A Book A Minute – What’s Your Goal?

By Doyne Phillips, Managing Editor for Southern Writers Magazine

In a recent conversation with Steve Bradshaw, author of the Bell Trilogy and other books, I reminded him of his goal he once shared with me.  He had a goal of a specific number of books to sell which in his mind would validate him to himself as an author. Most authors have a personal goal. It may be as simple as having a book for family and friends to read. Some write technical or educational books to be published for advancement in their career. Some write for the money which I wrote about in one of my Suite T blogs.

Whatever your personal goal is it is personal and share it only of you like. But how about a goal of “1 Book A Minute”? The idea came to me when I was looking over the books of Andy Andrews in a gift shop. I have always thought Andrews to be a great author as well as a smart marketing author. Yet knowing this I was still surprised to see the book mark in each of his books stating, “Every minute a book by Andy Andrews is sold somewhere in the World”. Amazing!  I thought to my self that is a lot of books and then of course I had to do the numbers. I came up with 1,440 books a day, 43,920 a month and 527,040 books a year. Over a half a million a year! That may or may not have been a goal for Andrews but if it was how do you get there?

As I said earlier Andy Andrews is a hardworking marketing author. He is known to travel to gift shops, book stores big box stores where his books are sold to autograph his books and return them to the shelves. I ran across him in a Walmart store doing just that. Speaking engagements with groups are a big benefit as well. Corporations with large number of employees will tend to purchase each employee a copy of the book the author is promoting or asked to speak on. This can lead to interest in other books the author may have and further purchases from the individuals. Once an author is established in a company they may be recommended to other companies throughout that industry. 

This straggly could give book sales a big boost especially if it is a worldwide business or industry.

It should be worth noting the bookmark does state “in the world”. This tells us Andrews has a worldwide market. As an author you should not hesitate to be thinking worldwide. With today’s technology you can reach the world from the comfort of your easy chair or desk. An example would be if your language is English reach out to English speaking nations to market there. If you go global and the markets warrant there could be translations to other languages.

Most importantly do you have a personal goal? If yes, what actions are you taking to get there. Do you need help? If yes, seek it out. It will take work but the effort is worth the results. Pick out your numbers to reach by the minute, hour, day, month or year. Have a number you would like to reach and get started. Let us know of your progress.