Never Sell Your Book

Selling stinks! Really. No one wants to be sold to, and no one (at least not people I know) truly enjoys selling, especially authors. Authors are storytellers on a mission, not sales people trying to hit their monthly sales goals and earn a commission. That’s way too much pressure for someone who has poured their heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears into creating a work of fiction or nonfiction designed to benefit others. Therein lies the secret of how to never sell your book.

Many authors get off track when they think they have to sell their book to potential

buyers/readers. How else are you going to get them to open their wallets, pull out the plastic or the green (the Hamilton, Jackson, Benjamin or other note), and pay you for your

hard work if you don’t sell the book? Rather than approaching this process from a sales perspective, think about it from a service perspective. When you value the content of your well-written, professionally produced book, you will understand the value that it can bring to others (but not everyone), and you’ll approach potential buyers/readers with the attitude that you are sharing your gift with them and serving their needs with this wonderful product: your book.

You wrote your book for yourself, right? Of course you did. But you also want others to get something out of it: inspiration, information, insight, or knowledge. You have woven the benefit of your book so expertly into the prose that some readers might not realize they got it until the very end, and that’s okay. The point is that you’ve inserted nuggets of juiciness for readers to glean. And when you understand the value of those juicy nuggets you know that your book has value far beyond its retail price.

Readers read for enjoyment, relaxation, escape, and entertainment. They also read to receive the very nuggets you have imparted throughout your book; you know, that inspiration, information, insight, and knowledge mentioned above. When you understand the true value of these intangibles, you will realize the gift that your book really is. The words you have penned are provided to help readers in one or a combination of ways:

• To serve
• To solve a problem/challenge
• To add value
• To help achieve results

That’s it. So when you view your book as a conduit to provide a service to readers, you’ll understand that selling your book is really unnecessary. Instead, you will share the value your book provides and allow potential buyers/readers to determine whether they are ready to receive all that your book offers. Some will, some won’t, so what (as the saying goes). This is not to suggest that exchanging currency for your book is unimportant. Rather, the suggestion is that convincing others to buy your book is futile. Make yourself (the author), your message contained within the book, and the inherent value of your book the focus of your conversations and marketing materials. Do this and watch your book get the attention you know it deserves!

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Anita Paul, known as The Author's Midwife, coaches aspiring authors to write a phenomenal book and helps current authors use their existing books to leverage their business. She is the author of the-book Write Your Life: Create Your Ideal Life and The Book You've Been Wanting to Write, and is the creator of the Write Your Life program, through which she has created a dynamic system to Write Your Book in 90 Days or Less. She has owned The Write Image for 15 years, and has had her freelance articles featured in over 25 publications in the U.S. and Canada. Anita is also the host of "Book Your Success".
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