The Psychology of Selling Books

by benmweilertNo Comments
Of the many hats that self-published authors wear, salesperson can sometimes be the most intimidating. Obviously, we try to craft titles and blurbs that pique a reader’s interest as well as pay for professional-looking covers that grab potential readers’ attention. We’d like to think that just having a great cover and story idea will automatically generate sales for us, but selling books is more complicated than that. There’s a psychology that goes into selling books, especially in person. What is your writing worth? As a self-published author, what do you think your writing is worth? In the noise of an over-saturated literary market, sometimes the price of a book can swing a potential buyer from hesitant to willing. If it’s priced too cheap, then the customer will think the quality is lacking and isn’t worth their time. If it’s too expensive, a customer will think it’s not worth their money. A lot of readers won’t give unknown authors a chance unless the...
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The Basics of Making Your Own Cover

by benmweilertNo Comments
The biggest lie that has ever been told about books is that you cannot judge them by their cover. This is the first and sometimes only interaction people will have with your book, so you need to be sure that it looks professional. I have seen a lot of self-published covers over the years that leave much to be desired—my own books included. Online cover creators are an easy way to slap something on the book you’ve written, but the design limitations of these tools actually do more harm than spending the money to hire someone to make your cover. All this being said, there are some easy ways you can make your own cover as long as you avoid a few common mistakes. Fonts Matter. At a minimum, there should be two boxes of text on your cover: your name and the title of the book. You’d be surprised to see some covers that don’t match the font for these two...
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The Stages of Handling Criticism

by benmweilertNo Comments
Nobody's perfect. As writers, all of us are on journeys to improve our writing. The best way to do so is to have our current writing criticized. Knowing what works and what doesn't is best achieved through the lens of other people—your readers. While we can't please everyone with our writing, we can at least try to take relevant and constructive criticism to make more readers happy. Ultimately, there are two stages of criticism: before you release a book and after you publish this book. Knowing how to handle both is key to improving your writing. Use beta reading criticism to make changes. I've written about the four things I like my beta readers to provide for my drafts, but I'll admit that it stings a little when a trusted source comes back and gives some harsh criticism of my story. Your first reaction might be to get mad. "These beta readers don't understand what I'm trying to do!" you may tell...
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The Case for Conventions [PART 2/2]

by benmweilertNo Comments
Last month, I wrote about how selling books in person as a vendor at conventions (or “cons” for short) is a great way to get in front of your audience. However, there are many more benefits of attending conventions, whether as a vendor or just as a participant. Because—not only are you as a writer and author attending these conventions—but your fellow writers and authors are as well. If you want to network with others who have also published books, then conventions can be the best way to do this while also selling your books to potential readers. Part of networking at conventions is discussing the craft with others who are doing the same thing you are. You can learn a lot from someone who has gone through the process to make hardcovers, audiobooks, or even books in different genres. It’s great to see others selling books at these cons, not only because you want your peers to succeed, but it...
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The Case for Conventions [PART 1/2]

by benmweilertNo Comments
It's often been said that writing is a solitary profession. The problem is that—if you want to sell your books—you need to interact with other people. Selling online can be a challenge when there are so many options easily available and selling in brick-and-mortar stores has its own limitations and constraints. As an independent, self-published author, one of the best ways I've found to get my books into the hands of potential readers is by attending conventions as a vendor. There are lots of different conventions (or "cons" for short) out there. For some examples, check out my Events Page to see a history of all the cons I've attended as a vendor. Since most of my books fit in the science fiction and fantasy genres, I have found sci-fi conventions to be great places to set up shop. That doesn't mean there aren't cons for other genres where you can find readers who would want to read your books. In...
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Commissioning Art for Your Book

Commissioning Art for Your Book

by benmweilertNo Comments
Most people judge a book by its cover. It's the first thing they'll see, and it should give them a sense of what to expect inside. If you can't clearly communicate the title and genre with your cover, it's likely your readers will be disappointed with what they have purchased. Astute readers can easily recognize when a book uses a cover creator with stock footage, which is an easy indicator to weed out authors who don't invest some money into their book. While I certainly started with these cover creator covers, I've made an effort as time goes on to try and commission art for the covers of my books. A few months ago, I wrote about some of the costs associated with self-publishing a book. One of these costs is hiring an artist to create art for your cover. While this sounds simple, there is a process that you'll need to follow. Sometimes it's so exciting to see the art...
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The right way to ask for reviews

by benmweilertNo Comments
It’s weird to think that I’ve written more than 600 reviews since I started my website back in 2016. Of course, as I cross-post these reviews to various sites like IMDb, Goodreads, and Amazon, I started receiving requests for reviews relatively soon after I started gaining some traction from my posts (my reviewer ranking is above 23,000). I’ll ignore the requests clearly from Chinese sellers trying to manipulate their Amazon rankings, but I do have a soft spot for authors. Unfortunately, (as I've written about before) most authors don’t know how to interact with reviewers—especially when sending a request via e-mail. They all understand the value of reviews, but they don’t take the time to ensure they’re making the best first impression. After all, reviewers are people and sending a review request is much like pitching an agent: you want to show you’ve done your homework. As a result, most reviewers will ignore these requests or send them to their spam...
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Why self-publishing isn’t “free”

by benmweilertNo Comments
I have always said that one of the main benefits of self-publishing is that there is no financial barrier to entry. Anyone can write a book and have it published without paying a cent to anyone. Granted, this is also the reason why many people look down on self-publishing. With the costs of self-publishing being non-existent, there are no quality checks to ensure the content being published is good enough for readers to spend their money to buy it. Sometimes, this can result in backlash with angry readers leaving negative reviews. Often, not investing in a written work doesn't produce the sales an author would like to make (and is the main reason I don't make a living with my writing). Over the years, I've learned that self-publishing isn't just writing a book. Instead, self-publishing is editing, formatting, cover design, marketing, and any number of other tasks that combine to create a polished product. Depending on an author's skill level, some...
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Traditional Publishing is Bizarre

by benmweilertNo Comments
The dream of many writers is to be traditionally published. There is a certain amount of clout that comes with having a manuscript printed by a company that is in the business of publishing books. There is a validation when an author’s book is distributed to brick and mortar bookstores like Barnes and Noble. I understand the appeal, but the more I learn about modern traditional publishing, the more I find it antiquated and bizarre. Is traditional publishing behind the times? For personal reasons, I have decided to exclusively pursue self-publishing as my venue for distributing my stories. While this is in part due to my realization that I can’t make a living off my writing—and thus why I pursue it as a hobby—I’ve dipped my toe in enough of the process and discussed it with other lesser-known authors who have successfully done it to realize that it’s somewhat stuck in the past. Here are three things about traditional publishing that I...
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An Author’s Online Presence [PART 2/2]

by benmweilertNo Comments
Last month, I wrote about how an author should have some form of an online presence. Engaging with the writing community and potential readers is easy to do when starting out. Social media helps connect people online, so it should be the first place to start when developing a writer brand. Even if a writer hasn’t published anything yet, these profiles help legitimize what they’re trying to do in the off-chance that they do decide to proceed into publication (either self or traditional). And while social media is somewhat “unofficial” in the sense that anyone can sign up and participate in it, there are plenty of self-published authors who are missing out on some “official” portals of information that they can control. These are the places where customers are likely to come to search for information on a particular book or author, so it’s essential to ensure that they look like they’ve been set up instead of having default data displayed. Just...
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