3 Ways to Ensure Book Sales – “Why isn’t my self-published book selling?”
This is a great article by Kristen Eckstein from the Future of Ink, Digital Publishing for Online Entrepreneurs. Her entire article is well worth reading, but here are some highlights that we fully endorse!
Yes, Your Book Will be Judged by its Cover!
#4 Unprofessional cover design—It’s been proven that a clean, professional, easy-to-read cover sells more books. Initially when self-publishing through vanity publishers started becoming popular in the early 2000s, these books had a bad reputation due to the other reasons in this article, but primarily due to poor cover design. Having studied cover design for over 10 years, I can spot a horrible template cover vs. one done by a graphic designer vs. a professionally designed cover by someone who specializes in book cover design.
Books are Judged by Their Insides, too!
#5 Bad interior design—Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign? There’s a reason book layout software exists. And there’s a big reason why traditional publishers use this software. MS Word is not a page layout program. This is one of the primary reasons self-published books get poor reviews or fail to sell, because books formatted in MS Word scream, “Look at me! I’m self-published!”
Have a Great EBook!
#6 Yucky eBook formatting—In the world of eBooks, formatting is key. Bad spacing, words appearing at random, graphics overlaying text, whole chapters bolded and italicized… You name it, it could go wrong in eBook formatting.
The more complex your layout is, especially if you created a pretty print book with a professional designer first, the more you should invest in a good eBook programmer. These programmers specialize in eBook XHTML language (which can be different than your standard website code) and know what it takes to avoid most of these issues.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves!
Let us help. We can make your book look great – polished and professional!
For professional Cover design, Book interior design, or great ebook formatting, talk to us!
