Selling Books

The hardest thing that an author does is selling books.  And you are always selling books.  Writing is what you do in between selling books.  What makes this all the more difficult is that you are selling books to people who don't know who you are.  So while you are writing and selling books you are also trying to develop a crowd.  What I have found is that all three of these aspects of writing books seem to grow together.  While I was writing my first book, The Fourth Day: Why the Bible is Historically Accurate, I heard an author that was being interviewed on National Public Radio describe what writing was like.  He said it was a lot like piling manure.  If you pile it high enough eventually someone is going to notice.  Despite the gross mental picture this is actually pretty good advice.  What he is suggesting is this, build a resume.  Start writing articles and post them to the web  ( I use ezinearticles.com and have about 20 articles posted there).  The more you write the more your skills improve and as you accumulate this pile of articles people will begin to notice.  Since posting my twenty articles on ezinearticles.com I have accumulated 7000 hits over the last 3 years.  Therefore this approach is a good strategy to address writing and developing a crowd but what about marketing.

I have noticed that I have gotten better at marketing as I have written more books.  When I started out I was depending on the "internet" to sell my books.  The power of the internet lies in its ability to distribute "free" content.  Since 2006 I have had 7000 people read my free articles and 300 people download free versions of my book.  I have only been able to sell 10 books for profit during that time.  The internet is not the answer. 
Go ahead and set up a website but use it as a convenient way for your customers to find your book.  Since a month ago I have been selling Living in the Age of the Ram and the Goat to small groups in face-to-face gatherings with a lot more success.  I have sold 20 books in a month using this approach and I have been pleased with the results.