No amount of marketing can compensate for a poorly written book. It will take you years of hard work. You must have good alpha and beta readers. After that, I always hire a light content editor (she also does copyediting while she goes). Then the MS goes through rounds of copyedits with readers.Why not stop after my editor goes through it? Grammar mistakes are like dead spiders floating in hot cocoa. Doesn’t matter how perfect the cocoa is, no one wants it. Stars will fall off your ratings and bug the heck out of people. Get them out of there. 

2. Put an awesome cover on the book. 

People don’t buy books with ugly covers. There’s this switch in our minds that says, “If the book is good enough to justify that cool of a cover, it’s good enough for me to buy.” The reverse is also true. “If they slapped on that ugly piece of crap, the inside must be just as bad.” Packaging is important. 

*put a pretty cover on a poorly written book, and it will be bought, trashed in reviews, and your career will suffer. DO NOT NEGLECT STEP ONE. 

3. Write another awesome book. That book will sell your first book more than blog tours or book tours or conference appearances or media appearances or signings. These things are all important, but unless you have a marketing team, you will spent too much time on them. Time you should have spent writing another book. Marketing has its place, but it should never take precedence over writing. 

One liners for Twitter: 

You are better served writing a new book than marketing an old one. ~Amber Argyle

No amount of marketing can compensate for a poorly written book. ~Amber Argyle

Grammar mistakes are like a dead spider floating in hot cocoa. Doesn’t matter how perfect the cocoa is, no one wants it. ~Amber Argyle

PS: Don’t forget to enter my contests to win an ARC of the Elite by Kiera Cass.
http://amberargyle.blogspot.com/2013/03/giveaway-elite-kiera-cass.html

Winner of last week’s ARC of Winter Queen is: Julia Rain Wellman!

Amber Argyle
Author