Sell 1,000 Copies of Your Book Without Losing Sleep

There’s a podcast out there with a great title using a term that I wish I’d coined. It’s called The Authorpreneur Podcast, and it’s hosted by mystery book author Amelia D. Hay (and yep, it’s trademarked).

Hay and I have a very different idea of what an “authorpreneur” is. Whereas she’s speaking mostly to novelists, I think “authorpreneur” perfectly captures my clients: business owners who want to write a book to build their businesses and make more money.

Author + entrepreneur = authorpreneur. Get it?

Semantics aside, as an authorpreneur, you need to be laser-focused on answering one question:

What do I want this book to do for me?

You know your most valuable asset is time. You know that to meet your business goals, you must be clear about how any particular investment of your time yields a return for you. So if you don’t know what to expect from writing and self-publishing your business book, then you aren’t ready to write it. Period.

Still, I know how overwhelming it can be to answer this question when the possibilities seem endless. No doubt your book can open up a ton of doors for you in your business, but that’s only if you have a concrete goal and strategy to get there. You simply can’t throw spaghetti at the wall and hope it sticks.

That’s why I want to talk about how to sell 1,000 copies of your book.

AND because I believe—with the right strategy—this goal is definitely within reach, I want to show you how to do it without losing sleep. Let’s dive in!

Why 1,000 copies?

I’m working with a first-time authorpreneur right now who is asking all the right questions:

What does success look like?
What kind of financial investment will I need to make to yield the results I’m after?
Who am I writing to? Should I write to a general audience or narrow my niche?
What is the status quo I’m standing against or in opposition to?
What conversation am I starting?

These questions are all different angles or ways into that bigger, overarching question: what do I want this book to do for me?

Still, just because you’re asking the right questions, that doesn’t mean the answers will come easily. When I first started my business, I felt totally overwhelmed by questions I didn’t know how to answer (e.g., What’s your revenue goal? Who is your ideal client? What problem are you solving for them?). Sure, I could see that these were important questions that I needed to answer, but without a reference point I didn’t even know where to start.

By the way, this is one of the best reasons to work with an expert who can guide you to find the answers that are right for you. I provide my clients with a reference point based on their business goals, then I create a strategy to meet their book writing goals. If you’re unsure of how your book relates to your specific business goals, selling 1,000 books is a good general starting point.

Let 1,000 books be your reference point.

Why 1,000 copies? As a first-time authorpreneur, selling 1,000 copies within the first year is a great goal. It won’t land you in bestseller territory, but it’s above average. While there are some who will say if you don’t write a bestselling book, you’ve failed, and others who will say you should simply give away copies of your book for free (“books are the new business card”), I see a lot of value in the middle path.

Here’s what both camps get wrong:

Since you’re writing a business book, the number of books you sell is secondary to how you use your book to grow your business (e.g., introduce you to new prospects, sell more of your services, help you land paid speaking opportunities). Also, as exciting as it sounds to attain “rockstar status” in the writing world, writing a bestselling book could leave you with 25,000+ “leads” who aren’t the right fit, which could actually be more trouble than it’s worth.

While you could accomplish business goals such as introducing your business to new prospects, selling your services, and landing paid speaking opportunities by giving away your book, marketing your book is also marketing your business. In other words, you will get more bang for your marketing bucks if you set a book sales goal. Even though you may not recoup the costs of publishing your book by selling 1,000 copies, you will undoubtedly do a better job of marketing your book if you’re selling it, as opposed to simply giving it away for free (which will lead to better results with your other business goals).

The bottom line is that selling 1,000 books is really attainable, even for first-time authors, and the benefits of marketing your book will ripple beyond book sales themselves.

So what steps can you take to sell 1,000 copies of your book in the first year?

Step 1: Build your audience

Growing your audience is a step you can and should take before you even start writing your book. It’s also something you’ll want to do regardless of whether you write a book or not, because having a strong and engaged audience will help you sell anything.

As soon as you believe you have a book in you, I recommend you start strategically building and connecting with your target audience.

Here are some benchmarks that I’ve kept in mind as I’ve been writing my book (launching in fall 2024):

10,000+ LinkedIn followers: I wanted to grow my LinkedIn followers to 10,000 before my book launch because I know this is a number that publishers look for. I hit this goal about six months before my book launch.
1,000+ email subscribers: I wanted to reach 1,000 email subscribers, and I’m still working on this goal. Growing an email list takes a lot of time and effort.

With a solid marketing and PR strategy, audience building sets me up to sell my first 1,000 books within a year. I’ll be sharing all about my journey to sell 1,000 books on LinkedIn and via email too. Subscribe to follow along.

Step 2: Test your ideas

This is another step you can and should take before, or at least while, you write your book. You’ll want to share your half-baked ideas, even if you don’t feel ready. By doing this, you can get feedback from your target readers before completing your book, making your book better and more valuable to them.

What are the main points you share in your book? Test them out with your audience. This will help build the buzz ahead of your launch date, so you can sell 1,000 books within a year.

Here are some ways to test your ideas:

Share bite-sized chunks on LinkedIn (or your preferred social media channel)
Create a keynote or signature talk and pitch it to others with similar audiences, or host your own event and invite your audience
Create a workshop and borrow audiences, or host your own event
Seek out masterminds and communities where you feel safe sharing your ideas and receiving feedback
If you get stuck while writing, seek out a friend or write about your challenge on LinkedIn (or your preferred social media channel)

Step 3: Front-load the marketing

Finally, it’s never too early to start marketing your book. As soon as you feel ready to announce you’re writing a book (and I encourage you to make that announcement before you feel ready), you should get in the mindset of marketing your book.

A lot of book marketers will tell you to start marketing your book three months before launch and continue your book marketing campaign for three months post launch. While that’s good timing for a marketing campaign, which you definitely should plan and implement, you will want to lay the groundwork for that campaign by front-loading the marketing.

If you don’t seed the marketing campaign and let your audience know that your book is coming down the pike, they may be caught off guard. This is not what you want. You want to build the anticipation, so that by the time the campaign hits, your audience can’t wait to buy your book.

Here are some ways to start marketing your book even before you have a preorder link to share:

Talk about your book journey (in addition to sharing ideas from the book)
Plug your book during podcast interviews, talks, networking events, etc.
Add a “coming soon” announcement to your social media bios

Whatever your specific answer to the question, “what do I want this book to do for me?” is, selling 1,000 books will get you at least part of the way there.

Over the next year, I’ll be testing out this hypothesis with my own book, Unwritten: The Thought Leader’s Guide to Not Overthinking Your Business Book, where I also explore all three of the above steps in more detail. If you’re an authorpreneur, grab your copy!