NotitiesHow to Market a Book
Ricardo Fayet
Dit document biedt strategieën voor het effectief marketen van een boek, inclusief het begrijpen van de doelgroep, het optimaliseren van productpresentatie op platforms zoals Amazon, en het belang van een mailinglijst. Het benadrukt dat auteurs zich moeten concentreren op conversie en het creëren van een kwaliteitsproduct dat aansluit bij de verwachtingen van de lezers.
Whether you’re self-publishing or have a deal with a traditional publisher, the responsibility for marketing your book falls mainly on you. Marketing, just like writing or editing, is a skill, and it is one you cannot afford not to learn—that is, if you hope to have any success at selling some copies. (Location 79)
You can try hundreds of different things to market your book. Where most authors fail is not at finding marketing ideas, but at properly testing and implementing them. (Location 114)
This is the first hurdle many authors have to overcome. Marketing is a different skill, yes. It takes time and dedication, sure. But it’s not something you should be afraid of—or at least not for the wrong reasons. Because marketing a book is not about “going out there and finding readers.” That is just as spammy and ineffective as it sounds. And it’s not how books are sold. (Location 121)
Here’s the thing: authors don’t find readers; readers find books. That’s a simple change in perspective, but a critical one for effectively marketing your books. Marketing is not about selling your book to readers. It’s about getting readers to find it. Once you shift your perspective to the reader, you start thinking about the number-one question in book marketing: “How will readers find my book?” (Location 126)
Thinking about where readers find books like yours is the first step toward marketing them. (Location 134)
Book marketing fundamental 1: Thou shalt know your target market Before you even start writing your book, you should make sure you know exactly what kind of book you want to write and, more importantly, who will want to read it. The answers to these two questions will inform everything about your marketing strategies. (Location 152)
Once you have a sense of what you’d like to write about, it’s time to focus on who reads those genres. Consider the demographics of the target market’s average reader: what kind of income level do they have, how quickly do they read books, and what are some of their other common interests? By doing this, you’re starting to construct what’s called a “reader avatar”—a stand-in personality that you can refer to when making all your future marketing decisions. Then, whenever you decide to try something new, consider the best way to reach that person. After all, the best marketing strategy is specific; trying to market to everyone will mean that you’ll reach no one. (Location 160)
Note: AVATAR
Book marketing fundamental 2: Thou shalt have the right product for your target Now that you know what your target readers look like, you’ll need to deliver a quality product that matches—or, better yet, exceeds—their expectations. And when it comes to marketing a book, the first step is, of course, writing a book that speaks to your audience. (Location 166)
Book marketing fundamental 3: Thou shalt learn the secrets of Amazon Amazon is a kingpin in the publishing world. Even if you decide to “sell wide” and build your presence across multiple retailers, you’ll still be making most of your sales through Amazon. So you really can’t afford to ignore how it works, and specifically how readers find books on Amazon. (Location 174)
2. A mailing list I truly cannot stress enough the importance of a mailing list. A mailing list is the number-one way to grow and reach your fan base—yes, even in today’s social-media-saturated world—and neglecting to learn how to use it effectively will only lose you sales. Be sure to set up and nurture your list right from the start. (Location 190)
Speaking of social media, while these platforms can be incredibly powerful for many authors, I don’t consider them a must-have. You can sell a lot of books even if you’re not active on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and so on. (Location 194)
One of the first (and only) books I read about startup marketing, with a view to apply its advice to growing Reedsy, was Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth.3 (Location 206)
See, the core idea of the book is that there are hundreds of different ways, or “channels,” to market a product or grow a company. The secret of success is not to do all of them, or even as many as possible. Instead, it’s to find the one or two channels that work for your company and focus all your energy and resources on just those. (Location 211)
I find that this concept translates particularly well to book marketing. In the book realm, these “channels” include Facebook ads, Amazon ads, BookBub ads, price promotions, e-mail marketing, group promos, newsletter swaps, Amazon SEO, Goodreads promos, guest posting, events, social media, and more. (Location 214)
You can’t test everything at once The other core principle of Traction intersects with one of the main mistakes I see authors making when it’s time to market their books: they’re trying way too many things at the same time. (Location 229)
But the problem is that you’ll never manage to get a channel to work if you’re not focusing all of your energy on it. (Location 233)
So whenever you’re feeling overwhelmed by marketing (or whenever your to-do list gets out of hand), take a breather and reevaluate: “Do I really need to do all of this?” (Location 242)
Pick only two things, and spend a month focusing on them. Take courses (you’ll find tons of free ones on Reedsy Learning), ask colleagues, read blog posts, and then put in the time to properly test each channel. That’s the only way you’ll find that sweet spot—or, in other words, that golden channel that will change your marketing forever. (Location 243)
“As an author, you tend to always hear from the outliers: those who really love or hate your book. But what you want is for the silent majority to spread word of mouth.” Let’s think about this in terms of reviews. Out of one hundred readers who buy and read your book, how many will leave a review? At best, five or ten. And the truth is no matter how glowing or critical the opinions in those reviews are, they’re going to be less important than the opinion of the silent majority: all the readers who won’t e-mail you or leave a review. If sixty out of these ninety silent readers enjoyed your book enough to recommend it to two to three friends each, your book will automatically sell another 120 to 180 copies—without you having to lift a finger. (Location 258)
Note: Silent majority
“So I just have to write a really, really amazing book and I won’t have to market it?” Unfortunately, no. Certainly not anymore. Even if your book is worthy of word of mouth, you still have to find the first one hundred readers (and usually many more) to start carrying it in the first place. (Location 274)
On one hand, efforts focused on making the book(s) as sellable and recommendable as possible On the other hand, efforts focused on giving the book(s) the initial push they’ll need to start selling (Location 283)
Writing to market Marketing doesn’t start when your book is finished. It starts before you even outline it. The first step toward creating a best-selling book is knowing exactly for whom the book is intended—in other words, knowing your market and writing to market. Now, that’s a controversial opinion: you might think that art should never be restrained by marketing considerations. And that’s fine, as long as you don’t care about selling such art. If you do, keep reading. (Location 287)
So what do all successful indie authors have in common? They have found their place in the market (i.e., a profitable niche to write in). They know the niche well enough to write in it and build a sizablecatalog of books in that market (i.e., they know how to write and publish fast). They build bridges, or arcs, between their books and organize them in series or universes. These three key aspects are the focus of the next few chapters. (Location 297)
If the books are selling well, it means there are a lot of readers in that category and you’ve probably identified a market worth writing in. (Location 329)
Of course, finding that niche is only the first step. In many regards, it’s the easiest, because the next one is actually writing the book(s). And because you’re writing to market rather than writing what you know, you’ll need to do a lot of research on that genre (i.e., a lot of reading) before you know enough to write in it. (Location 342)
Well, creativity is both a blessing and a curse, because from a marketing standpoint, the example above is akin to throwing all your existing assets out the window and starting from scratch. Sometimes, that can be necessary (e.g., if you got your niche wrong in the first place). But most of the time, it’s a waste of all the work you’ve put in so far. (Location 357)
If you’re planning on becoming a full-time author, you will most likely need to publish several books in a niche. If you write one here, one there, and another one elsewhere again, you’ll have to market each of these three books to entirely different audiences. That’s as inefficient as it gets, marketing-wise. Instead, if you manage to hook a reader into a series, they will likely buy all the books in that series. (Location 361)
In the end, it’s just as hard to sell a standalone as it is to sell book one of a series. It’ll take the same marketing effort (e.g., the same amount of advertising money). But in the case of the series, the potential returns are much greater. (Location 370)
If you’re an expert on a specific topic and you want to make money from writing about it, the easiest way to achieve that is by writing several books, giving them proper branding, and linking them into a series. (Location 375)
See, most retailers (Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Kobo, etc.) have what we call “series pages.” These are used to showcase all of the books in a given series, not only on the series page, but on each book’s product page. The series collection page for the Miracle Morning books The series carousel on the first Miracle Morning book’s product page This instantly lets the reader know that you have a lot of material ready for them. In nonfiction, it instantly increases your perceived authority in the eyes of the reader. (Location 376)
You can only carry a series for so long. For a fiction series, you need to close your story and character arcs at some point; otherwise you’re just dragging out the narrative for the sake of it. Think about a longtime favorite television series in which nothing interesting has happened in the last few seasons. That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t want to be that author. (Location 388)
But you get the point: building bridges between each book in a series allows you to multiply their revenue potential. (Location 402)
You can’t end all your books with cliffhangers (unless you’re George R. R. Martin), but you also can’t end them perfectly resolved; otherwise readers won’t be enticed to buy the next one. Instead you can use something I’m stealing from a great talk Michael Anderle gave at 20Books Vegas 2018:8 the concept of “open loops.” These are basically mini cliffhangers, unresolved conflicts unrelated to the main plot, but instead connected to the characters or smaller subplots. (Location 411)
Note: Open loop
The great thing about universes is that they simplify your marketing strategy a lot. When you have all your books in series and universes, you don’t need to advertise and push every book you release; you need only to heavily and constantly market book one in each series. (Location 422)
Research your niche I know, I know—this book is supposed to focus on marketing. But the thing is that the product is one of the central elements of any marketing effort. And the success of any product is contingent on the existence of a “product-market fit.” (Location 434)
For nonfiction, ask: How is the book structured? Is the information conveyed through storytelling or in a more academic way? What is the tone of the book (inspirational, humoristic, etc.)? The goal of all these questions is to help you identify the tropes of your genre—which is the first step toward incorporating them into your books. (Location 443)
Make some friends along the way All this might sound like a lot of work when you’re just researching. But this phase can amount to a lot more than research. If in addition to reading the best-selling books in this new niche you also review the books, join authors’ mailing lists and reader groups, and even reach out to authors, you may end up building relationships with the heavy hitters in your target genre. This can be instrumental for when you finally prepare to launch your books. (Location 452)
If you’re serious about breaking into a new genre, you’ll need more than one book. Ideally, you should plan for a series and be ready to rapid-release the first few books. (Location 464)
yes. I’d say 90 percent of the successful indie authors I know write at least two books a year. (Location 477)
But it’s true that one of the best things you can do for your writing career is to work on increasing your output. If you’re able to put out two, three, or more (good) books a year, you’ll have a much easier time entering and establishing yourself in new niches. (Location 482)
Read through (RT) is the percentage of readers of a given book in your series who go on to read the next book. (Location 490)
The read through metric is crucial to any series writer for many reasons—mostly related to advertising and calculating ROI. But before we get to that, it’s important to understand what RT actually represents. Nonmathematical implications of read through At its core, read through is the best scientific measure of how “unputdownable” your series is. If 80 percent of readers who buy book one go on to read your entire series, then you’ve created something that turns four out of five casual readers into hardcore fans. Well done! (Location 493)
You should regularly monitor read through across your whole series (and not just from book one to book two), as that will tell you where you start losing the most readers. For example, if RT from book one to book four is 60 percent, but only 25 percent from book one to book five, then you know you’re losing a ton of readers at book four! (Location 503)
Monitoring read through Amazon and other e-retailers give you very little information about what your readers do. They tell you how many sales you made on your books in a given time period … and that’s about it. (Location 508)
To get the RT estimate of any book, just divide its sales number by that of book one in the series. For example, if you have the following sales report: Book one: 500 sales Book two: 350 sales Book three: 340 sales Book four: 300 sales Book five: 200 sales Then your read through estimations would be: RT2: 350 ÷ 500 = 70 percent RT3: 340 ÷ 500 = 68 percent RT4: 300 ÷ 500 = 60 percent RT5: 200 ÷ 500 = 40 percent Now, this method comes with a lot of flaws, the main one being that sales numbers can easily be influenced by external factors that have nothing to do with the natural readthrough progression. For example: You just launched the latest book in the series. You ran a price promotion or free promotion on one of your sequels. You got special visibility from Amazon (e.g., Daily Deal) on one of your sequels. In each of these cases, the book in question would have an artificially inflated number of sales—sometimes even more than book one. So if you were to look at the last ninety days of sales for your series and calculate RT using the formula above, you’d get a percentage well over 100 percent, which would make no sense. “So how do you avoid these external factors (as much as possible)?” Well, you pick a time period for the sales report that is long enough to be statistically significant (I recommend at least ninety days), during which none of your books (except book one) received any kind of special promo or attention. Alternatively, you can look at your all-time sales numbers, as the statistical pollution of promos should be dwarfed by regular sales in that overall time period. (Location 513)
What would be ideal (or “normal,” depending on your point of view) would be for retailers to actually tell you what your read through is. (Location 529)
I wanted to discuss read through early on because I genuinely believe it’s the most important data for series writers to monitor—and by now you should know that if you want to make a living writing, you should be a series writer. (Location 540)
Now that you know the best formula for making a living from your writing, it’s time to focus on how to market these entry points into your series and universes. Often authors will confuse “marketing my books” with “driving eyeballs to my books,” but that’s skipping an ever-important first step: optimizing your product and packaging to make sure any eyeballs that see it want to buy it. (Location 549)
Once a reader lands on your book’s Amazon page or picks it up from the shelf in a physical bookstore, there’s still a chance—a high chance, actually—that they’ll put it back or leave. I’ve been running ads for several authors for several years now, and the highest conversion rates I’ve seen on Amazon book pages (for paid books) have been around 30 to 35 percent. This means that for every three readers who visit your book page, two will leave without buying. And this is for exceptional cases. The conversion rate for most books is more in the 0 to 10 percent range. (Location 555)
Conversion matters more than traffic While traffic and conversion are both important, when it comes to getting sales, I believe conversion is not only overlooked by authors, it’s more important than traffic. A simple change in your blurb might get your Amazon book page to convert at 15 percent instead of 5 percent. And this will effectively (and instantly) triple your sales without any additional effort! More importantly, Amazon rewards conversion. If Amazon detects that a book is suddenly converting better, it’ll promote it more. As we’ll see in the section dedicated to the retail giant, Amazon’s goal is to sell books. So if their system has to choose between featuring two different books in a promo e-mail, which book do you think they’ll choose? The highest-converting one. (Location 577)
Golden rule: Do not design your book covers yourself (Location 593)
And there’s the catch: the objective of a book cover is not to make the author happy or to accurately represent what happens in the book; it’s to make the relevant reader want to buy. (Location 603)
Silver rule: Carefully research cover trends and expectations in your niche (Location 614)
Of course, trends and expectations change. That’s why authors (and publishers) often redesign their covers every few years to follow new trends, revive the backlist, and test different designs. Speaking of testing … here’s the bronze rule! Bronze rule: Testing cover designs (Location 629)
If you hire a professional artist to design your cover (well done!), they’ll probably come up with several cover concepts for you to choose from. At that stage, most authors pick one based on what they like best, i.e., based on intuition. But your instinctual choice is not necessarily the one that will work best to attract the right readers to the book. And that’s where testing comes into play: instead of making vital decisions based on intuition, you run a simple test. When you get your cover concepts from the designer, you use them to create a basic Facebook ad: First, make sure to target a close comparative author in your genre. Then set up identical ads on Facebook, each with a different cover concept (but all with the exact same text and call to action). Once the ads have garnered enough impressions, check their click-through rate. The ad with the highest click-through rate will be the one whose cover is the most attractive to readers in your genre—which is what really matters at the end of the day. (Location 632)
Of course, if you already have a big mailing list of engaged readers, then you can simply ask them which cover they prefer. Keep in mind, though, that your existing readers will be biased. They’ll already be familiar with—and attached to—your brand. So their opinion will likely differ from that of an unbiased group of readers (like those you’d reach through Facebook ads). Your cover is your single most important marketing tool, so don’t be afraid to spend a few extra bucks on ads to make sure you get it just right for your genre. (Location 646)
After the cover, the blurb Book descriptions, or blurbs, are the second most important element in the conversion funnel. (Location 662)
Your job as an indie author is not to review your own book. If your cover has caught the reader’s attention, what they want to know is: Who will they be spending time with? What is at stake? How to spot the problem: Are you using value adjectives such as "delightful" or "captivating"? Have you introduced your main character? Have you introduced the stakes? (Location 688)
Always put an event into the context of what is at risk for the protagonist. (Location 697)
If you take away one thing from these mistakes, make it this: identify the central question that drives your story and make sure people are left asking that question after reading your blurb. (Location 707)
With these tips in mind (thanks, Victoria!), you should be able to write a blurb that avoids the most common mistakes; introduces your main characters, the conflict, and the stakes; and makes the reader want to immediately open the book. (Location 709)
“But what about us nonfiction authors?” You’re right, most of the advice above caters almost exclusively to fiction and narrative nonfiction authors. But there’s a reason for that: Writing blurbs is generally much harder for fiction than for nonfiction. For a reference or how-to book, the blurb should simply sum up the main message of your book. It takes some copywriting skills, too, but if your book is well-structured, tackles a clear problem, and has a well-identified target audience, then the blurb should almost write itself. (Location 712)
Blurb writing is one of those activities I don’t always recommend authors outsource: you’re a writer, and no one knows your book better than you. That said, copywriting is an entirely different skill from writing a novel, so if the idea of writing that book description is too daunting—or if your book isn’t selling and you suspect your blurb might be a cause—then do consider hiring someone to (re)write it for you. (Location 736)
Blurb writing is not so much about creative writing as it is about marketing. (Location 743)
Blurbs, like covers, can be easily tested via Facebook ads. Just run two identical ads to the same audience, each featuring a different version of your blurb, and see which one gets the highest click-through rate. (Location 745)
Amazon reviews influence only one thing: how readers perceive your book when they come across it. In other words, reviews aren’t a factor of discoverability. They’re a factor of conversion. (Location 758)
Let’s put on our reader hats for a moment. When you visit a book’s page on Amazon, what do you look for in the reviews? Personally, I tend to look at: The number of reviews. The more reviews a book has, the more successful it appears. It’s a basic element of social validation, like likes on a Facebook post or YouTube video. Featured (top) reviews. Amazon ranks reviews based on when they were published (newer reviews get more prominence) and how many other readers upvoted them as “helpful.” Generally, only the first two to ten reviews will show up on the book’s page. The issue of top reviews is too often overlooked. See, if all your five-stars reviews are basic “loved this book,” “a great story,” “definite must-read” platitudes, then as soon as someone posts a sensible two-star review with a couple of paragraphs, that review will likely get more upvotes than all your five-star reviews, which means it will show up first on your book’s page. (Location 761)
Not all reviews are created equal All of this is to say: it’s not just about numbers. The quality of the reviews matters. One positive review that goes in depth into why the reviewer liked your book is worth more than a hundred positive reviews that consist of generic “loved it!” one-liners. (Location 772)
A well-written, meaningful, positive review is an element of social validation that can greatly improve your conversion and turbocharge your ads. (Location 776)
A number in the thousands indicates a best seller. And a book with just one or two reviews is … well, the opposite of that: for many readers, it’s equivalent to a sign saying, “Read at your own risk.” (Location 783)
Which is why you need to make sure that every book you launch gathers a good number of reviews (at least twenty) in the first few days after the launch. (Location 785)
What’s a street team? It’s a group of dedicated readers, ultra-fans of your writing, with whom you have a special agreement: they get to read your books in advance and for free—you send them advance reader copies, or ARCs—and in exchange they commit to leaving you an honest review at launch. Often, street team members can serve as beta readers as well, meaning they offer feedback on your writing and help you catch the typos and errors your editors didn’t. (Location 793)
Keep your street team separate from your main mailing list. If you use an e-mail marketing provider, you’ll want to have at least two different lists. Interact with your street team in between launches (especially if you’re not a fast writer). Offer them sneak peeks at what you’re working on, tell them about your life, do cover reveals, run exclusive giveaways, etc. Don’t hesitate to send them a few e-mails close to your launch to remind them to leave a review, and an e-mail a week after launch telling them how your book’s doing and reminding them to post a review if they haven’t already. Tell your street team to always mention in their reviews that they received an ARC from the author. Otherwise, Amazon might delete the review. I recommend using BookFunnel to deliver advance reader copies to your street team in their preferred format. This service will take care of the delivery and customer support, and save you a lot of time and hassle. (Location 798)
Once you have a solid street team of, say, twenty or thirty dedicated readers, you can easily keep growing it by regularly inviting your main list subscribers to join it. (Location 814)
Make your expectations clear: if they join, they commit to reading your ARCs before launch and leaving a review at launch. Your goal is to build a bridge between your two mailing lists, but to make sure only true fans cross over. (Location 818)
Editorial reviews tend to be written much better than your average random customer review, making them a lot more quotable. You can reuse such quotes in your book description, back-cover copy, advertising copy—you get the picture. (Location 844)
No, the lesson is that one of the best ways to sell a book is to get someone with an established platform in your genre or topic to talk about it—and ideally to recommend it. (Location 872)
So how are these quotes used? Well, the most prestigious one is generally featured on the cover (a cover quote), while the others can be featured in the book’s description and back-cover copy: (Location 881)
In other words, you don’t need to shoot for the stars. What matters is that the influencer who writes your blurb is popular enough that people in your niche know or have heard of them. (Location 891)
Building relationships So what does this “right strategy” look like? Here’s how I’d go about it. 1. Create a list of prospects First, you need to identify potential influencers. My guess is you already know who the influential authors and influencers are in your genre, so start there. Then think about other mediums: Are there any famous book review blogs in your genre? Are there any podcasts your readers listen to? Are there any YouTubers who regularly cover your genre? Are there any Instagram influencers whom you think a majority of your target market follows? Try to be as exhaustive as possible in your research. Then be as selective as possible when filtering out prospects. You want to get down to a list of two or three people, the ones you really, really want to get a blurb from. (Location 893)
Hire a professional cover designer with experience in your niche to design your books’ covers. Learn about copywriting and write, rewrite, and re-rewrite your blurb until you nail it. Or save yourself time and hire a professional marketing copywriter to write it for you. Build a street team of at least twenty to thirty people committed to leaving an honest review on every new book you launch. (Location 917)
The first thing to highlight when talking about Amazon algorithms is the plural in algorithms. See, Amazon uses more than one algorithm to rank and display books on their store. (Location 933)
The more copies your book sells on Amazon, the more prominent Amazon will make it on their store and in their e-mails. (Location 951)
In other words, Amazon favors plateaus over sales spikes: (Location 955)
For example, for keyword search results, Amazon will give more importance to full-price sales that come through previous, similar keyword searches from other readers rather than sales that come through external sites. (Location 956)
I covered this briefly in the previous section, but it’s worth highlighting here again: more than sales, what Amazon rewards is conversions. (Location 960)
If they have the choice between recommending two books with a similar sales history, Amazon will go for the one with better on-page conversion, because they know the additional traffic they send to that book will turn into more sales. (Location 962)
As their name indicates, the Best Sellers lists are determined only by sales (and Kindle Unlimited borrows), and are believed to be updated on an hourly or daily basis. (Location 978)
It’s important to note that free downloads do not count toward Rank. So if you run a free promotion and manage to get 100,000 downloads, you’ll likely shoot up to the top of the Kindle Free Best Sellers list. But once your promotion is over, your book will disappear from that list, and its ranking on the Paid list will be unaffected by these downloads. (Location 987)
“But why should I even care about the Popularity list when it’s so damn hard to find? Surely no one goes through all these steps to find a book on Amazon.” Probably not, but the Popularity list matters because it is the main driver of e-mail recommendations, particularly to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. The Popularity list algorithm is also used by Amazon to order other sections of the store, like the Countdown Deals, and plays a vital part in the ranking of search results for specific keywords. (Location 1000)
The Popularity list algorithm So how are rankings calculated on the Popularity list? First, the Pop list considers a rolling thirty-day average of sales. This means it’s much less reactive to spikes than the Best Sellers lists, which (mostly) count sales within the past twenty-four hours. (Location 1004)
The Best Sellers lists and the Popularity lists are vital because almost everything on the Amazon store is decided by their algorithms. In the next chapter, we’ll look at some other visibility spots on the store you should be aware of and analyze how they work—you’ll see they’re either a result of the Best Sellers or the Popularity algorithms. (Location 1020)
But even with little preexisting audience and marketing, you can certainly shoot for the top spots of the HNR list in a niche category. This chapter is all about finding these niche categories and getting your book listed under them. (Location 1067)
When the sidebar stops offering new subcategories, you’ve reached the deepest sublevel. And you want to list your book in a deep subcategory, because all the books in a subcategory will show up in its parent category. (Location 1073)
Once you’ve found all the categories that could make sense for your book, it’s time to analyze them. You want to get a sense of how competitive they are and how much visibility they bring. The best way to do that is to go through the top five to twenty books in the Best Sellers list of each category and note the Rank of these books. If the top five books in a category are in the top twenty of the whole store, then you know this is a hyper-competitive category in which you’ll probably never reach the top five. (Location 1077)
At the same time, you also don’t want to only list your book in super-niche categories, since these won’t bring you any visibility. If you see that the number-one book in a category has an ABSR higher than one thousand, you’ll know it’s a poorly trafficked category. (Location 1082)
If you don’t want to sacrifice a keyword box just to get into a category, I have some good news for you: you can simply reach out to KDP Support and ask them to add either your print book or e-book (or both) to specific categories on the Kindle or Books store. On the “Contact Us” page, just select “Amazon product page and expanded distribution” then “Update Amazon Categories”: (Location 1097)
Categories are vital because all the visibility spots we examined in previous chapters exist across all categories. You can get added to as many as ten to twelve categories by reaching out to the KDP Help Center. You really don’t want to be in a category where your book isn’t a perfect fit. (Location 1108)
If your book is “indexed” for a keyword, that means it will turn up as a result when a customer enters that term into the Amazon search bar. (Location 1126)
1. Title, subtitle, and series title It seems obvious: if you have “martial arts” in your title, your book will be indexed for it. This is why a lot of indie authors (and publishers as well) use genre keywords in their titles and add their series title (with more genre keywords) to the book title. (Location 1129)
The main purpose of the keywords you select for your e-book or print book on KDP is to tell Amazon what searches your book should appear in. For each keyword, you are allowed up to fifty characters. And Amazon will index your book for every keyword or string you enter in those fifty characters. For example, if one of your keywords is “15th century historical small town mystery,” your book will show up for all of the following searches: 15th century 15th century historical mystery Small town mystery Historical mystery Etc. Does this mean you should max out your seven keywords with as many characters as possible? Yes and no: Amazon also rewards exact keyword matches. So if you really wanted to rank as high as possible for “15th century mystery,” you’d dedicate one of your seven keywords to it. (Location 1134)
So while you should never stuff your book description with keywords, you’re certainly encouraged to include relevant genre words (e.g., for an espionage thriller: “spy,” “terrorist,” “CIA,” “vengeance,” “intelligence,” “murder,” “threat,” etc.) or mention comparative titles. (Location 1145)
One way is to use Amazon’s autocomplete function in the search bar. Head to the Kindle Store (ideally in an Incognito browser window) and start typing a keyword. You’ll see Amazon’s autocomplete suggestions: Amazon has identified these as terms often searched for on the store. These terms therefore make good candidates for your keywords. While there is no way to know for certain how many monthly searches there are for keywords on Amazon, some pieces of software (like Publisher Rocket) can estimate that figure using the Amazon Best Seller Rank of the top books ranking for that keyword, among other metrics. You should always take their figures with a pinch of salt, but they’re certainly a good way to find new keyword ideas. (Location 1150)
However, the number-one ranking factor for searches is still the same as for everywhere else on Amazon: sales. And in particular, the Popularity list. So while you can optimize your product listing for relevant searches with the right title, keywords, and blurb, your position in the search results will mostly be determined by how your Pop list ranking compares to that of the other books indexed for that keyword. (Location 1159)
A last word of warning: never optimize your book’s pages for keywords not directly related to your book. This is a surefire way to pollute your Also Boughts, and that’s the last thing you want. (Location 1162)
If there’s one thing that hasn’t fundamentally changed in the last few years, it’s how readers discover new books. Maybe the places where they discover books have changed, but the principle behind finding new books has remained the same: it’s always been recommendations. (Location 1171)
If your book has zero Also Boughts, then the situation is pretty straightforward: Amazon doesn’t know whom to recommend it to, so it just won’t recommend it. Sounds horrible, right? Well, it’s what happens whenever you launch a book. You first have to generate sales before Amazon can figure out what your Also Boughts are. (Location 1192)
What’s the message in all this? You want to take great care of your Also Boughts. Make sure you only list your book in categories in which it 100 percent fits. Don’t promote it to readers who aren’t your target audience. (Location 1215)
So what do all successful indie authors have in common? They have found their place in the market (i.e., a profitable niche to write in). They know the niche well enough to write in it and build a sizable catalog of books in that market (i.e., they know how to write and publish fast). They build bridges, or arcs, between their books and organize them in series or universes. These three key aspects are the focus of the next few chapters. (Location 296)
At the same time, you also don’t want to only list your book in super-niche categories, since these won’t bring you any visibility. If you see that the number-one book in a category has an ABSR higher than five thousand, you’ll know it’s a poorly trafficked category. (Location 1130)
20 (Location 1135)
search bar. If Amazon suggests the full phrase you had in mind as a possible search, you’re onto a good one: other people have searched for it before, and it already has solid volume. This technique can also help you find keywords you hadn’t thought of before, potentially branching out into whole new areas or helping you find more specific keywords. Amazon has identified these as terms often searched for on the store. These terms therefore make good candidates for your keywords. While there is no way to know for certain how many monthly searches there are for keywords on Amazon, some pieces of software (like Publisher Rocket) can estimate that figure using the Amazon Best Seller Rank of the top books ranking for that keyword, among other metrics. You should always take their figures with a pinch of salt, but they’re certainly a good way to find new keyword ideas. (Location 1205)
the most important period in a book’s Amazon lifespan is the thirty days after launch. (Location 1837)
The contrast in terms of preorder friendliness between Amazon and Apple Books or Kobo has led many authors to use a simple strategy: they keep their preorders exclusive to the wide stores. The benefits of this strategy are obvious: You don’t steal Amazon visibility from launch week. You benefit from the other retailers’ added visibility for preorders. You have a product exclusive to these retailers, making it all the more attractive to their merchandising teams. (Location 1845)
Having books two and three on preorder—linked to book one through a series collection page—will make it clear to readers that (1) this is a new series, and (2) the following books will come out shortly. (Location 1855)
If you’re already a high-selling author, trading some launch week sales in exchange for a solid set of Also Boughts at launch could definitely be worth (Location 1862)
Amazon, Apple Books, Google Play, Kobo … all these stores are where most of your sales will come from. But the problem with retailers is that they don’t give you access to your readers. You know you got a sale, but you don’t know who bought it, nor if they read it. And more importantly, you can’t tell that reader when your next book is coming out—you can only hope the retailer will let them know when you do. Which is why you need a mailing list. (Location 1866)
Let’s think about it from the reader’s perspective. What would make you, a reader, sign up for an author’s newsletter? (Location 1942)
Readers need a good incentive to take action. If they land on your website and see a sign-up form that only says, “Please sign up to my newsletter to get updates about my future books,” they’re unlikely to sign up. But if they see a sign-up form that says, “Get your free copy of my best-selling novel,” they’re much more likely to enter their e-mail addresses. (Location 1957)
Ideas for reader magnets More often than not, a reader magnet will be a short book (delivered via BookFunnel). But there are many other things you could try. Here’s a list of some of the magnets I’ve seen authors use so far. Fiction: Novella or short story set in the same universe as your main series Character backstory or deleted scenes Exclusive epilogue or alternate ending Free audiobook (you can use Authors Direct33 to deliver it) Special art or illustrations related to the story (this can work particularly well for science-fiction and fantasy) Nonfiction: Video course or training E-mail course (yes, our Reedsy Learning courses are technically magnets) Checklist, template, or cheat sheet Exclusive webinar Free audiobook Free software (Location 1960)
One really cool thing I don’t see many authors doing is working their magnet into their book. For example, postapocalyptic author M. L. Banner created a real website for a fictional research institute in his book. And guess what? You can sign up for his particular reader magnet on that website. (Location 1972)
BookFunnel solves that problem. It creates a page for your book where readers can download the exact file they need. (Location 1987)
I already mentioned how you should A/B test your book covers through Facebook ads. (Location 1996)
In fact, at the 2019 20Books Vegas conference, Mark Dawson mentioned a case study in which a popular romance author decided to do just that: she switched her magnet from a free book to a free exclusive epilogue. And guess what? Her mailing list grew from five thousand to thirty thousand followers. (Location 2001)
It can be tempting to send new subscribers a welcome e-mail with links to your entire catalog of books. After all, your mailing list exists to drive sales, right? But let’s say you’re at a food market and all of the stalls are offering samples of their food. You approach one of them, pick up a sample, and (before you’ve even gotten the chance to stuff it in your mouth!) the merchant shoves the menu in your face—without any small talk or interest in whether you enjoyed the sample. I’m guessing the merchant would come across as rather salesy, right? Well, that’s exactly how you’ll be perceived if you start your automation with a “buy my books” e-mail. (Location 2030)