WRITING TO SELL: How to Write Your Book’s Sales Page

As we discussed yesterday, a sales page is an important part of maximizing your ebook sales. Well, the process of putting words together in a way that will convince someone to buy is called copywriting, and there are three key copywriting lessons that are particularly important for authors.

1.     Benefits vs. Features: Any copywriting worth his or her salt will tell you it’s important to talking about the benefits of a product instead of the features that product happens to have. Chances are you didn’t buy the last book you read based on the number of pages, chapters or words it had in it.

How it applies to a book: The benefit of a book is best conveyed through an excerpt (much like Amazon’s “Peek Inside” feature) and through the book summary you include—these things allow potential readers to see for themselves that your book will satisfy their needs.

2.     Endorsements & Testimonials: Buying an unknown product (or a book from a new author) can be scary. You don’t know what you’ll get. And, sadly, many of the books out there that are self-published aren’t up to par—making readers wary. Endorsements and testimonials help convince shoppers that a product won’t be a waste of their time or money.

How it applies to a book: In the book world, endorsements and testimonials are better known as reviews. An endorsement would be a review by another author, someone with authority or someone a reader might already know; a testimonial is simply a review by another reader. Knowing others have read your book and were willing to say something good about it can help reassure readers they your book will be worth it.

3.     Branding: Once a shopper has limited their selection to a few similar products, in order to decide which product to buy he or she will often look at who is selling the product to them. Does the shopper want to buy from a particular company?

How it applies to a book: In the book world, the author is the brand. Why should something read a book written by you? Your author bio is an essential part of your sales page and should make a convincing argument for why you are qualified to write this book—whether it’s because you’re a fantasy lover, who began consuming the genre while still in grade school or because you’ve made Amazon’s top 10 list with each of your last three books, you should be able to find some reason that you were qualified to write that which you have written—you did write it, after all.

This is a guest post by Melissa Breau, for detailed how-to info on creating a strong book description, getting reviews (of both varieties) and writing an author bio, check out her FREE online tutorial: Maximizing your eBook Sales. Or, if you want help making it happen, sign up for her new eBook Sales Package (packages start at $150).