Why do some people want to fail?
I’m not talking about people who don’t know any better. Ignorance is 100% curable (although willful ignorance should be punishable by being locked up in a library for 30 years). Publishing ignorance can be cleared up by reading a few books and my New Self-Publisher’s FAQ Or you can hire a consultant, like myself.
But some people really set themselves up to fail, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why.
I’ve had clients with terrific books that sold out, who refused to reprint.
I’ve had clients with a clear readership, but the publisher refused to believe that those were the buyers, and so wandered off, in search of “better prospects.”
I’ve had clients with award-winning books simply decide that they had done enough, and it was time to move on, when the market clearly was calling for more outreach to make more sales.
Publishing is HARD.
Succeeding at publishing is HARDER.
Don’t get in your own way. A few rules of the road:
Save some of the money from your sales for a new print run. If you aren’t in need of printing in a year, spend that on marketing.
If you sell through your print run within 18 months, that’s a good thing, and an indicator that with more marketing effort, you could sell twice as much. Print again.
When you stop marketing the book, the sales will stop. This isn’t rocket science.
If you do your marketing, get a case of ADOS (Attention Deficit… Oh! Shiny! (Credit: Peter Shankman)), then go back to marketing months/years later, you will have lost all marketing momentum. This is basic physics: a body at rest tends to stay at rest; a body in motion tends to stay in motion.
You can revive marketing efforts, but keep in mind it will take 3-6 months to get rolling agian.
Don’t plan to fail. Plan to succeed!
