In your ongoing quest to sell your book, consider selling on the Internet. It’s far-reaching, immediate, and will give you a plethora of places where you can sell without ever leaving your home.
The most obvious place to sell your book on the Internet is your website. You can find ways to get people to go there, but ultimately your readers will buy your book directly from your personal page. You can also look to the giants, amazon.com and bn.com, but when you’re trying to get your book to the largest audience there are other venues to consider.
You might want to start by thinking about places that would make sense for your book to be sold. If you wrote a children’s book, for instance, check online children’s boutiques to see if they would like to sell it through their site. You could even set up an affiliate program with them, where they receive a portion of the sale price as their ‘take’ for helping you sell the book through an additional outlet. Then take a look at smaller independent bookstores to see if you can get your book in their inventory. Offer to do a book signing to bring in customers and negotiate a deal that if you bring in 50 people (for example), they’ll put copies of your book in their store. Get in touch with local stores in your area where your book will have a market and see if they’d like to add your book to their inventory online as well as in their store. Think non-traditionally. If you have a gardening book, look into local home improvement and gardening stores. Sell that arts & crafts book at the local knitting store.
You might think social media is a great place to sell. It is… sort of. Remember the the point of social media is two-fold. First, it’s to build relationships, and second, it’s to drive traffic… back to your blog or website… where a sale can be made. When you post on your social networks, be sure to link your customers to your own page or other online retailers where your book can be sold. Don’t overdo it with links in every post. But always find a way to intrigue your network followers and always make your website link available in your social profile.
Think about it this way: are you a member of your target audience? If yes, where do you shop online (aside from the big stores)? What are the websites you frequent where you can find unique and interesting things? Since your book is unique and interesting, find the websites where you’d like to find your own book and work to get your book sold in those places.