I Read A Really Helpful and Interesting Marketing Blog, and Decided to Plagiarise it :)

Here is an excellent marketing post, all about selling products to people.

I urge you to go read it, and after you do, come back here. Because I'm just going to relate all seven of his points to selling fiction e-books.

1) Proof/Track Record

This is something you need to build on with every title. For instance, Amanda Hocking went to the top 25 titles in the Amazon store with her last book. She sold 250 books in 2 hours to achieve that. Now 250 may not seem like a lot, but considering that once upon a time books were not considered to sell much more 150, and considering she was in the top 25 of over 700,000 titles, it isn't a stretch to bill herself as a bestselling author.

In fact, according to the Wikipedia definition of bestseller, it would be entirely accurate.

• "A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its inclusion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains."

And again, with the important bits in bold...

• "A bestseller is a book that is identified as extremely popular by its [and] inclu[ed]sion on lists of currently top selling titles that are based on publishing industry and book trade figures and published by newspapers, magazines, or bookstore chains."

Okay, so Amazon isn't really a chain, but it is the biggest book store in the world, and has more weigh than bookstore chains nowadays.

If you have a few books already out, use this to justify people buying more copies of your book. Show people how much you are already selling. 90% of people are inherently sheep, and have herding instincts. If they think lots of people are buying your work, they will too.

2) Pedigree

I wouldn't go into "I have a creative writer's degree" but your pedigree should certainly be part of your author bio, especially if it fits your subject matter.

A police officer who writes crime fiction...
A sex addict who writes erotica...
A serial killer who writes thrillers...

There is certainly something to the theory that you should write what you know. I don't agree with it entirely (if I did, I wouldn't be working on apocalyptic zombie slash) but if you have a pedigree, flaunt it.

3 and 4) Endorsements

I've grouped these together because often an author (the authority) is also a celebrity. The big publisher's do this well, where a more established author (ie Robin Hobb) will be quoted on the cover of a debut author's novel.

I'm not going to lie, this will be difficult for an indie author.

5) Social Proof

Point 5 talks about testimonials, but in fiction what that refers to is of course reviews. A good review will help to sell your fiction. Whilst you shouldn't get your friends to post positive reviews for you, and neither should you try to coerce people into buying your stuff, you can pimp out positive reviews as much as you like. Link to the best reviews from your blog or website, mention them on Twitter and Facebook.

6) Logical Proof

The general view of indie work is that it will be shoddy. Logical Proof (if A=B, and B=C, then A must equal C) is a simple way to prove you have a high quality product when you don't have any of the 5 previously mentioned selling points.

Consider this. "If the cover is good, and the sample is good, then the novel must be good..."

Although this is the 1st point to become important, it is still important once you have achieved the 5 previous points.

I haven't included point 7 because people don't really use metaphorical proof to sell books.

Anyway, these are just some points to consider when marketing your books.