Are you an entrepreneur looking to self-publish a book? Great idea! Self-publishing allows you to pinpoint your target audience and use your book as a marketing tool to maximize your return. This applies whether you want more customers, want to link a specific offer to your book, or secure more speaking engagements.
Publishing a book is less complicated than you might think. And although it is tempting to look for a publisher for your book, there are actually many advantages to doing it yourself.
If you self-publish your book, you take care of an editor, a designer, and the printing yourself. That may seem complicated, but the upside is that you keep everything entirely in your own hands and your book turns out exactly the way you want it. Moreover, self-publishing has become increasingly easier in recent years.
Having your own book printed is very easy at Bookadew. For both small and large print runs. Simply via the website or by contacting us and asking for advice.
A publisher has their own target audience, and that is why self-publishing is such a good idea. After all, no one knows your target audience—including your readers—as well as you do. Consequently, no one can reach your potential readers as effectively as you can. You know exactly what moves them, and if your book aligns well with your portfolio, the marketing doesn’t differ much from that for the rest of your offerings.
Of course, a publisher wants to sell as many books as possible, just like you. But do realize that the publisher doesn’t just want to sell your book, but also the books of their other authors. So they might occasionally post a message about your book on social media, and if you are lucky, you might find a publisher with good contacts in traditional media. But that is usually where it ends.
You can do that much better yourself. And contrary to what you might think, you will still have to work hard yourself to sell your book. Even if a publisher publishes your book. Moreover, if you have a business, your book can also be a great success without necessarily having to sell a lot of copies. Just read along, and I’ll explain.
How do you make a success of your book?
The most important question you need to ask yourself is: when is your book a success for you? A different tactic suits every goal. Are you aiming for maximum sales because you want to maximize your profit? Do you want a number 1 position in the rankings? Or are you going to link a specific service or offer to your book?
Earn as much as possible from the sale of your book
Do you simply want to write that book and have no other goal than to sell as many books as possible? Or do you want to increase your name recognition or be invited to speak? Then make sure your book is for sale in as many online bookstores as possible, so that people can order it easily.
The only thing you need to do for this is sign up for CB Compact. This is an affiliation with CB (the distributor for all books in the Netherlands and Belgium) for small publishers, suitable if you sell no more than about 2,000-3,000 books per year.
Scoring in the rankings
For many authors of business books, the Managementboek Top 10 is the Holy Grail. If you make it into the top 5, your book is prominently displayed on the Managementboek homepage. If you take first place, you receive the famous cream cake and can call yourself a bestselling author forever.
If you want to pursue this, forget about the CB (for now), make arrangements directly with Managementboek, and ensure your book is only available for sale there. You can also sell your book on your own website. However, if you want those sales to count towards the ranking, you must have Managementboek ship the orders.
You do this by providing an Excel list with the necessary data, or by manually placing orders yourself with Managementboek and providing the customer’s name and address with the order. Do indicate this clearly on your site, as in that case you will be sharing your customers’ personal data with Managementboek.
More customers and/or more sales of your offer through your book
Do you want more customers or to sell more of your products through your book? Then it is not necessarily necessary to sell many books. Depending on the price of your products, you can recoup the production costs with just one new customer.
Selling many books can, of course, help. If you want that, ensure that your book is distributed via the CB in this case as well, so that it is offered in all online bookstores.
The promotion of your book
You could write a whole book about promoting your book. Together with Charlotte Meindersma, I did just that: ‘The Bestselling Book’. For now, I will keep it very brief: promoting a book differs little from the launch of any other (relatively inexpensive) product or offering.
The most important thing is that you are visible. So post a lot, preferably daily, and write lots of newsletters, give interviews, and show your face and your book. Ideally, start doing this while you are still writing. It can even be done sooner, from the moment you decide to write a book.
So, share, share, share. Until it feels uncomfortable, and then again. And above all, remember that promoting is selling. Do you want to sell as many books as possible? Then consider which of your contacts might find your book interesting to give as a gift to their own customers. That way, you can sell large quantities at once without having to approach a lot of people individually.
That works particularly well if you want to rank high, but it also ensures that others start giving your book away. In that way, you reach people who get to know you, and who knows what that might lead to.
After all, a book is the ideal marketing tool. When you promote your book, you promote your company, and no other marketing tool gives you such expert status and so much credibility. Killing two birds with one stone, so to speak. For although promotion will take a lot of time in the beginning, you will reap the rewards for months to years to come.
Hanneke de Wit
Hanneke de Wit is a writing coach, editor, and designer. Together with Charlotte Meindersma, she wrote ‘Het Bestsellerboek’. In this book, you get a behind-the-scenes look, they reveal the honest numbers behind the rankings, and provide the golden formula for turning your book into a bestseller, in the broadest sense of the word. After all, when you publish a book for your business, you decide for yourself when your book becomes a bestseller. With ‘Het Bestsellerboek’, you know exactly how to promote your book and make it a success.
Gastblog Bookadew – Hanneke de Wit