Ebooks are hot. As more Kindle devices are sold, and ebooks become ever more popular, there’s a problem for ebook authors: crushing competition.
A year ago, you could publish an ebook and be sure of some sales in many nonfiction categories without doing anything beyond publishing. These days, you’ll find a hundred ebooks on a topic on which there were few.
What does this mean for the hopeful ebook author if your ebooks aren’t selling? Is there just too much competition?
You may not believe this, but…
As I said in this article: You have no competition
There’s No Competition when You’re You
Here’s why you have no competition.
You’re YOU. You have a unique worldview.
Not only can you sell “you” online, you can make much more money than you could ever make at a boring day job.
All you need to do is discover what you want to write.
In that article, I was talking about writing jobs. However, it applies to books too — you have NO competition, as long as you’re prepared to be yourself.
I coach writers every day. I hope that by the time we finish our work together, they’ve developed a real trust in themselves, and in their writing.
Forget the competition.
Why aren’t your books selling?
If your ebooks aren’t selling there’s a reason.
It could be that:
* (Nonfiction.) The market is too small. Before you write, discover whether there are searches for your topic online. Are people looking for information? If they are, are they prepared to pay for this information? Sometimes the market’s just too small;
* (Fiction.) Your genre is out of fashion. In the 1980s, gothic novels were hot. There are a few gothics around now, but at the moment, paranormals seem to be hot. Genres come into fashion, and go out of fashion again. Be patient, chances are your books will be fashionable again soon :-);
* (Fiction.) You need to keep writing. It’s hard to write good books. Over the past few months, I’ve read many indie authors. Many of their books are great, but even so, these books need an editor. That’s one of the benefits of working with big publishers — you get to work with great editors. All books need editing. I’m not talking about line editing — I mean development editing;
You need to keep writing
I’ve always said that your writing problems can only be fixed by more writing, and that includes low ebook sales.
Write. Improve your skills. Focus on writing. Let your sales take care of themselves. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t promote your ebooks. Of course you need to work on building your platform, but nothing takes the place of persistence.
Angela Booth
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