How to Sell a Novel
You’ve finished your manuscript, had it edited, and now you are trying to work out how to sell a novel. Choosing to self-publish brings freedom – you (the author) are in control of every single aspect of your book, from deadlines and writing style to cover design, sales and marketing. Being your own boss can, however, be quite daunting. As you are in control of every single aspect of your book, from deadlines and writing style to… you get the picture. Most of the authors I work with are writers, not marketers or salespeople. The reason why one book sells when another book doesn’t can sometimes be down to the way it’s packaged. What exactly is it that makes someone make the purchase?
Clearly if an author already has a following, then that makes a difference. And there is a lot of information on the internet about how to market a book and how to make it visible. But is there a magic formula for what makes someone buy a book once they have set eyes on it?
There are three things involved in the decision-making process. The cover, the blurb and the opening paragraph.
How to Sell a Novel – Designing the Cover
Should your cover stand out? Should it be different enough so that, when looking at a shelf in a book shop, your potential reader will think it looks interesting and pick it up? Or should it look the same as all the other books currently on sale in your genre? The cover is the very first thing (normally) that your reader will see. But there’s more to it than just picking a pretty picture and hoping for the best. The cover needs to tell the reader – within a few seconds – what genre the book belongs to. It’s got to tell them whether it’s science-fiction, a crime thriller, a romance, a horror. And for this reason, it’s really important to stick with the conventions in your genre. Readers who love crime thrillers will pick up (or click on) books that LOOK like crime thrillers. If it looks like a romance book, they are very unlikely to give it a second glance.
The cover design needs to align with your readers’ expectations.
So when someone asks me for an opinion on their book cover, my first thought is, is the genre obvious? The colour, the font, the images used, all provide information which potential readers will, subconsciously, understand.
If you aren’t sure what the cover expectations are for your genre, then a simple Amazon search can help. Looking at best-selling books, you can select your preferred genre, and see the covers of books which are currently selling well.
As an aside, another interesting question is whether any people shown on the front cover should match the description of your protagonist (eye colour, build, hair length). When you are reading a book, how often do you actually look at the cover? Probably not very often, and by this point you’ve already bought the book and are (hopefully) invested in the story, so the details of the cover are unlikely to be impactful. And if you are reading on an e-reader, you are even less likely to look at the cover.
I know that many of the authors I work with are romance writers, so it might be worth you having a look at this article about demystifying romantic comedy and chick lit cover design: Romantic Comedy and Chick Lit Cover Design Demystified (yummybookcovers.com).
How to Sell a Novel – The Blurb
What is the blurb? It’s the text that appears on the back of the book, and is the second thing (after the cover) that helps a reader decide whether they would like to read your book or not. In today’s digital age, a reader is more likely to read the blurb on the Amazon product page.
Once again, the blurb needs to demonstrate – immediately – the genre of your book. In the Self-Publishing Podcast, Mark Dawson and James Blatch suggest you need to be really explicit here, and you almost need to say, “This is an MI6 thriller book”, or “This is a contemporary romance novel”.
The blurb also doesn’t want to be too long. Have a look at other successful authors in your genre – how long are the blurbs on their books? Often around 200 words is a good length, but these words need to be impactful and intrigue the reader enough to want to know more.
Reedy’s blog How to Write a Book Blurb that Sells (with Examples) (reedsy.com) outlines how a blurb should introduce the characters, set the stage for the primary conflict, establish the stakes and show the reader why this book is for them. That’s a lot to pack into 200 words!
I’ve written before about how one recommendation is to use the blurb to literally give away ALL the good bits in your book. When we watch a trailer for a film, it often shows us all the best bits, but it doesn’t stop us from watching the film.
It’s also worth considering how your blurb will appear on Amazon, and the Reedsy blog goes on to talk about how to make your blurb particularly appealing on Amazon and other online booksellers.
Taglines
I’ve included taglines here as more of an aside. If the blurb is hard to write, then the tagline is even harder – trying to capture your readers in just ten (or less!) words. Generally fiction books nowadays will only have phrases such as “New York Times bestseller” or will mention how many books the author has sold, so unless you have a killer tagline, I’d reserve it for the marketing ads, rather than the cover.
How to Sell a Novel – Opening Paragraph
So once a potential reader has found your book (via marketing), picked it up (because the cover aligns with their preferred genre), read the blurb (and liked what they saw), the next thing they will do, often, is to read the opening paragraph. This is where a good editor comes in! The opening of the book needs to be powerful, regardless of the genre. As part of my editing process, I review the opening and closing of each chapter, but the opening of the book is a critical piece in the puzzle. It may well be that it should be written AFTER you’ve finished writing the manuscript, once the narrative style and voice have been finalised.
In Conclusion
I hope you’ve found this information on how to sell a novel useful. Remember, it doesn’t matter how good your story is, if the cover, blurb and opening chapter are not in line with reader expectations, no one is going to leave a good review.
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