Last week, the Authors Guild hosted an informative webinar on how authors can build direct reader relationships. It consisted primarily of a case study focusing on indie author Emily Kimelman, who discussed how she’s built a successful direct-to-reader business by selling books through her own website. She was joined by Jamie Davis, who assists as her business manager, as well as Damon Courtney, creator and CEO of BookFunnel, an instrumental service for authors selling direct.
The biggest hurdle in selling direct: you need a great offer. The average reader isn’t going to stop buying books from their preferred retailer and buy from the author unless there’s a fairly compelling reason to do so. Thus, Kimelman says, it’s important that the offer is not available through retailers like Amazon and that it’s enticing enough that the reader will take the leap. Kimelman’s current offer? Readers can choose to pay what they want for eight ebooks or audiobooks, or they can get the paperbacks at 40 percent off with free shipping. These eight books are all part of the Sydney Rye Mysteries, a series that Kimelman has already written and published. (As of today, Kimelman has more than 20 published titles; she’s been writing and publishing since 2011.)
If you don’t have a series, you can still sell direct, but you’ll need a different kind of offer. Kimelman suggests authors bundle the book with some merchandise or whatever might attract your desired reader. “There needs to be a hook,” Kimelman said. “It doesn’t matter what you’re selling as long as you’re resonating with your audience.”
The copy that describes the offer on the landing page should reflect you and your work. Kimelman says that this is a trial-and-error process that takes time. It requires testing to improve conversion (the number of people who take you up on the offer), as well as paying attention to questions and comments you see on the offer. For example, Kimelman added a P.S.—“The dog does not die”—to her landing page when it became evident that potential readers weren’t willing to take a chance on her books because they worried, based on the book description, that the dog would die. She also said it’s helpful to take the top three complaints from your one-star reviews and use that information to improve your sales page. For her, that meant adding the line, “If you have trouble with the f-bomb, violence, or sex (not graphic but out of wedlock), then this series is NOT for you.”
Kimelman admitted this process of improving your landing page is “not simple” and she did not “come out of the womb” knowing how to do this. “You are going to be misunderstood … but it’s going to be okay. The right people will resonate with you.”
Briefly, here’s how selling direct works logistically: Once Kimelman comes up with an offer, she creates a landing page for it that is accessible only to those she’s promoting the offer to. ThriveCart is her preferred tool for landing pages. (Note that her offer does not come up in a web search, and it is not discoverable if you’re just browsing her site.) If someone decides to buy, they check out and pay through Kimelman’s site (powered by Shopify), then BookFunnel automagically delivers any digital purchases to the reader. If the reader has trouble with the files, it is the responsibility of BookFunnel’s customer service to help—an important part of reducing administrative headaches for Kimelman. If the customer orders print copies, Kimelman uses Amazon KDP author copies to fulfill those orders. Kimelman doesn’t see or store payment data; all that is handled by the ecommerce solutions she’s using.
How to promote the offer: Kimelman uses Facebook ads, among other tools, but you can spread the word about your offer in the same places you would normally market and promote your books: ads, newsletters, podcasts, social media, and so on. It’s a near certainty that even if people like the offer, they will do a little research to see if they can trust you. They’ll visit your author website, social media profile, and their preferred retailer. Consistency helps: Having consistent author photos, author bios, matching cover and blurbs, etc., creates trust. And of course, again, the offer you’re making directly should not be available anywhere else, which will bring the reader back to your landing page to take advantage of it.
Bottom line: While it’s clearly been a lot of work to set up the system Kimelman has, the rewards appear significant and worthwhile. She spoke of the positive results on her cash flow, since selling direct means she gets the money immediately rather than waiting for months, especially when she does pre-order offers. Her readers are willing to pay in all kinds of amounts, from the minimum to a hundred dollars or more. Even though she uses a pay-what-you-want offer for digital books, sales on this model average out to roughly $40 per customer. For more on her model, here is a recent interview. And the entire discussion is free and worth your time, with more tips and logistical guidance.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
