by Alyssa Ast

Over this past year, I’ve learned so much as far as what it takes to self publish a book. I’ve watched my sales increase, then go almost obsolete, and then sky rocket beyond anything I ever expected being self published. I don’t think I fully understood what I was getting myself into when I decided to self publish, but it’s a choice I don’t regret.

Ebooks vs. Print

When I first published my book, I thought I would make a larger profit selling the print copies because, hey, who doesn’t love print. Well, I was wrong. Ebook sales are HUGE. I’ve sold very few print copies and a ton of ebooks. Ebooks are where it’s at, and it’s important to have your book available in numerous formats. Right now, I make the most sales with the Apple iPad.

Marketing

Marketing is very time consuming, but it has to be done. If you self publish, you must be prepared for the amount of time it takes marketing your book. It’s not something you can just do one time. You have to be consistent with it. I’ve created somewhat of a marketing schedule for myself each week. It helps me stay organized and ensures I don’t miss something.

Sales

When I first released my book, I didn’t expect to see a huge profit right away. My sales remained steady for a few months, and then I noticed they became rather stagnant for a while. And, do you know why? I got lazy and stopped marketing it. So I got my marketing back up, and over the last couple of months my sales have jumped…and I mean jumped. I’m not selling thousands per month, but it’s certainly more than I expected. I see my sales increasing steadily each month, and I predict they will keep doing so as long as I keep up my marketing.

When you market your book, you want to make sure your reaching the correct audience, especially if your book is niche specific like mine is. You have to make the book appealing to who you are trying to sell if too. Why target an audience who isn’t going to care about what your book is about. It’s just a waste of your time. When you find your audience, use special promotions to intrigue your audience. You want to give them little teasers here and there to entice them to buy your book.

Now here’s my little promotion. To celebrate the one year anniversary of the release of my book, I’m hosting a give away on my website, The Fundamentals of SEO. I will be giving away 3 FREE PDFs of The Fundamentals of SEO for the Average Joe. For full details about how to enter the give away, head over to my website.