Using Internet Marketing to Sell a Softcover Book

So I'm selling a legit book I wrote on my website. It's not an ebook. It's a professionally printed and typeset softcover book. It looks exactly like a book you would buy at Barnes & Nobles.

My website looks professional, and I've been writing articles and working on it for 6 months. I am not happy with the results going the traditional marketing route. When I publish an article on a site that has 50k unique visitors per day (article must be accepted, not a site like newsvine) it gets me sales of 4-10 books. It's not really worth the effort for me.

I make about 20 bucks on each sale. Is it feasible to buy traffic and pay maybe 10 bucks on average per sale?

Was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best route to try with buying traffic to sell a legit physical book. I'm sick of writing articles to get sales. After about six months I have an average of 40 visitors to my site per day. Would buying traffic work better? What should I start with? I'm new to internet marketing.

Uhmm, the best thing you can do is write good quality articles. I think you already do this. Link them to your site. Build some backlinks to improve your Google rank.

Buying traffic is unnessecary because I only cost's you money and it won't convert.
If your book is on a very specific niche you could try adwords. I don't have got to much experiance with adwords but somepeople do, just use the search button.

I think advertising the traditional route is one good way, try the libary or newspapers get your name on the streets. Mouth on mouth advertisement is very strong.

I suggest to do some research what works out the best. Try some out and you find out what works the best, use that methode and try some new ones.

Testing, testing, testing.
If you read more on this forum you will definantly find out what I am talking about.

Hope this was a usefull post for you!
Goodluck promoting your book!

thanks, maybe I will try adwords

Send all the articles to a fake oprah book club type site and recommend it.

@mellowbass: your probabbly just buying crap traffic or don't know what your doing or promoting a crappy offer. If traffic didn't work why is that a lone a multiple-million to billion dollar industry????

@op you might find something like adwords useful but, if your new to Internet marketing it could be a waste of money.

... You might also want to consider hiring an seo. I would say do seo on your own but it usualy takes people a long time to learn.

twitterstar said:

So I'm selling a legit book I wrote on my website. It's not an ebook. It's a professionally printed and typeset softcover book. It looks exactly like a book you would buy at Barnes & Nobles.

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You could try selling your book on amazon.com and/or ebay to get more traffic. These sites obviously have built-in traffic, so you wouldn't need to put forth much effort. With ebay, however, you'd need to use some good keywords in your listing title so that your ad/listing will be seen.

Traffic will do no good whatsoever if the book is not worth a damn. I am part of writers Guild, I know a few hundred "nobodies" who all have published and bound trade paperback or hardback books. All of them are "published authors", none of them make a dime because they are not writers, they want money or some sort of fame. I have more "autographed" books written by dick and jane doe from down the street than anyone else I know.

Getting a book published or doing it yourself is the same as all these myspace bands, everyone has one, most of them are shit and only the top 1% are authors and or bands you may have heard of.

With this being said, IM is not the way to go, start paying money to real agent who is going to swing you a deal.

I'm not saying that your book is any better or worse than a Tom Clancy novel, but understand that Tom Clancy does not write anything original and he has a staff of ghost writers and one hell of an agent.

Point is, he spends money to develop his brand. Look up his Bio on Wiki where you will find the exact words, "ghost writers" and "brand".

195471 said:

You could try selling your book on amazon.com and/or ebay to get more traffic. These sites obviously have built-in traffic, so you wouldn't need to put forth much effort. With ebay, however, you'd need to use some good keywords in your listing title so that your ad/listing will be seen.

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You need your own ISBN number. This is an example of someone who does not have a clue about what he is talking about. The OP wrote their own book, you can't just throw it up on Amazon, if you knew that, you would not have written a "post booster" answer with lots of IM'y sounding things.

Anyone Can get an ISBN for a couple hundred bucks though, so don't worry.

What market does your book cover? send me a PM and i may be able to make you a couple of grand in the next few months =]

Pharoah said:

You need your own ISBN number. This is an example of someone who does not have a clue about what he is talking about. The OP wrote their own book, you can't just throw it up on Amazon, if you knew that, you would not have written a "post booster" answer with lots of IM'y sounding things.

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1. It's called a UPC number. UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE covers books.
2. It costs anywhere from $20-$200.
3. It's pretty easy to get one. Have you http://lmgtfy.com/?q=buy+UPC
4. Just because he's not spoonfeeding the OP, doesn't mean he's doing it to boost post count.

shadowpwner said:

1. It's called a UPC number. UNIVERSAL PRODUCT CODE covers books.
2. It costs anywhere from $20-$200.
3. It's pretty easy to get one. Have you Googled it?
4. Just because he's not spoonfeeding the OP, doesn't mean he's doing it to boost post count.

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Obviously you and I know what we are talking about. If one does not say anything that makes sense or is wrong, then it stands to reason that one should correct the matter. I'm not being mean, but suppose OP never got correct info, what would be the point of the forum?

Pharoah said:

You need your own ISBN number. This is an example of someone who does not have a clue about what he is talking about. The OP wrote their own book, you can't just throw it up on Amazon, if you knew that, you would not have written a "post booster" answer with lots of IM'y sounding things.

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Pharoah said:

If one does not say anything that makes sense or is wrong, then it stands to reason that one should correct the matter. I'm not being mean, but suppose OP never got correct info, what would be the point of the forum?

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You are being mean, Pharoah. Otherwise, you would not have attacked me, or you would have at least exercised some tact in doing so. Saying that I don't "have a clue" about what I'm talking about and then accusing me of post boosting was uncalled for. I am hardly the "post booster" type, and nothing that I said was "wrong" or senseless. So what if "you need your own ISBN number"? (By the way, "ISBN" by itself would have sufficed, as saying "ISBN number" is akin to saying "HIV virus" and "ATM machine" -- I only mention this because I want to make sure that you get the "correct info".) As others have pointed out, all it takes to get an ISBN is some paperwork and a few bucks. Granted, if the OP doesn't already have an ISBN, the book would need to be reprinted, which could be a major expense, and in that case Amazon may not be the way to go. Having said that, one can still take advantage of Amazon traffic to sell a book without actually listing it as an item in their catalog, thereby alleviating the need for an ISBN, but I digress. The only reason that I suggested Amazon and ebay is that the OP was having trouble getting traffic, and these sites have a lot of traffic to offer, provided that you make use of those "IM'y sounding things" called "keywords". Personally, I would have found the market and the traffic first and then written the book, but hey, I don't "have a clue", right?

Lastly, I don't see why anyone would be bothered by "IM'y sounding things", as BHW is an IM forum of sorts where thousands of IMers hang out every day for hours on end. Furthermore, the OP admitted being "new to internet marketing", so any IM lingo used by other members should, at the very least, give newcomers some topics and vocabulary to research as they begin their journeys from beginner to expert.

@twitterstar: If you feel comfortable disclosing more information about your book, I'd be happy to offer other ideas about how it could be promoted. Feel free to PM me.

As it is stated, since you are selling a real product articles and SEO is the way to go.