Selling self-published books from a personal website?

[KathrynAdebayo]

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all doing well. Thanks a lot for checking out this post.

I’m curious if any of you sell self-published books from your website and how successful that has been for you. I know as illustrators we may not have that duty necessarily, but I figured that some people here who are author/illustrators might be working hard to sell books.

Will Terry has a really great series going on youtube right now about his self-published book “Pickleball Paul”. He’s building a website from which to sell hardcover copies of his book, if I understand correctly. Only paperbacks are print-on-demand and available on Amazon. He’s also offering some extras that will be available on his site, like some nice “color-able” posters.

I’m sure this will go great for Will. He has a lot of ways set up for people to find his book on his website, and I think we can all assume that he’s made a high-quality product. Not to mention the ripe niche market he’s tapping.

It sounds like a great idea to sell books from a website, especially if you can offer things like signed copies or unique bonus products. It’s potentially a good way to earn more profit too. But… what if you have no following, no mailing list, and it’s your first book?

Do you have experience, or know of people having success, drawing customers to a website to buy a self-published book?

If you’re doing it yourself, what have you learned?

I’d love to see other websites from which people are selling their own books. If you have examples and feel like sharing that would be a great help to me.

Thank you so much!!

[carlianne]

@KathrynAdebayo so I probably don't count as I have a following now ~ but I sell on my website. And I think having a book is actually a great way to start building a following and mailing list etc.

If you don't want to have a mailing list etc. Why not try selling on Amazon where you can do ads? Also there's is a built in community there already same for Etsy.

[KathrynAdebayo]

@carlianne Thanks so much, Carlianne. I think it's awesome how you've built up your illustration career with a successful self-published book. Super great to see your example.

Good point about Amazon. I think that's a given for my situation. With that in place, maybe a website would be more of a long-term investment? When the next book comes along maybe there'd be more people connected to a mailing list who are interested in engaging.

[carlianne]

@KathrynAdebayo yes I would definitely have a website with the goal to get signups for your mailing list. From everything I've researched a mailing list is the most valuable thing you can have.

If you're doing a children's book you can offer coloring pages or resources for teachers as a free download for example. I mention my website, Instagram and digital workbook in the book itself in the about the other section or you could have a resources page.

You can also use Google ads to drive people to your website but I haven't tried that yet.

[KathrynAdebayo]

@carlianne Great info - thank you!!