Hacker News Reader

Comment by krmmalik | Hacker News Reader

I'm an author of a non-fiction book. I self-published. My book has a 5-star rating to date even though it was published nearly 5 years ago. My book meets most of the criteria laid out in this book. I even had both a publisher and distributor approach me and I had plenty leverage. Despite all that, I didn't get the book sales I wanted nor the PR.

Everyone that reads my book is surprised to hear it's not topping the charts or plastered everywhere my audience hangs out. My book beat out all the competition when it came out in terms of reviews.

While the points in this post are valid, I don't believe they get to the bottom of what holds back sales.

Frankly, I don't know what the answer is -- I have a vague idea of what it could be but I haven't had a chance to try those things. Perhaps if my book had been in all airport bookstores a few years ago, it might have taken off (no pun intended) like Tim Ferriss' book but who knows.

View on HN

Does it, though?

I assume you mean "Billion Dollar Muslim: Why We Need Spiritually Inspired Entrepreneurs".

It clearly makes mistake #3: "writing broadly about the topic instead of making a clear promise about what the reader will get out of it".

What is "clear promise about what the reader will get out of it" in "Billion Dollar Muslim"?

Frankly, based on the title I don't see why I should read it, even if I'm somewhat interested in entrepreneurship.

"Why We Need Spiritually Inspired Entrepreneurs" never occurred to me as a question worth answering. Not the way "how to increase sales?" is a question I might be interested in knowing the answer to.

BTW: you website has expired SSL certificate so the main source of promoting your book is as good as gone.

> What is "clear promise about what the reader will get out of it" in "Billion Dollar Muslim"?

Uh, it promises to explain Why We Need Spiritually Inspired Entrepreneurs.

I don't think the book needs to appeal to you to count as a clear promise the reader will get something out of it! You could object in the same way to a book called "How to Draw in Charcoal", how "Frankly, based on the title I don't see why I should read it".

There isn't a book out there that doesn't promise to show its contents to the reader. If we're dividing books into those with a clear promise vs those which are broadly about an area, compare and contrast "How to Draw in Charcoal" with "Thousand Dollar Artist: Why We Need Charcoal Drawings".

> There isn't a book out there that doesn't promise to show its contents to the reader.

I think I don't understand that, but it seems massively wrong (e.g. my favourite book is called Essays) and I have no idea what you were trying to communicate. I can't see what exactly I'm supposed to do with the second sentence either. Sorry.

I gave up marketing the book two years ago after trying for nearly 3 years. SSL certificate I will check out. That must be recent as the site has been running fine for years.

You might have a point about the promise of the book, but that depends on whether your muslim or not. Most muslims who come across it, understand the premise immediately, but still, you might have a point there.

Did you use beta readers? This is just one of our posts.

We talk more about the mechanics of useful books here.¹

Unfortunately, if it's not organically growing, it's not getting word of mouth, and if it's not getting word of mouth, it's just not that useful.

Either people don't have the problem you think they have, your book doesn't solve it, or the audience isn't right (in which case people don't run into people they can recommend the book to.)

Notes ¹ https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/designing-nonfiction-...

Just going off the title this sounds very niche. How many people take this kind of self help stuff seriously, and how many also value spirituality? The subtitle even says "for muslim engineers" (which I'm sure is a fairly large group, but still).

I just bought your book based on the post above. Maybe it’s marketing? Your book is also aimed a small niche(I’m on your target market!), maybe that’s it?

That's hilarious. Enjoy the book :)

Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC age since you're competing with ever increasing ad prices. I have spent a lot of money on advertising regardless.

One thing that has been a major sticking point for me however, ist hat distribution has been a huge issue. I wouldn't say my target market is that small. Most of the Middle East and Asia is quite ripe for my book but amazon doest operate it's self-publishing arm out there and the alternatives have not been that enticing.

> Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC ag

And yet the free source of marketing (your twitter account) doesn't have a link to the book.

Neither does your HN bio.

Your website is broken (expired SSL certificate).

As far as I can tell you don't have a single page that tries to sell the book. A link to amazon is a bare minimum.

https://writeusefulbooks.com/ is an example of a master class of marketing a book. It describes what the book is about and why one should buy it. It established the author as successful writer and therefore authority on the subject.

He also wrote an article good enough to hit HN and be a driver to the website. That required 0 budget.

Maybe your failure at marketing are a result of you being bad at it, not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".

Thanks! I agree that our marketing is good as the CMO. Just kidding.

Strongly agree with this: >not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".

That quickly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The true GOATS of advertising and marketing, like for example Dave Trott, beat the point that you should play games you can win into your head over and over.

If one can't compete buying a ton of ads, don't try. But making a book that's useful to a small group of people, by making a clear promise, specifying who it is and isn't for, and then aggressively iterate with beta-readers until you start to get word of mouth, changes the equation more from needing lots of money to putting in a lot of the right kind of effort.

> Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC age since you're competing with ever increasing ad prices.

This is a mental trap that is super easy to fall into. The author of the article is writing a marketing guide. Marketing encompasses the entire product and go to market design, of which advertising is just a tiny part. Notice in his table of contents that advertising is only mentioned in one chapter very late in the book.

This^

I'm curious which geographies you marketed to, I can totally imagine a lot of my American friends being hesitant caught reading this book for ahem keywords. But this book can also totally sell in other places!

You're right. In the UK and America it doesn't have as much appeal but in Middle East and Asia it gains a lot of interest. The problem in those territories is distribution. Distribution is much better in the West for self-publishers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com