5 Simple Actions You Can Take If Your Book Is Not Selling

Your book is not selling on Amazon!

There are millions of Kindle ebooks currently available, and thousands more are published every day.

An even larger number of paperback and hardcover books are listed on Amazon. So it’s no wonder your book can get lost in the crowd.

Sure, some book promotions can help a little. Writing a blog post and including quotes from people who review your book can help too.

Where do book sales come from?

How do readers buy books?

Most book sales come from book buyers who search Amazon or other online ebook and book retailers for their next read.

The key to improving your book and Kindle sales is to make your book not only easier to find but also more tempting to buy.

There’s much more to selling books than simply promoting your books on Amazon using social media.

For a book to stand a chance, it needs to have an appealing book cover suited to its genre.

It also needs a book description that gives potential readers reasons to buy the book.

Of course, book reviews are vital in encouraging readers to buy a book.

So let’s start with how to help increase book sales on Amazon.

If your book is not selling, try making some simple changes.

Hopefully, they will improve your chances of gaining book buyers on the Kindle Store.

Step 1. Change your book categories

On Amazon and most other self-publishing sites, you can choose two categories (genres) for your book.

If you are currently listed in very broad top categories, it’s time to hunt for much more narrowly focused niche categories.

Broad categories will have your book lost among thousands of others, so narrowing down your genre choice will help your book’s discoverability.

If you list your book under Kindle eBooks > Romance, it is a surefire way to have your book lost among hundreds of thousands of other Kindle books.

A better listing would be Kindle eBooks > Romance > Inspirational because it narrows down the number of competing titles.

Try drilling down even further to a listing such as Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Literary Fiction > Romance. A narrow category will give your book on Amazon a far better chance of being found.

When selecting your two categories, my advice is to drill down as deeply as possible.

Avoid broad header categories at all costs. Look for niche categories that fit your book.

Step 2. Find and use much better search keywords

When you publish on Amazon, you need to add seven keywords. You can add more to some other publishing sites.

Keywords can be a single word or a short phrase. It is always better to select short phrases because they work much better.

To find suitable keywords and phrases, use the Search Field on Amazon and look at the results in the drop-down list of suggestions.

These suggestions are terms that people have used on Amazon. By selecting them carefully, you can improve the chances of readers finding your book when they search for a new read.

You can never do enough keyword and category research for your book.

Step 3. Ditch the prologue and credits

You need to hook book buyers immediately. Write a great book description to help sell your book.

Then you want to get people to read your preview.

Don’t waste the opportunity by boring a potential reader with a preview read full of credits and thank yous to your family and editor.

A lengthy prologue or foreword or any other extra text is going to have them clicking Close Preview in a hurry.

If you have some background information to add to your book, move it to the back of the book.

Hook your potential reader and book buyers by letting them get into reading chapter one and the story as quickly as possible.

Step 4. Change your book cover color

You might love your book cover, but do potential book buyers?

Take a little time to look at books selling well in your genre. Do you need to change your book cover?

Your book cover is your greatest asset to help you promote your book.

How does your cover compare? What colors and fonts are popular in your genre?

If you are not a graphic artist and made a homemade cover, do yourself a big favor and get a professional cover.

You can buy pre-made covers that are inexpensive.

Have you thought about buying two or three with different designs or color variations to see which one works best?

Do an A, B, C test over a few weeks to see which one works better.

Sometimes something as simple as the overriding color of a cover can make a huge difference.

For instance, if your book is Contemporary Romance, look at the background colors of the covers of the most popular titles.

They are primarily pink, light blue, and pastel. If yours is deep olive green, it is time to change your cover.

Again, if you buy a cover, ask the designer if they can make two or three versions for a reasonable price but with different background colors so you can experiment.

Another crucial factor is how your book cover will look when it is reduced to a thumbnail image.

All online book retailers will use small images of your cover, so it must be eye-catching.

Step 5. Rinse and repeat steps 1 & 2

If your book is not selling, keep experimenting with categories, but more importantly, with keywords, until you strike success.

Check your keywords, and if you find one that fails to get your book in the top fifty titles, hunt again for a better one.

When a keyword lists your book in the top fifty, keep it.

These five steps can make a big difference to your book sales.

So give social media a miss for a few hours, and take some positive actions to help potential readers find and want to buy your book.

Applying these measures, possibly in combination with online book promotion, can only help more potential book buyers find your book.

Related Reading: How To Download Your Kindle Ebook From Amazon KDP

Summary

As soon as you become a published author, you need to keep working on ways and learning how to increase Kindle ebook sales.

You published a good book, so you want people to read it.

An option is to try enrolling in KDP Select and leveraging Kindle Unlimited page reads.

You could edit your manuscript with a short message at the end to remind readers to leave a review.

If you have a printed book version, you could lower your price to make it more attractive to potential readers.

Good Indie authors know how it works. When your book is not selling, keep trying and experimenting.

Related reading: What Are The Best Avenues To Use To Sell Your Books Online?