Amazon makes it easy for you to publish your book and start making money in less than 24 hours.
Successful authors make as much as $10,000 or more monthly from their books. However, you cannot reach that milestone without putting in the work.
Writing and publishing your book isn’t enough. You have to promote it and come up with an effective strategy to ensure success.
I’m going to share 10 kindle publishing secrets to help you sell more books on Amazon KDP and ensure passive income.
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1. VALIDATE YOUR BOOK IDEA
One of the main reasons for writing your book is so it can be read. The best way to achieve that is to write something that interests your target audience.
So, validate your book idea and find out if there’s a market for it. For example, are people interested in what you want to write? Is there competition? Are there similar books? And Can you earn money from your book?
Conduct market research before writing to ensure you find readers and attract sales.
One way to determine whether or not your book idea will sell is to ask your existing followers. So, talk about the book you want to write or the content you want to share and ask them if there’ll be interested in reading it. Listen to the feedback you get to set yourself up for success.
Another option is to conduct a survey and email it to your newsletter subscribers.
Once you determine there’s demand for your content, go ahead and write your book.
Make sure you have a catchy title and subtitle to attract your audience.
Your title or subtitle should make it easy for the reader to determine what they’ll benefit from reading your book. So, choose a descriptive title that tells your audience what the book is about.
Create a book cover that grabs attention and helps you stand out from the competition. You can hire a designer to assist you and speed up the process or do it yourself.
If you want to hire a professional, look for one on 99designs, Upwork, or People Per Hour. If you want to design the cover, use Adobe InDesign, Canva, or QuarkXPress.
2. BUILD AN AUDIENCE
One thing that makes it difficult to attract sales is not having an effective marketing strategy. If people don’t know you exist, they won’t find or buy your book.
So, build an audience to generate buzz and get people interested in reading your book once it’s published.
Promote your upcoming book to your existing followers including your email subscribers.
Talk about the contents of the book. For example, what the book focuses on, who it’s for, and how your target audience benefits. Don’t share all the information. Share enough to raise interest and keep prospects looking forward to the publishing date.
Depending on your niche, your main aim should be to write a book that offers a solution to your target audience’s problems, one that helps them mitigate challenges or one that keeps them entertained.
The most important thing is to cater to your audience’s needs and keep them excited about your book.
3. BUILD A MAILING LIST
One of the most effective ways to attract sales is to build a mailing list and promote your book to your subscribers. Most authors invest in this monetization strategy and are seeing significant returns.
Use your emails to nurture leads, build worthwhile relations, and grow your readership.
Share valuable content within your niche to instill trust and make it easy for potential buyers to purchase your book once you start promoting.
When you have at least 50 email subscribers, start promoting your book. Send free samples to attract sales.
For example, share the first two chapters of your book with your subscribers and get them interested in reading the entire book. If your content is valuable and appeals to them, they will be more than happy to buy your book.
Create an author website and use it to build your mailing list. You can add a popup on your homepage and only ask for the user’s first name and email address. Doing this helps you convert first-time users into email subscribers and is key to attracting more sign-ups.
Another option is to ask your social media followers to sign up for your newsletter. Use persuasive language and give them a reason to join your mailing list.
Use book promotional methods to get more sales when you publish. For example, share promotional content on social media and recruit people to promote your book for you. You can send them free samples of your book and ask them to market it and talk about it to their followers.
Make sure you state that they mustn’t share the book with anyone. All they need to do is promote it. They can briefly talk about the book’s contents, how they benefited, and who will benefit from it.
4. HAVE BETA READERS
Once you’re done writing your book and editing or sending it to an editor, find beta readers.
Have beta readers before publishing your book to ensure you sell something people are willing to invest their time and money in.
Ask for feedback from your readers and appreciate the input you get. If changes need to be made, implement them.
Your beta readers should be people who will be honest with you and ones who won’t be biased. Find them on social media or on your mailing list. You can also partner with fellow authors, form a beta readers group, and share feedback.
One thing that leads to kindle publishing success is positive reviews. They boost your rankings and influence buying decisions. So, ask your readers to leave reviews on the Amazon book page.
Make it easy for your readers to review your book. For example, add a page at the end of your book asking for reviews. Be honest. Tell the reader why you are asking for a review. For example, mention that it helps with visibility and is key to ensuring others benefit from it as well.
Use book giveaways to get reviews. You can send a certain number of carefully selected email subscribers an advance copy of your book, for example, and ask them to leave an honest review on Amazon once they’ve finished reading it.
Amazon reviews are important. They affect book sales and whether or not you can promote your book on reputable promotional sites. So, invest in the process and make sure you get at least five 5-star reviews before publishing.
5. OPTIMIZE YOUR BOOK DESCRIPTION
Amazon KDP lets you write your book description to help buyers learn more about your book. So, optimize the description and use it to sell more books. Your description plays a crucial role in determining who buys your book and who doesn’t. So, make the most of it.
Make sure your description is memorable. Don’t just summarize your book. Use it to sell more copies, state what the reader will benefit from your book, and convince them to buy.
You can use bullet points to list the benefits and keep your description attractive. Use HTML to add bullet points, italicized text, and other eye-catching accents to capture the reader’s attention.
Go to KDP help pages to learn more about the supported styling tags.
Raise curiosity with your description and leave the reader hanging to get them to purchase your book.
The best and easy way to write a compelling book description is to learn from best-selling authors in your genre. Target at least 5 best-sellers, go to their book descriptions, and pay attention to how they are formatted.
You don’t have to copy the descriptions as they are. All you have to do is get ideas and optimize your copy. Avoid keyword-stuffing and make sure you adhere to Amazon’s rules when writing your description.
6. CHOOSE THE RIGHT CATEGORIES
Amazon only allows you to choose two categories when creating your title for the first time. You can add more categories or subcategory combinations after that.
Make sure you choose niche categories to help users find your book and purchase it.
Categories are also used to determine bestseller rankings. So, research your categories and choose them carefully.
Use popular and obscure categories to get more exposure and turn your book into a bestseller.
One way to identify the right categories is to look at other books that are similar to yours on Amazon. Concentrate on the categories they fall under and use some for your book.
Simply search for the book, scroll down the page, and find the categories.
Learn more about choosing book categories from the KDP help center page.
7. FIND PROFITABLE KEYWORDS
Keywords can boost your rankings and help you sell more books. So, find and use profitable keywords for your book to attract more sales.
Identify keywords that your target audience uses to search for books related to yours and incorporate them into your strategy. Mix trending keywords with ones that are not popular to set yourself up for success.
Identify profitable keywords by searching for your targeted words on Amazon. Use incognito mode when searching to ensure Amazon doesn’t consider your previous search when making suggestions.
Remember to select “Books” before running your search to get the results you desire and avoid being shown products that have nothing to do with kindle books.
Use long-tail keywords, popular keywords, and keywords that are not trending to appear in more searches and get more sales.
Another option is to invest in a tool like Publisher Rocket by bestselling author Dave Chesson to identify the right keywords for your book and start selling more books.
Publisher Rocket lists keywords in your niche, gives you search volume data such as the number of people who search for that particular keyword, and more.
Finding and using profitable keywords increases organic discovery and boosts sales. So, invest in the process and do adequate research to ensure success.
8. USE AMAZON’S PRICING SUGGESTIONS
The way you price your book can affect sales and profits. Pricing it right can help you attract sales, boost visibility, and get more reviews. So, pick your prices right.
Find out how fellow writers are charging and set your prices accordingly.
Use Amazon’s pricing suggestions to get ideas and ensure you set your prices right and get more sales.
Take advantage of KDP Select and enroll your book to get it in front of more readers and boost visibility.
When you enroll your book in KDP Select, it becomes exclusive to Amazon only. That means you won’t be able to sell it through any other retailers for as long as it’s enrolled in KDP Select.
Readers who have paid for Kindle Unlimited can read your book for free.
You get paid through royalties.
Kindle Unlimited is a program that allows readers to download and read as many books as they like for only $9,99 per month.
When you enroll your book in KDP Select, it automatically becomes available to readers on Kindle Unlimited. They can download and read it without paying for it.
Enrolling your book in KDP Select has many benefits including increased royalties, free book promos on Amazon, countdown deals, access to the Kindle Owners Lending library, and so much more.
As a KDP Select author, you can earn 70% royalties if your book is priced between $2,99 and $9,99. If it’s priced between $0,99 and $2, you earn 35% royalties. You get paid per page read. The more page-reads you get, the more money you make.
On average, you can make $0,004577 per page. That doesn’t seem like much but it adds up in the end. If you have a decent number of loyal readers and fans who are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited, they’ll give you a boost.
Another option is to run price promos to attract buyers, boost your rankings, and increase sales.
You can slash your price for a certain period to attract sales, for example. Tell your email subscribers and social media followers about the promotion to raise interest.
Create a sense of urgency and come up with an effective pricing strategy to attract sales and get more readers. For example, set your price to $0,99 on week 1 of the publication date. Raise the price to $2,99 on week two and $3,99 on week three. Make sure your audience is aware of the promo you are running. That is how you influence buying decisions and enhance sales.
9. RUN AMAZON ADS
Leverage Amazon Ads to boost your book’s visibility and sell more copies.
Use Amazon Targeted Ads to ensure you get your book in front of the right audience and enhance sales.
Amazon Targeted Ads make it easy for you to reach your audience based on categories, bestselling titles, keyword search terms, and so much more. Targeted ads are key to reaching your target audience, increasing your readership, and selling more books. So, invest in them.
Running Amazon Ads also gets your book in the “Also bought” section. Which boosts your book’s visibility and helps you reach your readers.
Amazon recommends your book to readers who buy books related to your niche or ones within your book categories. The best thing about this is that your book is advertised to people who are already interested in the type of content that’s similar to yours. Therefore, your chances of getting them to buy are high.
Another way to succeed with Kindle publishing is to optimize your Author page. So, set up an author page and use it to connect with your target audience. Upload a picture showing your face to be more relatable and build trust.
Add a friendly and clear bio to capture attention and attract book sales. Your bio can talk about some of your best and relevant achievements, your author’s blog, and so on. Use it to connect with your audience and get your readers to understand you better.
10. USE BOOK PROMOTION SITES
Book promotion sites can help you reach a bigger audience and increase your earnings. The most important thing is to find reputable sites and work with them.
The best thing about book promotion sites is that they already have lots of traffic including readers looking for books to buy. These sites can help you promote your book and get it in front of thousands of people if not more.
Your book can be promoted on the book promo sites, newsletters, and social media pages. This increases your chances of getting more sales and making more money from your book.
Some of the best book promotion sites to consider are BookBub, Book Goodies, Buck Books, TCK Publishing, Book Gorilla, EBook Hunter, and Indie Book of the Day.
Some of these sites are free while others are paid. I recommend you invest in paid ones to ensure sales and increase your chances of success.
BONUS
Have an author blog and use it to build an audience, connect with your readers, and get more leads. Start blogging on Medium or use a CMS like WordPress to design your blog. Make sure you share content that’s in line with your niche to make it easy for readers to buy your books. Don’t stop blogging after publishing your book. Continue sharing high-quality content, building your audience, and connecting with your readers.
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