How to sell a million books in seventy easy steps

How to sell a million books in seventy easy steps. I really wish that I could tell you how to sell millions of books, become famous and accomplish your dreams of becoming a bestselling author, but if there is such a system I don’t think it exists. I decided though that I would write about my personal journey in self-publishing. I am not famous yet and you won’t find me on the New York Times best sellers list yet, but what you will find here are my experiences and dreams in writing and promoting my books as well as my successes and failures along the way.

I will explain what motivated me from being the guy who always thought I have one great novel in me to actually writing a book. I just wanted to write and publish a book. That was all the motivation I had. The challenge of taking the images that have been developing inside my vivid imagination and trying to put them down on paper to share with the world. There wasn’t a dream to be famous or rich just write something half decent that I was proud of and that people enjoyed reading. I accomplished half of that goal. After a year and a half of writing and re-writing my treasured story I finally produced 39728 words that I rushed to release so that whole world could tell me how great it was.

Now my book “Innocence Lost” wasn’t a total waste of time and even though later I would think it was probably the worst book ever written. Those few people that read it actually liked it. I am not talking movie of the week liked, but they liked the theme and message behind it plus everybody found something they did and didn’t like about my little treasure. I was embarrassed though. So embarrassed that I pulled the book from being sold. Even though my mom still brags that her son wrote a book and with each new release she is the first to ask me for a signed copy.

I read the reviews from bloggers, readers and others reviews and comments then read my book again. Now it’s easy to realize that your book really does suck and give up on a dream. A lot of people do. On a book I released later that received one star with the added insult, “Not worth the price and predictable” was absolutely horrifying for me. Yes for a minute I was ready to give up. I gave the book away and was really proud of it so that was hard for my pride to handle. It wasn’t until I decided to actually look at the reviews as a learning experience rather than an insult that everything changed. My goal hasn’t changed. I still want to write a great novel that I am proud of and people enjoy reading and I did it with my third book, but then I decided that I could do it better.

Well back on topic. I read my book “Innocence Lost” and despite all its numerous flaws I still liked the theme and thought it was an amazing story if told properly. Now I looked at it as a reader. My characters weren’t as relatable as the ones I had imagined, the fight scenes weren’t believable if a fight between a man and a fallen angel can be believable and it was just too over powering with emotions, but I could write it better. That’s exactly what I did with Stealing Destiny the first book in my Immortal Obsession series. The same theme only tweaked and perfected until you can’t see that the books tell the same story. Better fight scenes, a bigger book that flows and relatable characters. I discovered in the process of going from Innocence Lost to Stealing Destiny a lot of useful information, but the most shocking thing for me was that everybody who reads my book has a favorite character, but it’s never the same character.

Now I can’t tell you how to sell a million copies of your book or even how to give away a million copies, but what I can do is tell you what I have learned. What has worked and what’s really flopped and failed as well as the tools that have worked for me. I have a kindle full of books about writing, self-publishing, marketing etc. Some are absolute treasures that I think everybody needs to read and some aren’t worth the time it takes to read. Now I won’t list the books that are a waste of time just the ones that have helped me. I don’t want to leave negative comments about other peoples work because of my experience, but I will tell you about my experiences so far and those that I am trying. I will list what worked and what didn’t in my journey.

I love being and author and embrace the fact that each book I write is better then the previous one. I have taken the challenge to keep writing better books and sell a million copies. How long it takes and how creative I need to be is what makes the challenge fun.

So follow me on my journey. I am making my very first attempt at writing available for free through my news letter from now until January 12^th 2016 ( Those who are interested will find it at www.jdselmser.com ). Not that I think it’s a great or horrible book. Just so that those who struggle and have self-doubt don’t feel alone. Read it for free and follow my journey. Hopefully you will find some inspiration, ideas and tools to help you along the way.