When you step in to the world of indie-publishing, there’s an initial excitement that can’t be explained as anything other than serenity. You’ve finished your first book. You’ve made it past all the hurdles and pitfalls along the way. And now you’re finally able to gain the title of published author. We each experience this to varying degrees. It’s something we aren’t accustomed to feeling. But it rarely lasts. You see, as we continue to grow and learn, we realize there’s so much more to our job than just writing a book. In fact, the actual craft is the least important aspect of the entire industry, though it’s still important. I would also point out that it also depends greatly on your goals. If you just want to have a book out there, but never intended for this to be a career, most of what I have to say isn’t going to apply to you. However, those of us who have sought this path for the long-term, publishing a book is just the beginning.
I had an epiphany a while back. I’d been asked to travel to St. Louis to teach a class on marketing. It still baffles me that anyone seeks my opinions, but I’ve also always been one to take initiative. By learning as much as possible, I’m able to answer most questions, or at least give insightful direction. And considering I’m still a nobody, I don’t seem out of reach to most people. Anyway, in this epiphany I accidentally created something I’d wanted for a long time. I’d managed to create a step by step checklist to cover every element of a successful book. Moreover, when I looked at the page, covered in my chicken scratch, I realized I’d more accurately created a three-phase process to market a successful book. That single page has taught me so much since then. And the first thing I learned was that my entire learning curve worked backwards. I’d initially taught myself the skills I needed to write well. I learned the elements of writing marketable books. And I’d advanced my ranking to one of the best authors in my area. But I still had a problem. No matter how good of a writer I’d learned to be, I still wasn’t making enough money to consider myself successful. It didn’t matter how good of a writer I’d become, it wasn’t working. That meant I needed to do something different. So I stepped onto the next part of my backward journey. I began learning how to market.
I discovered a few required skills that are needed for online sales. Each one was fairly simple in theory, but, like everything, beyond the surface I learned it was an entirely new skill set that I’d previously lacked. I spend months researching and learning the elements that actually sale a book. And before long, I came up with a system that worked for me. There are four key elements to selling a book online. They are the title, cover, description, and reviews. Each one tells a story. And from that story, potential readers decide if your book is for them. Provided each one did its job, that answer should be yes across the board. And that’s when a sale is made. I did the research to produce good covers and titles. And I studied ad copy in order to write compelling descriptions. Reviews however, were the only element I had no control over, and therefore couldn’t do anything about. But I still had a problem. More people were buying books, but not enough to achieve my goals. There was another side to marketing that I hadn’t learned.
It was then I realized that people can’t buy your book if they can’t find your book. And if they don’t know about you, there’s no way they’re going to search you. This means you have to find ways to get your work in front of people who have no knowledge of your existence. As an example, you could write the finest book ever written, with pages of gold, and a magical ability to grant the deepest desire of any person who reads it. And I promise you it will remain unread if nobody knows about it. So, how do you get found? Like every other aspect, I began researching. I discovered a number of little things I’d been doing wrong, and I began to fix them. But change was slow. It still wasn’t working. So, I dug deeper. At the root, I learned nearly everything I’d been trying to accomplish was an element of something called SEO, which stands for Search Engine Optimization. But searching SEO as a who wasn’t getting me anywhere. It seems most of the secrets of SEO remain secrets. Unlike other elements of this industry, people seem less likely to discuss it openly. And that creates a bit of a problem. How are you supposed to learn something if everyone is tight lipped about it? You could go the trial and error method. That’s what I’ve been doing, though the results are questionable at best. And while I still don’t have all the answers, I’m still digging. But I can tell you the entire system of SEO seems to be based around the use of keywords, or more accurately, search-words. These are the tags, hashtags, keywords, and labels you attach to your posts, books, videos, and other content. It seems each system has its own idea as to how it’s supposed to work, which adds to the confusion. But as far as I can tell, they all work in a similar manner. You find keywords, through a variety of methods, that are being searched by your target audience. You label your content with these keywords. And the next time someone is looking for information, it’s these keywords and tags that include your content in the search results. It seems the better you are at setting this up, the higher you end up in the results. But that also has much to do with user interactivity and back links. The longer you can keep someone on your page, the better off you’ll be.
In short, if you’re going to be successful, the first thing you need it the ability to be found. For this you need an audience and a way to reach them. Next, you need the public aspects of your content to be appealing and compelling. And once they’ve found and bought your work, you can finally show off your skill as a writer. Which, if done correctly, will bring return readers as well as generate new ones.
But don’t get discouraged if you have to learn all of this the hard way. It seems my entire career has been the hard way, but I’m still going. That’s why I write this blog. If you can learn from my mistakes, perhaps things will be just a little easier for you than it was for me. Good luck and have a good day.