First of all, a positive attitude and outlook can significantly impact the future success of a book.

How so?

The positive author is confident and patient. The worried author is much more apt to impatiently act out of fear, which can quickly brand an author as unprofessional. An author who lacks confidence is also less likely to be motivated to polish the book to perfection and to invest time in marketing.

Positive emotions also affect personal marketing efforts. Confidence or the lack thereof shows. Passion attracts buyers. Concern about an author’s own writing deters sales.

Don’t simply try to trick yourself into being confident. Build confidence.

• Research books in the genre in order to convince yourself that there is an audience for your idea.
• Join a writing group if you need to develop confidence in your writing; and realize that criticism will help you improve your writing, which will help you become confident in the long run, if not sooner, provided that you simply approach it with the right mindset.
• Solicit feedback about your cover, story, blurb, blog, social media, and so on so that you gain confidence in everything you do to succeed as an author.

Positive visualization can also help you perfect your book and succeed in marketing:

• Visualize the kind of book that will succeed.
• How do you want to succeed? If sales are important, visualize a book that will attract a large audience. Research top selling books in a genre that fits you well to see what tends to attract a large established audience. If something else is more important, visualize your book toward that end.
• Work diligently to produce a book that meets these criteria. Visualize the content, storyline, characterization, writing style, writing techniques, grammar, and formatting that will appeal to your audience. Research or seek help in areas where you lack confidence.
• Be positive that if you patiently work to perfect your book, it will pay off.
• Receive feedback at various stages of your writing to help with your visualization, confidence, and to help build buzz for the coming book.
• Visualize packaging that will attract your target audience. The cover, title, blurb, and opening chapter must send a unified message, be free of mistakes, and be attractive to your audience.
• Solicit feedback on all areas of the packaging, especially from strangers in your target audience who are likely to provide honest comments.
• Incorporate the feedback into your visualization, and not just that feedback that matches your own preferences. You want to balance establishing your own sense of style while also meeting the needs of your readers. The more important sales are to you, the more important it is to see what’s popular among your readers.
• Visualize early sales and reviews of your book. Now work diligently to try to achieve this. Pursue premarketing by sending out advance review copies, trying to create buzz, getting your social media and blog together prior to publishing, contacting bloggers and websites related to your target audience about possible reviews on their sites, and beginning your marketing efforts months before your book is released.
• Visualize good reviews. Think of what features of your book may stand out to readers. Polish your book to help the best features stand out. Imagine possible criticism that your book may receive. Improve your book to help minimize the chances for this.
• Exercise patience. Sales may be slow at first. Market your book diligently. Don’t give up. It can take months for marketing efforts to really build up. It takes time for people to discover your book, read your book, and spread word about your book. Perfect your book to increase the chances of word-of-mouth sales. Market your book to help people in your target audience discover your book (but not through self-promotion). Work to brand a positive image as an author.
• Be patient with reviews, too. Reviews can come very slowly. One or more reviews may be negative. It takes time to earn several reviews. Realize that an occasional critical review helps to achieve balance and may actually improve sales. (Nobody wants a bad review, and we get enough without having to try to get them, but occasionally they help, especially if they only come rarely and are offset by several good reviews.) If you get a bad review, don’t act on it. Be patient and see how things evolve. Do read it to see if there is any merit in any ideas that may help you to improve the book. Continue your marketing efforts, as more sales are the best way to earn more reviews. Remember, it can take hundreds of sales per review, depending on the type of book, good luck, and the nature of your marketing.
• If sales or reviews become a problem at some point, visualize a favorable turnaround. Work on your marketing, reconsider your marketing techniques, strive to reach new readers, consider doing a promotion and marketing it, revise the book or packaging if needed, solicit more feedback, consider hiring editing or cover design help, and visualize improved sales and reviews.
• Interact with other authors. Find things that other authors are doing well and visualize yourself doing those things well, too. Discover what works for others and see which of those things work for you. Learn new ideas and consider incorporating them into your visualization.
• Imagine yourself as a potential reader in the target audience. Visualize what promotional efforts or marketing tools might work to catch your interest in the book. Imagine seeing the cover, title, and blurb for the first time. What would hook you as a buyer? How does your author page seem from this point of view?
• Visualize marketing success. What can you see yourself doing to help stimulate sales? Research marketing techniques. Motivate yourself to learn about marketing and carry out many different ideas. Visualize your book’s success and work toward it.
• Write your next book. Imagine readers liking one book and hoping to find your other books.

Good luck with your book. Try to stay positive, patient, and confident. You can do it. 🙂

Chris McMullen, coauthor of Negative/Positive Antonym Word Scrambles Book: A fun way to practice turning negative thoughts into positive ones