#408 Marketing Minute: January Book Sales

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

At the time that this episode is released. It's December, so January is around the corner. And in this episode, I wanted to talk to you about January book sales. Hi, my name is Shelli Hitz, one of your hosts here at the Kingdom Writers Podcast. And in December we talk about a lot. Like there's a lot of book sales leading up to Christmas, but there are actually quite a few book sales in January as well. Think about people who got Kindles for gifts for Christmas. You know, they just got a Kindle device or maybe they got some other sort of reading device, but they may have gotten something for Christmas. And also a lot of people get gift cards or money that then they want to spend and they may want to spend it on books. So they could have gift cards to Amazon and they might be interested in buying print books or ebooks. They may just have money that they use to spend to buy those. And so you may want to, you know, consider doing something special in January for those people. So number one, you may want to run a special promotion. So this could be any kind of promotion. I'm just going to give you three ideas, but we give you lots of ideas in Christian book academy, but one could be a nice 99 cent promotion for a Kindle ebook of yours. So maybe if people did get Kindle devices or you know, they have an Amazon gift card burning a hole in their pocket, they be like, oh yeah, I've been wanting to read their book. And when it's on $0.99, that's an impulse buy. You may also want to do buy one, get one. Now this can be a little tricky for self published authors or independently published authors, but usually you'll have them purchase one book on Amazon or another retailer or directly from you. And then they fill out a form and then you send them a digital copy as a free copy. So you can maybe make it by the print version and I'll send you an ebook version or buy the print or ebook version and I'll send you an audiobook version and maybe they even can share that version with a friend or maybe they share the print book with a friend and then they get the audiobook version or the the Kindle version. So there's so many different ways to do it, but that's another idea. Or you could do like what we often do for a book launch, but it doesn't have to be a book launch. You could offer a special bonus when they purchase your book in January. So maybe you have some sort of special thing that you create. Maybe it's a video, maybe it's a PDF, maybe they get to join you live for. For to discuss the book. There could be a lot of different things and something that I did during my book launch for broken crayons still color is I reached out to some different people and asked if they would be willing to donate something for my book launch. So I said I'm only going to be giving this away for free during these dates. So you could look on Etsy and try to find some artists that have some digital things that you could give away that might be a good fit and complimentary to your book. And they during that time allow you to give it away for free. And you promote their business and you promote what they do and they might get some more business from it. So consider running a special. It could be a 99 cent promotion, a buy one, get one, a bonus with purchase. Or number two, reach out and if you have an established email list, reach out to another author and say, hey, you know, January is a month that people are buying books. What if we would promote each other in our email list and do an email swap? So this is a great idea. I've recently been trying something on freebie Fridays. So, you know, offering you guys quality freebies for those of you that are on our email list and they're either bundles that I'm part of that are free or, or it's someone, an individual that has something to offer and then they send an email to their list and then I send an email to my list about them. And so it's just something I'm trying. And I think solo email swaps is a great idea. If you have at least 50 people on your list, go for it. And I think everyone is just looking for ways to reach more readers and impact more lives. And so the worst that can happen is they might say, well, not right now, but maybe later or no, but I really think that you'll get people that will say yes. So we have an entire training on this. You can get it inside ChristianBookAcademy.com or you can buy it as a standalone training in thebookmarketingshop.com and then so first consider running a special promotion. Number two, if you have an email list. And if you have at least 50 people on it, I encourage you to consider doing a solo email swap with another author. And the number three, if you haven't yet, you may want to consider setting up Amazon ads. So again, people are going to be on Amazon a little bit more during January looking for how to spend their Amazon gift cards or to fill up their Kindles. And so it may be a good time for you to try Amazon ads. Now, I am not sure as far as, like, how much competition there's going to be and all of that, but I just know Amazon ads are working well for us and, you know, it kind of goes up and down. But we have earned consistent income from them since 2016 and it's worth, it's worth trying. I really believe that, you know, if you can set aside a little bit of your profits from your books to invest into Amazon ads, or if you have some money that you can invest into it, it's worth giving it a try. You're going to get in front of readers and your target readers, and it's one of the best ways for them to find you because there's so many books now on Amazon, it's so hard to, you know, stand out. And this, you know, this obviously is paid ads, but it is one way that you can use as well. So again, in January, you know, you have an opportunity to reach some readers that have just bought Kindles or got gift cards or money for Christmas. So number one, consider running a special offer. Number two, consider a solo email swap, especially if you have an email list of at least 50 or more. And then number three, you may want to consider Amazon ads if you don't have it set up yet. And I just am excited, I'm excited for a new year. I just, I love this feeling coming into January. I don't know how many of you feel the same way. Like, it's just like, you know, I usually ask God for a theme for the year and, you know, it feels like a fresh start. And so I just want to pray over you as we, we, as we will be starting a new year here soon. So, God, I just pray for every kingdom writer listening right now. I pray your blessing over their life. I pray that as they begin to transition into this new year that you would give them just a joy from you that they are right where they need to be and just continue to lead and guide them on their writing journey, whether they're still writing their book or they're in the publishing process or their marketing. And Lord, give them wisdom if they're to do anything special in January to just reach more readers and impact lives. And we thank you. We thank you for this new year. We thank you that your mercies are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. And as we, as we cross over into a new year in the next couple weeks, Lord, may you just again just shine your light in our hearts. May we grow to just closer to you in this next year and partner with you as we write, publish and market our books. And I pray this in Jesus powerful name. Amen. Amen friends. And if you want to help with just moving forward in your marketing of your book, please join us in Christian Book Academy. We have set up an entirely new member area. I'm so proud of it. I really feel like it is, it is an amazing content for you. I've set up the new system and framework called the Book Marketing Compass and it helps you really choose a direction for marketing. And then we have our Book Marketing Explorer where you can just pick and choose different marketing opportunities depending on, you know, you know, just different things. And so come and check it out. Join us. There's no long term commitments. You can be there for a month or years. We have people that have been with us for eight and a half years, almost nine years now. So we love you. Have a great rest of this year and we will be crossing into the new year soon.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you as a Christian writer have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.