One key to selling more books, products and services and marketing as an author involves gaining and maintaining visibility through your author platform and personal branding. To help in this endeavor, look for ways to get in front of as many current and potential customers as possible. By creating a solid public relations campaign, you raise awareness about your book(s).
Use personal contacts, your writing, and technology to gain a foothold and stand out from all the other authors and books on the market. In a world where people are overwhelmed by information, you need to be unique and memorable in some way. Finding a particular niche and specializing in only one or two areas or genres is a way of helping accomplish that.
To help do this, when writing your books (printed and eBook), consider putting “bounce back” opportunities in the book (e.g. at the bottom of pages, in the Introduction and at the end). These might be offers for discounts on multiple copy purchases or a simple partial rebate of purchase price for feedback and comments emailed to you that can then be used on your website and for marketing. Just don’t overdo it and become known as being pushy in trying to encourage opportunities.
Offer them a digital “bribe” that gets you their email address so that you can build a database for future marketing of other books or materials. This might be in the form of a free newsletter, copy of an eBook, white paper, or a report that you have generated on a related topic in exchange for feedback or them buying a copy of your book.
The nice part about building market recognition is that as people get to know you and the quality of your work better, they may buy more or subsequent products and follow you on LinkedIn and Twitter or “Like You” on Facebook. Such actions potentially lead to additional contacts and word-of-mouth publicity.
For more ideas on how to create buzz about your book(s) products ad services, get a copy of Make Money Writing Books: Proven Profit Making Strategies for Authors.