How To Sell A Self Published Book For Free

I am giving you this information on how to sell your self-published book for free because I self-published my own book with Blurb.com - 'Dachshund Luke Goes To Spain' and enjoyed the whole experience of seeing my work in print. However, I then struggled to actually sell my book and have been searching for ways to promote my book on the internet for free.

I would like to share my experiences with you and show you how you can create a Squidoo lens to sell your book and make money at the same time.

My excitement of self-publishing my own book on blurb.com is something I will never forget. This excitement was only beaten by the arrival of the first copy of my book. I loved it and strongly felt others would to. I thought it looked great in the blurb bookstore and secretly hoped that mine would be showcased on their 'Staff Pick'.

My book was not chosen :-( but still full of confidence that my book will sell I eagerly logged onto the site each day, checking my stats and waiting for a sale to appear.

How naive I was, later I realize my 'best seller' is not going to fly off the blurb.com bookshelves unless I was more productive.

Being unlucky enough to not have a job at the moment, my dream of selling my book was diminishing however I did have a lot of time on my hands and started researching on the internet.

This is what I have learned so far and it working for me.

Trying to sell my self-published book got of to a very slow start. I had read and followed all the promotion advice on the blub site. I had put a badge linking to the book on FaceBook, I wrote in the forums and told all my friends. A few of my family and friends did buy my book but I also gave away some for free. I did get a random sale from a FaceBook group - that was a nice surprise!

I was still obsessing over my stats - people were looking at it, the stats proved that but no more sales. What was going on?

Gradually it dawned on me that most of the stats came from within Blurb.com. Either people who have clicked to it from my forum posts or new self-publishers check out what other finished books looked like. I had done both of these things myself. Now of course it is entirely possible that one of these people may decide to buy your book but they are not really looking because they want to buy something. What would be the chance that one of these people looking would want to buy a book on Dachshunds?

I realized it was no different than trying to sell a TV to a TV salesperson.

When searching on the internet for how to sell my self-published book for free hundreds of sites came up, most of them wanted me to pay them to market my book - I just did not have that kind of money to spare, I needed to do it for free.

I joined some of the self-publishing group sites that advertise that it is the best place to promote, but again I am trying to sell to people who are only interested in selling their book. I was not selling my book; instead posting on forums whose most viewed subject was how they are not selling any books!

Squidoo - What is it?

One-day two things happened. First, I was reading about online marketing and then someone posted a link to their Squidoo page. It looked nicely laid out and I wondered how they had done this. Well it is surprisingly easy! What you are looking at now is a Squidoo lens.

The great thing about Squidoo is they allow you to use it for free and do not mind you putting links to anything you want to sell. Other sites do not allow this and try putting posts in some forums about your book with a link - you could be banned!

Oh, and as a bonus you can earn money from a Squidoo page (they call them a lens). So not only can you put your book on here with links to your blurb bookstore you can also earn money for example - Amazon sales (yes if your book is on Amazon then you have another way of selling it and get commission).

Squidoo ranks high with Google search engines. Therefore, if you have a Squidoo page about your book, people who are searching under the subject will find it on Google. Unlike your self-publishing site, someone would have to find a link to blurb, then search the bookstore to know that yours existed. Blurb.com of course does appear on Google search but as a self-publisher, driving people to their site that want to publish a book not buy a book. If someone knows the title of your book then a blurb.com page will appear however I have yet to get a sale this way.

Squidoo gives you the opportunity with internet marketing techniques to be able to promote your own book and get it found. Until people know it even exists they do not know they want it!

As an example, this is the link to my book on Squidoo Dachshund Luke Goes To Spain It was my first lens and I have learnt a lot since then. I do get a lot of people looking at this page and have made sales from it.

Want to get started on your own lens - it really is fun and easy.These links will take you to a Free Squidoo guide that give you step-by-step instructions on how to set up your own lens. They are totally free, I was a little confused when I tried to do my first one and found them both very useful. Since they are free, I recommend you look at them before you start your first lens. You will have your first lens up in no time all for free.

Squidoo also has a great forum with lots of helpful friendly people willing to give their advice. Wow, I sound a bit like I work for them! I do not I am just trying to help other self-publishers and print on demand authors to get ahead.

Here is the link to Start My Own Lens Now

URL

The first thing you will do is chose the URL addess for your lens.
When choosing your URL (your lens address) make sure it is relevant to your books subject. For instance if your book is a recipe book, break it down to what kind - Curries, Easy, kids meals etc. So, let us say it is 'One Pot meals.' Now think about what you would type into Google if you were looking for this very thing. Maybe, Easy One-Pot meals, or how to cook easy one-pot meals. Therefore, your URL may be - www.squidoo.com/Easy-One-Pot-Meals. If someone else has already taken it then just adjust the words.
There are more in-depth ways of searching for 'keywords' to use in the URL but I would have to rewrite a whole book - I used what I learned from One WeeK Marketing since it gave me many marketing tips that have worked for me.

Bio

Fill this in - people do look at it. A little about your book and interests. Add a picture of yourself or something relevant to your book.

Tags

Remember to add tags. These are 'keywords' that people will use when looking for web pages on your book subject. For instance, some of the tags on my book would be Dachshunds, traveling with a Dachshund, dachshund book, Book Dachshund Luke goes to Spain and so on.

Write

Your intro module is for you to write something about your lens. It is your intro and where you want to hook the visitors to want to read more.
Write about the subject your book is about in the text modules. Break them down and include at least three modules. Also, add a link to your book on Blurb. Do not get boring; make it fun and interesting to read.

Amazon and eBay modules

Both sell a very diverse collection of things that you could promote so it should not be hard to find items relevant to your book. You make a small commission it someone clicks on them from your lens and buys (anything). For example with the easy one-pot meals, you might consider adding crock-pots, cooking utensils, or other cookbooks. Of course if your book is listed on Amazon (you would need to have purchased and ISBN) you would also include your own.

Pictures

Add pictures to your text module to break up all the words. It looks better and people are more likely to scroll and read more. A picture of your book is necessary. Make sure the pictures are relevant to your subject and that you have the rights to use them. If I do not have one of my own photos to use then I have found that Allposters.com is great. You simply signup (it is free) then scroll through the posters they sell and use relevant ones on your lens. I personally have never sold a poster but the huge free source of pictures is all I need from them.

Once you have your lens the way you like it (do not forget to spell check!) and it is published you will have your own URL to promote. From your lens, you will be able to direct people who are interested in your book to your Blurb bookstore and preview page. Also, add the badge to your lens - check on Blurb for the link and copy and paste it into a text module.

The first place you may want to promote your lens is in the Squidoo forums in the New to Squidoo and Critique my lens. Read other posts since there is so much help and information available. Read other peoples lenses and leave a comment in the guest books. This will help people in Squidoo find your lens and help with your ranking - you are paid a little commission from Squidoo every month based on how high your ranking is.

This was just a guideline to get your up and running on Squidoo - again I recommend you download the free books since they make it easy and answer any questions you may have.

A couple of great free places to promote your book is on your own blog - try wordpress.com or blogger.com - Once you have done a lens you will also find these easy to set-up. You then link from your lens to your blog and vise versa. Therefore creating more ways for people who want a book on your subject to find you.

Free How To Use Squidoo books Free Squidoo guide

Link to Start your own lens

Allposters link for pictures Allposters.com

When you have your blog up and running then you need to add it to feed sites She Told Me is a great place to start.

Link to my book on Squidoo Dachshund Luke Goes To Spain

Link to Free Blogs: Worpress and Blogger



Want to learn more about how to market on the internet for free?:

I am not going to re write what has already written by professionals however if you really want to promote your Squidoo lens further then I highly recommend you check out this link to see what I am doing.

One Week Marketing - The lady that wrote this is a die hard Squidoo fan so her advice it directly related to promoting Squidoo lenses, this has been my bible and I have learned so much. It has lots of great information on how to promote your Squidoo lens, a blog, or indeed any website. It is also geared towards affiliate marketing (people who sell e-books etc) but gives such a thorough breakdown on internet marketing that I have found invaluable in promoting my lenses. I started just using the promoting advice and was very surprised and happy with the results. I then recently decided to follow up on affiliate marketing since I already had all the information - but that is up to you, the marketing and selling advice alone is well worth its weight in gold. Take a look for yourself here: One WeeK Marketing