Book promotion for non-business books

I talk a lot about writing a ‘business building’ book. That’s because many of our clients are business owners. They want their book to help them to reach more clients, make a bigger difference, as well as building their credibility and expert status.

But what if you simply want to tell your story or share your expertise, sell your books and leave a legacy?

Perhaps you know that writing a book is part of your healing or growth process and you know it’ll be cathartic. Maybe you’ve been told by friends that you need to write your book and you want to do it before it’s too late.

So, what happens if you just want to write your book, publish it, and sell it successfully? And you don’t want to build a business from it?

Unless you want to write your book, print one copy and feel that satisfaction of having done it and have it sitting on your shelf, the act of writing your book may well become your business.

Let’s face it, writing a book is a huge investment in terms of time, money and sanity. So doesn’t it make sense that you do everything possible to get it out there?

Unless you’re one of the lucky ones, simply writing and publishing your book, putting it on Amazon, and hoping it’s going to sell with minimal book promotion isn’t going to give you a return on your investment. You still need to promote it, sell it, and shout about it.

So if you’re not writing a business building book, i.e. you don’t want it to generate new clients and lots of business for you, how can you maximise your success – and sales?

Let me tell you about Alice May.

Alice May’s story

I recently spoke at Bev Hepting’s ‘Get That Book Published’ event and I met Alice May, one of the other speakers. Alice is the award winning author of ‘Accidental Damage – Tales from the house that sat down’ and she has kindly allowed me to share her story in this blog.

Alice’s first book was born accidentally. One day she arrived home from work and her home literally fell down in front of her eyes. This led to a catastrophic turn of events, which resulted in her and her family moving to a tent in the garden, whilst fighting to find a way to repair their dilapidated property.

One day she decided to write about her experience and wrote her first fiction book loosely based around her story. The words quickly flowed and a few weeks later, she had the first draft of a book, but no clue about what to do next.

She sent the manuscript to various publishers and was offered a contract. But after reading the small print, she decided to do it alone. Her daughter helped her to navigate CreateSpace and set Alice up with her social media profiles. But if she’d left it there, what would have happened?

A book doesn’t sell without a push.

Luckily that year, Alice’s mum decided to buy copies of her daughter’s book and send it out to everyone she knew. This led to recommendations, reviews and this gave Alice’s book the kick start it required.

Now Alice is an established author, artist and sought-after speaker and is currently working on her third book. And if I hadn’t heard Alice speak at that event, I wouldn’t have had a chance to read her first book, which I devoured in three hours!

Alice has proved, that even if you’re not writing a business building book, you still need help to ‘sell’ your book, even if it comes from the most unexpected sources.

Unless you’re OK with a handful of people reading it – which I’m sure you’re not – then there’s action that you’ll need to take. Surely your journey and the lessons you have learnt are worth getting out to those who need to read it?

So where do you start?

At the very least, I suggest you have some sort of platform to promote your book. Even a simple webpage and a blog is a good place to start so that you can direct people to a place where they can find out more about you and what you’re writing.

Social media is also a must-do in this day and age as you can share snippets from your book, progress as you write it, and reviews after you’ve published. You could get feedback on your cover, build your community and engage potential readers in your topic.

Once your book is published, setting up a good Amazon profile will help people to find your book. Think about your title, your description, your keywords and your author profile. Encourage people to write reviews for you and send out advance copies to influential people you trust.

And building on this, bring together a team of willing people who can help you to get your book out there. These may be people who will share it with their community, shout about it with their fans, and generally do everything they can do help you to get your book known. Any publicity, PR, speaking, and general fanfare will help when it comes to promoting it.

You know your book will help more people than you can do alone, so doesn’t it make sense to get it out to those who need to read it?

You never know who might hear about your book, who may blog about it, and who it may help in doing so!

Just like Alice. And I highly recommend that you read her books – get the full details here.

If you’d like to get help to write, publish or market your book, then please do get in touch to arrange a call, as we’ll also become your raving fans!