Amazon Kindle Book Marketing Basics
Many authors/writers have discovered the power and potential of the Amazon Kindle marketplace to sell their books.
For eBooks priced from $0.99 to $2.98 and eBooks priced $10.00 or more, Amazon pays 35% in royalties on all products sold. For eBooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, Amazon pays royalties equal to 70% of all products sold.
No doubt some book authors are making an outright killing spree by self-publishing their books on Amazon. A good friend of mine earns half a million a year from her books on the Kindle platform.
It’s possible to make a good living selling nonfiction on Amazon, but the people who collect the biggest royalty checks are the ones who write fiction.
Publishing Basics
Amazon Kindle is an attractive place to publish books, because absolutely anyone willing to set up a Kindle Digital Publishing account can upload a manuscript and start selling their books within 24 hours in most cases.
Amazon is also the largest “shopper search engine” on the Internet, which means that people using Amazon’s search tool are looking for products to buy.
When you upload your book to Amazon’s website, there are some key pieces of information you’ll need to include with your book upload:
- You must sign in to an Amazon account;
- Title;
- Author (pseudonyms are accepted);
- Description;
- Categories;
- keywords;
- Description;
- Image that represents the cover of the book;
- Book manuscript;
- Prices;
- Choose Amazon’s optional promotional programs.
Book Marketing Fundamentals
In most cases, the main marketing tools you need are six elements:
- Title that will capture the attention of the buyer;
- Book cover that assures the buyer that this book will give him what he wants;
- Category options that will allow you to be found by your target audience;
- Keywords that might help people using the search function find the book;
- book description who sells the book to the person looking at the book;
- A respectable and acceptable Price.
Common misconception about book marketing in general
Many people believe that all they need to do is create a book and upload it to Amazon to start making money. In part, this is true.
Once Amazon uploads and approves the book, you can start selling.
However, the marketing essentials of your book must be strong.so you can find buyers.
You must have an interesting book title.
You must have a book cover that attracts the reader. The most important thing here is that you want your book cover to look like it was professionally designed, rather than designed by your high school child or grandchild.
Most importantly, you must have a compelling description of the book. The title and cover will get people to open your sales page, but it’s your description that will sell the book for you.
It’s sad, but most self-published authors will spend several months writing their book and less than ten minutes crafting their book description. However, prospective buyers look to the book description to convince them whether or not to buy your book.
If the description sucks, then the sales will suck too.
If you build a compelling description, there’s a good chance you’ll find your book on the bestseller list.
Reality check on selling books on Amazon
People tell me all the time that they don’t need to worry about marketing their books, because Amazon will do all the marketing for them.
Here’s what you need to know about Amazon marketing your books.
Yes, Amazon wants to sell more products, so it will inform its customers about its books.
But here’s the thing… Amazon’s internal marketing machine is completely driven by a computer algorithm. An algorithm is a computer program that looks for products to share with your customers.
Amazon’s computer algorithms are designed to find best-selling products and promote best-selling items to its customers.
Amazon is not going to push a product that only sold ten copies in the last month. Instead, it will push products that are currently selling hundreds of units a day, because they are trying to maximize the number of products they can sell. They are not going to promote a product that has lukewarm sales.
If you want to sell a lot of books on Amazon, you should refrain from burying your head in the sand.
In order for Amazon to market your books for you, you need to help your book by getting your sales off the ground.
Of course, you can try the marketing approach most authors take: load and pray.
Or, you can invest a little time or money to get your sales up and running so Amazon’s sales algorithm can find your book and promote it to their customers.
You can advertise your book for free in various Facebook groups, on Twitter, or on your own blog. Don’t have a blog? Why not?
Or, you can spend a little money and advertise your book on a site like Bookbub or any of the websites shown here.
You’re in the driver’s seat
As the author of a self-published book, you are not only your own publisher, but also your own marketing team.
All you need to do is grease the wheels, so Amazon’s internal sales algorithm can find your book and tell your customers about it.
Once Amazon has found your book, Amazon will do all the marketing for your book for you.
Until you can get your sales moving forward, the only hope that your book will sell well is one: pray hard.
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