Your Book Failed
(and I know why…)
Just got off a Zoom with an author. The meeting went something like this…
“I wrote a great book. I put it up on Amazon. A few people I’ve personally shared it with said it’s a great read. Why is nothing selling?”
Here’s the Zoom meeting recording of them telling me this:
Now if I’d only heard this once or twice, I’d say it was just a random isolated event, but I get this almost daily…
(In fact, this avalanche of emails, messages, and Zoom meeting requests, is exactly what inspired me to write you this email you’re reading right now. So I apologize if you’ve sent me something like the above and I haven’t personally replied yet. Please take this as me trying to give you some kind of an answer.)
On the other hand, I have also worked with many authors selling well into the hundreds of thousands of copies and even some selling well into the millions.
Now, I really enjoy helping people do better at what they love doing.
So of course I had to ask the burning question:
What separates these few success stories from the hundreds of pleas for help I’d received?
At first, it wasn’t completely obvious, but I decided to just keep an eye out for the answer.
I’m a big believer that if you look closely enough, you’ll see what’s really there.
And, sure enough, when you have over 300 Zoom meetings with authors at virtually every point of their career, a pattern seems to emerge…
Five years after I first wondered at this big burning question, I have decided I finally have the answer.
At first, I turned it around in my mind for a good few months, just to make sure I could mentally taste it, and then I boiled it down to just two obvious facts:
- Writers who sell many books write what many readers want to read.
- Writers who sell many books present and market their books in a way that makes many readers want to read them.
There is kind of a third one, although I’d say it isn’t always as true as the other two:
- Writers who sell many books write many books that many readers want to read.
I say this because I have seen some authors who write only three or four books and do extremely well from those alone, but even these writers didn’t only write one book.
I’ve always preferred to keep things simple but I fear you’re accusing me right now of being too simple.
How can it be that simple, right?
And, another question:
How does this help you, the author, anyway? We’ll definitely get to this! I promise.
For now, we’re going to do that thing that authors and TV series scriptwriters love to do… End on a cliffhanger!
Will you, the hopeful author, overcome the seemingly impossible task of finding out if your book has a chance before you publish it? Or will the forces of ignorance, confusion, and not-knowing-what-to-do-next overwhelm your chances of publishing a bestseller?
The answers are coming… tomorrow! Same time, same inbox. See you then!
Matt Book Sales Detective Ziranek
PS: Have you ever asked yourself why your book isn’t selling more? Does any of what I’m saying seem real to you? I’d love to know. So please reply if you’d like to join the conversation.
PPS: I’m a real person writing this. Not one bit of AI was involved in composing this email. Feel free to hit me with a real answer, even if that real answer is a good, hard rant! I can take it.
PPPS: Here’s a picture of my team eagerly watching their inboxes to see if you’ll write me back…
