Many authors/writers have discovered the power and potential of the Amazon Kindle marketplace for selling their books.
For eBooks priced from $0.99 to $2.98, and eBooks priced at $10.00 or more, Amazon pays 35% in royalties on all products sold. For eBooks priced between $2.99 and $9.99, Amazon pays royalties equal to 70% on all products sold.
Without a doubt, some book authors are making an absolute killing by self-publishing their books on Amazon. A good friend of mine is making half a million a year with her books on the Kindle platform.
It is possible to make a nice living selling nonfiction on Amazon, but the people collecting the largest royalty checks are those who are writing fiction.
Publishing Essentials
Amazon Kindle is an attractive place to publish books, because absolutely anyone who is willing to set up a Kindle Digital Publishing account can upload a manuscript and start selling their books within 24 hours in most cases.
Amazon is also the largest "buyer search engine" on the Internet, meaning that the people using Amazon's search tool are looking for products to purchase.
When you load your book to the Amazon website, there are a few key pieces of information you will need to include with your book upload:
Must be logged into an Amazon Account;
Title;
Author (Pen Names are acceptable);
Description;
Categories;
Keywords;
Description;
Image representing Book Cover;
Book Manuscript;
Prices;
Choose optional Amazon promotional programs.
Book Marketing Essentials
In most cases, the primary marketing tools you need are six items:
Title that will catch the shopper's attention;
Book Cover that assures the shopper that this book will give them what they want;
Category choices that will allow it to be found by its target audience;
Keywords that could help people using the search function find the book;
Book Description that sells the book to the person looking at the book;
A respectable and acceptable Price.
Common Misconception About Book Marketing in General
Many people believe that all they need to do is to create a book and upload it to Amazon, in order to start making money. In part, this is true.
Once the book is uploaded and approved by Amazon, then you can start making sales.
However, your book marketing essentials need to be solid, in order for you to actually find buyers.
You must have an interesting book title.
You must have a book cover that appeals to the reader. The big thing here is that you want your book cover to look like it was professionally designed, rather than designed by your junior high school child or grandchild.
Most important, you must have a compelling book description. The title and cover will get people to open your sales page, but it is your description that will sell the book for you.
It is sad, but most self-published authors will spend several months writing their book and less than ten minutes crafting their book description. Yet, future buyers are looking to the book description to convince them whether they should or should not purchase your book.
If the description stinks, then sales will stink too.
If you construct a compelling description, you could very well find your book on the best sellers list.
Reality Check About Selling Books on Amazon
People tell me all the time that they don't need to worry about marketing their books, because Amazon will do all of their marketing for them.
Here is what you need to understand about Amazon marketing your books for you.
Yes, Amazon wants to sell more products, so they will tell their customers about your books.
But here is the thing... Amazon's internal marketing machine is completely driven by computer algorithm. An algorithm is a computer program that seeks out products to share with their customers.
Amazon's computer algorithms are designed to find strong selling products and to promote those top-selling items to their customers.
Amazon isn't going to push a product that has only sold ten copies in the last month. Instead, it is going to push products that are currently selling hundreds of units a day, because they are trying to maximize the number of products they can sell. They are not going to promote a product that has lukewarm sales.
If you want to sell lots of books on Amazon, you should refrain from burying your head in the sand.
In order to get Amazon to market your books for you, you have to help your book by getting its sales started on good footing.
You can of course try the marketing approach that most authors take -- upload and pray.
Or, you can invest a little time or money to get your sales rolling, so that the Amazon sales algorithm can find your book and promote it to their customers.
You can advertise your book for free in a number of Facebook groups, on Twitter, or on your own blog. You don't have a blog? Why not?
Or, you can spend a little money and advertise your book on a site like https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing - Bookbub or any of the websites http://www.tckpublishing.com/top-kindle-book-promotion-sites-for-paid-kindle-books-0-99-and-up/ - shown here.
You Are In The Driver's Seat
As a self-published book author, you are not only your own publisher, but you are also your own marketing team.
All you really need to do is to grease the wheels, so that Amazon's internal sales algorithm can find your book and tell their customers about it.
Once Amazon has found your book, then Amazon will do all of your book marketing for you.
Until you can get your sales moving forward, the only hope that your book will have for good sales is one -- pray hard.
If you need help finding story ideas for your fiction writing, check out
http://FictionPlots.com/ If you enjoyed this article, then you should also check out
http://SelfPublisherToday.com/ where Bill Platt is the publisher and a frequent contributor.
