Tag Archives: amazon

Six Marketing Actions to Do Instead of Checking Your Sales Stats

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Obsessive Stats CheckingWe indie authors can be obsessive stats-checkers. You know how it goes: “It’s been an hour… better check my stats. Maybe I sold another book!

“…Nope. But maybe I’ll have sold one in another hour…”

And on it goes. We tell ourselves not to check. We even realize that it’s a little depressing to check in multiple times every day to see that we haven’t sold any more books. So today let’s think about six things you can do to drive sales of your book instead of obsessively checking your stats. Continue reading Six Marketing Actions to Do Instead of Checking Your Sales Stats →

Prove Your Book Is Good: Getting and Using Reviews

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Getting and Using Reviews

We all know that a big stack of positive reviews makes for great proof that your book is good. But it seems like most of us self-published authors tend to have a hard time actually finding people to review our books. We all wish we had more reviews, but maybe you don’t know where to look for them.  Maybe you don’t know that there are more places than just Amazon where reviews matter. Or maybe you’re not sure how you can show off the reviews once you have them. So let’s look at how you can get a bevy of reviews and use them to prove your book is good. Continue reading Prove Your Book Is Good: Getting and Using Reviews →

The Number One Way to Build Your Author Mailing List

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If you’re like me, you’ve read dozens of blog posts promising to tell you the best strategy for how to “grow your author platform.” You’ve probably seen several online courses that promise to show you how to generate more sales for your book if you’ll only shell out enough cash for the course.

And if you’re like me, you’re tired of it. You want to improve your sales. You want to build your author platform. But you haven’t found anything that really works and you’re starting to feel like you’ll never figure it out until you buy someone’s expensive course.

The reason I’m starting this post with this dim picture is because I’m about to tell you about a strategy that has the potential to grow your author platform by leaps and bounds, which in turn has the potential to increase your sales. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea: This article isn’t going to turn into a sales pitch. This strategy is something every indie or self-published author should know about, and I’m going to tell you about it with no strings attached. Continue reading The Number One Way to Build Your Author Mailing List →

How to Optimize Your Amazon Search Keywords

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How to Optimize Your Amazon Search Keywords

You probably know that when you add your book to the Amazon Kindle store, you’re allowed to choose up to seven search keywords to help people find your book. It sounds like a great tool, but how do you make sure the keywords you’ve chosen are going to bring traffic and sales to your book?

I’m here to help! I’ve been through the process of Amazon search keyword optimization with my own books and I’d like to pass along what I’ve learned in this comprehensive article.

We’ll look at what search keywords are so you can understand how they work. I’ll show you a process for checking out your existing keywords to decide if they are performing well for your book. Finally, we’ll look at how you can choose great keywords. Let’s jump in! Continue reading How to Optimize Your Amazon Search Keywords →

Smaller Ponds: How to Use Categories to Sell More Books

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Smaller Ponds

It’s a problem most of us face as indie authors: We feel like we ought to be selling more books, but we’re not sure how. When the KDP Select Free the Countdown deal days are up for your book, how do you continue to get exposure while you wait for more? Or, how do you maximize the effectiveness of the jump up Amazon’s charts that comes from your KDP promotion?

Perhaps the answer to both of these questions lies in your book’s categories. You probably remember when you first added your book to KDP and went through the process of deciding which categories were the best fit for your book. But did you think about the marketing benefits?

Yes, I said marketing benefits of your KDP categories. See, some categories contain more books than others, and that’s where the strategy comes in. Continue reading Smaller Ponds: How to Use Categories to Sell More Books →

Five Ways to Promote Your Book That Won’t Cost You a Dime

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Photo credit: Ladyheart from morguefile.com

So, you’re a self-published author hoping to get out of the I-only-sell-a-few-books-a-month rut. You’ve set a marketing budget, no matter how small, maybe even just $5 a month. There’s just one problem: Now that you look at your shiny new budget, you feel like it’s really, really small.

Don’t worry! There are all sorts of promotions you can do for free! Let’s look at five of them. Continue reading Five Ways to Promote Your Book That Won’t Cost You a Dime →