Lindsay Buroker

eBook FAQ: Common E-Publishing Questions Answered

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Lindsay

epublishing There are a few e-publishing questions that lead folks to my blog over and over, so I thought I’d do a post today trying to answer some of the most common ones.

Do people make money e-publishing? How much can ebook authors make?

Yes, lots of people are making money. As to how much, it’s like being an entrepreneur in any sort of business. Some folks make nothing while others make a living at this.

There’s at least one Kindle millionaire out there, and others are making six figures annually e-publishing. Some traditionally published authors are turning away from publishing houses, because they’ve found they can make more money by keeping the rights to everything and e-publishing.

Naturally, these are rare cases, but there are lots of up-and-comers selling 100 to 1,000 ebooks a month, and if those ebooks are priced at $2.99 or above, the authors will keep roughly 70% of the earnings.

I printed my first two novels in December and January, I don’t write in a popular genre (high fantasy, what?), and I’ve yet to make a bestseller list anywhere, but folks are buying about 300 of my ebooks a month right now, mostly the novels, which are priced at $2.99, and I think that’s a respectable start. Of course, I hope to sell more in the future, as I release more books and continue to work on promotion!

By the way, if your primary goal is to make money, non-fiction is easier to sell than fiction. The examples I linked to above are about authors doing well writing stories, but if facts tickle your fancy, check out this interview with Kate Harper, who writes reports or “booklets” for the Kindle and does well.

How much does it cost to publish an ebook?

Technically, you can put together an ebook and e-publish it for free. If you can afford it, you’ll probably want to pay for a freelance editor to look over it (for something novel-length, expect to pay a few hundred dollars for this) and for someone to design cover art ($200-$400) though. You can also hire someone to do the formatting ($50-$90) if you don’t have the patience to learn that.

That said, there are lots of folks who are making good money now who started out doing the best they could on their own and just getting those puppies online! With ebooks, you can always go back and upload new cover art or a new version of the text later on.

Where can I publish my ebook?

Everybody knows about the Kindle and the Amazon marketplace, but you’re short-changing yourself if that’s the only place you have your ebooks listed. The more places your work is available, the more chances there are for folks to stumble across it and buy it. About half of my sales come from Amazon. The rest are from Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, iTunes, Borders, and the Sony Reader Store. (Through Smashwords, you can get free ISBNs and get into iTunes, Borders, etc.)

Here are the links for the various places (none charge anything to upload ebooks):

You can upload to Amazon through the
Kindle Direct Publishing Platform.
PubIt for Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

How do you format your manuscript for the Kindle or other ebook readers?

Please read my post, Help with Ebook Formatting, for links to web guides and ebooks that can walk you through this.

Can you explain the Amazon Sales Ranking System? If a book is ranked X, how many copies a day is it selling?

Please refer to this excellent guest post for tons of information on How Amazon Sales Rank Works.

Which genres sell the best for the Kindle and other e-readers?

A fellow indie, Derek J. Canyon pulled a lot of data from successful authors (those selling more than 1,000 copies a month) over at the Kindleboards and put together a nice graph answering this question.

The top four genres were romance, paranormal, thriller, and mystery. Here’s more information and a post that links to his research.

How can I sell more ebooks?

This is the question we all want an answer to! Here are a few posts that explain what’s worked for me and for some of the folks I’ve interviewed who are doing well:

Those are the top questions I get. Are there any others you’d like to see answered here?

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged answers, ebook authors, ebooks, epublishing, epublishing questions, faq | 4 Comments

Affordable Ebook Cover Art Designers

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Lindsay

It may seem odd that you need cover art for an electronic book, but all the online retailers display images in their stores, just as they do with the paper varieties. Professional cover art can do a lot to sell your book, but, alas, most of us self-published types can’t afford artists who design covers for their day jobs. Many of us can’t even afford those who moonlight as designers!

From what I’ve found, the average price for ebook cover art runs $300-$400, but that’s a lot to cough up, especially if you’re not making money from sales yet. Fortunately, there are some up-and-coming artists out there willing to work with indie authors on a tight budget. Today I want to let you know about two great guys doing cover designs for less than $100.

Glendon Haddix

I found Glendon through the KindleBoards, and he just finished a cover for a novella I’m e-publishing in the next couple weeks. The story is part steampunk, part Western, and I think he did a nice job with it. He went back and forth with me several times, and gave me lots of options to pick from.

Update: August, 2015

Several people complained that they paid and did not receive their work from one of the designers listed here, so I’ve removed his name and link from the page.

Glendon is still in the biz as Streetlight Graphics, but just to warn you, his business has grown and his prices have gone up over the years. You’ll have to check his site for current rates.

You may also want to check out Deranged Doctor Design. I found them through a contest on 99 Designs last year, and they’ve done all of the covers on my Dragon Blood series, as well as a few side projects. As I write this in 2015, they’re still in the $100 range for a cover.

Posted in E-publishing | Tagged cover art, cover art designers, cover images, ebook covers | 105 Comments

How to Make Money as a Book Blogger Part 4: Building Traffic

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Lindsay

Yes, it’s time for the next installment of the series that started with How to Make Money as a Book Blogger Pt. 1.

In the last post, we talked about using keywords to create titles and content that would help attract search engine traffic. Unfortunately, that’s only part of the equation. If you want your blog to appear for popular terms in the search engine results, you have to prove to Google, Yahoo, etc. that your site is worth displaying.

How?

By convincing the search engines that your blog is an authority in your niche. It doesn’t matter if you’re reviewing cook books or chatting about the latest science fiction ebooks. Search engines strive to return the most relevant results from the most trusted sites.

While few know the exact algorithms Google and the other big boys use, it’s generally accepted they give more weight to sites that have a) been around for a while (an authority site won’t be a flash-in-the-pan that gets updated a lot in the first six months but is then abandoned) b) are updated regularly (an authority site consistently adds new content to stay relevant) and c) have lots of links pointing to them (links are a way of voting for a site’s usefulness, so more links tends to mean a site is a good resource).

We can’t control the first aspect, as that depends on how old your blog is, but we can certainly control the second and we can do a lot to assist with the third.

Posting Regularly

I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about adding content regularly, since that’s self-explanatory, but I do want to emphasize that most people won’t draw much search engine traffic or make much money in the first six months because, as you can see, everything is stacked against a newcomer. Your site is new, it doesn’t have a lot of content, it doesn’t have a history of regular updates, and it doesn’t have many links pointing to it yet.

Hey, I started this blog in November, so I can commiserate!

Making money with a website is a game that favors the tortoise over the hare. Instead of getting excited about your new book blog and posting two posts a day every day in the first month and then burning out to the point where you’re only posting once a week, if that (trust me, I’ve been there), think in terms of pacing yourself.

Save some of your great ideas for down the road, so you can update regularly for the long term. Not only do the search engines like this, but your visitors do too. They’ll quickly stop checking a blog that isn’t updated from one visit to the next, whereas, if they know they can always find fresh content, they’ll be more apt to follow along.

Acquiring links to your site

This is huge. Honestly, if you do nothing else (i.e. post infrequently and throw “search engine optimization” and keywords to the wind), but lots of people link to your site, you’ll get traffic. Not as much as if you do it all but at least some. Some of that traffic will come from those links, but even more will come from the search engines as a result of your blog being seen as a popular authority site.

Every link is like a vote for your site. Someone, somewhere is saying your content is worth reading.

Natural links

The best links come naturally, meaning people you may or may not know link to your blog or a specific post because they consider it worth mentioning to their own readers. Maybe it’s informative, maybe it’s humorous, or maybe it’s simply a good reference.

This is really what the search engines have in mind when it comes to ranking sites based on the number and quality of links (quality meaning votes from popular, established sites count for more than those from newcomers). The problem is it’s a chicken-and-egg deal: it’s hard to acquire those natural links when nobody knows about your blog yet.

“In your hands” ways to get links from other sites

Guest posting (volunteer to write articles for related blogs and work in a bio with a link to your site)
Article syndication (submit to ezinearticles, isnare, articlesbase, etc. with a bio including live links)
Social media (network with buddies who will submit your posts to StumbleUpon, Digg, Twitter, etc.)
Forum posts (join a couple relevant, high traffic message boards, fill out a signature with a link to your blog, and post useful information)
Directory submission (submit your blog to DMOZ, Yahoo, and some of the bigger blog directories, though don’t bother if they require payment or a link back)
Ask folks (it never hurts to ask people, especially if you know them, to link to your blog from their established sites)

A note on link trading

Years ago, webmasters learned the benefits of links and would trade them with other site owners to increase overall links to their site. With bloggers, you’ll see a lot of folks maintaining “blogrolls” or lists of links (often mutual) to other blogs. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, especially if it’s for the sake of readers who you may want to direct to similar blogs in your niche, but Google has greatly devalued the worth of a “two-way” link, which is what it’s called when you link to someone who links to you.

When you’re deliberately going out to build links, strive to get one-way ones, meaning another site links to you and you don’t have to link back.

More information:

My post 7 Quick and Dirty Link Building Tips has more information, not only on how to get links but on what those links should say and where they should point (not just to your front page but to back pages too).

Also check out Two Link Building Tips Perfect for Writers for information on guest posting and syndicating articles (you can include bylines with both as a means of getting links).

While both of those articles were written with authors in mind, everything goes for book bloggers too!

That’s it for the traffic-building section (and, I promise, I’ll stop talking about links for a while). In the next part of this series, we’ll get to the good stuff: making money!

Posted in Tips and Tricks | Tagged book blogger, book blogs, book reviews, build traffic, getting links, increase traffic, link building, make money, search engine optimization, search engines | 6 Comments

6 Reasons Why eBooks Are the Future by JM Array

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Lindsay

As those of you who follow my tweets may know, I’ve been slacking off down in Palm Springs, watching Federer and Nadal play tennis instead of slaving away at the keyboard. I managed to get a couple posts up earlier in the week, but today I’m going to let JM Array take things over with a guest post.

6 Reasons Why eBooks Are the Future

There has been a sudden up rise with eBooks lately. Suddenly more and more people are reading electronic books for many reasons. Although there are many people that still prefer the old-school paperback books, here are six main reasons why eBooks are the future.

1) Eco-Friendly

This is by far one of the obvious reasons. EBooks are more eco-friendly than normal books for many reasons but the main one being the need of paper is non-existent; which means that trees won’t have to stuffer anymore and we can continue to have beautiful forests. That reason alone should be enough, but of course it isn’t.

2) Cheaper

It is cheaper for everyone. First and foremost it is cheaper for the author/publisher. Since they don’t have to spend lots of money in print, distribution and what not, the costs are WAY less. Apart from that, since the costs are less, the books don’t need to be as expensive; therefore it becomes cheaper for the costumer as well. It is a win-win for everyone.

3) Faster Distribution

This, to me, is the most amazing one of them all. Have you ever been at your house bored out of your mind and you learn of this new fantastic book but you can’t go out to buy it because it is too darn late and all of the stores are closed? It sucks doesn’t it? Even worse, you go from store to store looking for this book that you absolutely want with all your guts but you can’t find it anywhere? Or even more than that, you are desperate and you can’t wait anymore but you have to order it online and wait like a week for it to arrive? I don’t know about you, but I have had all of the above happen to me. Well, with eBooks this isn’t the case. You want a book? You can get it anytime, anywhere. NO problems at all. You just go, download it and start reading in less than five minutes. Oh the joy.

4) eReaders Sensation

There are many eReaders out there but the main ones are the obvious ones: Kindle, Nook and of course the iPad. Combined, they have sold around 20 million of them. That is, without counting the iPad 2’s that are going to be sold in the next few weeks, which will easily reach the millions as well. What this means is that there are people slowly changing to the eBook sensation (although we should note that not every iPad owner is getting it for the eReader function, but they still have it if they wish to use it). Not only that, but it is also good news for authors: There IS a market out there and they definitely want electronic books.

Plus, it is just like reading a real book. People often complain that they don’t like eBooks because they like the feeling of holding a book in their hands. With this eReaders, it is like having the real thing in your hands. Not only that, but you don’t need light for it. The light comes from the device itself, so you can read anywhere you want. You are almost blind? No problem, select a different font or pinch to zoom in. You remember parts of a quote but you are not sure where it was? No problem, make a search for it. It is THAT simple and that awesome.

5) Carrying and Keeping Your Books Together

This one hardly needs any explanation really. There is nothing better than being able to have all your books together in one small digital package. No need for more physical space. Why is this so important though? That is if you don’t care about space and weight. Well think about the following: Have you ever gone in a trip where you are half way or almost at the end of a book? Since you need to finish it, and you know you will, you have to take a second book with you so you can have something else to read once you are done with the first one. And as you calculated, you finished the first one in just thirty minutes into your trip, and now all it does is take space. With eBooks, this isn’t a problem. Heck if you run out of stuff to read, you can refer to reason #3.

6) Technology

Last but not least indeed. Technology is constantly advancing in an exponential jaw-dropping way. The possibilities with eBooks are pretty much endless. They are just getting started; testing the waters of what is possible with an eBook. There are many amazing things that writers will be able to do with eBooks that they just couldn’t do with a normal book. Perhaps incorporate some ambient noise or something, to give a real feeling like they do in movies. Or for example, let say the character finds a recording, instead of writing what the recording contained, the user can actually play it and hear it themselves. Or even for children, there could be moving images instead of just stationary ones. And the possibilities just continue. Like I said…they are endless and amazing.

These are the six main reasons I could come up with. I am sure there are many more but if this haven’t convinced you yet then I am not sure what will. There is no doubt in my mind, that eBooks are the future and perhaps the future is NOW.

Author links:

Visit JM on the web, and follow him on Twitter.

His book Two Lives…One Diary is available at Amazon and at Smashwords.

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged ebooks, future of ebooks, jm array | 5 Comments

How Author Heather Massey Created a Popular Blog That’s Selling Her Book

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Lindsay

I’ve talked about the benefits of maintaining an author blog before, and also how many of us–myself included!–write to the wrong audience (fellow writers instead of the readers we want to attract) if our goal is to sell books. Heather Massey, the blogger at The Galaxy Express, is one of the few authors I’ve seen who’s doing it right.

She started her blog, which focuses on science fiction romance, and built a popular audience long before her first SFR novel, Once Upon a Time in Space, came out. Thanks to her site, which is visited daily by loyal readers, you can bet she had people lining up to buy the book as soon as it was available.

Heather agreed to answer some questions for us today, so let’s get started!

Why don’t you give us the scoop on your book and on science fiction romance? It’s a genre I enjoy, and certainly one that’s come a long ways of late, but it does still seem like a fairly niche market.

Let’s start with the scoop on science fiction romance. In fact, this subgenre is like the ultimate banana split sundae. You have SF and romance—the bananas—anchoring a wide variety of stories with ooey-gooey fillings like space opera, cyberpunk, military, steampunk, and post-apocalyptic, and biopunk.

Add crunchalicious toppings like heroes and heroines who are scientists, cyborgs, starship captains, bounty hunters, soldiers, and space pirates, and you’ve got the making of a gastronomic masterpiece. Not that I’m biased or anything. 😉

Science fiction romance is indeed a niche market, but one with the staying power of Hercules. While romantic SF harks back to the 1930s, science fiction romance as a subgenre began as Star Trek fan fiction in the 1960s featuring stories about Mr. Spock in love.

In the mid-1980s, romance publishers began releasing science fiction romance, starting with Janelle Taylor’s MOONDUST AND MADNESS and Jayne Ann Krentz’s SWEET STARFIRE. Since then, science fiction romance evolved into a diverse subgenre released by mainstream print romance and SF publishers as well as by small press/digital publishers.

Science fiction romance’s niche status could very well change as ebooks capture an increasingly larger share of the market. Digital publishers like Samhain Publishing, Red Sage, and Carina Press, among others, are leading the charge in terms of getting science fiction romance ebooks into the hands of readers whether they are hardcore fans or newcomers. Readers have choices like never before, from short stories to novellas to novel-length books, and from stories with heat levels ranging from sweet to sizzling.

And now for the scoop about my debut erotic sci-fi romance, ONCE UPON A TIME IN SPACE (Red Sage Publishing). The premise goes a little something like this:

In the sea of stars, an epic love story is about to begin…

Earth is dying. Nick Venture, the last living descendant of Christopher Columbus, embarks on a dangerous mission to find a new planet and save humanity. This places him on a collision course with Raquel Donovan, the deadliest space pirate in the galaxy.

Raquel lives for one purpose: revenge against a horrible demon from her past. When an attempt to hijack Nick’s starship backfires, Raquel becomes his protector in order to avoid capture by the tyrannical Space Defense Corps. Nick and Raquel are irresistibly drawn to one another despite the forbidden nature of their attraction. But the conflicted pirate’s deepest secret could tear the couple apart even as humanity’s time runs out….

Sounds good! Unlike many of the visitors to my blog, you chose to sign on with a publisher rather than doing it indie style. Can you tell us about Red Sage Publishing and what they bring to the table?

For me, the value of a professionally edited story (whether by a freelance editor or one employed by a publisher), is priceless. In order to discover any and all leads on science fiction romance releases, I had been following a number of industry blogs including Edittorrent.

That blog was started by former Red Sage Senior Editor Theresa Stevens and current Red Sage Senior Editor Alicia Rasley. Their posts impressed me with Red Sage’s editing acumen. Also, they had once blogged about their interest in acquiring science fiction romance, and as my story had erotic elements, I decided to submit it. I’ve been absolutely thrilled with the experience.

Another factor is that Red Sage had the reputation and distribution channels that would help connect readers with my book. I simply couldn’t replicate that on my own. Finally, being familiar with the works of Red Sage authors like Nathalie Gray (FULL STEAM AHEAD) and Ellie Marvel (HEAT), I knew Red Sage wasn’t afraid to take risks with edgy science fiction romances. You can’t beat that kind of validation.

I first found out about you through your wonderful blog, The Galaxy Express. There’s just nothing else out there of this caliber in the SFR field. Can you tell us what prompted you to start it? Were you thinking of using it as a base to promote your own books later on, or did it begin out of love for the genre?

Thanks for your kind words about my blog. The basic history behind The Galaxy Express is that I’ve been a fan of SF-romance blends since my early teens. Unfortunately, I was never able to share my interest with very many people. And my day jobs over the years kept me pretty busy.

All of that changed with the birth of my daughter. I had the luxury of becoming a stay-at-home mom. That translated to extra time that I wanted to use for something fun, and that would channel some of my creative energy that had only manifested itself one other time, in a brief spurt of anime fan fiction (science fiction romance, of course!).

Around that same time, I discovered author Linnea Sinclair, whose books and promotional efforts were instrumental in raising the visibility of science fiction romance. Further research yielded the discovery of a few blogs devoted to the subgenre. Some were active, most others were not. Of the active ones, they seemed disconnected, like the proverbial ships passing in the night.

That alarmed me. Science fiction romance is my favorite subgenre and had been for decades. When I started The Galaxy Express, my goal was a selfish one. I wanted to talk about science fiction romance, period. I’d rarely had a chance to have conversations about it at a group level, never mind on the scale the Internet affords us.

Plus, I decided there was strength in numbers. If I could facilitate an entertaining gateway to all things science fiction romance, then the chances were strong that a bona fide community could develop. Basically, I saw a chance to help revitalize the subgenre and I took it.

One exciting aspect about blogging has been the opportunity to connect readers with a wide variety of books. The fact that one of them is now mine is a happy by-product. As I stated earlier, I had written some fan fiction for fun, and I had all kinds of stories in my head, but they were purely for my own entertainment.

I had thought of my book’s premise years before, but I kept hoping someone else would write it so I could read it, LOL! Mysteriously, no authors had the ability to read my mind, so I decided to start developing the story a little more. Then, a lot more. By the time I finished it, ebooks were a serious contender, so submitting to a small press/digital publisher was a no-brainer.

My occupational training was in another field entirely, so for a Muse to bite me this bad surprised me more than anyone.

I’ve seen some guest posts from you around the web. Do you find that’s a good way to build awareness of your blog and your book?

At the risk of sounding ridiculously clichéd, I have a lot of passion for science fiction romance. That passion meant above all that if anyone is going to read my words about science fiction romance, I owe them an entertaining time. If I had to juggle fifty purple hippos wearing lime green tutus and silver pasties while so engaged, then that was an effort I was willing to make.

That passion also empowered me to start relationships with like-minded readers, bloggers, and authors. Building awareness started with building relationships. My blog wouldn’t be where it is today without all of the incredible contributions from readers, bloggers, authors, and publishers.

Guest posts are a terrific way to build awareness, and especially so if they’re entertaining. Readers are busy people. They deserve posts that are fun, provocative, and informative. I strive to offer something fresh each time I have an opportunity to reach out to them.

Do you have any recommendations for authors who want to build a quality blog that attracts their target readers?

While each author’s path will be unique, I reflected upon some factors that folks could harness for a successful blog. In addition to providing entertaining entertainment and building relationships, consider the following:

* Find your niche—nay, your passion!

Presumably, you’ll blog about something you love so much that you’d be a puddle of tears without it. You’re not blogging about a topic/genre because you want to; you’re doing it because you can’t not blog about it. Have fun with it! Write posts in such a way that readers can’t look away. (Now you see where I’m going with this: I’m a poet and didn’t know it—huzzah!)

*Keep your blog’s focus consistent

In a way, a blog is like a brand. In order for readers to obtain a clear sense of the entertainment you’re offering, consistency is key. Once you decide on a topic, keep it pure.

* Commit to your endeavor fully.

Blogging is a lot of work—albeit fun work—and in order to be successful it requires a long-term commitment. I blog on average 3x weekly, and even then there are weeks when it’s a full-time job. Like Yoda said: “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

*Know your S.E.O.

=Search Engine Optimization. Using even a few basic techniques on a consistent basis will help raise your blog’s visibility.

Those are just a few ideas, and there are many, many more out there. But even if I had all the answers, I wouldn’t give them to you. Why? Because the discoveries you’ll make along the way are part of what will make your blog unique. And I do believe that’s a wrap.

Great advice. Thanks, Heather!

Thanks for having me, Lindsay!

For more information, visit Heather Massey’s Web site at www.heathermassey.com. There, you can download a free three-chapter excerpt of ONCE UPON A TIME IN SPACE (multiple formats available). Heather Massey searches for sci-fi romance adventures aboard her blog, The Galaxy Express. She also blogs about the subgenre for Germany’s premier romance magazine, LoveLetter.

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged blogging, book promotion, heather massey, interviews | 11 Comments

How to Make Money as a Book Blogger Part 3: Content and Keywords

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Lindsay

Blog content page performance Welcome to part three of the series I started with How to Make Money as a Book Blogger Pt. 1 (if you’re coming in new, you may want to start there).

Today we’re talking about choosing a niche for your blog, writing content that attracts book buyers (remember, we’re making money through affiliate links, so we need people to go on and buy books after reading our posts!), and using keywords that will help increase our search engine traffic.

This post isn’t designed to tell you what you have to write, but to help you turn what you want to write into posts people will find. Clear as mud? Good. Let’s get started!

Choosing a genre or “niche” for your blog

When it comes to reading, many of us have preferences for books in certain genres or (for non-fiction) niches. Others like to read across multiple genres, selecting all sorts of books that sound good to them. I don’t want to tell you what you can and can’t blog about, but you’ll do better, insofar as building a fan base and attracting readers goes, by sticking to a specific genre.

It’ll be a rare crowd that shares all your tastes, and people won’t necessarily feel the need to check in often if they’re only interested in a handful of books you blog about. If you blog about an already established genre (and maybe it’s broad such as science fiction and fantasy or narrow such as paranormal romance), you’ve got a ready crowd of folks who already identify themselves as readers of that genre. They can land on a back page of your blog, see from your tagline that you review “cozy mysteries” or “futuristic romances,” and know within seconds they’ve found their kind of place.

With a general book blog, things won’t be as easy because people have to hunt around and see if you’re reviewing things they like, and we just don’t like to waste a lot of time figuring things out. Just think about how quickly you hit your own back button if you can’t find what you’re looking for in the first couple of seconds on a site.

A niche blog with a tagline is going to make things easier all around.

Note:

I’ve seen a lot of new blogs pop up that tote themselves as ebook blogs or indie book blogs. For my money, that’s still too general. Just because I have a kindle doesn’t mean I’m interested in all ebooks; I’m still going to be drawn to SF/F stories. If you want to specialize in covering ebooks or indie books, great, but consider narrowing it further to a specific genre or niche.

Also, with genre-specific book blogs, once you build up an audience, your site will be very attractive to authors looking to advertise. While I talk a lot about affiliate programs, selling advertising can be an even easier way to make money. And, hey, if any of you start high fantasy or steampunk blogs that become popular, come look me up. I’ll be one of your first advertisers!

What to write about on your book blog

We’ve talked about choosing an overarching niche or genre to stick with, but what about specific posts? Naturally, it’s your blog and you can write about whatever you want, but if you want to make some money, it helps to think about what will entice people to go on and purchase the books you’re linking to.

Here are a couple ideas, but don’t let them limit you:

Reviews are a great choice, both because they’re just the sort of content people would expect on a “book blog” and also because people reading reviews are likely looking for new books to buy, so why shouldn’t they buy them via your site and your links?
Posts that highlight new releases in your genre can also do well. They’re simple to write up too, since, unlike book review posts, they don’t require you to have read the book.
Over on my SF/F blog, I’ve had good luck putting together lists of books from specific categories. I’m still selling ebooks from a post I did months ago on 99-cent steampunk ebooks. A tongue-in-cheek list I made of ebooks to help readers survive the zombie apocalypse does well for me too.

Incorporating keywords into your titles and posts

I’ve done a lengthy explanation of keywords and how using them can increase the likelihood of folks finding your blog via search engines, so I’ll do a shorter overview here.

Keywords are the words or, more often, terms people type into search engines such as Google to find what they’re looking for.

For example, if a new book is out and there aren’t many (or any) reviews on Amazon yet, a potential buyer might search for author + book title + review. If you’ve written a post called “A look at the latest by author-name” then you’re not going to be as good of a match (in the search engine’s eyes) as someone who’s entitled their post “Review of Book Title by Author.”

It’s okay to add flair to your titles (and entice folks to click!), but try to hit on the words you think people would actually search for in your titles, and then use those terms a couple more times in the body of your post. You’ll get some bonus love from the search engines if you can get people to link to your post using those keywords (i.e. such-and-such book review), but we’ll talk more about link building later on.

You can tinker around with the Google Adwords Keyword Tool (it’s designed for businesses running Adwords advertising campaigns, but it’s a free way to research keyword frequency on Google). Don’t be discouraged if something like an author’s specific book or even an author isn’t searched that often; that usually means it will be easy to rank at the top of the search engine results because there probably aren’t a lot of people blogging about said term either (at least not people who have a clue about search engine optimization, like you now do!).

For book reviews, it’s pretty obvious what good keywords would be to use, but you can sneak those keywords into other posts as well.

Suppose you did a list of new releases of romance books available for the Kindle. The Keyword Tool tells me “romance novels” is searched more often than “romance books” so I’d probably want to use the more popular term. Stick “kindle” and “ebooks” in your title, too, to attract those specific readers.

Note:

Popular terms (like the two-word terms I mentioned) are harder to rank for, since lots of established, popular sites usually hold the top slots. Three- and four-word phrases are less searched for but easier to rank for.

This is delving a little deeper than you probably need unless you’re the type who enjoys studying statistics and fiddling with this sort of thing. If you just try to use logical keywords in your titles and blog posts, trust me, you’ll be way ahead of most of your peers when it comes to book blogging!

Posted in Blogging | Tagged book blogging, choose niche, ebooks, genres, indie authors, make money blogging, make money with book blog | 4 Comments

Ebook Authors Can Set up Amazon Author Pages Too

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Lindsay

Amazon Author Central Page You don’t have to be a traditionally published author to have an Amazon Author Page. If you’ve published your ebook for the Kindle store, you qualify as an author as far as Amazon is concerned. If you haven’t set up an author page yet, you’re missing an opportunity to let potential buyers find out a little more about you (and your books!).

What is an Amazon Author Page?

If you go to a book or ebook page on Amazon and click the author’s name, you’ll be taken to their page. Here’s mine: Lindsay Buroker @ Amazon.

If an author hasn’t created a page, a reader clicking that link will simply be taken to the Amazon search results that come up for their name (this can be somewhat unhelpful if there are multiple authors with the same name). If the page has been filled out, they’ll see more information about you, such as your bio, your other available books, and your most recent blog posts (if you add your feed).

How do you set up an Amazon Author Page?

Piece of cake. Head over to Author Central, create an account, wait a couple days for approval, and start filling in the good stuff. You can add your…

Books
Author picture
Biography
Events
Blog Feed
Videos (i.e. book trailers)

People can also start discussions (forum threads) on your author page, so if you want to look popular, talk your friends into coming over and chatting your work up for you. Or ask people who visit your blog to come say something interesting (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

Thoughts on creating a biography

I’m not the best at writing blurbs about myself, but I made myself fill out a bio. I figure, if nothing else, it’s a chance to sprinkle a few keywords onto my author page. As far as I know, there’s no way for us to track how many visitors find our Amazon author page via the search engines, but it probably doesn’t hurt to list the genre or sub-genre you write in your bio. I worked “fantasy novels” into mine a couple times.

At the least, it’s helpful to let visitors know who you are and what you’re about right off the bat. Book covers themselves don’t always tell the whole story!

For readers who have been-there-done-that, do you have any tips for creating a helpful author page?

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales | Tagged amazon author central, amazon author page | 1 Comment

Lindsay Buroker

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Ebook Authors Can Set up Amazon Author Pages Too

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