Why You Should Sell Books Direct in 2024

One of the great advantages of self publishing is you can make way more money than a traditionally published author. And you can have an easier time building your audience because you are in control of how you sell or use your book. The biggest trend at the moment is selling books direct to readers. This is the trend to watch in 2024 and beyond. So if you're curious about it, well, you're in luck because this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broadcast. I'm founder of Book Launchers and a self published author four times over. @ Book Launchers, we've worked with more than 400 authors. Most were self publishing their book. Some were doing it traditionally and others were doing a bit of both. What I can tell you is that self publishing authors everywhere are seeing the power of going direct to a reader and selling their books direct, which means nobody's in between. There's no retailer like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Chapters or Books A Million or so On. And that sounds simple at first, but obviously there are a lot of pieces to selling books direct that you have to figure out. We'll cover that in detail in a future video. So make sure you've subscribed and turned on the notifications. And, you know, while you're at it, say hello down below. But today I want to talk about why this is something to set yourself up for, even if you don't want to sell direct right now. Because it takes strategic planning. It's just not as simple as putting your book up on your website and watching the transactions roll in. Going direct requires strategy and skills, but in the long run, you'll build a stronger connection to your audience and make more money per transaction and per person you bring into your ecosystem. You'll also be in a much stronger position to diversify what you offer to your audience. But first, you might be thinking, why would I go direct? Amazon has a huge audience and I'm tapping into it right now. Or maybe you don't even understand why this is the trend in 2024 and beyond. Well, Amazon has gotten more and more challenging to deal with. The massive influx of AI books has made them crack down on more and more things and more and more files are getting kicked back and there's questions and it's just really hard to deal with Amazon some days. They've been terminating a lot more accounts, there's been a lot more scams, and on and on. The catalogs, bookstores and other distribution networks are squeezed for profits, which means Amazon and Ingram have to put the squeeze on authors. And at the end of the day, to truly succeed as an author in building a brand and a business in and around your book, you need to be in control of your content and how it gets sold. And having your own audience, not needing the audience of others, is where you gain true, true control. What's already happening, and I am certain it's going to keep happening, is authors are going to make less and less money per book Soldier. It's been happening since self publishing with Kindle came on strong. Now, to be successful as an author In 2024 and beyond, you have to think about how you're going to use your book to profit, not how you'll profit from your book. So really quick, the three reasons to sell direct are to establish a stronger connection to your audience and gain control over your income and your future. It's also to make more money per transaction and be the one building your business, not just building the business off of others, by sending your readers to buy from someone else. This is really what being a creator, a thought leader, a savvy author, business owner is all about. Now, when you sell direct, you get data that you don't even get an inkling of. When you sell your book through Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Chapters, some of the most valuable data is drum roll, yeah, contact information. And over time you'll get buying habits. And part of that contact information is often physical addresses, which can be really useful. Let's say you're going to be hosting an event in Washington D.C. wouldn't it be nice to be able to contact everyone within 50 miles and invite them? Now, you can do that cheaply and easily if you have their contact information and their addresses. You could also do direct mail campaigns, sending them something in the mail for your next book, your workshop, your coupon to buy your product, whatever it is that you do. Of course, a free book can be enormously valuable, or a reader magnet as well. In another video, I've talked about the value of free books, and giving a book away versus even making a dollar from it can be enormously valuable. If you get contact information, you can actually get an audiobook version of Self Promote and succeed by going to self promoteandsucceed.com audio. I'll put the link in the description below. Of course, doing this has a cost to me, but if I were running an ad or paying to stand at a booth at an event, I have a significant cost to get your contact information. Ultimately, it might cost you to get the person into your ecosystem, but once they're in your ecosystem now, you can connect with them in many many ways and start to create customer lifetime value. Where they buy your future books, they attend events, they hire you for coaching or speaking, they they buy your products, use your services. And that's the number one reason I'm offering Self Promote and Succeed in Audio format for free. And why when you meet me at a conference I'll chat with you and then I or somebody on my team will probably give you a book in exchange for an email address. I want you to get to know what we do at Book Launchers so when you're ready for a professional self publishing and book marketing team, you book a call with us. You don't have to wait to get a free book. You can just do that right now@booklaunchers.com apply if you're a nonfiction author writing or marketing a book to build your business or your brand, we can help. Our books courses in our full service team, from our writers and writing coaches to editors, designers and marketing professionals who pitch you for podcasts, live appearances, media run ads and more are all focused on your bigger picture goal with your book. We surround you with care and support as we guide you through the process. If you want to chat with us, go ahead and fill out the form you'll find at the link below. Having contact information also gives you more data than you'll ever get from retailers. I mean Ingram could tell you if your book sold at a Barnes and Noble in the local area versus the local indie store or versus on an Amazon site, but they don't. As a result, you don't have the ability to do laser focused and likely lower cost marketing. But with you running ads you start to get a lot more data and you learn who has clicked, who read your book and even not really readily available now, but soon how much they have read in time. I hope that some of the platforms allow us to get some of that data. It'd be great to know where a reader loses interest, where they stop reading and see if there's a trend. The data exists because you know Amazon has it for paying out authors on Kindle Unlimited. But so far a platform for direct sales doesn't exist that makes that available to us as an author. But I'm sure it's going to be there someday and that's going to be great information to know. But the part I like to track the most is is where do my readers and ultimately the readers who become clients come from? And this is the best part of selling direct because you get this data, you can use tracking links so you know when you do something that caused somebody to enter your ecosystem and you can set it up to track conversions and feed into your CRM. So you know all of this. Your website should have Google Analytics set up so you can see what platforms send people your way and what their normal journey is on your website. If you're just starting out, and this is probably going to seem like a lot, but this level of sophistication is the difference between making $1,000 versus making 10,000 or 10,000 versus 100,000 or 100,000 versus making a million. Putting Facebook pixels, Google Analytics and other plugins on your site will give you granular data on what marketing channels are working for you, which will allow you to hone in and optimize on them accordingly. Now, to do all this, you need to start establishing a brand so people trust you. You need your platform building tools all set up, which means you have a website, a reader magnet and email sequence. And I know this is all sounding daunting and you're thinking, I'm just going to sell it on Amazon. Many authors don't have a website or a lead magnet or basic email funnel set up, which is something we do for you at Book Launchers when you work with us. But if all of that just seems like too much when you do get your website, just set up the pixels for tracking. Because if you eventually run ads or want to sell direct and you want to retarget people who have been to your website having had those pixels on, there will be a game changer for you. Don't know what I mean? Just go ahead, visit book launchers.com, click on over Hangout. You can click on the service page to see what we offer, or go to the About Us page to meet my fabulous team. Then in the next few days, watch and you'll see me again. Probably again. Yeah, that's what retargeting is. Now I get it. You probably don't want to do this, but now imagine you're one of those authors who got their account shut down on Amazon and you don't have an audience or a way to sell direct. Of course you have your books wide if you do, and you can still sell through other platforms, but you're not able to communicate with your audience to tell them where to find you. Building your platform and setting yourself up to sell direct is even if you don't sell direct yet is just smart author business moves. Now, if you've been around, you've probably been seeing the Kickstarter campaigns happening and man, wouldn't it be nice to have $30,000 or more to kick off your book launch right? Well, that's not easy to do if you aren't already established with an audience that trusts you. We live in a fabulous time and I truly believe there never has been a better time to be an author. There also has never been a better time to make money as a self published author. But it's not magical or overnight. The power we have to make money, build a community, have an impact and be creators is unprecedented. It does, however, take work, patience, effort and strategic thinking about where you want to go. Not next month, not next year, but five years from now did you see the latest Author Guild study? Jane Friedman's hot sheet summarized a key point for all self publishing authors to take note of. When self published authors start out, they tend to earn exceptionally little compared to those getting traditional deals or advances, which makes sense. But if the self published author keeps going and becomes established, if they can hit the five year mark as far as this survey, they are likely to outearn their traditional counterparts. To succeed in this business and enjoy increasing income year after year, you need to think about it like a business and look at the trends. Think longer term. And one of those trends is direct sales. Want more on this? Definitely get self promote and succeed after you hit like and comment below of course. Then watch this video on author branding, this one on author platform and come back for more because I'm going to get into specifics on direct sales to readers in upcoming videos. See you.