Best selling books are not called best sellers only because they have been well written. There is another important factor, and that is they are smartly sold. A good marketing, distribution and advertising campaign helps to make a good book become a bestseller, whereas a good book without the marketing will likely never become one.

Books are written with the objective to convey your thoughts, experience, knowledge, opinion, fiction, facts, and philosophy to the widest possible audience. Come to think of it, if you have written a great book and only a few copies are sold, the very purpose and the effort of writing the book is defeated. Selling a book requires imagination and skill. Here we will discuss a few things that made my books become bestsellers.

Book talks are the first thing I focused on. I began exploring opportunities where I could speak about my book and also sell it duly autographed. I personally planned and arranged for book talks. Where there was no opportunity, I created one.

I approached all the major bookstores in Singapore such as Kinokuniya, MPH online, Popular Book Company, Times, and others. I sought an appointment with the owners or managers and talked them into arranging book talks on weekends. I made sure that each store I went and spoke at had enough copies of my book.

Every single weekend I would reach the bookstore one hour before the talk and prepare myself. I would take care to be presentable, yet informal in my attire. I would speak and draw attention. I would generally give only a brief talk. I would make sure that the talk had generous amounts of humor and I took care to connect with the crowd.

It is very difficult to maintain the crowd's interest in a monologue, so I made my sessions interactive and encouraged the audience to ask questions and make statements. I sold the greatest number of books during these talks.

Another important sales promotion exercise I did was that I started calling school principals and school administration staff and requested permission for conducting free talks. These talks would be held during the school assembly session in the mornings. This activity continued for more than a four month period. This was the much desired engine I needed to drive the sales of my book forwards. This effort paid off and the sales started picking up. It also got a lot of people talking about my book. This also kept my name alive in the minds of all prospective readers.

The next thing I did was release color advertisements in the local and national newspapers. A lot of my friends and well-wishers advised me against doing this. They thought that this was not such a good idea as it was expensive. A small color advertisement would cost me $3000 -- a fortune considering my financial position. The ads eventually paid back by drawing crowds to the bookstores. Another important thing to consider, is your book's placement on the bookstore shelf.

With all these tips, you are sure to succeed like I did!