getting my book in the hands of one million people

I honestly believe that if my book is read by a hundred million people, it will solve climate change and a list of other major problems.    If anybody else thinks that is true, please click on the thumbs up for this post.

We sold 20,000 copies during the kickstarter.  

I sent copies to several people of influence.  For example, this review recently came out.

At this moment, there are 30 reviews on amazon averaging 4.9 stars.   There are 8 reviews on audible averaging 4.5 stars.  There are 44 reviews at goodreads adding up to 4.45 stars.  

During the writing, Shawn and I started off with the idea of getting it out quickly.   And then we got the idea to put a LOT more time into it to polish it so it has the chance to sell 100 million copies.  I think it is a very polished product.  

And sales still seem pretty flat.

For a while I was sending multiple copies to people who I thought would read it and say "this is awesome!" and then they would hand copies out to others.   This seems to not be the case.  I send the copies over and they just collect dust.  

There is a professional review service called Kirkus.  I sent them $425.  Apparently, a professional will write a review "within 7-9 weeks".  I'm still waiting.

In the meantime, I am flooded with information about how we are doomed.  Climate change is gonna kill us all and there is nothing we can do.  NOTHING!   Will somebody please help save the world from impeding doom?   Anybody?  Anybody at all?  Can somebody even provide a tiny clue?   And I try to say something about the book, but suddenly I'm a shill.   In the meantime hundreds of other books are lauded as "finally, somebody is sharing information in a book!"

So .... regrouping ....   what do I do to get the book in front of one million people?  That would be a stepping stone on the way to 100 million.  I am currently selling about 4 books per week.  Shawn is doing all the stuff on amazon and everywhere else in the world - and it sounds like his efforts are not going much further.  

I remember I once heard that if you put $1000 into PR/marketing you sell about $1000 worth of books.  If it were nudge slightly so that the it was covering the costs of printing, shipping AND the marketing, I would be totally okay with this.  But where do I put that coin?

So I present the question to you all:   how do I sell a million copies of my book?

For those of you with a blog, or maybe you post to a public group or something ....   I have the book set up here at permies with a 50% affiliate fee.  

50% affiliate fee for the ebook
50% affiliate fee for the physical book
50% affiliate fee for the audiobook

I like to think that people that are smarter than me at marketing could turn the sales of this book into a full time job.  Maybe a professional wage.

Shortcut to the general page about the book:   permies.com/bwb

If you have an f-code, here are some possible links you could make:

   (note that my f-code is "7" so these examples will use "7")

   to the main page:  https://permies.com/bwb?f=7
   to the page for the ebook: https://permies.com/t/112519f7 or https://permies.com/t/112519f7/Building-World-Backyard-angry-bad
   to the page for the physical book: https://permies.com/t/122611f7 or https://permies.com/t/122611f7/Building-World-Backyard-angry-bad
   to the page for the audiobook: https://permies.com/t/125468f7 or https://permies.com/t/125468f7/Building-World-Backyard-angry-bad

Sometimes people want to make an elaborate page and they want to link directly to the paypal transaction stuff:

   ebook:  https://permies.com/jforum?module=paidTopic&action=buyWithPaypal&topic_id=112519&f=7
   physical book:  https://permies.com/jforum?module=paidTopic&action=buyWithPaypal&topic_id=122611&f=7
   audiobook:  https://permies.com/jforum?module=paidTopic&action=buyWithPaypal&topic_id=125468&f=7

If you don't have an f-code yet:  

   https://permies.com/forums/affiliate/list

At one point, I thought people would have a dozen copies of the book.   They would give out 11.   And then 2 of those 11 would get another dozen copies.  Etc, etc, etc.   And within weeks we would be selling thousands of copies per week.  We would quickly need to print a lot more books!  But that seems to not be happening.  

And then comes the part of somebody searching for a book like this.  Suppose somebody wants to do things at home.  What do they search for?  How do we get the book in front of them?

Or maybe they are searching for carbon footprint, or climate change - maybe we can offer the book to them through that?

The library books donated across the state are circulating pretty well. A checkout is for 4 weeks at a time, your book has been checked out about 30 times since it was cataloged in October.

I can't give the thumbs up because I think even if a million people read your book, only about half of them would be concerned with the issues you are trying to tackle, 75% of those would be concerned but not willing to give up certain amenities, and 75% of the remaining would give it some serious thought for a few months before the distractions and concerns of modern day life take over and they just plain forget about the issues the planet is facing.

As for selling the million, I think the best way is to get it recognized by someone with a little more popularity than the meager Permies here, despite how enthusiastic we may be about your book. In short, you need a celebrity reader. For example, "Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens was a very well received book in 2018, but when Reese Witherspoon chose it for her bookclub it sold over 4 million copies in 2019. Anyone know anyone famous?

I got in touch with arnold schwarzenegger a couple of months ago.   He said to send copies to his staff.  His staff said they received the copies and were starting to read it.   And then silence.  

Jeff Bezos
Amazon HQ
410 Terry Ave. N
Seattle WA 98109-5210
USA

Worth a shot? After all he did just put 10 billion towards climate change research including activists. I think this book could fall in the category.

Daniel Ray wrote:Jeff Bezos
Amazon HQ
410 Terry Ave. N
Seattle WA 98109-5210
USA

Worth a shot? After all he did just put 10 billion towards climate change research including activists. I think this book could fall in the category.

It's a shot in the dark.   It seems like it would need a note.   What might the note say?

one book and one note are now en route to jeff bezos.

"To the glorious Mr. Bezos, or whichever staff has opened this package.

I would like to first thank you for your dedication towards preserving the planet with the extraordinary amount of money you have dedicated and the gift for future generations.  Though my resources are much smaller than yours, I have dedicated my life's ambitions towards the same end by attempting to give an educational resource to all who are also concerned with the future of the planet. My intention is not a capitalistic one of gain, but rather to educate as many as possible and let them know the simple ways they can contribute to the health of our shared environment.

If you find the accompanying book to be worth sharing, I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to make a much larger impact on the mindset of many who would find your recommendation worth investigating and would in turn read my book.

Thank you for your time and again for your generosity."



Obviously there would need to much more groveling than what is here.

Maybe the thing to do is to send five books, one at a time, with five different notes.  

The one I sent today said:

Jeff,

I honestly believe that if 100 million people read this book, the problems with climate change would be gone.  

What can I do to make this easy?

My job is closely related to the publishing world, so here’s my two cents:
I would say: get it out there on social media.
I don’t know how active you are currently on social media (instagram/twitter), but there are a lot of ‘influencers’ on there that are not trying to sell perfum or cheap clothes; but a healthy lifestyle and a natural way of living. Many of these people have thousands of followers. If some of these people would be willing to talk about your book, that could definitely create some attention. Might not be as big as getting a celebrity, but it’s probably the next best thing. Lots of people are looking at these social media figures for inspiration on how to live their life.

Next up: newspapers! The era of newspapers isn’t over yet. Getting newspapers to write about your book (or you) will get you attention. In order to get newspapers to be interested, give them a story (something other then, my book is so awesome but nobody wants to buy it). Write a newsworthy article about a subject related to your book, and then have your book be the footnote to it (for example: interested to read more about this: buy this awesome book).

Having a dedicated webpage for your book with a fresh looking lay-out will also help, so if people are searching for your book, they immediately get to the right place.

Who was your publisher? Or was the book self-published?

It is a self-pub book.

Allright.
Maybe check out some good instagram accounts and contact them to see if they’d be interested in promoting the book.
I know @therootfolks and @growingwildthings who have a nice following, and are great and inspiring people. But undoubtedly there are many many others out there with an even bigger following.

You could also consider contacting shops directly if you haven’t yet. It’s a lot of work to contact shops from all over the world, as this would be something a publisher could normally use its pre-established network for, but having your book in fysical shops instead of just online will get your book under the eyes of more people who aren’t purposely looking for your book. Don’t just try book shops. You can also try bio-shops, gardening shops, even ecological clothing shops.
You could also try teaming up with a brand of ecological clothing or tools or plants or...

Organising a free public event where you give a permaculture workshop (for example permaculture methods for city dwellers), or offering a workshop/lecture to children’s schools (for example together with their parents) can also attract people to buy your book, and would be a newsworthy topic for local newspapers to write about.

Forgive my negative nelly angle, but I have somewhere I am going with this, just give me a moment ...

Getting it into a shop:   I think I need to contact ten shops and one shop will put in three books.   And in a year they might sell all three.  I might have three hours of effort to sell three books.  At this pace, I doubt I will get to one million.

I guess my thinking is something where I might spend $500 on something and that results in the sale of 1000 books.   And then I can afford to spend $1000 on that same thing.  And repeat forever.  

Is it advertising?  Is it PR?  Who do I contact?

This forum is for writers, so my guess is that somebody will say "you need a publicist!  Here is a link to the one I use!"

Trick from a former bookseller (me). Have your friends/relatives go into their local bookstores and ask for Paul Wheaton's new book. when the bookstore finds the book's info, the relatives say, "Oh, I have that. I thought there was another one."

What happens is that the staff frequently write this down...and the person who orders books takes note. HOWEVER, if your friends/relatives do this all the time, the bookstore will ignore them. They will be the sources of overbuying a book that the store cannot sell.  They also need to buy some copies of the book, on occasion! The bookstores cannot these days order books on spec.

If the book isn't up to snuff, there's nothing much you can do.

I know of a guy who's book is, well, let's just say I had customers complain about the level of writing, right? Because he could not get published otherwise, I'm convinced, he started a publishing company. HIs family had money and that's the reason he's still out there. He gave me a copy, because I was known to be good at hand selling books. I ended up writing "No." "No!" all over the first chapter and frankly never finished it -- but the book is still in print.

I've got a copy of your book. The writing is fine. I think the problem may be that you're addressing a problem others just don't want to face/admit and that I have no tips for!

Jennie,

What is a form of advertising I can do that will entice book stores to stock a dozen copies of my book?   A review in a specific magazine?

Do book stores only buy from distributors?

 

paul wheaton wrote:Forgive my negative nelly angle, but I have somewhere I am going with this, just give me a moment ...

Getting it into a shop:   I think I need to contact ten shops and one shop will put in three books.   And in a year they might sell all three.  I might have three hours of effort to sell three books.  At this pace, I doubt I will get to one million.

I guess my thinking is something where I might spend $500 on something and that results in the sale of 1000 books.   And then I can afford to spend $1000 on that same thing.  And repeat forever.  

Is it advertising?  Is it PR?  Who do I contact?

This forum is for writers, so my guess is that somebody will say "you need a publicist!  Here is a link to the one I use!"

Getting your book to sell is less a question of throwing the right amount of money at it, and more about getting your book seen by the right people at the right time.
There are a lot of upsides to self publishing, but a lot of downsides to it as well. Publishers have vast contacts. Books published with them automatically get your book in a number of online and offline shops. Publishers haul your book to bookfairs worldwide. Publishers have contacts with newspapers. Good ones have a lot of activity on social media. They organise book presentation events, get the press involved, they will translate your book to other languages etc. Not having a publisher means you have to do all of that yourself, or find someone who is willing to spend a full time job doing it for you. You can’t have best of both worlds I’m afraid.
Self publishing is great if you want to sell a small amount of books. If you want to sell a million, only the logistics of such an endeavour could warrant the use of a publisher. Now having already sold 20.000 copies with kickstarter is a really good way to get a publishers attention because you have proven that there is enough interest in your topic. It makes it less of a risk for them to invest in your book.
Unfortunately the only publishers I have direct contact info of are Belgian or Dutch  (but then you’d need to translate your book). As for contact info of English publishers I can’t be of much help I’m afraid.

My understanding is that what you describe is what publishers would do 20 years ago.  Today, most publishers will only do that for the books they decide is their in-house best seller.  

I honestly thought that the 12-books-at-a-time thing was gonna quickly get it to millions of copies.   Apparently I was wrong.   And, yes, now I have to do the publicity stuff.  Is there a service that I can hire for that?

Paul, this is the challenge of every author out there -  how to promote and sell their books. It's harder for Indies, but even traditional publishing houses are doing less promoting, expecting authors to do more of their own. I used to belong to the Authors Guild and even long-time "professional" writers were asking this question. Many use social media effectively, but it depends on the following.

Part of the problem is that folks just don't want to bother with reviews, even if they receive a free review copy. How to motivate them to do so remains a mystery. For what it's worth, I just bought a copy of your book and plan to do a reviews on my blog and Amazon after I read it. It's well written and I very much agree it should be read by everyone who cares about the planet and the environment.

I have several ideas, if you haven't thought of them already.

1. Send out the minions! If every one of us would leave enthusiastic comments about it on blogs, websites, and social media, it should create a buzz. You and Shawn will obviously work the hardest on promotion, but the rest of us can help.

2. A promotional video for YouTube, FB, Twitter, and other video sites.

3. An online book tour. I was recently contacted by a company who does these, asking if I'd be willing to be part of an online tour for a new book coming out by National Geographic. The gist is the tour runs for so many days and various bloggers and websites are assigned a day to post a review, or author interview. In exchange, I receive a free copy of the book. The schedule is posted and promoted by the service, and hopefully, results in getting the word out. There are services that do this, for example TLC Book Tours and PB Tours. I'm not necessarily recommending these because I know nothing about them, but you'll get an idea of what such a tour entails. You could organize one yourself, which is what I plan to do when my next book comes out.

I think Jennie is correct, in that it will have a more select appeal than the bandwagon greenie books. Some folks just like being angry.

Every month or so, I buy all the available used copies of a particular reference book <$10 to share which has the effect of gifting interested individuals face-to-face.  The value and used cost for that book fluctuates some, but generally increased.  Way back I could buy it for .99 cents + shipping.  Now it's more often several to ten dollars.  The number of newly interested, verified purchasers, and reviews increased.  I've witnessed this progress over time because I've been gifting used copies of it for about 10 years (same sent to WL this past December for you and Jocelyn and whomever is interested).  Sometimes I have to wait a few months before used copies are available again.  So, today I began doing the same with 'Building a Better World in Your Backyard: Instead of Being Angry at Bad Guys'.  I think reducing the number of used copies will also help overall.

Leigh, the PB tours thing sound worth a try!  thanks!

I think you’d first have to decide where is the most bang for your buck. And decide how many bucks you’re willing to spend or how much time on the effort?

Did publishers weekly review it for the trade? If not, you may want to send them a few review copies. Ditto Mother Earth news and all the publication markets you know and love. Is there a trade journal doing reviews  that is the equivalent of PW for agriculture? Social activism? Climate science? Does the New Yorker or Time have an upcoming issue about climate change or permaculture? Send them a copy....

But I’m not a publicist, I just used to run a bookstore and hand sell a lot of books.

When I went looking for the book, I went to my local “hippie” town to the “hippie” bookstore. They didn’t have it, didn’t know about it and could order it but... They’re  about 1.5 hours away so I declined. The woman said it sounded like something they should stock and wrote it down. I admit this was when the book was fairly new.

I sold books to bookshops a while ago. This was the process I used:

•Find places that are relevant to your books subject - you're more likely to get copies sold to a conservation/environmental activist group that also sells books than a big mainstream bookshop. Health food and organic shops sometimes have book sections too.

•Draft up a standard pitch which includes why the book is important, who it appeals to, and why it will sell. Include information about wholesale pricing, retail pricing, order pack size or minimum order size.

•Find independent bookshops and send the same pitch, or modify it slightly to be relevant to typical bookshops, if you include stuff about being a local author when you email Montana/PNW ones then they are more likely to be interested.

•Next find mainstream bookshops and send them all a generic email too.

Blog book tours are good ideas, and giveaways can be good too if they're in the right place. Guest posts can be helpful too. If there's any list of book clubs, they could be contacted as well.

Is there a non-fiction publicist service for hire?

I contacted PB Tours - let's see what happens there.

Jennie Little wrote:Did publishers weekly review it for the trade?

I looked them up - that seems like the sort of thing I am asking about!

There’s also book crossing, like this https://www.bookcrossing.com/ but there’s no profit in it. Or even break even money.

I wonder what would happen in you sent it to Greta Thunberg and asked her to review it?

I think before spending money on advertising or trying to get the book into the hands of more book sellers, the question is how to reach out to people that aren't part of your spheres of influence. Your die hard fans, like those who have already supported you via the kickstarter or who hang out here in permies, have already bought your book or will do so eventually. The next groups you want to reach: where do they hang out, online or off? What are the podcasts they listen to or the mags and blogs they read? Who are the people in their interests that they follow on social media? What facebook groups do they hang out in?

In my mind you ought to spend time doing outreach with the next group over that may be interested in the similar stuff, for example survivalists (or people who love their work). What podcasts with preppers and wilderness minded people could you reach out to and be guest or post on their blog? How about environmental minded podcasts or DIY?

How about money savers, like the early retirement extreme? Mr. Money Mustache comes to mind.

Then we think about people who are further away from your spheres, like cooking and food, maybe self-publishing groups. Motivational self-help (since you're arguing that we individually can change the world).

Then, there's the general public or the people and spaces who are likely to disagree with you, but may welcome you on their podcasts, blogs, youtube channels, in order to debate or argue with you. These are the people with audiences that ultimately you want to persuade since they likely never heard about you or permies.com.

And of course there's things like NPR.

So why do these things rather than jump directly with the advertising, or getting indie bookstores to carry your book? Well, advertising is expensive, and book blog tours and such probably doesn't connect you with a topic specific enough for you to leave your mark (other than books). Your strengths lie in the conversation and your hope is to persuade audiences. Indie book stores are nice, but the numbers of people who go and browse just aren't what they used to be. Slim pickings in my mind for the time and money involved.  

Hi Paul,
The exponential function builds very slowly. My cousin wrote a book 10 years ago and only recently has it gotten him some recognition. I think one of the big helpers was the ted talk he did where he talked about his work. As always I think the problem is audience. I bought a dozen books and they are all gathering dust and I wish i had a dozen more but I would be crazy to expect a different result. I describe the book as a physical index of many topics on permies, the book itself is like an inbound marketing tool for the forum. It seems like you need to get out there on ted talks and podcasts and radio shows and talk up the book and use that to draw prople into the forum rather than the other way around. Maybe break the book up and rather than try to attract everybody all at once you could go section by section for that specific audience, people that want chickens might not care about bees and its a long way from chickens to composting toilets. I wish you luck but at the end of the day people either need to have the want or you need to manufacture it in them. Maybe try noam chomsky...

I went to business school with the idea of starting a lermaculture business. The part I struggled with was the demographics of your customers. Who is your book written for. This is my opinion but it seems like it is written for people,who want an overview of solutions but not people who need the information to try something. Its vast but not chunky. A relevant example would be the section on feral beekeeping. I read that and it made so much sense to me that I wanted to try it, and well it left me empowered it hardly gave me the tools I needed. It did help me think critically about beekeeping and maybe that's all we really need. You could Market the book as a way to think critically about your lifestyle choices and as a way to overview many different choices your lifestyle could take. So for target audience it could people who are ready to respond to climate change through individual action and are just starting out and want to survey their options. Maybe future drafts could include a quiz and a challenge to get engagement between the reader and the material because that seems to be the weak link. Who is the target audience for your book? My professor always laughed at me when I said everyone was my target for permaculture...

How about money savers, like the early retirement extreme?

Good one!   I wrote to jacob today!

I have listened to most (maybe all?) of the books by david sedaris.  He tells stories about his life.  And it sounds like each time he has a new book, he has to spend months traveling from city to city to do promotions.  That doesn't sound like a good time to me.  

I kinda feel like I want the impossible/ridiculous:   move on to more projects and the book becomes an overnight best seller with hardly any effort from me.  

Part of me thought that shawn would do 90% of this stuff - and then harvest the coin that comes from his efforts. But shawn has been ill.  

So maybe I can carve out 15 hours and $500 and get some things started.   And that produces some results.   And then carve out another 15 hours and $1000.   And slowly build that way.  

Thanks to this thread, I have found some services that I never knew existed.  Progress!   Any more?

Jay Angler wrote:I wonder what would happen in you sent it to Greta Thunberg and asked her to review it?

There were several kickstarter supporters that got a dozen books that said they would do this.  Not sure what came of it.

Near the top of this thread is a post about exercising the affiliate codes for the book.   I just sent an email to everybody with an f-code.  

I'm kinda thinking that this falls into the space of "try 100 things, 2 will work out, and you never know in advance which 2."

I feel that with such a huge affiliate fee, surely there will be 20 different people that do all sorts of things.   Maybe somebody will set up a whole bunch of adwords things.   And somebody else will buy advertising on a bunch of different sites.  

paul wheaton wrote:

Jay Angler wrote:I wonder what would happen in you sent it to Greta Thunberg and asked her to review it?

There were several kickstarter supporters that got a dozen books that said they would do this.  Not sure what came of it.

How about a follow-up email? Ask them if they did it and what they learned? Might help with future marketing of the book. Just an idea.

I have two thoughts. First, following on the idea of sending to Bezos, is to figure out which news programs have anchors who seem to be especially interested in climate change. Chris Hayes of MSNBC, for example. Send them a few free copies of the book and offer to come on their show to discuss topics and techniques for free as long as any setup/traveling expenses are covered. Maybe pick one or two topics from the book that would be important for the noobs to know that can be covered quickly and send it as a pitch to them so they can see, even without reading the book, how interesting it could be to their viewers.

The second thought I have is to do what we do with our nonprofit poetry publishing house (FutureCycle Press). If you think your book is not selling, I would be willing to bet poetry sells less. However, that said, I started a thing a number of years ago called Free Kindle Saturdays where I put up the Kindle editions of a handful of books from our catalog free each Saturday. What I discovered is that, every time a book is put up free, a few people will buy the paperback book. Some people buy the Kindle edition just to support the author and/or the press because they think it's important. But a lot more people read the books, and because we're enrolled in Kindle Select, we actually make a little money from the freebies that get read because Amazon has a fund for that. Because we encourage our authors to purchase deeply discounted author copies to sell themselves at gigs, which is how they make money, I know that most of the online sales are not being generated by the authors.

There is a Free Promotions capability on Amazon (also a Countdown Deal version) that allows you to give books away free (or at reduced cost) for five days out of every 90 days at no cost (except for a pittance for delivering to Kindles that tends to not be much unless you're book is stuffed with color photos). I'm not sure, but you MAY have to be signed up for Kindle Select now to avail yourself of these options, but it didn't used to be that way.

This is how it looks on our website: http://www.futurecycle.org/KindlePromotions

By clicking on a name, you get the link to the title on Amazon. These links are integrated with a public Google Calendar, and they are set to repeat every 26 weeks. (I do have to go in every week to our Amazon KDP account and set up the promotions, but that is fairly easy even with more than one book. I just set a reminder for every Sunday to set up the promotions for the coming week and be sure I do it.) I use Zapier and/or IFTTT to automatically pull each link from the Google calendar on the day it goes live and post announcements (with links) on Facebook and Twitter. Social media likes and shares are how you reach the most people. The most important thing to us is to get the authors' work out to as many people as possible (where the "free" comes in) and to keep it alive as long as possible (where the rotating promotions come in). Those authors who come behind us and use our promotions to help them further promote sell more books than those who don't. There are SO many books and SO much information online competing for people's attention, even as people are reading fewer and fewer books, that the only prayer you have is to light a fire of interest in someone's brain. That's very hard to do with poetry but we still manage to sell enough books every month to be self-sustaining. With climate change, people freaked out about the world coming to an end, and those trying to find a way to have hope moving forward, I would think you'd have an easier time than we've had. It's kind of like love, though: you have to give it away for it to come back to you. At least that's been my experience.

If you're reading this on Saturday or Sunday, go get some free books and see how it works. (Paul Hostovsky, by the way, is one of our best-selling authors.)

There is also KOLL/KULL with Kindle, where people with a subscription can read your book by the page. It gets books read by people who may not have discovered them otherwise, because they can read them without any extra cost to themselves, and hopefully they then go on to talk about the book.

Gathering a list of library emails and contacting them is another idea.

Kate Downham wrote:There is also KOLL/KULL with Kindle, where people with a subscription can read your book by the page. It gets books read by people who may not have discovered them otherwise, because they can read them without any extra cost to themselves, and hopefully they then go on to talk about the book.

That's the thing I couldn't think of the name of, where Amazon knows how many pages of a book people, in aggregate, read and they apportion out a percentage of their big fund to those publishers and authors who participate in the program by making the books available free. They do it with the Kindle Unlimited subscriptions and also with the free giveaway promotions like we do.