This article is Part Two of Why authors are writing books faster – and how to do it yourself. This time we’ll look at Amazon’s book marketing system. We’ll see how it rewards big-selling books and punishes smaller sales. We’ll also look at what happens when your book sells well and when it doesn’t. If you want to sell more books, Amazon recommends paid advertising. But we have some great tips that will let you keep your money.
Amazon’s book marketing system: the thirty-day boost
Amazon gives every new book a thirty-day boost in its search results.
If someone searches for some of the words in:
● your book’s title
● its subtitle
● the seven keywords/phrases on the Book Details page
● or your name
there’s a good chance it will appear near the top of Amazon’s search results.
If people buy your book, it will climb higher up the search results. That means more people are likely buy it. And that will make it climb higher still, so even more people will buy it. You’ll be a millionaire in no time!
Well, that’s what you hope. So does Amazon, because they keep thirty to forty percent of the money from each sale.
Go big or go home
But what if your book doesn’t sell as well as you hoped during its thirty-day boost? Well, Amazon wants rid of it. They gave your book a fighting chance, but it’s not going to make them any money. So they “bury” it where it will never be found.
Your book will still appear in the search results somewhere. But you’ll have to hunt through so many pages to find it that it may as well not be there. Result: you’re not going to be a millionaire (sorry).
(NOTE: You can usually find your book by typing the exact title into the search box. But let’s assume you want it to be found by people who have never heard of it.)
Surely there must be something you can do about this terrible tragedy?
Well, yes. A few things, actually.
Everyone recommends this, but it doesn’t work
Let’s start with something that won’t work (in my opinion and experience). Most self-publishing guides say that if your book isn’t selling you should tinker with your seven keywords. You’ll find these on the Book Details page in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).
Choose the keywords people are actively searching for and more people will see your book and buy it. That makes sense. So, problem solved, right?
Well, no. Not if you published your book more than thirty days ago and it didn’t sell all that well. Amazon will have “buried” it – as we saw above. Your book still won’t get found, regardless of what you change. And Amazon won’t give it another thirty-day boost.
Changing the title, cover or description (blurb) won’t do much either – for the same reason. (Yet it’s another thing the guides all recommend.)
Swapping your keywords for better ones will increase your book sales. But only if your book is already selling well and it’s visible in the search results.
Obviously, the best time to choose your “better keywords” is before you publish the book.
(NOTE: If you want to know what the best keywords are, take a look at Publisher Rocket.)
So, if changing the keywords (or the title, cover or blurb) doesn’t work, what does?
Amazon’s solution: give us your money
Amazon loves money. Give them some money and they’ll let you advertise your book to their customers.
Your book will still remain buried so deep in the regular search results that it may as well not be there. But it might appear if someone uses one of your ad’s keywords in their search. Your ad will appear in the “sponsored results” section. It might also appear on other books’ pages.
Your ad isn’t guaranteed to appear though, because Amazon use a bidding process for each keyword. This is partly based on how much you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on your ad. It’s also partly based on past book sales.
Example
Let’s say there are four sponsored slots on a page. Five authors have chosen a keyword (such as ‘book marketing’). They’ve bid $0.60, $0,50, $0.40, $0.30 and $0.20 for each click on their ads.
All things being equal, the first four authors’ ads will appear when someone searches for book marketing. The fifth author will lose out.
Hopefully, that fifth author is monitoring his ads and will see they’re not getting any clicks. The solution: give Amazon more money. (Or, in other words, slowly increase the price he’s willing to pay per click.) Once he bids more than $0.30 (in this example) Amazon will show his ad and people should start clicking on it.
Advertising is a fine art
Advertising on Amazon can be a fine art – and an expensive one. You need a great book, a great cover, a great blurb, the right price, lots of reviews. You also need a list of low-cost keywords that people are actively searching for. (Or you could let Amazon choose them for you.)
(NOTE: Some ads let you add a few words to encourage more people to click on them. Getting that text right can also be a fine art.)
If people click on your ad and buy your book, it will start crawling up the regular search results pages again. If lots of people buy it, it could end up right at the top. You might still become a millionaire after all!
Many leading self-published authors spend a fortune on Amazon ads. Some have hundreds of ads running for each book they publish, and they spend tens of thousands of dollars per month. They sell a ton of books as a result. But they won’t be earning anywhere near as much money as their sales figures suggest. (But it can still be a lot of money and some of them are millionaires.)
Advertising on other websites
Another option is to advertise your book on Facebook. This is also a fine art – but a different one. Many authors report that it works well for them, so it’s certainly worthy considering.
Learning about advertising
If you’re interested in advertising on Amazon or Facebook, there are some great books and courses available. Bryan Cohen runs Amazon Ads School. He also has books on Amazon advertising and writing great blurbs (book descriptions). You could also try the courses at Self-Publishing Formula.
The sneaky relaunch
But what if you don’t want to spend a ton of money? Well, you could always relaunch your book.
If your book isn’t selling and Amazon has buried it, you may as well remove it. Go to KDP and click ‘Unpublish’ (you can’t actually delete it).
Now publish your book again. But this time use the title, cover, description and keywords it should have had in the first place. Amazon will regard this as a new book and give you another thirty-day boost. Hopefully you’ll see much better sales this time around. (But you probably won’t. Because you also need to do some book marketing.)
An easy book marketing system
Don’t panic, book marketing isn’t complicated. All it really involves is being in touch with your readers. And you can do that without giving Amazon a penny.
One of the best ways is to have a mailing list.
How it works
Collect potential readers’ email addresses by offering them something in return. You could offer them
● a short story
● the second book in the series (for free)
● a bonus chapter you deleted
● character biographies
● a photo or video tour of the locations where your story takes place
● or whatever else you can think of
It needs to be something readers will want, but it won’t cost you much time or money to create.
Advertise the bonus on your website and in the back of each book.
If you haven’t published the first book yet, you could write short stories featuring the same characters. Publish these on your website, blog, and Facebook page. You could also ask other writers if you can post them on their blogs. And you could try other websites such as medium.com – where you can even get paid for posting them.
Sign up here
You’ll need to put a link or sign-up box at the end of each story so readers can leave their email address. Then you can let readers know when you publish your next story or your next (or first) book. Don’t forget to mention your special bonus that they can only get if they join your mailing list.
Email marketing services
You’ll need to use an email marketing service to manage your mailing list and send out the messages. Don’t use your regular email account, because it’s not meant for that – your messages will be marked as spam or junk.
There are lots of email marketing services. Some of the more popular ones include MailChimp, AWeber, ConvertKit and MailerLite, but there are lots more. I recommend checking out a few of them before choosing one.
Your mail service will:
● collect all the new signups to your mailing list
● automatically send them their bonus
● send out your messages (without labelling them as spam)
● and remove any unsubscribes and undeliverable addresses
Some services will let you collect around 2,000 email addresses and send out 12,000 messages per month free of charge. That’s more than enough to get you started. Once you pass 2,000 though, they’ll start charging you a subscription fee.
Some of them charge a fee sooner than this, and some of the fees can be pretty high, so choose your service carefully. Having said that though, if you’ve got 2,000+ people on your list, the fee shouldn’t be a problem. After all, you can now contact 2,000+ people who are eager to hear from you every time you release a new book. Simply write one email, click Send, and (hopefully) you’ll sell 2,000+ books and shoot straight to the top of Amazon’s search results.
If they like you, keep talking
It pays to keep your subscribers “in the loop”. Don’t just contact them when you have a new book out. Send them occasional freebies, such as exclusive short stories and personal photos. Send them teasers to get them excited about the next book. It could just be the title. Or it might be the cover or some hints about the plot. Or how about a short extract that leaves them desperate to know what happens next?
A little help can go a long way
There are lots of other things you can do. For example, if your book has already been published, ask other people to link to it from their websites, blogs, newsletters, and so on.
(TIP: If they’re members of Amazon Associates (which is free to join), Amazon will pay them a small amount every time someone buys your book.)
Summary
The best way to sell a ton of books is to build up a decent mailing list before you launch the first book. (Or the first book in a new series.) This will enable you to beat Amazon’s thirty-day rapid-release book marketing system. And you won’t need to spend any money on advertising
Your book should sell well enough during those first thirty days that Amazon keeps it on the first page of its search results. Every other book in the series should do just as well – or even better.
So, as far as book marketing goes, your only expense might be your mailing service subscription.
Find out more
Do you need more information about anything I’ve covered in this article? Would you like more book marketing ideas, tips and advice? I have a book! See The Fastest Way to Edit, Publish and Sell Your Book.
You might also like 75 Money-Spinning Ideas for Self-Publishing and Marketing Your Writing. It’s one of the 35 volumes in the ideas4writers ideas collection.
You can also post a question in the ideas4writers Facebook group or email me at mail@ideas4writers.com.