It’s Not About the Money – Why Book Sales Don’t Matter

This client wanted help with a book launch for the first book they’ve written, which is about branding.

They went to their publisher and of course, the publisher did what traditional publishers do: they signed the client up to write the book, but offered no help in marketing the book. The publisher expected the client to do all the marketing themselves. 

So when my friend told me about this client’s situation, I said I’d be happy to talk to them and that I’d love to help if I can, but I wasn’t sure if this person would be our ideal client. 

The reason I’m sharing this story is that I think many people would wonder why wouldn’t this person work as our client, especially if they have the means to pay for our services. 

I get on the phone with this potential client and he told me what I assumed he would say: that he needed this book launch to go incredibly. They wanted to sell potentially hundreds of thousands of copies. 

When I heard that I got concerned. 

My first thought was about the topic of the book. It’s about branding, which is a topic that doesn’t have a massive audience. 

It’s not a self-help book or personal finance book that potentially could have millions of interested buyers. Branding is a topic typically limited to business owners who are interested in continuing to grow and brand their own businesses. 

The biggest problem for this potential client is that they were focused on all of the wrong things. They’re focused on the numbers. 

I know there are plenty of people who have written or are writing a book and are thinking about the same thing. 

Don’t worry about the numbers. 

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When someone asks me what it is I do and I’m not really interested in having a conversation with them, I might say that I publish books because that conversation can end right there. 

But in reality, that’s not really all that I do. 

Not only do I publish books, but I also work in book marketing, ghostwriting, media and PR. 

In the same way, any business owner does what they do and they bring their magic to the world. The problem is, if no one knows about that magic you’re bringing into the world, what good is that? 

Marketing is just as essential as the product or service you’re selling because, without it, you’d have no customers. 

Here at Best Seller Publishing, we spend $50,000 a month on paid advertising because it works really well for us. 

In addition to paid advertising, we do our own live events, we create content for the blog, send out emails to our list, we do TV and radio appearances, etc. 

But here’s the thing, we didn’t start out doing all of those things and neither does any business owner. 

When someone is focused on selling hundreds of thousands of copies of their book, like the potential client I just mentioned, they’re not looking at the bigger picture. 

Instead of focusing on selling copies, an author should be focused on how they can use their book. 

How can that potential client use their book to get more high ticket clients into their branding company? 

How can they get their book in front of their ideal client, get more phone calls for their sales staff, and grow their business? 

Who cares if someone sells thousands of copies of their book?

They won’t be bringing on hundreds of thousands of new customers with those sales. 

When an author focuses on the right things, making 5 and 6 figures a month is not out of the question. 

I hope that helps you whether you’re a big company or you’re just starting out.

Remember: If your book sells millions of copies, that’s just icing on the cake.

Your book doesn’t need to sell millions of copies for you to make millions of dollars. It just needs to get in front of the right people.