How to Approach Book Bloggers for Reviews by Frida Fantastic

Posted on August 2, 2011 by Lindsay

Borges QuotationToday’s guest post isn’t from an author; it’s from a reviewer. My Twitter buddy, Frida Fantastic (it’s possible that’s not the name on her birth certificate, but we won’t pry) has agreed to give some tips on what reviewers want (and what will have them deleting your submission faster than spam emails promising body part enhancements).

Without further parenthetical comments, here’s Frida:

I’m a book blogger and I blog at Frida Fantastic: indie speculative fiction reviews. I review indie ebooks in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, pulp, and horror. Today I would like to share a few tips on the best ways for authors to approach book bloggers.

I define a book blogger as a reader who volunteers to blog about books on a regular basis. Book blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more flexible in what they review, whereas others have a more defined focus like “indie ebooks” or “science fiction and fantasy books”.

Book blogs in all their forms are helpful in promoting books. If a popular book blogger reviews your book, their readers are far more likely to check it out. Many book bloggers cross-post their reviews to Amazon, Smashwords, and Goodreads. Positive reviews are best, but at minimum, a well-written book review will provide some useful information about a book and help other readers determine if the book is for them. Some book blogs also participate in blog tours, which can also help generate interest in a book. The tips here are more specific to requesting book reviews as that’s what book bloggers are most known for, but the same principles apply to requesting other services from book bloggers such as participating in a blog tour or hosting a guest post.

I started book blogging in early April so I’m still fairly new to this, but I have a good idea about what constitutes as good netiquette between authors and book bloggers. So listen up if you’re interested in getting a review from a book blogger 🙂

Tip #1: Before you ask a book blogger to review your book, check the book submission (or review policies) page on their website, and respect those guidelines.

Most of the blogs that accept review requests have a page like that, and some may have very detailed and specific requirements. Even if some of it seems idiosyncratic or unnecessary, follow it to the letter, because the blogger has their system set up to handle the flood of submissions. Many of us can’t review all the books we receive because there are so many books and we only have so much time. But we love books, and we review the ones that capture our interest.

Tip #2: Don’t request book reviews via Twitter, Facebook, forums, etc. Generally, book bloggers want you to send an email.

Just like you, we have six or more accounts at different places, and it’s too time-consuming to check them all. Follow our submission policies. Most of us want you to send your review request by email, so we have all our submissions in one place. Asking for a review through a non-standard route like Goodreads is akin to jumping the queue—that’s not fair, and many of us ignore these messages. Sending unsolicited Amazon gifts is also no-no, and book bloggers can’t reply to those messages as they are sent from an Amazon no-reply email address.

Tip #3: Book bloggers are on social media, but don’t spam them.

I like books, but if you message me and give me a link to your books, I generally will ignore them. I can’t speak for all book bloggers, but the way I see it, if you wanted to request a review, you would have sent me an email. If you’re trying to be a salesman, that doesn’t work on social media. Be friendly and personable without constantly plugging your book, and people will eventually get to know you.

Tip #4: When you email book bloggers your review request, make sure your book is ready.

I’ve received some review requests for books that had serious formatting problems in the first five pages, which probably doesn’t help sales either. I notified the authors about the issues I saw, but really, having an unfinished book is the quickest way to getting a review request rejected.

Tip #5: Don’t write emails that will get trapped in the spam folder.

If the book submission page specifies a subject line, follow that. If not, use a simple subject line like “Review request for (Title of Book)”. Weird subject lines get trapped in the spam folder.

Address book bloggers by name. If the name is not available, address the blogger by his or her online blogging pseudonym. Emails with generic greetings like “Hello sir/ma’am” look like the beginning of unsolicited spam mail, and my Gmail tends to trap those in the spam folder too.

Tip #6: Write short and clear review requests.

Book bloggers don’t want to know your life story, or all the business models you’ve tried, or which publisher we’ve never heard of has print rights to what. It depends on the blogger’s focus, but being published by an unknown small press means absolutely nothing to me. Being previously published by more well-known publisher like DAW or Tor Books could get the attention of a science fiction/fantasy blogger, but really, we just want to see if we’d be interested in reviewing your book. So tell us about your book, and don’t bore us with your experiments in publishing. We’re readers—we care about your book, not your business model.

Other book bloggers may be different, but my eyes glaze over whenever I see an email over a thousand words long and I don’t finish reading it. I choose which books to review on the basis of the description on Smashwords or Amazon, and whether I liked the sample or not. I don’t read press releases attached to a review request email, and I doubt other book bloggers do either, because well… we’d rather spend that time reading books.

Tip #7: Be patient. If you don’t hear from a book blogger for a while, depending on the book submission policy, you can still send a review request for another book.

We receive a lot of review requests. As I’m writing this, I have 40 unread emails requesting book reviews. Other bloggers receive 10-20 requests per day. We consider every request, but please understand that it could take us a while to get to your request. Many bloggers have long to-review queues, some as long as six months or a year. I keep mine relatively short at about a month long, and I add a new book to my review queue every week.

If you haven’t heard from us in a while, it doesn’t mean that we have ignored your request. It means that either we haven’t gotten to it yet, or that that particular book isn’t up our alley. Email correspondence is time-consuming so sometimes we can’t respond to everyone. While you should focus on book bloggers that tend to accept your review requests, perhaps the others that didn’t accept the request for this one will be interested in your next book.

* * *

I hope these tips are helpful. If you have any thoughts about approaching book bloggers or about book blogging in general, feel free to leave a comment. I’m happy to answer questions! 🙂

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , | 19 Comments

Refunds for Amazon Ebook Sales, Should You Be Worried?

Posted on August 1, 2011 by Lindsay

Amazon Kindle Ebook Sales and RefundsWhen I first started selling ebooks on Amazon, I don’t remember noticing a “refunds” column. Then, as I started selling more books, a number appeared there. What? Someone returned one of my ebooks? How could they?

Actually, I just shrugged it off, but I’ve seen forum posts by indie authors asking what it means and if they should be worried.

The quick answer is probably not, but I’ll add a caveat at the end, so keep reading.

First off, speaking as someone who owns a Kindle, it’s very easy to buy ebooks (one-click) straight from your device. The Kindle also promptly asks you if it was a mistake and you want to return the ebook. My guess, based on the fact that my returns usually pop up simultaneously with corresponding new sales, is this is what happens most of the time.

It’s also possible for someone to write to Amazon and request a no-questions-asked refund (I believe you have 7 days). I did this once when the story took a steep downhill turn after the sample chapters and was much shorter than the product description implied (novella when I’d expected a novel). If it hadn’t been on the pricier side, I wouldn’t have bothered, but I felt a little betrayed. (In case you’re curious, this was a small press ebook, not one published by an independent author.)

Given how easy it is to return ebooks at Amazon, I’m surprised I don’t get more returns. It’s a lot less hassle than sending back a physical book.

So, to answer the original question (should you be worried about returns?), probably not. It’ll happen. If you have a high return rate, though, it may mean there’s something worth addressing.

Here are a few things to check:

  • If your ebook is not novel length, is that clear upfront? For short stories and novellas, it’s worth mentioning the word count and the corresponding paperback page count (assume about 250 words per page) because word count won’t necessarily mean anything to someone who’s not a writer.
  • Does the product description match up well with the story people get? If it’s described as an action-packed adventure, is there plenty of action throughout? If there are lots of explicit sex scenes, is it clear from the blurb that things will get hot and heavy?
  • Did you have a professional proofread for you? If you couldn’t afford it in the beginning, consider investing in this once you’re selling enough copies to cover the expense.
  • Is the formatting a nightmare? If you uploaded a Word file and let Amazon handle the conversion automatically, it might very well be.

If you’ve returned ebooks for other reasons, please let us know in the comments.

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged , , , | 50 Comments

Cover Art for Hunted (Flash Gold 2)

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Lindsay

I’ve been talking about the sequel to Flash Gold on Twitter for the last couple of weeks, and I’ve finally sent it off for editing, so I should get it back and have it online in another week or two. The cover art is already done, courtesy of Glendon Haddix, so I thought I’d share it:

The story ended up being about 27,500 words (~110 paperback pages), so longer than the first. I’ll be working on a blurb for it this week, but you can already guess from the cover that there will be some flying steampunk beasties to harass our heroes!

In the meantime, if you haven’t read the first adventure yet, here’s an excerpt and links to it.

Thanks for taking a look!

Posted in My Ebooks | Tagged , , , | 13 Comments

3 Reasons I’m Glad I Chose Self-Publishing

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Lindsay

Camus QuotationLast December, I was about an hour from uploading The Emperor’s Edge (my first full-length ebook) on Smashwords when I received an email from a literary agent.

I hadn’t actually bothered with the querying process, but I’d won a critique from this agent through a charity auction about six months prior. The gist of the email was that she’d ask for some changes to the manuscript, but she’d probably be willing to represent me.

If I’d received that email three months earlier, I would have jumped at the opportunity. But, at that point, I’d already paid for cover art and editing, and I’d set my mind on e-publishing (it’d been more than six months since the auction, and I’d kind of forgotten about the critique). From the title of this blog post, you can probably guess I decided to go ahead with e-publishing on my own, but there were times in those first few weeks where I wondered if I’d regret that decision.

It’s seven months later, and…I don’t.

In fact, I’m relieved that email didn’t come earlier. My guess is that I wouldn’t even have a deal with a publisher yet if I’d gone with the agent (remember, I was going to have to make some revisions before I signed on).

But here, on my own, I’ve now published three novels, and some shorter works, and I’m up to 2,000 ebook sales a month. If things continue to go well, I’d guess I’m 6-12 months from being able to do this for a living (gotta get more books in my series out first!).

And that’s the dream, ya know? To tell stories for a living. To entertain people. To encourage them to laugh and forget their problems for a while. And if you can make your work affordable for everyone? Even better.

I’m not the type to try and push an ideology on someone else, so I’m not going to say everyone should be self-publishing these days, but I thought I’d list a couple (okay, three) of the reasons I’m glad I chose this route:

1. The Time Was Right

If anything, I wish I’d become aware of the e-publishing revolution earlier, but I’m glad I jumped on board when I did. Between the increasing popularity of ebook reading devices and the ease with which you can get your work into the major stories (Amazon, B&N, iTunes, etc.), it’s the perfect time to be an independent author.

Not only is it relatively easy to get your ebooks out there, but there are more and more readers who are openly supporting “indie” authors. Even nine months ago, when e-publishing first came on my radar, it was hard to find a book blogger willing to review a self-published title (ewwww, as if!). Now, there are more and more blogs cropping up that are dedicated to reviewing indie offerings.

While some readers continue to prefer the safety of buying from traditionally published authors (whose work has been vetted by teams of professionals), others love the idea of supporting authors rather than The System. When you buy from an indie, the author typically earns 60-70% of the cover price, as opposed to the 8-25% an author in a traditional deal will get. And, hey, it doesn’t hurt that many self-published ebooks are under $5. Indies can afford to sell their work less expensively since they’re making a higher percentage.

2. Freedom

There are obvious freedoms that come with self-publishing: you can tell your story, your way, and you don’t need to worry about pleasing agents or publishers (just your fans!). You aren’t bound by industry standards when it comes to word count either. You can write all short stories if you like, or all novellas, or all 300,000-word doorstopper epics. You have a great deal of freedom with your writing.

It doesn’t stop with words though. If you reach a modicum of success, you can turn this into your day job. Then you have the freedom to work your own hours from anywhere in the world. You needn’t be chained to a certain city because that’s where your job is. Want to go where the cost of living is less and your modest author income goes further? Then by all means, do so. I hear it’s trendy to live in Buenos Aires and Thailand these days. 😉

3. The Possibility of Earning a Living (without being a bestseller)

Not everybody’s going to make substantial money if they self-publish. In fact, most people won’t. They’ll give up too soon, or perhaps their writing won’t be quite there yet. They won’t put enough effort into learning to promote themselves, or perhaps they won’t be prolific enough to publish often and stay in people’s mind.

But, for those who are dedicated to learning the crafts of writing and marketing, the possibility of turning this into a career exists. What’s heartening to me is that you don’t have to be a bestseller to reach that point.

I’m certainly not. If you check out my books, you’ll see there’s nothing hugely impressive about my sales rankings — many indie authors are selling a lot more books (and at higher prices). At best, you could call me a mid-list author.

If you have enough ebooks out (say 5-10), you can do pretty well for yourself even if you only sell 250 copies of each a month (assuming $2.99 or higher price tags). Under the traditional model, only a small percentage of authors at the top get to write for a living. As it stands right now, the dream is far more attainable as an indie.

Those are three of the reasons I’m glad I chose to self-publish. Do you have any you’d add to the list?

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged , | 45 Comments

A Podcast as a Brand Builder with W. Brondt Kamffer

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Lindsay

Gods and Men Fantasy PodcastWe have a guest post today from up-and-coming indie fantasy author, W. Brondt Kamffer, someone I’ve come to know through Twitter and his blog. He posts a mix of book reviews and podcast episodes, all geared toward his target audience: fantasy readers and writers.

He’s here today to talk about podcasting and how it can help with book promotion.

A Podcast as a Brand Builder

True story: I began a podcast because I disliked writing blog posts.

Another true story: I still write two blog posts (at least) for every podcast episode I produce.

Lesson learnt: While a podcast can be a great addition to your brand-building arsenal, it will by no means replace what you are doing now.

When I began producing my podcast, Gods and Men, I wanted to think of something that was different, that nobody else was doing. This is a bit like all our writerly blogs out there. So many are talking about the publishing business or process, or reviewing books, or about themselves. There seems to be little variety, but every now and then, somebody comes along and does something you’ve either not seen before or not seen enough of.

Sure, you say, it’s easy for a non-fiction writer to blog/podcast. All he has to do is theme his blog/podcast along the lines of what he writes, and thus it becomes a supplement. But fiction authors have so much to talk about too. Sarah Woodbury, for example, is an indie author who writes historical fiction set in medieval Wales and she blogs about medieval Welsh culture and history.

I wanted to try something like that for my genre, fantasy, and so conceived of a podcast that would–wait for it–talk about fantasy. But I drew on more than that. I also lecture university English, and I have been appalled to learn of the low status speculative fiction has in academics, so I thought I could bring my academic background to a discussion of fantasy, and thus arrived at a podcast that examines fantasy as literature. I have discussed themes, motifs, world-building, and such matter, and I am currently in the middle of an eight-part lecture series on Tolkien’s The Children of Hurin.

So, why do I tell you this? Simply, that unless you want to be a professional podcaster, as an author you’ll want to use your podcast to draw attention to your writing. Now, is my way the only way? Certainly not. But you do want to think about your goals, and those goals need to include brand building, name recognition, or whatever you want to call it. The same logic that holds for your blog, holds for your podcast.

As I said, mine is just one type of podcast. There are many you could attempt, and many authors have used such routes to generate interest in their own work. Joanna Penn and Moses Siregar III, for example, are each podcasters who interview other authors. Nathan Lowell famously podcast audio versions of his novels, and now his ebooks sell by the hundreds, yea thousands. Jennifer Hudock is part of a weekly roundtable podcast with two other authors, and she too has done well for herself.

The point is that creating a podcast is just another way to draw attention to yourself and your works, and like your blogging habits, or online social networking, you want to be careful of how you present yourself. For example, in my case, I abandoned any attempts at self-producing an audio book because I have a terrible reading voice. I get all monotonous and sound absolutely disinterested (listen to my lectures on The Children of Hurin, where I read some excerpts, and you’ll know what I mean). This is not the best advertisement for my work.

On the other hand, when speaking off the cuff, I sound much more natural, and while my podcast doesn’t necessarily advertise my books directly, I’d like to think that someone listening to my episode on, say, motif will get the sense that I know what I’m talking about and that perhaps my own books won’t be half bad as a result. Isn’t that the same hopes for writing your blog?

A podcast is an advertisement, essentially, only a different sort of advertisement than your blog. Used wisely, it can be a great way to lure in readers to your real produce: the books. But even if that doesn’t work out (and I have found that it is a slow process, like anything else, attracting listeners), it is one heck of a journey. There are many things I regret having done in my life, but starting the Gods and Men podcast is definitely not one of them.

W Brondt Kamffer Novella

You can check Brondt’s ebooks on Amazon and grab his newest release, The Call of Sage and Kindred, for free on Smashwords (99 cents on Amazon).

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

So, You Want to Sell More Books at Amazon… [Part 3: Reviews]

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Lindsay

This is my third and last entry in my “So, You Want to Sell More Books at Amazon…” blog series. The first discusses how Amazon starts to promote your books internally once you sell enough copies and the second goes over the role “tagging” plays in Amazon searches and recommendations. Today we’re going to talk about reviews.

How important are they? How do you get them? Will more reviews sell more books? Let’s jump in….

How reviews help you at Amazon

The first way they help is obvious: reviews help readers decide whether or not to give books a try. A book with no reviews is something of a cipher. In the Kindle Store, a reader can download a sample to try, so it might not be quite as much of a sales death knell as for physical books, but not having any makes it look like nobody is buying the book.

The concept of social proof suggests people are more likely to try something if others are trying it (and avoid something others are avoiding). I believe getting those first three or four reviews is a big deal and will definitely improve your sales overall (so long as you’re working on promotion and getting people to your book’s page!).

Are more reviews better?

I’ve read some theories that reviews help sell more books in a non-obvious way, too: maybe this is one of the many factors Amazon use in determining which books to promote internally, so the more reviews you have the more play your book will get.

True? I couldn’t say for sure, but I’m inclined to think not. Amazon has to be aware of services like BookRooster and Ffiver where you can essentially buy reviews for $5 a pop.

As I mentioned in my earlier posts in this series, I believe selling books is the major thing that gets you on the radar (gets Amazon to start promoting you internally).

How do you get your first few reviews?

Well, I wouldn’t use Ffiver. 😀

What I’ve done that I’d recommend to others is giving away review copies. I’ve done this by posting offers on the Kindle page on Facebook and also in forums for various e-readers. MobileRead is my favorite board for this, as many of its readers are savvy about downloading ebooks from Smashwords (where you can simply give them coupon codes to grab the books for free), but I’ve also posted offers on the NookBoards and KindleBoards.

For me, about one out of five people who received a free copy would end up posting a review (in the first couple of weeks anyway — more trickled in later), so if I gave away twenty copies, I had good odds for getting those first ones I needed. Some cool people were nice enough to post their reviews in multiple places (i.e. Smashwords, Goodreads, and Amazon).

That’s my most recommended way to get reviews. You can, of course, also ask beta readers, friends and family, etc., though these people are probably only going to leave five-star reviews and readers can and do leave irritated one-star reviews if they feel they’ve been duped because all of a book’s glowing reviews came from friends.

Other options are to participate in blog-based book tours (I did that with Encrypted and Flash Gold and, though it wasn’t mentioned as a part of the tour deal, a couple of bloggers left Amazon reviews as well as posting reviews on their blogs) and to submit your book to review sites (though book bloggers tend to be backlogged and this can be quite the wait).

Also, don’t forget the value of getting the people who actually bought the book to review it! Those are the most genuine reviews you can get since they come from your target audience, people who read the blurb and chose to buy the book.

How do you get these people to review? I always make a request in the afterword. If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review….

My book with the highest reviews-to-sales ratio is Flash Gold. I worded things differently there, something like, “If you want to see more adventures with these characters, please leave a review.” I did it because that story was an experiment with the novella-length ebook for me, and whether or not I wrote another one was going to depend on reception and sales. (I’m editing a sequel now, so clearly things worked out!)

What about those paid review services?

Someone always asks, so I’ll finish up with my thoughts on this. I don’t think there’s any reason to pay someone to review your book, and readers are going to be suspicious of a paid review (the assumption being that receiving money makes a reviewer more inclined to review the book favorably) if they’re aware of it.

What are your thoughts? Are there any other ways you’ve snagged your early reviews?

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

So, You Want to Sell More Books at Amazon… [Part 2: Tags]

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Lindsay

Amazon tags for Flash GoldThe other day, I blogged about how Amazon starts to promote your books internally once you sell enough copies to get on their map. Today I want to talk about tagging and the role it may or may not play in increasing sales.

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, check the bottom of any Amazon book page. People can “tag” a book with terms such as steampunk, paranormal romance, mystery, thriller, space opera, etc.. Amazon uses this information to help place a book in its search results (it may play a role in what Amazon chooses to display for personalized recommendations too).

Will tags help me sell more books?

The short answer is… not by themselves, no.

Based on my experience with my own books and some very official and very thorough observations (AKA fifteen minutes of typing in various search terms and looking at book pages), tags seem to play a small role in the big picture of how Amazon ranks search results for various terms.

For an uncompetitive term, tags may help you appear on the first page of search results. For more competitive terms, you probably won’t see a move up the results unless other factors are in your favor as well. (I’ve seen lots of examples where authors have done tag exchanges with other authors and have 100-odd votes for their chosen terms, but their books appear nowhere on the early pages of results.) The top results for competitive terms tend to be 1) popular 2) tagged and often 3) have the tag/keyword in the title.

Amazon Search Results

There are exceptions, and some of them are downright puzzling (hey, Amazon wouldn’t want to make its search engine too transparent, or authors would have an easier time manipulating it), but, in the areas I checked, four out of five top results would follow that pattern.

So, are tags worth worrying about?

Personally, I don’t. I actually have some pretty strange ones on my earlier books thanks to, well, it’s a long story, but they’re not terms that are applicable to the book or that would ever help it sell copies (since no one would search for those terms). The ones in the first picture are for Flash Gold. It ranks 12th for “steampunk” even with only a few votes for that tag. Maybe when it’s been around longer and has sold more copies, it’ll place higher, but I’m not going to try and get 100 tags for steampunk in the mean time.

It’s not that I don’t think tags can’t help a little; it’s more a personal aversion to doing anything that could be construed as gaming the system. I did search engine optimization as part of my day job for years, and I’ve seen a lot of people use tricks to rank highly in Google search results, and Google inevitably gets wiser with each update and things that work one month can get you penalized or even de-listed (essentially banned) down the road. I don’t know if Amazon’s search engine is quite as sophisticated (or vindictive), but I’m not willing to risk it.

But, as a bit of evidence that they probably do help… As I write this, my fantasy novel, The Emperor’s Edge, comes up 10th when you search for “steampunk” in the Kindle store — higher than Flash Gold which is more of a steampunk story and has the word steampunk in the title. That it ranks for that term has to be based on tags (and possibly reviews using the word), because I don’t use steampunk in the title or blurb (aside from its steam-age setting, it’s more high/heroic fantasy).

So, in summary, my research approach wasn’t entirely scientific (please let us know if your experience has led you to different opinions on the usefulness of tags), but I believe ranking highly for Amazon searches is a combination of sales ranking/sales history, keywords (tags) in the book title, tags submitted at the bottom of the page, and possibly the prevalence of the term in user reviews (that order would be my guess on what gets the most weight too). Again, I have found puzzling exceptions.

So, should you run a tagging campaign and try to get more votes for your preferred terms?

I’ve already shared my stance on that. It’s up to you if you want to try it. I’m not sure having 100 votes gives you any more weight than a more natural looking ten or twenty. I also don’t think the Amazon search box is the way most readers find books, so even being #1 for a term may not increase your sales noticeably. But, if you haven’t bothered tagging your own books at all, you might want to do so to set a precedent for reviewers who might be inclined to do it. (Note: if you have an account, go tag them in the UK and DE stores, too, as tags don’t carry over.)

Come back next week for the last post in this series, one on Amazon reviews.

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

So, You Want to Sell More Books at Amazon… [Part 1]

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Lindsay

Books for SaleOver the next few days, I’m going to attempt to answer some of the questions authors ask in regards to book sales (specifically selling more of their books) at Amazon.

If there’s anything you’re wondering about that’s related to this topic, leave a comment below and I’ll try to answer it. (Just don’t ask me how to sell a thousand books a day or make it into the Top 100 overall. The best sales rank I’ve managed in the Kindle Store is 2,300 or so.)

Let’s start out with the biggie, the one people actually email me about…

Why aren’t I selling more books?

I’m going to assume you have an exciting (typo free!) blurb, professional-looking cover art, and at least a couple of positive book reviews (if not, address those potential pitfalls first).

The short answer is: people don’t know your book exists.

There are millions of books in the Amazon store (hundreds of thousands of ebooks in the Kindle store), so it’s hard to get noticed.

In the beginning, you have to drive readers to your Amazon book page. This can be via advertising, social media, your blog, guest posts on other blogs, forums, etc.

If you can get an ebook listed for free, there’s less competition (for now) in that arena, so odds are better of people finding your work. If your freebie turns readers into fans, they might check out your non-free offerings.

If you sell enough books, you will reach a point where sales occur whether you’re driving traffic to Amazon or not. This is because people are finding your book through the internal Amazon search engine, by browsing the Top 100 lists, by checking other books’ “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section, and via Amazon’s recommendations (which are personalized based on reader purchases).

In essence, the more you sell, the more Amazon rewards you. They want to push books that people are buying since that presumes an inherent saleability in the title. AKA they know they’ll make more money this way.

How many books do you have to sell to reach this point?

It’s more of a gradual process than a switch being flipped, but I’d probably hit about 750-1,000 total sales of The Emperor’s Edge when I noticed it was selling itself on Amazon whether I did any type of promotion that week or not. My guess is that most people find the book via the “Customers Who Bought…” feature, as it doesn’t fall into any of the fantasy sub-categories (it’s not a good match for the Top 100 lists it shows up in). I don’t have any way of knowing if Amazon recommends it to folks or not, though I’d be curious to find out!

Now that I’ve rambled on here, let me summarize the answer to the original question (how do you sell more books at Amazon?): work your book-promotion buns off to sell that first 1,000 books.

The next post will be on tags. Stay tuned (or subscribed via your RSS reader!).

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments