Are You Really Selling The Most Books You Can?
Many authors make the mistake of thinking that they have the perfect book description, the perfect book cover, and probably the best worded request for readers to leave a review/or join a mailing list. But is that true? Maybe that title isn’t the best title for that book? Maybe that book cover isn’t the best cover for that book? Maybe that book description isn’t as good as it could be? You’ll never know if you never test and track those things.
So how can you test them?
1 – Ask Your Audience – If you have an email list, this is one of the best times to email them. You can either ask for suggestions on book covers, book descriptions, and what made leave a review, or just ask them why they bought your book? It could possibly be that your book cover let you down, but maybe your book description won them over? Or possibly it could be neither of those things. Maybe they had previously read another of your books and that’s why they bought this book also.
Don’t assume that just because you have an email list of readers that they’ve no other use than just selling books to them. Use them for what they are, a ‘targeted audience.’ Once you know what you’re doing right, and more importantly what you’re doing wrong, this can help you greatly with selling more of your books in the future.
Of course you could use other sources of your audience to ask these questions, like a Facebook page, Twitter feed, or a Pinterest page and the like. But for me, I believe that anyone who is on your email list has a stronger affection for you and your books than someone who is just randomly visiting your Facebook page, or checking out your Twitter feed. But if you haven’t an email list yet, then those be my second choice for asking your audience.
2 – Use Tracking Software – Whether that’s using a website like bit.ly, or buying your own tracking software, If you’re not tracking things you’ll never know where you’re performing well and where you’re letting yourself down. Is that call to action for a book review as strong as it could be? Do people actually like that free book you’re giving away in exchange for an email address? You’ll never know unless you’re tracking these click thrus.
It’s hard to measure what goes on a Kindle reader, but at least having hyperlinks, and tracking those hyperlinks, gives you a chance to measure the activity on them. Maybe you are getting a high click through rate for people looking to download your free book, but your opt-in page is send them running.
Is it because the page doesn’t look professional? Is the free book affecting your opt ins? You’ll never know that unless you’re tracking, both the links in the books, and the web stats as well. Who knows, a change of headline on your opt-in page, a photograph of yourself, or making your opt in page cleaner with less distractions on it, could make a big difference to how many opt ins you might get.
In essence, if you’re not testing and tracking everything that affects your sales, reviews, and opt ins, you’ll never know how good you could be doing. One word of caution though, don’t get so carried away with it that you’re constantly tinkering and testing and not doing the thing that you should be doing most of all, which is writing your next book.
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