8 Essential Elements to Improve Your Book Sales

Hey folks, I thought I'd put together a short list about the essential elements your book must have to succeed. You'll find plenty of tutorials about how to improve your book sales so here's my take on it and why this is a good list to follow.

Edge of The Apocalypse

Here's a list, in order of importance, your book needs to communicate.

1. Genre
2. Awesome Title/Sub-Title
3. Blurb (back sales copy)
4. Opening Sentence
5. First Chapter Hook
6. First Chapter Cliffhanger
7. Reviews
8. Author Authority/Website or Blog

GENRE:
This is a no-brainer. It's all about your genre and genre specific images on your cover. I'm working on a post-apocalyptic book series (The Edge of Time Book Trilogy) so my obvious genre is Science Fiction. Post apocalyptic fiction is a sci-fi sub-genre.

What kind of images does my book cover need to have? There are many typical images; destroyed landscape, crumbling or burning buildings, social upheaval, zombies, etc.

Research other covers in your genre and try to use images, colors, and font styles that match those covers with a unique layout that best fits your story. Design your cover so it appeals with a sense of curiosity about it.

The main purpose of your cover is to get readers curious about your story so they can read the blurb on your back cover. The blurb has to be good enough so readers will want to read your first chapter, and that starts with a curious opening first line that hooks readers through the chapter until the cliffhanger at the end of the chapter.

These are all bullet points for another article where I'll detail each step with examples.

AWESOME TITLE
Of course you need an amazing title because your title communicates the main concept of your story.  My book title (book one) is Edge of The Apocalypse because this title says to readers (fans of apocalyptic fiction) that this is the beginning of an apocalyptic event. (the edge). Obviously, this is the event my first chapter opens with.

BLURB
A book blurb is the back cover sales copy. Notice my emphasis on the word sales. Make no mistake, your back copy is strategic copywriting designed to get readers to read your first chapter. It's an important part of your sales funnel and more than just a snapshot of your story.

OPENING SENTENCE
Let's face it, the better you can open your story, the better your chances of making a sale. Although, this is not as critical as you might think.

FIRST CHAPTER HOOK
Your hook is probably the most important part of your book at this point because aside from your amazing cover, title, curious opening sentence, your first chapter hook is the reason readers will or will not buy your book. Get this right and your book has a better chance to sell. Get it wrong and you risk alienating potential customers from all your books.

FIRST CHAPTER CLIFFHANGER
Your cliffhanger at the end of your first chapter is critical because this is your reader's gateway to the rest of the story and a strong cliffhanger helps generate good book reviews.

BOOK REVIEWS
Book reviews are overrated but yes, good book reviews are important, although, I've bought many books with not so good reviews. It all depends on how much you like the story. For me, as long as the book has some good reviews, I'm comfortable buying it if I like the story and I know I'll enjoy reading the book because of the author's voice, plot, setting, story concept, characters, etc.

AUTHOR CREDIBILITY (WEBSITE/PLATFORM)
Believe it or not, this is probably the most important criteria because you also want to judge the author as far as their dedication to their writing craft. Remember, the most important thing new author's have going for them, is the current book(s) they are selling. Any previous work is a bonus if the books were successful.

The author's current book reflects everything about them, their platform, their upcoming books, their view of the world, and the types of stories they want to tell, etc. This helps build an author brand.

In my next post, I'll break down this short list and expand in detail, everything you need to know to design a kick-ass book cover that communicates enough information to get readers to read your first chapter and hopefully your entire book.

Your book cover must generate a chain reaction of events with all green lights in order to generate sales and good book reviews. Ideally, you want to have all these elements in place so your book can hopefully go viral and readers will do most of your promotion (word of mouth) for you.

In other words, your book sells itself. That's a tall order but many authors have done it so it's not impossible. Readers have to trust you as an author to deliver good stories. Putting yourself out there is also important so readers can see your personality and how you express your story ideas.

Readers want to know that as an author, you're committed to writing and publishing great stories for them to consume. One-hit wonders are okay, but a number of bestsellers is far better.

I'll also mention several one-hit wonders that made it very big and how they got there.

Can you come up with one? 

Come on back to see if that book is on my list!

An Excerpt: Edge of The Apocalypse

Free Book Promo (Edge of the Apocalypse Book 1)

Hey folks, just a quick mention that the first e-book in the Edge of Time Trilogy series is currently available for free this week!

Free stuff is usually dismissed as junk nobody wants but that all depends if you're reaching the right audience.

Fans of apocalyptic fiction know a good story when they see one and so I'm hoping you'll give this short story a read. You just might get hooked and enjoy the whole series when the other two books are available in January.

I've been hooked myself writing for these characters and the extraordinary events they're facing when terrorists from the Worldwide Alliance Resistance attack Austin, the first city pounced by nuclear warheads. For two best girlfriends, Andrea and Maria, that means they go into survival mode and run for their lives on an unforgettable journey to New York City in the midst of nuclear war.

The cast of strange characters, the obstacles, and conflict they face along the way will certainly change their lives forever.

These short stories are designed for today's short attention spans so each book is about 100 pages in length, which means that eventually I'll be offering the series as one book, a full novel, maybe a collector's hardcover edition.

But for now, I hope you enjoy this series, as much as I've enjoyed writing and designing it.

Here's a Preview of Book One:

Epic Apocalypse - Edge of Time Book Series New Covers

Hey folks, the new year is almost upon us and I hope that all your aspirations are in place and taking place this coming 2020.

I've revised my book covers for the series once again because I needed to match them a bit better so they look like they belong together.

For now, this is what I've got and as you can see the book in the middle, Epic Apocalypse has a bit more color but what good is using fire if you can't show it burning hot?

Right, and so I've lowered the color saturation in the artwork quite a bit so it still has those dark edges and these covers seem to work for the series.

When designing your book covers for a series, keep in mind that you want your book covers to match either in colors, typography, or artwork, ideally all three should match. The middle cover is by another artist but I don't think it's off key. The other covers are my own design in Photoshop and I might still change the third book, although I do like how these three covers look together.

The main difference and what helps this trilogy is the red, white, and blue bands of color at the top. That's just a feature or "gimmick" to unify this trilogy, which gives the series a deeper meaning, plus it looks cool when you have the three books together on a shelf.

Only time will tell if this book series will be popular enough to make a bestseller list. I've really pulled out all the stops on this one and hope it will be a success. But it's hard to say at this point because I'm new in the game.

Don't underestimate yourself 

and what you know . . .

But here's the thing, don't underestimate yourself and what you know. You just might surprise yourself along the way. For me, the series will be a success in my mind because I've worked hard to get here but if the financial rewards are scarce, I'll learn from it and make adjustments to get it right next time.

Another thing is that this series doesn't necessarily have to identically match the artwork from the board game, although that wouldn't hurt, but these are standalone stories, so it's okay if the artwork is a bit different, as long as it's not too far off.

The board game does of course promote the books, and vice-versa, but each product should stand on its own, from a marketing point of view.

I've got plenty of work to catch up with so please feel free to leave any comments or questions below.

And as usual, play on!

Edge of The Apocalypse Book Trilogy [ New Cover]

Hey folks, I hope you're well and moving ahead with your plans. As usual, I'm working on my most important project.

After a hiatus of about 6 months, I'm back in the saddle and making great progress.

A small change of plans with the book series, which improves it by leaps and bounds so here is one of the new covers.

This is the original cover I had designed for the first book but I had added an image of Andrea and her dog because most of the books in this genre include a figure in the foreground. And so I think it's important to keep this image similar to other books in this genre. Although, that being said, I've noticed that just about anything goes in this sub-genre (post-apocalyptic) as long as you're showing some kind of explosion event. This image is inspired by those atomic blasts that the government tested back in the 50's.

I've had to revamp this first book because I've expanded the story to 3 books in this series and so I've made some subtle changes to Book 1. Book 2 is complete and Book 3 has reached chapter 8 and almost done. I have an amazing ending for this series and look forward to writing it and putting it out there in early 2020.

The good part is that the series is far better with more depth and it flows much better and makes more sense how I've organized it now. I'm very excited to finally finish the three books by the end of this year so I can start to promote them early in 2020 leading up to the debut of the board game on September 11, which is in its final stages of testing.

New Sepia tone box with book offer.

What a great way to start the new year, with a new product on the market. It's going to be exciting to promote these books along with the companion game. I've taken my time with it for several reasons but mostly, I'm careful to design it all as best I can.

I'm confident that once I polish the three books and the game, everything will come together as intended and sales will hopefully reflect all the work I've put into this project for the past 4 years. Sales are of course important for this and any project, however I'll feel good about it either way because this project is meaningful to me and I'm enjoying every minute of it.

I'll be posting the other two books in this series, Epic Apocalypse, and Beyond the Apocalypse soon, using the new font.

The offer on the box is for a free e-book download, which helps promote the 3 book series on Amazon.com.

A lot going on with this project but the best is yet to come next year when everything is on the market at the same time. At that point I can focus on promotions while I finish work on another board game, Warpd!, which is also close to completion.

Enjoy the holidays and have a great new year, folks. I'll see you on the other side with more exciting news very soon.

BTW, the new Tesla Cybertruck is available for pre-order. Deliveries begin around 2022. Very awesome truck and I mention this Cybertruck in my story. It's how Andrea and Maria flee Austin after the initial nuclear attack. And yes, these 2021 models should still be running in 2157. That's only 137 years away. Imagine that.

Tesla Cybertruck

New Post Apocalyptic Board Games [BGG, BoardgameGeek - Earth Reborn]

Okay folks, while you're patiently and anxiously waiting for Millennium's big debut in 2020, check out this Top 10 list on BGG, a.k.a. BoardGameGeek by Robert Carroll.

Check out This Cool Top Ten List!

Millennium Boardgame's New Box Design . . . Here's the Lesson

Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3. Anybody out there? Not yet. I get it. I haven't posted here in a while so any momentum I had going with SEO a few months ago has gone back to zero.

Good news is that after several mishaps and unforeseen delays, I'm finally printing the second prototype box for the new Millennium board game, so here it is in all it's glory, for whatever this is worth, just for kicks and giggles. I've decided to give this cover a bit of sepia-tone instead of full black and white. I think it works and most likely this will be the box cover that goes into production.

This time around I'm happy to say this current version of the game is playable on all levels from start to finish so I'll be play-testing the heck out of it and fine-tuning anything that needs tweaking. The new launch date is September 11, 2020 so I hope I can stick to that and meet that deadline this time around.

Blah, blah, blah. nobody cares. In fact, all the pretty packaging doesn't mean a thing unless the game is totally playable and engages gamers on a deep level. Superficial game concepts will never cut it so you need something meaningful beyond all the great artwork.

Sure, you need amazing artwork as click-bait, so to speak. But once gamers get a hold of your game and play it out in real life and in real time, you'll need a stronger hook to keep them engaged and interested until the game ends.

And in case you're wondering, the box cover must tell a story. Most games don't because they leave most of the game imagery to the player's imagination and that's a good thing but a better idea is to tell a story with your cover art so you can not only attract potential buyers but also engage them with a storyline at first glance.

Your marketing needs to be worked into

 your stories so you can

use stories to market your books. 

In this case, I've featured an Android, Andrea, holding a gun (central protagonist) front and center with her dog Apollo beside her, smack dab in the middle of traffic--a scene set in the 1930's. Yes there's a story in there somewhere and it's deep, wide, and long. How long? Well, that's the real hook. There's an entire novel (300 pages featured on the front of the box) about Andrea and this fascinating cast of characters.

I'm about half way done writing the novel, which in fact will also be released as 3 separate short stories that tie in all the game activity with scenes from where the apocalypse first struck in Austin, Texas.

Here's a behind the scenes preview: 

Around the middle of book 2 (Epic Apocalypse) Andrea and Maria are stuck with their stolen Tesla pickup, now running low on power in Jacksonville, Florida after fleeing from Austin weeks ago. So they're deep into their adventurous trip north to New York City along with everything that happened since, which is documented in book 1 (Edge of The Apocalypse).

I'm slowly but surely working my way into book 3 (Beyond The Apocalypse). This is where things take an unexpected turn (again) and the girls are blind-sided with another life-altering dilemma. You gotta love it folks! I'm having a blast putting this down and can't wait to finish it and present it to fans of apocalyptic stories. This is the core audience, by-the-way, but I'm weaving in a bunch of sub-plots that have mass appeal.

I know, I'm a long way from promoting this new series but it helps to be inspired along the way. Otherwise, what's the point in living at all? Your marketing needs to be worked into your stories so you can use stories to market your books. That's something to keep in mind as you write. In fact, movie trailers are designed around specific throw-away scenes so think about that while you're writing your next book because it works both ways.

Millennium is alive and well!

Okay, I didn't plan to write such a long, short post but you get the idea. Millennium is alive and well and coming to a store online soon enough so it's an exciting time all around. I really look forward to playing this game in person with several different players to see how they respond to it overall.

I have a feeling they're going to love it and get hooked. And that's the beginning recipe for going viral. Everything must click so that everyone engages and gets excited at the same time and for the same reasons. That's how things are shared and word-of-mouth turns into a flashpoint that fires up the masses and therefore boosts sales in the long-run. Those initial sales also help potential positive reviews, which in turn starts conversations and begins to convert curious shoppers. There's a lesson in here somewhere but I digress.

Check out the game and if you're a curious reviewer, let me know and I'll send you a free game box in exchange for an honest review on Youtube or your game blog.

Your comments or feedback are welcome!

See the Millennium Game on the Developer Website

The Edge of Time Book 1 Free on Kindle for a Limited Time!

Book 1 - The Edge of Time Trilogy 

In case you missed the initial promotion, here's a second chance to get your free copy of Edge of The Apocalypse, Book 1. https://tinyurl.com/y89w5rwg

The first book of the series literally opens with bang, as the leading edge of nuclear attacks make landfall on Austin, Texas.

The time is here and now, people. This is it! Follow Andrea, a misguided Cyborg, with her dog, Apollo, and her best friend, Maria, as they traverse an American wasteland in the post-apocalyptic year 2157.

Learn more about this amazing series and see what happens after the first bomb makes landfall.
https://arias-edge-of-time-books.blogspot.com/