📣 Selling the book

How to write a blurb that sells the book

A blurb is ad copy, not a summary. Its job is to make the right reader want the book, not to be fair to your plot. A structure for fiction, one for nonfiction, and the rules behind both.

A+ content, and what to put in it

A+ content is the image-and-text section below your book description. It answers the questions a reader has after the blurb — and its modules are fixed pixel sizes, so an image not built for the slot gets cropped or refused.

Mockups: showing a book that does not exist yet

A flat cover image is a file. A rendered physical book is an object, and readers respond to objects. Where a mockup earns its place, where it never belongs, and the details that quietly give a fake one away.

Getting early reviews without breaking a rule

An advance review copy buys you something you cannot buy any other way — reviews and word of mouth in the first week. Who to send one to, what the stores actually forbid, and how to send them.

Launch week, without the panic

A launch is a sequence, not a campaign. What has to be finished before the week starts, what to do in the week itself, the four ways it usually goes wrong, and why the quiet is normal.

Series covers: the same shelf, three books along

A series does not need three good covers. It needs one design system used three times, because the reader who finished book one is scanning for book two and has a second to recognize it.

The author website, reduced to what it needs

Most author sites are either nothing at all or a project that eats a month. The short version: the five pages that earn their place, what to skip, and the decisions that matter more than the design.

The newsletter, and what to give people for joining

A mailing list is the only audience you own outright. Why that matters more than follower counts, what to offer people in exchange for an address, and how to run a list without inventing a schedule you cannot keep.

Audiobook cover art is a square, and that changes everything

An audiobook cover is a square, usually supplied at around 3000 × 3000 pixels. A tall print front cannot simply be resized into it — the composition has to be rebuilt, and here is what that actually involves.

Should you make an audiobook?

An audiobook is the most expensive format to produce and the slowest to earn back. What it actually takes, which books justify it, and the four routes from cheapest to most costly.

Advertising a book, honestly

An ad buys attention, not sales — the conversion rate is set by your cover, blurb, categories and price. What to fix first, why attribution lies, the four ways money is wasted, and how to start small.

Promotion after launch week

Most self-published books get no attention after day seven, and a book's life is years. Seasonal hooks, news pegs, price promotions, refreshing the listing, and why the best promotion for book one is book two.

The press kit nobody asks for until they do

A small, boring set of files that saves you an evening every time someone says yes. What belongs in it, why a page on your own site beats a zip file, and how to keep it from going stale.

Events, signings and selling books in person

A signing where nobody knows you sells almost nothing. A talk sells books. What to agree with the venue beforehand, what to carry, how to sign, and why the email list matters more than the money.

Box sets and omnibus editions

A completed series is an asset you can sell twice. What a box set and an omnibus actually are, why the printed version hits a page limit sooner than authors expect, and what the set cover has to do.

Social media, for authors who would rather be writing

Social media sells fewer books than authors are told, works slowly, and is only worth doing where you can keep it up. What actually works when you post, and permission to do one platform instead of five.

Goodreads, for authors who find it baffling

Goodreads is a reader community with an author program attached, not a sales channel. What is worth doing there — claiming the profile, fixing the book record — and the behavior that reliably backfires.

Promo sites and price drops

Discount newsletters email lists of readers about cheap and free ebooks. How the mechanism works, why the burst has to be concentrated, what the good sites demand before they take your money, and the arithmetic to do first.

Book trailers and short video

The two-minute cinematic book trailer is mostly dead and was never cheap. What feeds want is ten to fifteen seconds of the physical object, shot on a phone. The shot list, the rules, and how to get one asset to cover everything.

Getting local coverage

Local papers, regional magazines, community radio and library newsletters have space to fill and fewer staff than they used to. What they will not run, what they will, and what to put in the email.

Merchandise and special editions

Which extras authors sell are worth the effort and which are a cupboard full of stock. Why special editions beat branded goods, and what holding, packing and posting your own inventory actually costs you.

Podcast interviews, and how to get on one

A listener gives you thirty minutes of attention, which no other free channel offers. How to get booked by pitching the show's subject rather than your book, what to prepare, and why the microphone matters more than the camera.

Asking for reviews after launch, without breaking a rule

Reviews after the book is out are social proof for a stranger and an input to how stores surface books. Where to ask, what to say, and the rules that get authors in trouble.

Tracking what actually works

Book sales are reported late, aggregated and split across stores, so the one thing you want to know is the one thing nobody tells you. What is measurable, what is not, and the record-keeping that makes it useful.

Cross-promotion with other authors

The readers you want are already on another author's mailing list, and that author is not your competitor. The forms cross-promotion takes, how to ask without becoming the person everyone avoids, and the one rule that keeps these relationships alive.

Street teams and launch groups

A street team is a small group of committed readers who help a book launch and keep helping afterward. Where they come from, what to give them, what never to ask for, and why twelve real ones beat two hundred names.

Selling books at markets, fairs and conventions

A table is the one channel where the whole cover price is yours and you meet the reader. How to pick an event worth the day, what to put on the table, and what the real return on it is.

Teaching, speaking and workshops

For many nonfiction authors, speaking earns more than the book does — and the book is what makes them bookable. How the two feed each other, where the work is, and what to have ready before you ask.

Working with book influencers and reviewers

The readers with audiences who post about books are not an advertising channel, and treating them as one is how authors end up screenshotted. How to find the right ones, how to ask, and what never to do.

Keeping your backlist selling

The books you already published are an asset most authors abandon on release day. Tending them costs less than launching, compounds slowly, and is the closest thing to income that does not need you in the room.

Writing a newsletter people actually open

The list exists; this is the craft of the issues. What goes in a month with no news, what to leave out, how to write a subject line that does not mislead, and which numbers to trust.

What an author brand actually is

Not a logo or a color scheme. It is the answer to one question a reader asks — if I liked this, will I like the next one — and the three layers that answer it.

Writing an author bio

A hundred words about yourself, written in ten minutes on a form that would not let you save without them. What belongs in a bio, what does not, the three lengths you will be asked for, and what a debut writes instead.

The press release, and when it is worth writing

An old form that still works in a narrow set of cases and is wasted in most of them. When a book actually has news in it, how the release is built, and why a personal email usually beats one.

Search engines and your author site

An author site will never outrank a retailer for your own book's title, and it does not need to. What it can win, what actually matters on the page, and the housekeeping that quietly decides whether any of it is found.

How readers actually search for books

There is no single searching reader. There are five of them, they want different things, and only three can be reached by anything you type into a metadata field. What each one means for what your listing should say.

Giveaways, and what they are actually for

Most giveaways are run to "get the book out there" and judged by how many people entered, which is the wrong reason and the wrong number. The three narrow cases where they work, and how to structure one.

What goes in a book ad

An ad is seen for a fraction of a second by someone who was not looking for a book. What the image has to do in that moment, what the copy has to say, and how to test it.

Asking your readers things

Your mailing list is the only research panel you will ever have that has actually read the book, and most authors never ask it anything. What is worth asking, where to ask, and how to read the answers.

Writing things that keep bringing readers

Most promotion stops working the day it stops running. A page answering a question people will still be asking in three years keeps working on its own. What to write, where to put it, and how slowly it pays.