I’m going to be covering step six of my eight principles for publishing success for speakers.
Step six is selling your book online. It sounds obvious but there’s some extra points I want to talk to you about, that you might not be aware of.
Clearly, a great place to sell your book is Amazon. Amazon is well trusted as a publishing place. It’s also well trusted because its deliveries are exceptionally reliable.
People trust when they spend money on Amazon, they feel they’re actually going to get the product and it’s not a scam site that’s going to steal their money. You can ride on Amazon’s reputation.
You’ve also got the opportunity to get reviews on your book page which can help make more sales. You can also have an author page on Amazon where you can let people know about other books if you go on to write more books in your career.
The only downside to Amazon is they set the price. Because they’re a bargain basement operation where everyone goes to get the best deal ever, your book is going to get lost in that. They will discount the price. It will cut into your profit margin per book sell so be aware of that. However, it’s a great way of reaching lots of people. For things like Kindle book, you’ve got a lot more ability to set the price there than you have with the printed book which will get discounted.
Another place to sell your book could be online on your own website where you do your own shipping you could get a small run of books printed at home or you could go to companies called fulfillment houses. They will send the book out for you or your publisher will send books out for you and you can sell them on your own website.
The advantage of that is you can set the price and you won’t get undercut like you would do on Amazon, but of course it becomes much more difficult to promote and sell books on your own site because you haven’t got the trust and the credibility that comes with Amazon.
You can also use your book website as a means for people to contact you. You can have your contact form. You could have other books that are available. People could sign up to your coaching program, your membership site, your discussion forum all of these other communities and formats of information could be purchased through the promotional website you put together for you book.
I know for a lot of people just the idea of a website makes them put their head in their hands and groan at the thought of it, but it does give you a lot of flexibility and a very cost effective way of reaching out to people. You could put your speaker show reels on your website and all those things so it makes sense to have one. Do think about that because you’re missing out on making more money out of your knowledge and experience if you don’t do that.
