12.18.2011

Electronic books do not sell without self-promotion


When my first book appeared on the shelves of libraries, people started borrowing it en masse. This is because all new books start their “career” in a special spot, marked as “new arrivals”. When a reader returns the book, it lands on a trolley for a few hours and then it’s put back on the shelf. But because people are always browsing through the books on the trolley, my book hardly ever reached the shelf as it was always taken by the next reader.
Things are a bit more difficult on the shelves of a bookstore as a book soon gets lost among the others. Usually all you can see of a book on a shelf is its spine, i.e. just an inch or so, depending on how thick it is. And so without special promotion, a writer can’t expect his book to sell well.
The situation with electronic books is even more complicated as the reader will never just randomly look among tens of thousands of titles, but will choose a title that is on the list of the best read books. But how do you get on the list if you’ve only just started?
I’ll tell you a secret. The book Promise Me Eternity was published a few months ago. I haven’t sold a single copy. This proves just one thing – that self-promotion is a must with electronic books. This is why I wasn’t disappointed like many other people, it just made me even more determined to do everything in my power to reach my goal.

No comments:

Post a Comment