5 Self Publishing Tricks on Amazon
What do you need in your wheel house to publish a book. Here we are going to focus on Amazon. The first post I did on Amazon is here. More basic indie author wheelhouse stuff is in Part 1 or Part 2 . If you are relatively new to this independent author journey I would suggest checking out these posts as well, The Payout Breakdown of an Author (desperately needs an update I know, I know) and What is An Independent Author.
Trick #1 – Your Description Needs to Pop! FREE HTML GENERATOR
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you need eyeballs. There are 8 billion books for sale on Amazon, how on earth will I ever see yours. Your description needs to stand out from the rest, the way you do that is html coding. Here is a free converter from Kindleprenuer.com. I’d give it a B-, I still had to look up some stuff on html to get mine to work and the part that stinks is that amazon makes you wait to approve it so you don’t know what your book description will look like until they do. HOWEVER, once you’ve done it I will admit it looks pretty darn good.
Trick #2 – Keywords
You have to have good key words and hint hint hint, the keywords don’t have to be individual words. I think one of my keywords are suspense girl powered thriller. I also use keywords throughout my book description and in my subtitle. Just don’t make it look like you are using keywords just to use them. I like to see what the book descriptions look like of the top selling books in my genre and try to incorporate some of their keywords.
Trick #3 – Categories
You are only allowed to choose two categories for each version of your book. So the e-book and the paperback both get their own categories. HOWEVER – if you email them and ask to be added to other categories they will add you into up to I think three additional categories on each book. If anyone knows the exact number feel free to comment below so everyone can learn. The benefit here is the more categories your book is in the more the algorithm will have the potential to put it in front of other people.
Trick #4 – Profiles
This really shouldn’t be listed as a trick and yet I see a TON of independent authors with no amazon author profile. Listen, as much as I didn’t like it, you have to marry your social media life into everything you do. My amazon profile gets me links to my website, not a lot but I’m pretty new at this. Point is my blog is connected to my author profile as well as my website and obviously my book. I also have profiles with booklife.com and bookbub.com including a tumblr, twitter, Facebook and instagram profiles and wherever possible I have them all connect to one another so I have to do as little individual updating as possible.
Trick #5 – Enable Everything
Assuming you don’t have a huge following of fans already because most of us normal writing types don’t. You need people to see and use your book in anyway that is convenient for them. Text to speech, x-ray, lending, wordwise. Have a kindle version, a paperback version. I haven’t done a hardcover, but I’ve been told ingramspark.com is great that’s going to be my plan for my next book. Audio book (hopefully your speaking voice is amazing) Mine isn’t but I paid for it through acx.com and its going to pay for itself in 3 months. That’s an incredible return on investment. You need fans, you need people to have read your book. I think registering in Kindle Unlimited until you do have somewhat of a following is a no brainer. There are so many avenues that Amazon has of getting your book into the hands of the avid listeners/readers and the non avids that you have to take advantage of everything.
These are my top 5 tricks to Amazon publishing, what have you used, or what would you recommend?? Don’t forget to like, share, tweet, smoke signal this to everyone you know. As always, I need the help! Until next time!
