Book Marketing: How to Sell More Print Books in December

Have yourselves a bookish little Christmas… Margaret Skea plans to, with her promotional Christmas tree

Many indie authors find their ebook sales fall in the run-up to the holiday season because at this time of year many readers change their book-buying habits.

Instead of purchasing ebooks for themselves to read, they're busy choosing print books as gifts.

The following positive actions will help you benefit from this special annual sales opportunity for print books, no matter how your ebook sales fare:

1. Focus on promoting your print books to your known fans via your mailing list. People who have enjoyed your ebooks may well be persuaded to buy print copies as gifts for friends and relations.
2. Remind them it's easy to order, wrap and send books – a lot easier than most other kinds of Christmas shopping!
3. Apply a special seasonal pbook price during the gift-buying season to encourage multiple purchases.
4. Offer your readers the chance to download a title's ebook at a reduced price when they buy a hard copy as a gift for someone else – a nice thank-you to loyal readers. This is easily done simply by enrolling the Kindle version in Kindle MatchBook, and choosing from four price options:  $2.99, $1.99, $0.99, or free, for any Kindle MatchBook sale. The chosen price must represent a discount of at least 50% on your usual Kindle price. For more information, see KDP's MatchBook information page here.
5. 

   Mary Crawford's stall at her local high school's Christmas Fair

   Wherever you live, there are likely to be local Christmas fairs and markets at which you might take a stall to handsell your pbooks. Such events are useful for raising your profile as an author within your local community, which can lead to valuable opportunities such as speaking engagements. It's obviously too late to book stalls for this year's fairs, but visit any that appeal to you to find out whether their customers are a good match for your books. Make a note of the organiser's contact details ready to register your interest for next year's equivalent.

Finally, if you have been self-publishing only ebooks, consider whether 2018 should be the year that you diversify into print. 

With thanks to Margaret Skea and Mary Crawford for sharing their festive photos with us

OVER TO YOU Are there any tips we've missed on making the most of festive opportunities to sell print books? Feel free to add your ideas to our list!

OTHER POSTS ABOUT SELLING MORE BOOKS AT THIS TIME OF YEAR
From the ALLi Author Advice Center Archive