When you write, do you consider those people who will consume your books and eBooks as readers?
“Of course, I do”, I hear you say. “They are my readers”. I won’t argue with you, at all.
However, one thing I would add, particularly if you are on a self-publishing journey is that your readers are also your customers. It is your books and eBooks that you will be selling to them, and which your customers will be buying from you.
If your readers are your customers, then it makes sense to treat them as highly valued ones, and provide them with the products and services they deserve. Read on to find out how you can do this:
Focus on Quality
A good business person focuses on providing a high quality product to his or her customers and clients. Your books and eBooks are your products, and therefore it will help greatly if you adopt an attitude of delivering high quality ones even before you’ve started writing.
Focus on Customer Service
You most likely sell your books and eBooks through retailers like Amazon, Kobo, Flipkart, and so on. You may also sell your books through independent books stores. In such instances, you don’t have to worry about customer service. This responsibility falls into the laps of the retailers.
However, you may have an online store set up on your website where customers can purchase your books and eBooks directly from you. In such cases, customer service becomes your responsibility. Ensure you have good procedures set up, involving giving customers the ability to contact you to ask questions, dealing with any download problems swiftly, and handling any refunds promptly, as set out in the terms and conditions you may have set up for sales of your books and eBooks.
Talk to Your Customers
In the publishing world this is simply getting feedback from your readers, be it a beta sample you use before you formally launch a new book or eBook, or readers leaving reviews of your titles. This most likely happens for you anyway. If it doesn’t, then it’s worthwhile thinking about how to build some meaningful relationships with potential buyers of your eBooks and books.
Give some copies of a draft of your eBook to a selected number of interested readers and ask them to give you feedback. In return, you could give them a free copy of the final version of your title. By engaging in such processes, you are building a loyal fan base, which you can reward for their loyalty in the future through things such as discounts on new titles, or even free copies, in return for helping to spread the message about your work through blogs and social networks.
Treat Customers like You Would Want to Be Treated
One major attitude that you can adopt, which essentially encapsulates the points above is to treat customers the way you would want to be treated. Remember a positive shopping experience you had in the past, either in a bricks and mortar shop, or online.
What was memorable about it? Was it receiving a great product? Was it the sales advisor and his or gentle approach? Was it the aftersales support team giving you the help you needed?
Whatever it may have been, how can you model and adopt the experience you had in your own sales process?
Image credit: Consumerist Dot Com on flickr and reproduced under Creative Commons 2.0[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]