The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books By Howard VanEs www.letswritebooks.net The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! Howard VanEs | [email protected] | Let’s Write Books, Inc Introduction Amazon along with the digital platform for books and information products has literally turned the published world upside down creating an extraordinary opportunity for independent authors as well as any book marketer to sell lots and lots of books on Amazon – to generate killer sales! Here’s why • Amazon is the largest bookseller in the world. 70 % of book sales happen on Amazon, the next largest is Barnes and Noble with only 15% of sales. • Over 300 million people have their credit card set up on Amazon of 1 click buys • Amazon is expanding worldwide – bringing on more countries regularly • Amazon provides FREE software that turns any smartphone, computer or tablet into a Kindle reading device. • Digital book sales are out selling hard copy books 2 to 1 and rising! • Their publishing platform is very easy to use. You just upload your book and within 12-24hrs your book is live! In order to take advantage of the explosive growth occurring in Kindle book sales you need to know a few key steps, all of which just require just a little time and no money. Let’s get started! Is there a market big enough for your book? Selecting the right niche and the right category. The very first thing you need to know is if there is a market big enough for your book. You want to find a pond full of hungry fish! You can have a great idea for a book, but if there isn’t a ready- made market for it you will have to work very long and hard to get sales. So how do you decide if there is a market for your book? It is actually quite easy. The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 2 Step 1 Go to Amazon and select the Kindle category at the top of the page. Step 2 Next select the book category you want to promote by typing that into the search bar. For example, nutrition, exercise, investments, etc. Step 3 At the top right of the page you will see a “Sort by” box and select popularity and sales. Step 4 Look at the sales rank of the top 12 books on this page. To do this, just select a book and scroll down to see sales ranking. Step 5 Add up all the sales ranking for the first 12 books. If the average is over 50,000 then pass on the book, the market will not be large enough. On the other hand, if the average of the 12 books is below 50,000, go ahead with your book. There are enough sales in this category to support your book sales. Step 6 Evaluate. Remember the lower the sale ranking number the more books a given tile is selling. If your book doesn’t look like it is going sell well in one category, how will it do in another? Do you need to reconsider your book or reposition it to take advantage of a niche where there are buyers? The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 3 Amazon is a search engine and you need to use keywords to tap into this Perhaps the biggest secret about marketing on Amazon is that Amazon is essentially a search engine – a huge data base of books, products, movies, etc. For your book to be found it has to show up in searches just like on Google. This means that the way you enter your book at Amazon and the book description page all have to be optimized for the Amazon search functions. In other words it must be seo friendly. Keep in mind that Amazon is the 4th largest search engine on the web. In order to tap into Amazon’s search engine you must select keywords – words or phrases that potential buyers will use to search for your book. So it is helpful to do a little research for this. A great tool to use is the Google keyword tool http://www.googlekeywordtool.com/ which is free and shows you how many people are searching any given keyword or phrase. Make a list of the keywords that you think may work for your book and then compare them against the keywords that show up in the search bar of Amazon when you enter the keywords there. Notice that once you do this on Amazon there will be a drop down menu of other related search terms which also can be used as possible keyword tools. Be sure to run them through the Google keyword tool to see how many people are searching the term. It is important to keep in mind that you want to select Google keywords that are between 50,000 and 200,000 in monthly searches. Under the 50,000 your audience will be too small and over the 200,000 there will be too much competition. Keywords that show up on Amazon and in the Google keyword tool and the ones you want! You will need to select 7 of them. Then the following items new to be addressed to successfully market books on Amazon. • Keywords on upload page need to be selected and entered after doing the research indicated above. • Your primary keyword(s) should be included in your title. • Keywords should be included in the book description. • Keywords should be sprinkled lightly throughout your book –approximately 2% of the words should be keywords. The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 4 Writing a compelling description One of the biggest mistakes the people make when writing their book descriptions is making the paragraphs too long which makes them hard to read. On the internet viewers want to access information that can be quickly read. The best way to accomplish this is with short paragraphs – 2 or 3 sentences at most and the use of bullet points. This format allows the viewer to quickly read or scan for the information that is important to them. Here is a template for creating a compelling non-fiction book description: • Identify the problem • Indicate how your book solves the problem • List 4 or 5 bulleted benefits • 3 or 4 testimonials if you have them • Optionally – a note from the author – why you wrote the book • A brief summation of benefits and ask for the order Remember to use your keywords in your description! Getting reviews Next to getting sales which helps rank your book higher, reviews are one of the most important things you can do to boost sales. Positive reviews accomplish a couple important things. First, potential customers will see that others have read your book and found value in it – social proof. Secondly. Amazon notices the reviews and gives a lot of weight to these reviews, almost as much as sales, which means reviews will improve the ranking and promoting of your book. The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 5 Here are 5 effective ways to gain reviews: 1. Ask friends and family to give you reviews 2. Send a note out to your data base and ask them for honest reviews of your book 3. Post a notice on Facebook and Twitter – asking for reviewers 4. Research top reviewers on Amazon in your niche. Send them a note asking if they would be interested in reviewing your book 5. Put a note in the back of your book asking for reviews. KDP Free giveaway The opportunity to give away books on through the Amazon Kindle Direct program is a huge opportunity to increase sales. It allows you to give away books for five days every 90 days. Some of you might be thinking: “Why should I give my writing away?” There are a few very good reasons. Remember from our discussion above, Amazon is a search engine and you want your books to show up on the first page of your category just like you would want to rank on the first page of Google for your keyword. The first page is where the action is - where the real sales happen! When you do a giveaway hundreds if not thousands of books can be given away to eager readers. This dramatically increases you rankings, usually to the first page of your category and often to the top spot. Most often you book will not stay in the top spot for more than a few days but it can be just enough promotional oomph to kick start sales. Getting your book into the hands of lots and lots of readers also means that you have a chance to sell other books that you have, other products and direct them to your website where you can capture their names and email addresses. You’ll also see more reviews as a result and we love reviews! If all this wasn’t enough Amazon also has a lending program. When someone borrows your Kindle book you get paid from a pool of money set up by Amazon for just this very reason. This can mean hundreds or thousands of extra dollars in your pocket every month. Here’s how to schedule your KDP Free give away According to Amazon: “Once your book is enrolled in KDP Select and is available for sale on our website, you will be able to schedule free book promotions in two ways: A) From your bookshelf, select the book by checking the box next to the title, click on “Actions” and choose “Manage Promotions”. B) From the “Edit book details” page, click on “Promotions Manager”.” The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 6 Writing reviews Another effective way of generate traffic and sales to your Amazon sales page is by leaving reviews for top books that are complimentary to yours. For example, I have a book on abdominal exercises and I have reviewed top books that are in the diet category. Make sure your review is positive and at the end of the review put your name and the title of your book. Amazon actually helps with this as there is a function when you leave a review where you can link to you book. Use Amazon’s printing partner Another amazing way to sell books and increase royalty payments that Amazon provides is with Createspace.com, their POD printing partner. POD if you don’t already know means Print on Demand. POD printing allows you to print 1, 100, or 1000 hard copy bocks at a time – whatever quantity you need and does so very cost effectively. “ When customers see the higher price for the hard copy version, then your Kindle book will look like an even greater value to the consumer. “ The great thing about Creatspace is that once you upload your book files to them, they will take care of both printing the book and fulfillment – getting the book to Amazon. Once the order from Amazon comes into Createspace – everything happens automatically. You just sit back and collect your payments! And all of this service is free! Another good reason to use Createspace is that your printed book will most likely sell for a much higher price than your Kindle version. When customers see the higher price for the hard copy version, then your Kindle book will look like an even greater value to the consumer. Createspace also offers expanded distribution to Europe, maximizing your sales opportunities. The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 7 Ready for more great ways to ignite Kindle sales? We offer book marketing trainings, products and consulting. Visit our website at www.Letswritebooks.net and click the training/products button. or email us [email protected] Copyright 2013 by Howard VanEs and Let’s Write Books, Inc. No part of this report may be reproduced, copied or distributed without express consent of Let’s Write Books, Inc. Disclaimer: The information provided in this report is for education purposes only. The author and publisher make no guarantees either implied or direct about the level of success achievable with these techniques. The information presented herein is accurate at the time of publication and may change as market conditions change. The Secrets to Killer Sales with Kindle Books! 8