How to Sell Your Book on the Internet

You’ve written a book, published it and now you want to sell it. You can go the traditional route of author interviews, book tours and bookstore signings or you can sell your book on the Internet! Internet marketing allows you to reach the small niche markets quickly and easily. Of course, adding some of the above traditional routes won’t hurt either. Here are a few tips to selling your book online.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A published book
• Time
• Patience
• Optimism

1. Build a website. Give your book its own personal home on the World Wide Web. Make the web address the name of the book or your name. I recommend using the actual title of the book so that potential readers can find it faster.

2. Obtain book reviews. A very important aspect of marketing your book is to find trustworthy people to read and review your book. Research individuals who are experts in the fields you mention in your book and then write to them and ask them for a brief review. The bigger and more important the name of the reviewer the better! Put the reviews on your website.

3. Visit other author’s websites who have published books similar to yours. These authors are often more than willing to write a review for you. You can also use them as a network source by asking them to exchange website links.

4. Find the small online booksellers. Run a search for small independent booksellers and you will find a huge list of potential sellers willing to virtually ‘stock’ your book!

5. Sell your book at the large distributors such as Barnes and Noble, Amazon and Books A Million. Be sure to read the booksellers contract carefully; there are usually fees involved.

6. Find the places online where writers congregate and start networking. There are many such sites on the Internet and they allow you to post a picture of your book cover, sample pages and contact information.

Tips & Warnings

• If you haven’t found a publisher for your book yet, consider self-publishing it lulu.com. You can sell the book right at lulu’s site.
• Keep researching! Selling your book takes time, but with patience the sales will start coming in.
• Don’t give up!

Resources

• Author Nation--a place for writers
• A Good Article on Bookselling Online.

[vallain]

on 7/21/2009 I'm going to start looking for those writer's sites that you mention, so I can promote my Mom's book further.

[mgonza12]

on 1/6/2008 Great tips. I'm looking to do just this. :-) Thanks so much for sharing.

[grouch]

on 1/5/2008 Your peers can be your best critics and help you learn and grow as an individual. Great idea letting other authors read and review your book.