Author
Image from an early promotion When I published Incite Insight roughly three and a half years ago, I said I wanted to sell a thousand copies. I was laughed at, more than once, right to my face. I was naïve about what it took to sell books, especially at that quantity, but that number wasn’t... Continue Reading →
Library This week a member of my writers group sent me an image of a display of my books that had been set up in her school’s library (where she works). It was really wonderful to think that my books will be appreciated by some new readers. Next Novel In February I repeated my trick... Continue Reading →
First Lines On the 20th of February it was my pleasure to launch the anthology, The First Line, which I wrote the foreword to, and contributed a short story, The Coat Hanger (also in Mug Punter). I chair the Monash Writers Group, whose anthology it was and helped publish it through Tale Publishing. The... Continue Reading →
Door-in-Face This technique is the opposite of foot-in-door (see Compliance Techniques). Here you make an extreme request which you think will be turned down (ie door slammed in your face) and then a smaller request (the target). It is based on the idea of reciprocity. The reciprocity principle isn’t only for gift giving, it can... Continue Reading →
My previous post Odd ways to increase your sales seems to have interested a lot of people, so I thought I'd discuss a few more techniques to increase sales. Before I begin discussing compliance techniques, I should point out that they will neither guarantee you a sale, nor convert a firm “no” into a sale. All... Continue Reading →
Everyone knows the traditional places to sell books – ie bookshops or online retailers, and selling them yourself at markets, author talks and amongst your friends. These work and work well, but there are other places you can make handfuls of sales, which add up over time. Small independent shops with high volumes of ‘foot... Continue Reading →
How can you increase the chances of making a sale?Offering a free bookmark or sample chapter is one way to improve your chances of getting someone to buy your book. This works for a simple reason, the law of reciprocity, which is well-known to marketers - the gift of the bookmark (if they take one)... Continue Reading →
Networking is an important skill for an author to utilise and (for the purposes of this post) distinct from social media networking. Networking is hard simply because it's purpose is to achieve more than just "getting your name out there." It's about building relationships and that takes a lot more effort than social media posts.... Continue Reading →
The following is a list of things I've seen authors achieve through their own interpersonal network. (nb: excludes social media which is why i'm not using the phrase social network). Get 5 offers from publishers to read a book that was still being drafted. Get an invitation to speak to a school group. Get a... Continue Reading →
One of my favourite cartoons about writing is of a man being x-rayed to reveal a book in his chest. Part of the caption reads “You’ve got a book in you.” I like this idea - that we all have a book in us, and to an extent it's true, everyone has a tale to... Continue Reading →
Robert New 