How Do I Sell Books in 2020?

It’s 2020. You have written your book and published it, but nobody is buying it. What works, what doesn’t work? Things have changed for authors but many points of information still churn out the same old advice. We take a look at what’s needed to become a success.

Price is all

Maybe there was a time when you could price your Kindle book at $9.99 and someone might buy it. But now, if you are an indie author, the best price point is between 99 cents and $2.99. Remember that it is better to sell ten books at 99 cents than one book at $9.99, because then you have ten people reading your book instead of one, and that’s ten units and not one towards your ranking on Amazon. Going above $2.99 makes it harder to sell and you will get half the royalty (35% instead of 70%) on your KDP account. When Dean Koontz is selling at $1.99, take heed.

Goodreads now established as a hub of finds

Goodreads reviews were for a long time the chintzy little sis of Amazon reviews. ‘Mommy’ reads and books about pets seemed to fill its pages. But now Goodreads reviews are part of the fabric of Kindle’s universe, and this means that Goodreads reviews are worth pursuing. You can try doing a Goodreads Giveaway to bolster reviews here.

We also offer a Goodreads Add-on service at checkout with our Amazon Promotions.

Free Book Promotion Sites are useless

Really, completely useless. The only people that post on Facebook Groups for Free Book Promotion or Free Kindle Promotion are other authors as desperate as you. Nobody will even look at your book, they have their own problems. Stop wasting your energy with this and start looking at real marketing solutions. For example, you can join Author Central or Goodreads, or advertise your eBook on Amazon, Facebook, or book sites as a display ad.

Mailing Lists don’t work for most authors

Have you read a lot of articles about building a mailing list? Yeah, it doesn’t work for most authors. If you are selling one book and have nothing else to sell, how many times do you reckon you can send out an email to the same people? Twice? Three times? What about the people that already bought your book? Why are you emailing them?

And where are you getting these email addresses? Did you get consent to sign them up for your mailing list? Because if you didn’t, it’s illegal in most countries to send them anything.

How many emails do you need to sell a book? The going rate is about 1 in 200 will click a newsletter, with about 30%, if you are lucky, making a purchase. So you’d need thousands to sell this way.

The only reason an author needs to build a mailing list is if they have other reasons to talk to their audience. If you are a business person selling a book to push business services, or you are part of a niche group or community, or if you have several books in a series, then you can write articles and send out emails with each new product. But you can’t keep asking people to buy the same one thing, especially if they already bought it. They will eventually unsubscribe or block you.

Book Stores More Open To Stocking Niche Authors

When Amazon rolled out its real-life stores it became more important for indie stores to step up. There’s been a boom in indie book stores in most large towns. Instead of going to massive chains to ask them to stock you, go to your local independent store. They will probably only stock one or two books, but if you have a niche in your book, let’s say it’s set in Maine and your bookstore is in Maine, you could maybe leverage this to do a talk about your book, or a book signing.

Don’t forget gift shops

Do you live near a museum or gallery? A community arts center? Quite often these places have a gift shop where they sell books. If your book has a connection to their exhibits, maybe they will stock your book. A zoo may stock a children’s book about a friendly zebra, or an observatory center may stock a book about stars. Get creative and look up points of sale that may agree to take a few books.

Amazon Book Pages more important

Your Amazon Book Page is your most important asset for sales. Most readers buy their books from Amazon, especially their eBooks. See Dave Chesson’s article on how to improve your Book Page here, or you can get a Book Page Revamp here.

Book covers are still king

It’s mind-blowing that authors are still selling books with terrible covers in 2020. Maybe some of them don’t care, maybe some have no eye for art. Either way, cut your losses and hire a professional. Nobody will buy your book if it’s ugly or doesn’t look like other covers in your genre. Amazon’s Algorithm update to A10 means that genuine quality stands for even more in exposure, so this is a key part of your marketing budget.

Peer Reviews still top sales tool

If you think it’s not important to have any reviews online, think again. If you look at how many reviews best-selling books are getting on Amazon compared to books with none, you will quickly see that peer opinion is very important. And it seems the only clear way of getting reviews is to advertise to readers who review books. How? There are only two real services for this, and that’s ours and BookBub’s. The reason it’s so difficult is that reviews need to be Verified, i.e. bought by the Amazon customer reviewing it. There are other companies offering reviews, but these rarely fall into the Amazon Terms requirements of being from real customers who have no contact with us or the author. We have a database of readers who have been proven to buy and review books regularly. This mailing list took years to build and is incredibly intricate to maintain. But it remains the only proven method on the market for indie authors to gain proper reviews for their book on Amazon. See this service here.

Write a good book

Just sayin’. Obvious, but amazing how many authors rush out their book because they think they’ll get a load of sales if it’s published. It matters what you put out. Have pride, pay for professional editing, go through the process every other writer does. The only part of this you are skipping is the ‘sending it to an agent’ part. Everything else should be exactly the same quality, including your writing.