by Jay Hartman
Q: With the holiday season here, I want to make sure I’m promoting all of my books to get the most sales possible. What’s the most effective way to do that? – S.L, Syracuse, NY
A: What’s the most effective way of promoting all of your titles to get the highest return in a three-week period?
Simple answer: you don’t. What should you do? Read on.
Back in the earlier days of the ebook industry, it was pretty easy to get your titles noticed by readers because there weren’t a whole lot of titles out there. Then came the advent of things like KDP, and suddenly the market flooded with thousands upon thousands of titles in a relatively short period of time. The ability to make a title stand out in a sea of other titles became more difficult than ever. CreateSpace, Lulu, and others contributed to a similar problem on the paperback and hardcover side. Unless you paid for traditional advertising (which, I should add, is what you should do), your title will be lost.
The rise of self-publishing also gave birth to a very unfortunate side effect from the buyer’s standpoint. With so many titles releasing so quickly, and with nobody really able to keep up on reviewing these titles or building any real buzz before the next title landed, a new phenomenon evolved known as “choice paralysis.” When buyers feel overwhelmed by too many options, they can’t make a decision. So, they err on the side of buying nothing at all.
Too often, writers (and publishers) don’t realize the disservice they do their readers by trying to promote all their titles in a period of time instead of being selective about which ones get the visibility. Again, given too many options, your reader will choose none.
Okay, so we know trying to promote all your titles is not a great idea. What is the right solution, then? For any given sales period such as the holidays when a theme doesn’t necessarily matter (opposed to, say, marketing specific titles for Mother’s Day), you should follow these tried-and-true methods for building your sales.
As with anything, there’s always the caveat that your mileage may vary if you try these things. After a decade of producing and selling our titles, however, I know these suggestions work in most cases. It’s also the same pattern most publishers have followed for the holiday season since way back when I was a Waldenbooks store manager.
I hope you and yours have a happy, healthy and successful holiday season!
Jay A. Hartman, editor-in-chief at Untreed Reads Publishing, founded Untreed Reads to promote ebooks with an emphasis on independent authors and publishers. He’s written about the ebook industry for fifteen years and previously served as content editor for KnowBetter.com, one of the internet’s oldest sites reporting on ebooks and epublishing.
