What is the difference between a successful author and an unsuccessful one? Successful authors sell books!
There’s only one problem, that’s not as easy as it sounds. With over 2.2 million books published last year, how can you make sure your book stands out in a crowd? Here are a few tips to help you make sure your book is successful in 2017.
- Successful Authors Define Their Success. What is success for you? For one author, success might mean earning $5,000 a month from writing; for others, it may be increasing business, getting speaking engagements, or just getting their message out to the world. If you don’t know what success means to you, you’ll never be successful.
- Successful Authors Treat Their Book as a Business. That means scheduling weekly times to work on your writing, but also understanding that selling your book means more than just listing it on Amazon and waiting for the royalties to roll in. Success takes work. You must constantly promote your book to make sure it sells.
- Successful Authors Publish. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But I know so many writers who can’t “pull the trigger” and actually publish a book. They keep changing a word here or a paragraph there. They are procrastinists, (okay, that word isn’t in the standard dictionary, but it is in the Urban Dictionary) not perfectionists.
- Successful Authors Get Help. Many first-time writers try to write, edit, proofread, create a cover, and market the book all without help. Often, because they lack the confidence in themselves to spend money on their product. No one can be an expert at everything. If your book is your business, you must invest money in it. Seek help from experts to make sure it is the best book it can be.
- Successful Authors Know Their Audience. Even the best, most popular book in the world does not appeal to everyone. Whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, for children or adults, know your audience. Who are they? What do they like? What other books do they read? Where will you find them? If you don’t know your audience, you won’t write a book that attracts them.
- Successful Authors Look Professional. It’s the little things that people notice. A professional author photograph versus one taken against a wall with a cellphone, lots of typos and proofing errors, grammar mistakes, and most importantly, the book cover. Make sure your book looks like it can compete with the bestselling New York Times authors.
- Successful Authors Write Another Book. And another. And another. They best way to sell book one is to write book two. If readers like your book they want to read more that you have written. So, don’t sit back and relax once you have written that first book, get back out there and start again.
Learn more habits of successful authors from successful authors. Attend the 2018 Winter Writers’ Weekend, March 2-4 in Princeton, NJ. Sign up now!