Are you one of those authors who is affected by the uneventful situation caused by coronavirus?
It can be troubling to see the sales of your physical books hit the bottom. Many authors and publishing companies are struggling to make ends meet during this COVID-19 pandemic. If you are a full-time author depending on the book sales for your livelihood, then this phase will be one of the hardest ever times in your life.
However, all is not lost. There are still a few strategies that you can use to recover from your current situation and get your book sales back on track.
It’s Time to Convert Those Physical Books to eBooks and Audiobooks
Most cities from all around the world are in lockdown. Even if not, in most places, only the shops that offer essential products are allowed to be open. This has become the usual condition for more than a month now in most of the countries. This would mean that all kinds of book stores will be closed. The delivery of the books through the e-commerce service providers like Amazon is also put on hold so that they can concentrate on the delivery of essential services.
So, what you can do in this situation?
While people are unable to buy books anymore, there is an alternative option of ebooks and audiobooks. Many people are turning to those alternate options for accessing books from the comforts of the home. Since many are practising social distancing and staying at their homes, people are now finding more time to pick up a book and read it.
This would mean that the demand for books in the market is more and the only way to take advantage of this demand is by publishing ebooks and audiobooks.
If you don’t have an ebook, no issues at all. It is very easy to create an ebook from the final manuscript and publish it on online reading platforms like Amazon Kindle, Kobo, B&N, Google Books, iBooks and many more. Creating an audiobook isn’t that difficult. Many companies offer such services and you can easily create an audiobook within a week.
If you already have an ebook or an audiobook, then what are you waiting for? You should start marketing it widely.
The Best Ways to Market Your eBooks and Audiobooks Amidst Coronavirus Scare
Just having an ebook or an audiobook isn’t enough. You need to get out there and make your presence felt. Since there are many readers than before searching for interesting finds, you can use this time to match your expected book sales or even increase it!
Scout the Social Media and Leverage It to the Maximum
In times when offline marketing is no more relevant as people are staying indoors, social media is the best way to market your ebooks and audiobooks. There are so many ways in which you can use social media to market your online books. Here are a few ideas to help you start:
- Be active on your social media profiles and your book profiles. Make it a point to post something regularly.
- Just posting the usual stuff isn’t going to cut. You need something that stands out from the rest and catches the attention. Use a combination of images, videos and GIFs to keep your social media feed interesting to the readers. You can use various tools of AllAuthor like Review GIF Maker, Magic Tool, Seasonal Mockup Banner and a lot more to create such customized and attention-grabbing media. (Sign Up on AllAuthor to make use of these tools.)
- Find the social forums on Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and other similar places where your readers are present. Interact with the people and subtly try to mention and market your book.
- Wherever you talk about your book, make it a point to leave a link to the page where they can buy your online version of the book.
- Make use of social media ads to further maximize the reach of your books.
- If you have many books to market, create separate and targeted social media strategies to avoid confusing yourself and your readers.
Introduce Book Deals
Book deals are a great way to increase the sales of your books in a short time. It allows you to convert the leads, rise in the Amazon book ranking list and easily close leads for whom the cost was one of the main reasons to reconsider.
You can either make the book available for free, introduce discounts or offers that give another short story or any other such online material for free when someone buys your ebook or audiobook. Once you introduce such a book deal, it’s time to market day and night. You can use the above given social media strategies to emphasize on the book deal and the duration of the deal.
You can also add your books to the AllAuthor’s Book Deals section which is frequented by readers looking for ebooks at a bargain. You can add your audiobooks, free ebooks, books with limited time deals, ebooks with KU and other such similar ebooks on the specific categories for better exposure.
Make Use of Mailing List
If you have subscribers to your newsletter, then make sure to hook them with an interactive email. Connect with them regularly, talk to them about the hardships of the COVID-19 pandemic, how you are coping and give them tips on how they can manage it too. Be helpful to your subscribers and end your email with a note about your ebook or audiobook at a minimal price when compared to the physical book.
These are difficult times for everyone. Being understanding is what most yearn for. Therefore, make sure that your posts are not just about selling your books. Show that you care about your readers and followers and be concerned about what everyone is going through. Spend time analyzing where your readers are and make your presence felt among them as someone relatable enough. This will automatically drive your book sales up.c
