"It's the author's job to sell the first 10,000 books. After that, it's the book's job to sell itself." ~Seth Godin
I like this.
He went on to say that for a book to do well, it has to be remarkable -- as in literally "worthy of remark."
People don't share books with others as a favor to the author.
They do it for their own reasons; they do it to increase their status, to be seen by others as a useful resource of new and better ideas or new and better entertainment.
Thus, it takes relentless focus on your readers' needs and goals to earn their remark.
And this is what you must engage in if your goal is to sell a lot of books.
I don't put this idea out there today to intimidate anyone. It's simply a call for quality.
Quality doesn't have to be rambunctious or lengthy.
It can be quiet and short.
We know it when we experience it.
One more thing to drive this point home:
I was reviewing my fifth-grade daughter's completed spelling tests over the weekend and saw that her teacher often gave her perfect scores on tests even when words were, in fact, spelled incorrectly.
It really bothered me, seeing this.
Her teacher gives a lot of homework and churns through a ton of material each week much to the stress of everyone...*and* things are getting missed.
Quality is suffering. It's not right.
Less. But better.
Less. But better.
Be worthy of remark.
Love, Laura
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