Why you're struggling to sell books on social media

Building a readership takes more than just posting to social media

Shameless Self Promo [insert current day here]

We see it all over social media.

Authors, quite rightly, promoting their books.

Yet, do people really buy books off the back of one random tweet?

Possibly.

But are readers likely to connect with that author and come back for more?

Probably not.

To become an established author, you need a long-term strategy.

Doing this one thing will transform your readership figures

As authors, we all need readers. People actually buying and reading our books.

Building a readership is one of the biggest challenges facing any author, especially if you're self-published. You're expected to do the writing, the marketing, and the publishing. It's a lot!

But there is one audience-building strategy that is almost fool-proof - and that's building an email list. Building an email list is a crucial strategy for authors looking to engage with their readers effectively. Despite the rise of social media and other digital marketing tools, email remains one of the most powerful and reliable means of communication and sales. If you're an author, here's why you should prioritise creating and nurturing an email list.

How Anna-Louise Bates became a best-selling author

In December 2015, Anna-Louise’s life changed forever.

On a walk home from a Christmas party, her husband and 7-year-old son were struck by a car. Anna-Louise was thrown into a whirlwind of grief and disbelief.

In 2021, Anna’s story was penned by a wonderful ghostwriter but publishing houses rejected her book proposal, saying she’d ‘already had enough press coverage’, and that she ‘didn’t have enough Instagram followers.’ The book languished until 2024.

I re-ghostwrote some parts, edited the entire book, and self-published Anna-Louise’s book in September 2024 and it became an instant Amazon best-seller.