It’s not enough to slap some book together and throw it in the Kindle store. If you’re lucky your mom will buy it and maybe even your grandma, but it sure won’t make you rich in a hurry. That’s what you want right? A big fat wallet for all your hard work. Or maybe you want to be known as a respected author. Become so famous that everyone knows your name. Well that won’t happen if you don’t sell any books, agreed?
Don’t even think about the content of the book yet. It’s important, but it’s far too early to start worrying about the inside pages. Your sales page is just like any other on the Internet. It needs to make people take their wallet out and type in their card details. They won’t do that for anyone. The two biggest things you need to look at is the design of the book cover and the copy, and let’s see why.
Why design and copy?
What’s the first thing you do when you go into the bookstore? If you’re like most people you will look at the front cover then turn it around and look at the copy on the back. This will automatically tell you if you want to buy the book. Amazon is the exact same. When people search for something they will be drawn to a book that has a nice cover. Something that resonates with them.
Now the first thing they will actually do is look at the star rating, but since your book is brand new you don’t need to care about this. First you actually need to sell books before you have the privilege of a good rating. Once they click on the cover they will read the copy. If it doesn’t look good they will click away, even if you have the nicest design in the world.
The design fundamentals
You can’t have the default book cover. Let’s get that out of the way straight away. Look at the masses of books that don’t have a unique cover and you will see their mom did buy the book, but that’s it. It needs to tell someone what the book is about, especially the title and even the graphic. It should be as plain as you can make it while still looking great. Use a fancy graphic by all means, but don’t have so much on the page that not even you know what’s going on.
If you have any money it’s strongly recommended you hire a professional to do it for you. Depending on how good you want it you might have to fork out a little chunk of change. But remember, this is your future income on the line and the better it looks, the more people will click to read the copy. If you work with a great designer they will work with you until it looks just the way you want it. Have a look at some of the popular books in your niche to get an idea of what’s working for them.
Sell it to them like a pro
When you look around at everything that’s doing well you will see that they all know how to write copy. They can almost make the customer reach for their wallet just by the words being used. The obvious thing you need is some social proof. People will be a lot more likely to by a book from someone who has accomplished something, rather that some cowboy who wants to get rich quick.
After that you need to tell them what the book will do for them. They don’t want to hear what’s inside the book. Once they start reading they will soon find out. Instead, they want to know how it will change their life. What will they be able to do after they put down the book? What action will they be able to take to move forward in their life? If you can hook them with emotional triggers they will buy your book.
About the Author: This guest post was written by Patrick from YarraWeb, a leading web design Melbourne based company. Patrick regularly contributes to many popular web design blogs.
