lived and ultimately unsustainable.

http://www.readersintheknow.com/home

Simon wrote: "Content is extremely important, but not sufficient for success.
You can have the best product in the world, but unless people get to know about it, you won't sell any at all.

Getting people to kn..."
Agreed, if no one knows about it, it will never be read.

Speaking of Readers in the Know...I'm set up for a BOTD, but I thought that the book would also run for that entire week. Can you help me out on that?

Randall wrote: Speaking of Readers in the Know...I'm set up for a BOTD, but I thought that the book would also run for that entire week. Can you help me out on that?

The free Book of the Day ad is, by definition, just for the day. It's far more effective however, to run a price promotion, either free or discount, which can last up 5 or 7 days respectively and results in an email notification to all members whose preferences match the book.

Probably most effective of all is to combine the ad with the promotion.

You're feel free to cancel or reschedule the ad at any time up until the day itself, by clicking on it in the calendar on your dashboard.

For a video guide to scheduling promos, see here:
http://www.readersintheknow.com/video...

For scheduling / rescheduling an ad, see here:
http://www.readersintheknow.com/video...

Thanks, Simon. I went ahead and scheduled a Kindle countdown. It states the countdown and my name.. do I need to go and add the books name. I thought I did that, but it doesn't show.

Dear friends: Yes Cover, content, and the idea is also important, but marketing is also very important, which is probably based on public relations
Thanks Simon, yes, there are certain things that affect complex in the sale of books, the most important public relations .. perhaps because of luck or just important.
Please explain to me the site of link

Randall (and others), so as not to hijack this thread, let's move to email: [email protected]

ريمة الخاني, if you have 11 minutes to spare, the site is probably best explained through this video: http://www.readersintheknow.com/video...

If you have any other questions, please feel free to email me at the address above.

This site for buying and selling, is this true? Is it possible to display books in a language other than English.?
The website Your true?
I'm going to correspondence, Well
thanks

ريمة wrote: "This site for buying and selling, is this true? Is it possible to display books in a language other than English.?
The website Your true?
I'm going to correspondence, Well
thanks"

The books can be in any language, but the website itself is only in English and I have no plans to add any translations in the short term. As a result, I expect most of our members to be English speakers (and readers), even though they come from all over the world.

Content and cover (art AND blurb/synopsis) are equally important. It's like the employment analogy I use way too much in life: Your resume doesn't get you a job. It gets you an interview. The interview gets you the job.

Oversimplified, of course, but apply that logic to a book sale:

The cover art gets the look/pick up/online click. ("Hey, what's this?") The look gets the blurb read. ("Hmm...interesting") The interest generated by the blurb gets the sale. It's a process, and cutting corners/skipping steps is never in your best interest.

Actually, I think that's a very good analogy.