The Top Ten Secrets of Successful Authors

Judy Cullins ©2006 All Rights Reserved.

If you are not a successful author yet, incorporate the following ten success secrets: 1. Treat your book as a business.

You spend many hours creating a masterpiece to help your audience. It follows then, you need to set up a regular time schedule to market and promote it. Do at least three High Level Activities (HLA’s) each day. Write a sales letter for each book. Write an ezine to send to your audience monthly. Create a blog to draw your audience.

2. Create a flyer for each book you offer.

In your flyer, include an excerpt from you fiction or a tip from your self-help book. Put your book’s cover on the flyer and include testimonials on it. A flyer acts a lot like your book’s back cover—it’s a good traditional marketing tool.

Hand out your flyer at business meetings or at any public place. Ask your audience to pass the flyer along to friends and associates. Offer one free report or ezine on the flyer to get new email addresses to send promotion to later.

3. Create a line or two about your book in your signature file that goes out on every email you send.

After your name, title, and benefit statements, add something like: eBk: "Write your eBook or Other Book--Fast!" Include your addresses and phone numbers too.

4. Invest some money in book marketing.

Start a promotion bank account before you finish your book, so you can share your book with thousands and feel confident about its distribution. Contact a bookcoach an internet marketing coach to schedule a low-cost introductory session to see if you are a match and will get what you need. Many authors print too many copies or use an expensive print on demand service to get a book published. Put as much time into marketing as you do in the writing.

5. Take a teleseminar on how to market your book.

Teleseminars are simply seminars via the phone (conference call) with  email support.These low cost and low time investments can make your book the great seller it should be. Your audience will want some tips from your book, and you can divide them up over several one-hour phone teleseminars. A great way to sell books, and a great way to attract new clients. Discover this inexpensive way to market via the phone and email. How convenient!

6. Don't get fooled by high-cost services.

If it's too good to be true, it isn't true. When you hire someone to do it all for you, it can cost $8000-$15,000 a publishing project, often with small results. When you hire a publicist, you may pay from $1000-$3500 a month. Results are what count. Check out a coach who knows who provides what for what cost. Save yourself grief in time and money lost. Check out what services fit your budget, and get a realistic picture of what your results will be.

7. Delegate some of the marketing.

Like me, hire a low-cost computer assistant from your local high school. They know more than about computers and the internet than many professionals. For under $10 an hour, you can multiply your promotion exponentially via the ecommerce book promotion your assistant does for you 2-3 times a week. You can look like a big company for a small price.

8. Set a dollar goal for your book each month.

Don't count copies sold. Count each month's book sales. Put your goal near your workstation to remind you of what you want.  Don't price your book too low, so you'll appreciate an easy, profitable experience--getting what you deserve for all your work.

9. Learn more about internet book marketing.

Think about reaching hundreds of thousands of your audience every week. When you give them what they want--free information--they will eventually buy. Ask your coach about the number one method to get visitors to your web site--that is, advanced article marketing.  Many authors go the traditional path of talks, ads, or press releases. These don't always pay well for the time and effort put into them. Realize what's working and what's not.

10. Keep marketing each week.

Many clients come to me and say they are discouraged their book didn't sell well in four months. Replace doubt with patience for the process. Success takes many months, but once you get it, the internet keeps it multiplied for you. From just a few articles submitted to top web sites five years ago sprung hundreds that are still bringing exponential sales each month.

Knowing the secrets of what successful authors practice can help you receive the same prestige, branding, sharing the good word, and becoming a household name.