Hey everyone! Hope you’re gearing up for the holidays. Things are starting to get busy around here, that’s for certain.

You hear a lot about how a cover can make or break a book. Or that you shouldn’t judge a book by its’ cover (or movie). Sometimes you read a review where the reader rips apart a book because of a single grammatical error. Other reviewers don’t care how many times the word ‘flushed’ is used.

As authors, we get obsessive about our books. And have a really hard time letting go of those stories once they’re published and out in the world. There’s got to be a reason, after all, that is why it’s not selling like we expected. So, let’s go over a few things that don’t matter.

Your book’s poor sales are NOT because:

1. The cover is bad
2. The blurb needs more umph
3. You need to add a subtitle/award/series title
4. There’s a single typo on page 87
5. Your mom can’t pronounce a character’s name in her head
6. There’s two words out of 75,000 that need to be changed

There’s two things that you can do that directly affect sales.

1. PROMOTE YOUR BOOK
2. BE PATIENT

It takes years of promoting, being upbeat, talking to people, and entering contests before you start to get any sort of name recognition. It’s hard work, that has to be done every single day, to get your book on a shelf in a store. Or a signing where you sell more books than direct people to the restroom.

Stop obsessing over small things that don’t matter, and do the work.

BB