5 Clever Tactics to Get More eBook Sales Per Reader

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When self-published authors think about ways to increase the sales of their eBooks, the first thing that often comes to mind is this: find more readers. And yet, this may not always be the best and easiest solution to the problem.

In the business world there is a classic saying:

It costs five times more to acquire a customer than it does to keep one.

Rather than trying to persuade someone to give your books a try, wouldn’t it be easier to increase the number of readers who go on to buy multiple books from you? If you master this skill, you can be successful even without a huge readership base.

Two scenarios:

• 1000 readers who only ever buy one book each = 1000 sales
• 500 readers who buy three books each = 1500 sales

In this post, I’ll teach you 5 tactics you can use to get more eBook sales from every reader.

1. Increase the relatedness of your books

For the moment, let’s step into the mind of someone who has just finished reading one of your books. If they have a strong enough reason to do so, they can immediately search for more of your books on their eReader, and instantly purchase another book you have written. For this reason, you should provide your readers with the strongest possible motivation to take this next step.

If you write books that are unrelated to one another – different characters, different settings and different genres – a reader’s only motivation to seek out more books is that they liked the last one. This can be enough sometimes, but it’s not the strongest possible motivation to purchase another eBook from you. Most people have dozens of authors they like, and a long queue of unread books on their eReader or their bookshelf. The last place you want to be is at the bottom of that pile.

Making the relatedness of your books clear provides a much stronger reason for the reader to buy another one of your books. For example, you would expect most people who loved the first book in your trilogy to immediately seek out the second. Even if you write in a genre where multi-book series are uncommon, you could create multiple standalone books sharing the same main character. If a reader liked your book, they’re probably attached to your main character and interested to follow along on more of their adventures. If you’re not inspired to write another book with the same main character, you could focus on a likeable secondary character, or even a book with different characters in the same setting. Readers are often just as attached to your world as they are to your characters.

Some examples:

• James Bond movies are standalone stories connected by the same central character. Fans are attached to Bond and enjoy watching his escapades. When a new Bond movie comes out, they flock to the cinema in droves, even though this story may have no connection to the last.
• One of the reasons Stephenie Meyer sold so many copies of the Twilight series is that even readers who disliked the writing style or characters in the book still couldn’t stop reading. They had an all-consuming curiosity to see how the story ended. By telling the story over four books, Meyer turned one sale per reader into four.
• Raymond E. Feist is the best-selling fantasy author of 10 multi-book series. Though the primary characters in each series are often different, the setting is the same. Readers who grow to care about the world of Midkemia and its people are much more likely to start reading other books by the author as long as they know they’ll get to visit the setting and its characters one more time.

If you can give readers more reasons to care about your other books, and if you can show them how your other books relate to what they just read, they’ll be much more compelled to buy more books from you.

Some tips:

• Add your main character’s name to book titles and subtitles. Brett Battles does this with many of his books, i.e. ‘A Logan Harper thriller’ or ‘A Jonathan Quinn novel’. Without this subtitle his readers may not know that he has multiple books featuring the character they know and love. On Amazon, the title for Blake Crouch and J.A. Konrath’s book Stirred is displayed as Stirred (Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels Mysteries).
• Always make it clear in your book title/subtitle whenever one of your books is part of a series. For example, Taming Fire (The Dragonprince Trilogy, #1).
• Do the same for standalone books with a shared setting. Let’s say you wrote a science fiction novel set on the same planet as one of your other successful books, but with no shared characters. A title including (A Borgada Novel), assuming the planet’s name is Borgada, would help readers to see that the book takes place in a setting they know and love.

2. Maintain your brand across book covers

Browse through any book store and you will notice how common it is for authors of multiple books to use an identical cover style for each book. Nothing communicates the relatedness of two books more effectively than using the same cover aesthetic.

Take the above four books by John Locke. Even if Locke’s name was removed from the books you could still probably guess that they were all by the same author. When many users browse eBook listings they glance at each cover for only a millisecond – often not even long enough to read the title and author’s name. By using similar covers for related books, users will be much more likely to spot your books when browsing, even when doing so at great speed.

Though sharing a cover aesthetic between any related book can be useful, doing so is critical for any continuous book series. A common tactic is to use the same layout and color scheme for each cover, but to change only one key element. The Twilight series covers are an excellent example of this. The colors and typography stay the same, only the object featured on the cover changes.

3. Add a call to action at the end of every book you sell

When a reader finishes the final page of your story this is a critical junction for determining whether you will retain them as a long-time fan or lose them forever. Even well-intentioned readers who decide that they will move on to another author’s book for now, but look out for your books in future, is still a potential loss. Life is full of distractions, and other priorities come up. They may soon forget about you if they don’t immediately take action to keep track of your work.

This is why I strongly believe it’s essential that every eBook ends with a call to action that solidifies the reader as a long-term customer. On the page after your story finishes, immediately recommend the next book they should purchase if they liked the one they just read. For example:

Thank you for reading Ender’s Game.

Ender’s journey continues in Speaker for the Dead, the second book in the award-winning Ender’s Game series.

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens’ ways are strange and frightening…again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery…and the truth.

Speaker for the Dead is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

Purchase Speaker of the Dead Now

What if you only have one book?

When it comes to retaining readers, this can be a dangerous place to be. In most cases, it is up to the reader to remember your name and keep an eye out for more books by you in the future. But would you really want your business to be built around the strength of your readers’ memories? Instead, add a call to action that helps the reader to maintain their relationship with you. My personal favorite is to add a link to your email list (if you don’t have one yet, you can create one with Aweber). If they sign up, you’ll be able to notify the reader each time you release a new book, and maintain a permanent relationship with them.

If you’ve started work on your next book, you could also include an excerpt at the end of your first, then encourage a newsletter sign-up at the end of the excerpt. But remember: an excerpt must be a finished piece of writing, reviewed, edited and proofread with the same vigor as your finished stories. Secondly, an excerpt is a promise that the same passage of text will appear in the book when you eventually release it. An excerpt that doesn’t make it into the finished book could easily be seen as false advertising by your readers.

4. Use discount codes

If you have an E-junkie store on your website, you can keep 100% of the profits of any sales you refer here. It’s worth experimenting with directing the calls to action at the end of your books to your E-junkie store, rather than to your book pages on a third party service like Smashwords. If you do send readers to your E-junkie store, you can also provide them with a discount coupon at the back of your book. You could give them 20% off the purchase of a specific book, or a small discount on any book they choose.

You can create discount coupons for your online book store by logging into your E-Junkie admin area and clicking ‘Add / Edit E-junkie Cart Discounts / Gift Coupons’ in the ‘Manage Your Seller Account’ menu.

From the next screen you can create your discount code. A few things to remember:

• Because most people will switch to their computer to use the discount code in your online store, you want to make sure your code is easy to remember. Try using a word or phrase rather than numbers.
• It’s best to add an expiry date to your discount codes to protect against unintended usage – but make sure you remove the code from your eBooks at least one week before the code is set to expire, or expect disgruntled customers.
• Max use count refers to the number of times the discount code can be used per customer. In most cases you should set this to 1.
• The discount can be set as a percentage or a flat fee. I recommend always using a percentage. For example, what if you decide to reduce one of your eBooks from $4.99 to $0.99, but have previously been giving out a $2 off coupon? The coupon will bring the price of your book down to $0.00.

5. Be reliable

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” – Old saying

As always, the best thing you can do to increase sales per reader is write great books consistently. If you have three awesome books hidden among seven average books, readers who stumble across your average books first may never take a chance on you again.

But if readers trust that your books are consistently good, they won’t hesitate to buy even more books from you.

It’s tough for any author to always publish high-quality books, but for self-published authors, it can be even harder. Our income is directly related to the number of books we have on offer, and the pressure to churn out books quickly is high. Self-published authors sometimes make the mistake of prizing a prolific release schedule over maintaining a standard of quality. Soon enough, previously loyal readers will get fed up with the inconsistency.

The best authors are capable of writing fast and writing well. But remember: the faster you write and revise, the more essential it will be to get the help of a talented editor and proofreader.

Final Words

If you experiment with any of these tactics, please report back on your findings here. Got other ideas, or questions? I will respond to every comment left on this post.

One topic that I am keen to cover in more detail is using an email newsletter to keep ahold of each of your readers. It’s something I’ll be covering in much more detail very soon. I think you’re going to enjoy what I have planned. If you don’t want to miss that post, make sure to subscribe to Passive Income Author via RSS.

Lastly, just a quick note that this blog is young and still finding its feet. Anything you can do to spread the word would be greatly appreciated . Thanks so much!

All my best,

Skellie

[Photo by linh.ngân]