Kate Cobb, editor of the collaborative anthology, Turning Points, shares how they reached NUMBER ONE ON AMAZON on their launch day.

“When we write we want to get our message out to the world, we want to tell our story, we have a compulsion to put ‘it’ all down on paper and are not necessarily even thinking of publishing our magnum opus at the time of writing. It’s great if we can find a publisher who believes in us but that’s probably as far as most authors are thinking as they put pen to paper or touch their keyboard; they are not thinking of getting into the best sellers list and I would argue that if that is your only motivation for writing, give up and go home!

When it comes nearer to launch day though, you might usefully give the best seller idea some thought. We’ve just done it with “Turning Points: 25 inspiring stories from women entrepreneurs who turned their lives and their careers around” which went to number one of the Amazon’s Women & Business list on launch day, was at the top of the Hot New Releases  on Amazon and appeared in the top twenty in other categories too. So, if you’re not JK Rowling, how easy is it to get your book to number one on a best sellers list and anyway why would you want to?

Let’s start with the second part of that question which I think goes back to your motivation for writing in the first place. If what you want is to write your mémoires and present it to your family, then the publicity that number one status inevitably gives might not be important to you. But if you want to get your name known or if you want to get the widest coverage for your work possible then you might be interested.

“Turning Points” is a unique anthology which contains the amazing stories of life challenges successfully overcome by 25 women entrepreneurs including myself. Our primary motivation was to share our stories so that they might help other people facing similar difficulties to move through their situations with more ease. We are business women and so any publicity we can get for work and our businesses is an added bonus which is why we thought we’d try.

So how easy is it? Well, like the writing part, the publicity needs determination and method. We managed it with a lot of hard work and effort and the support of all the people we know which collectively must amount to upwards of 10,000 contacts – we’re lucky for the collaborative book means we already had a support group committed to the same thing.

My personal intention for our launch was to get our book into the hands of those for whom it would be useful wherever they were in the world –  it wasn’t to be number one!  But it was such fun to check the progress of the book up the lists on launch day and to begin to see that we were getting near the top! Then the excitement when we made it to number two and see that it was possible to take the book to the top. It just needed that final push and thanks to Facebook and Twitter and the combined dedication of we 25 and our supporters, we did it!

My tips? You don’t  have to do a hard sell but you do need to be organised and follow a process to get your message out and if that touches a chord with potential readers, then the book sells itself. Just believe you can do it, and you can!”

 

 

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