Let’s face it, books are not expensive. They’re not a big purchasing decision. Most readers aren’t spending hours debating whether they should spend $2 or even $20 on a book. 

They’re debating whether or not they’re willing to invest their time into reading it. If they’re even slightly on the fence about wanting to read it, they’re not likely going to invest money in it. With the exception of ‘supporters’ who might buy, but not read. 

Even if they’re flat broke, they’ll get the book from the library, borrow it from a friend, wait for it to be part of Stuff Your Kindle or, yes, they’ll find unofficial copies of it. But if they’re flat broke and want to read it badly enough, they will find a way to get it. 

So, in my opinion, the real challenge is not about selling books. It’s about getting people to read books. And you need as many people as possible to read your books if you want to increase your sales. 

This feels counterintuitive for most indie authors who are tracking their progress one book sale at a time, because every single sale matters. But the way to substantially grow sales is not through one sale at a time. It’s through one reader at a time. 

But at the end of the day, isn’t making a sale the same as gaining a reader? No, actually, it isn’t. How many books do you own that you haven’t read?

Your goal is to gain readers, not sales. 

Because nothing sells more books than word-of-mouth. And people can’t talk about something they haven’t read. 

But you’re one person. You are not going to realistically connect with hundreds of thousands of readers, or even tens of thousands of readers on your own and convince them to buy your book. 

You need to amass as many readers as possible so that they will do most of the work for you. 

And no, the algorithm is not going to do this for you. Certainly not with any level of ongoing consistency or enthusiasm. 

Real-world examples

Back in 2015/2016, I had several conversations with Andy Weir through FB Messenger just as The Martian film, based on his book, was being released. (Let me just say that he is one hell of a nice guy and patient. Reading back through our messages, I cringed a bit lol. I had no gravitas back then and bombarded the poor man with so many questions that he patiently and graciously answered.) I also read/watched every interview with him I could get my hands on. He was a mysterious success story during a time when most agents were not interested in authors who had self-published. 

The thing that really stood out to me was that Andy didn’t set out to make The Martian popular. He had had earlier manuscripts rejected by the traditional publishing industry years before and had moved on. He continued writing and creating because he enjoyed it. Over the years he grew an audience for a web comic and eventually established a readership of about 3000 for The Martian through his website, but he never shopped it to agents. Some of his readers wanted it on their Kindle, so he put it on Amazon for their convenience. He wanted to make it free, but Amazon didn’t allow that, so he priced it at $0.99. The results from this attracted an agent to him and got him both a publishing and movie deal. 

In most interviews, Andy expresses that he doesn’t really know how it happened. 

After studying and researching the industry and many authors, I can tell you what happened. 

1. He wrote a solid book
2. He got readers for that book 

Note: He was not trying to sell the book or make money on it. There was no marketing or selling pressure or “strategy.”

What he may not have realized is that what he did, quite authentically and innocently, is the best strategy for any fiction author and the one most fiction authors resist. 

He freely shared his passion with like-minded people, who became readers. 

Almost every unexpected success story I’ve dug into carries a similar narrative. Even the more recent tale of Audra Winter, which some might say wasn’t a success story, but I would argue that it still was in the context of this article. The problem was that widespread pre-release excitement didn’t match reader experience. But if it had, the outcome would have been very different. 

So step one in increasing book sales, of a well-written book, is to convince people to read it. But how do you do that? 

1. Talk about your book

Okay, but what does that mean? Because it certainly doesn’t mean plastering the title and a purchase link all over social media. 

It means talking about the things YOU love about your book. Is it the fall aesthetics? The moody vibes? The grumpy vs sunshine trope? Is it a unique quirk your MC has? The sassy attitude of a side character? Their brilliant detective skills?

(Tip: the more things you love about your book, the better.)

What fires you up? What do you love? What are you passionate about? What makes it interesting and worth someone’s time?

This can’t be stressed enough. The vibes, the tropes, the quirks, the aesthetics… whatever it is that you love will be the things that attract like-minded readers. These are the things that will make readers sit up, pay attention, care, and read.

And they will only invest their time in reading a book if they care enough. 

But if you don’t talk about the things that are going to get readers excited and invested in your book, no one will know about it, no one will get excited about it, no one will read it, and your sales will be flat. 

If you’re not sure how to talk about your book in a way that sparks curiosity, my Content Ideas Guide can help you come up with and shape engaging post ideas that connect with readers.

Intentionally building up a network by making connections with like-minded book lovers is also part of this process. 

The other way to get enough readers is through massive ad spends. This is what big publishers do. They throw enough money into promoting a book so that the masses are aware of it, so that enough people will end up reading it, so that the book will actually make sales. And they do it based on market research that tells them what will resonate with the masses, which is still leaning into ‘talking about the book’ in a way that makes people care. 

But doing it through paid ads is a huge gamble, because it is always possible that a book really isn’t good enough or that the masses won’t like it, in which case the power of word-of-mouth that those ad dollars bought, doesn’t provide a return on the investment. Which is why big publishers only financially invest in the marketing for a small fraction of lead titles out of the books they publish, based on loads of historical data that they have access to. 

2. Focus on getting reviews

Across platforms, it’s generally reported that only a small percentage of readers leave reviews. Reports range from 1% to 20% and are impacted by many variables. 

At any rate, you need to get a ton of people reading your book in order to get review numbers that have any impact. 

How do you get reviews?

You ask for them, and you follow up on the ask. But again, you need to make sure your book is getting into the hands of people who care about your book and want to read it. And you do that by tripling down on step 1. 

It’s worth noting that if people are reading your book and you’re not getting reviews, it’s likely for one of three reasons: 

• your book is landing in the hands of the wrong readers, they might not even be reading it
• there’s a problem with your book, it’s not enough to warrant a negative review, but just enough to prevent a positive review
• there’s a problem with your book, and it’s getting DNF’d 

All of these problems are fixable. 

In order to be able to ask for reviews and follow up on the ask, you need to be filtering them through your email list. 

How do you get them on your email list?

3. Give your book away for free

Your goal should be to give away 10,000 copies of your ebook for free. 

I’ll give you a minute to peel yourself off the floor (or ceiling).

First, understand that it is highly unlikely you will achieve this goal. It’s a “goal” to keep you motivated and moving forward. 

Second, 10K isn’t magic; it’s shorthand for critical mass. 

If your goal is to give away 100 copies, you’re immediately capping your sales potential. 

The repeatable pattern to selling more books is: exposure → volume → word of mouth → traction

Why would you give away so many copies? Because that’s how word-of-mouth works, and because of the math on the reviews in step 2. If you give away 10,000 copies, and count on a conservative response rate of 1-5%, it means you should land somewhere between 100-500 reviews, which will have a better impact on word-of-mouth. 

Again, this is a goal. You can adjust it along the way depending on the results you get, and how fast you get them. If you give away 1,000 copies, get 500 reviews, and there’s a ton of buzz growing, you can stop giving away copies and see if there’s enough momentum. If things grow quiet, put the offer out again. This isn’t a one-shot deal, and it’s something you can do at any time to revive interest in a book too. 

But. You need to do it strategically. You’re not looking for the freebie collectors who grab every free book just because they can. 

You absolutely need to get their email address in exchange for the book. 

Note: Using most free promo services, such as BookFunnel Groups, can result in attracting more ‘collectors’ of books with a low completion and read-through rate, unless you’re customizing that approach strategically. So even though you’re gaining email addresses this way, it won’t necessarily be as effective. 

Giving your book away for free on Amazon does not put them onto YOUR email list and reader pool. And again, it often results in attracting more collectors than dedicated readers. 

The reason it’s so important to get their email address is so you can:

1. stay in touch with them to continue to build up hype so that they’ll actually read the free copy 
2. follow up with them to encourage reviews
3. promote your next book to them

How do you get them to go to your website and give you their email address? 

By doing step 1 right. 

Publishing posts that just say things like,

“My debut self-published novel, TITLE, releases in one month. Looking for beta readers (or ARC readers). Get a free copy. Help an indie author out.”

isn’t going to work effectively. For one, a month isn’t long enough if you don’t already have an audience. Plus, this is a sympathy play and does nothing to get anyone to care about the book. Yes, other indie authors who want to help the indie community will probably sign up. Some might even read it, and a few might even leave a review. But this is how you end up with low, double-digit reviews at best and flat sales. 

You have to get people excited. You have to make them want the book. You have to get them to care. 

And it’s not going to happen with one social post. Or the same social post saying the same things six times a day. 

And it is going to take time. 

Note: You can also give away physical copies if you have the budget to do that. 

Bringing it all together

Free digital access can spike short-term sales (BYU/Wiley–Hilton study). First-in-series free is a long-standing, data-backed indie tactic for read-through. And case studies like Andy Weir illustrate that reader volume → reviews & buzz → traction.

1. Talk about your book
2. Focus on getting reviews
3. Give away as many copies as you possibly can 

If you want to be realistic and serious about making your book a success:

• finish a terrifically written book
• polish it like a professional and invest in the production like a professional
• choose a release date, and then add 6-12 months to that date
• then talk about that book every day for 12 months with the only goal being to give it away through your own website, and collect email addresses
• if you hit your subscriber and review goals in less than 12 months, then move your release date up sooner (trust me, readers won’t complain)

If you’re still in the drafting stages, you can start this process now even without having a finished book to give away. Instead, it’s an IOU. You get them to sign up now with a promise to send them the ebook for free when it’s ready, and then you keep them updated once a month on the progress and with teasers. 

If you already have books published and available for sale, you can still do this. Yes, it means the book can’t be in KU (KDP Select requires full ebook exclusivity during enrollment), but if you’re not getting page reads, the limitations of KU aren’t worth it. It doesn’t matter if the book is available for purchase, the process of giving a free ebook version in exchange for an email address is still the same. 

It is much harder to get people to buy a book they’ve never heard of and don’t care about, and that doesn’t have any reviews. 

The way to get people to know and care about a book is to talk about the book and get as many readers as possible to read it, so they will then talk about it and tell others. 

If you have a series published, even better, apply this strategy to the first book, and follow up with promos for the next book in the series. 

If you have multiple standalone books, pick the one that is your strongest book AND that you have a logical ‘next best read’ for, especially if you write across multiple genres. 

But please understand, there are a few critical considerations here. 

1. You have to have a good, well-written book. If you do this with a poorly written book, you are going to be fighting an uphill battle to do it again with a better book. If you’re not sure about the quality of your book, find a reputable editor in your genre that has a proven track record, and can provide references, and pay for an editorial review. Even if you paid for professional editing, a second opinion never hurts. This is non-negotiable if you want this process to work. 
2. You must have a solid digital ecosystem in place. This means social media accounts, a website, and an email list. These need to be integrated, cohesive, and on brand. Without this, you’ll have so many holes in your bucket that your efforts will be wasted. 
3. You need to plan out reader-centric content that focuses on inviting them into the world of your story. 
4. There will be costs to implement this. It will vary for each author, but some potential costs are: education and resources to fill the gaps in your digital ecosystem, an email marketing provider, website hosting and tools, marketing assets such as human-created character art, a professional editorial review. 

Put it into motion

Before jumping into the deep end head first, take the time to plan this out. 

You want to be putting your best foot forward right from the start. 

1. Review your digital ecosystem and take care of any gaps that exist. 
2. Get a professional editorial review of your book.
3. Set your goals and timelines. 
4. Plan out your content. 
5. Plan out how you’ll deliver the free ebook and what your follow-up emails will look like. 

My free Online Presence Self-Audit will guide you through the review of your digital ecosystem. Grab it here. 

I also have resources available for any gaps you need to fill and for steps 3, 4, and 5. I may also be able to offer recommendations for an editorial reviewer on request.