Your newest self-published book should get lots of attention: announcements on your social media and author website, a mention in your newsletter, book readings and signings, book reviews, maybe even a podcast interview, and more. After all, the success of your new book will depend heavily on your marketing efforts. But what about the books you’ve previously self-published? The experts at Self-Publishing Relief know that, as you build your brand, you should continue to market and sell your backlist of previously published books. Here’s how to boost sales of your backlist titles and revitalize your overall profit!

8 Ways To Boost Sales Of Your Backlist Titles

Now that books can be purchased online, there’s no need to stock a physical, in-store inventory. And since space on virtual bookshelves is available indefinitely, a book you self-published months or even years ago still has unlimited sales potential! By focusing some of your marketing efforts on your backlist, you can drive traffic to these evergreen sources of income.

Run promotional sales. Consider running a short promotional sale for your backlist books. You can put them all on sale at once (around the holidays, for instance), or choose to cycle through the books one at a time. The main goal is to drop the price low for a short amount of time to attract new readers. But before you schedule your price drop, be sure to consider this next tip…

Include previews at the end of your books. This is a popular marketing hack for a reason: If readers make it to the end of your book, that’s a good sign they enjoyed it and would read more! Take advantage of this interest by including the first chapter of another book in the last pages of whatever book a reader might purchase. You’ll intrigue readers and entice them to purchase another one of your books. If you do this in each book, you’ll set up a little chain for readers to follow straight through your whole backlist!

Revamp your cover. Covers can make or break sales, so you want to be sure yours is hitting the mark. If your book is five or ten years old, your cover design may be out of style. And putting a new cover on your book makes it look fresh—and worth buying! It also gives you a reason to talk up the book on your social media and author website. Just be sure your new cover design has all of the important elements it needs, and avoid any classic mistakes.

Have an author website—and use it! Nowadays every author should have a website. While you might devote a big, splashy web page to your newest release, you should also dedicate a page to your older titles. Set your backlist up for sales success by including images of the covers, direct purchase links, and short summaries of each book. Check regularly to make sure all the links are working too!

Release new formats. Did you originally only release a paperback version? Or maybe you published an e-book to keep the price lower. And what about audiobooks? If there are formats available that you didn’t use for your backlist titles, take advantage of those now! For example: Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing has recently added hardcover book covers as an option. If your backlist lives on that platform, now you can offer a hardcover version to get your book back in front of potential buyers!

Get more book reviews. Book reviews can make or break your sales. If some of the books sitting in your backlist don’t have a lot of (or any) reviews, they’ll have a harder time pulling in readers. Make a concentrated effort to start racking up reviews for these books, and watch how it encourages more readers to click the buy button!

Improve your SEO. Good SEO (search engine optimization) is one of the most effective ways to improve your discoverability. Home in on the keywords your readers are searching for. The better you use these keywords in your book description, the higher and more often your books will come up in online searches, helping to boost your sales.

Bring backlist titles to all your events. If you have a book release, reading, or event scheduled for your newest self-published book, bring your backlist along! While your new release will take center stage, your other titles can also be displayed to attract buyers.

Promoting perennial sales of your backlist can help boost your overall profits. These tips will help you keep your backlist active and encourage buyers to read more of your work. And whether you’re self-publishing your first book or your fifth, Self-Publishing Relief can help make navigating the process stress-free. We’ll guide you through every step of the process so that you have a self-published book you’ll be proud to put your name on! Schedule your free consultation today!

Question: What author’s writing has encouraged you to read multiple books by that writer?