Book Promotion

Using Amazon Search Suggestions to Promote your Self Published Book

If you are a self-published author, hopefully you have signed up for an Amazon Connect account.  If not, you can do it now by going here: www.amazon.com/connect.

I am going to share 2 suggestions with you about how to use Amazon to your advantage. You have to be signed into your Amazon account to be able to complete these tips, so be sure you set up an account if you have not done so already.

1 – Help customers find your books using Search Suggestions

On your book listing page, scroll down to the section titled “Tags Customers Associate with This Product” and click the link near the bottom of that section that says “What do you suggest?” Then follow the online prompts to add a search term for your book to Amazon’s search engine. You can add a maximum of 10 terms, and I strongly encourage you to come up with all 10.

2 – Directly above that link you will see all the “tags” that other people have given for your book. (If you don’t see any, now is the time to add some yourself).  You will want to click on all of the popular tags. The more “tags” your book has, the more likely it is to appear in forum discussions about that topic, which is akin to directly promoting your book to its very specific target audience.

Good luck and have fun!
Kelly Schuknecht
https://selfpublishingadvice.wordpress.com

Uncategorized

Obama and Publisher Make News in Self-Publishing

Denver saw the Democratic Nation Convention come and go last week, with several exciting events that many were fortunate to be a part of – some planned and others much more unexpected. One of those unanticipated occurrences transpired into what has become an interesting development in the self-publishing book world.

 

Author Robert Kuttner’s recently released book entitled, “Obama’s Challenge,” published by a small, liberal east coast publishing house were distributed across Denver throughout the week of the DNC.

 

In an decision that sparked almost immediate news, the book’s publisher also handed out coupons that can be redeemed through an established on-demand book seller.  The company’s president explained the decision by stating, “This is about a publisher’s commitment to its author to get one of a very few pro-Obama books out into the marketplace in the shortest amount of time.” 


It may come as no surprise that the decision invoked friction from several independent brick and mortar stores, along with traditional powerhouse, Barnes & Noble, who, following the event, decided to stock the book exclusively online—most likely a decision to compete with the consumer convenience of instant, on-demand fulfillment through virtual retailers.

 

Barnes & Noble’s reaction comes at time when book sales are moving in the direction of increasingly popular online storefronts like Amazon, where a large portion of self-published books are experiencing growing success.

 

An exciting, portending event for the authors everywhere, especially self-publishing authors.

 

Have fun. Keep writing.

 

Sincerely,

Karl Schroeder 

Book Promotion

Using Amazon’s BXGY to Promote your Self Published Book

Imagine seeing your self-published book listed next to Harry Potter, the Da Vinci Code, or Clive Cussler’s latest horror novel.

Pairing two novels together for a combined discount is what Amazon.com calls their BXGY plan (which stands for “Buy Title X, Get Title Y”). The idea behind the promotion is simple: Find a book that is very highly ranked on Amazon.com (Title X) and match the theme or potential audience of that book with yours.

Then, contact Amazon and participate in their BXGY marketing program. For an entire month, your title (Title Y) will be paired with an Amazon best selling title (Title X) of your choice.

To contact Amazon and arrange your Co-Op advertising campaign (which runs for 1 month and costs between $750-$1000 billed directly by Amazon) click on this link to Amazon.com’s CO-OP webpage. http://www.amazon.com/coop

Good luck and have fun!
Kelly Schuknecht
https://selfpublishingadvice.wordpress.com

Uncategorized

More Pricing information for the self-publishing author

We recently discussed the importance of book pricing in self-publishing. Let’s now take a closer look at trade discount. What is it and what should you know about it?

Trade discount is the percentage of your retail price that you offer to the publishing trade for distributing your book to retailers. The “publishing trade” consists of wholesalers, distributors, and retailers. Instead, everyone involved with your book after the publisher all the way to the reader falls into the “publishing trade” circle, and they all take a piece of the trade discount.

Obviously, the larger the trade discount, the more money there is to split up among the parties involved. Standard trade discounts have ranged from 50% – 70%.

Most publishing companies do not offer any information about their trade discounting policies up-front, nor do they give the author any say in the matter. Ask your publisher. And make sure you to keep 100% of your profits.

Depending on your distribution goals, look for the flexibility to establish a trade discount from 0% – 55%. A 55% trade discount will generally result in an industry standard 40% retail margin, which is what a typical book retailer seeks when considering whether or not to order a book. So in addition to availability on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble’s, and Borders websites, among other online sales channels, your book can be published at the retail margin that bookstores and chains are looking for.

Have fun and keep writing!

Karl Schroeder

Book Promotion

Creating a “So you’d like to…” Guide for your Self Published Book

If you are promoting your self-published book, hopefully by now you have created a few “listmania” lists. If you were poking around your Amazon “Profile” page, you may have also seen the “So you’d like to….” guide section.

Writing a “So you’d like to…” guide is nearly as easy as creating a listmania list and will probably yield even better results, simply because the number of guides on Amazon is less than the number of lists. Why? Because guides are more work to create. But not for you! You’ve already written a book, and you can turn excerpts of your book into guides.

In fact, you can basically cut and paste a selected section from your published book and create a guide out of it. Just follow the steps on Amazon.com by clicking on the “Create a So you’d like to… guide” link in the “So You’d Like to” section of your profile page.

To get there, sign in to your Amazon.com account from http://amazon.com/connect then click on your personalized “Store” tab the top, and then click on “Your Profile” from tab menu.  If you have not set up an Amazon Connect account yet, you can read more about doing this here: Using Listmania to Promote your Self-Published Book

Again, like with the “listmania” lists, the real power of the guide is adding OTHER books that will spark people’s interest in reading your guide.

Good luck and have fun!
Kelly Schuknecht
https://selfpublishingadvice.wordpress.com