These Amazon Category Hacks Can Boost Your Book Sales
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Choosing the right Amazon categories for your book can greatly increase your visibility in the Kindle Store, making your work more likely to be discovered, purchased, and recommended. But if you make bad decisions here – or opt to do nothing at all – you can limit your book’s success in surprising ways. Sometimes you can even nudge Amazon towards recommend your book to all the wrong people! Which invariably fails, of course, and causes Amazon to think you have written a dud. Meaning Amazon is less likely to recommend your book at all. This is something you really want to avoid. Many authors do ..read more
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What The Big Tech Hearings Mean For Indie Authors
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
The CEOs of Big Tech – Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple – were grilled during hearings on Capitol Hill yesterday, stepping up the anti-trust chatter that has been percolating for the last few years. While some of you might be tempted to reflexively dismiss these hearings as political theater, many commentators seem to agree that this time feels different. (Disclosure: I used to work for Google many moons ago.) Political sands have shifted. Public sentiment towards tech companies has soured — companies who were once almost universally loved. Well, at least in the case of three of them; Amazo ..read more
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7 Expert Tricks To Improve Your Author Newsletter
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
There is so much more you can do with your author newsletter these days beyond simply telling your fans that you have a new book. Email isn’t just good at bringing you new readers, it’s uniquely good at deepening engagement with your audience. These tricks won’t just help you increase the responsiveness from your list – they’ll also help you make some cold, hard cash too. Before we dive in to these next-level strategies, please note this is primarily intermediate/expert level stuff. If you are less experienced – or less convinced of the merits of email marketing, like contacting your readers r ..read more
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Also Boughts & Amazon Recommendations
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Amazon recommendations drive millions of dollars of book purchases every single day, and Also Boughts are central to this system, which can lead to panic when they periodically disappear. Also Boughts play an important role in Amazon recommendations — that process of pairing books to readers like some literary version of Tinder — but the exact role in Amazon’s recommender system can be misunderstood. So let’s break it all down today, and show you the exact role Also Boughts play in Amazon recommendations, and why you need to protect yours. What Are Also Boughts? How Amazon Recommendations Wor ..read more
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The Great Ebook Pricing Question
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Writers tie themselves into knots about ebook pricing but it can be quite simple, once you dispense with some rather popular myths. As you will see, if you focus on income over price, the path forward becomes very clear – one which can be adjusted to suit your personal circumstances. Price is not a hill to die on, but a powerful tool for levering your books into the charts, rewarding fans, generating buzz, and expanding your audience. A tasty stew indeed. Let’s tuck in. Price-value confusion Before we get to the nuts-and-bolts, it’s time to slay a zombie meme. Much of the distracting noise on ..read more
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Editing A Book • The 5 Stages
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Editing a book is a complex, multi-part process that is best handled by experienced professionals, even if you are self-publishing, and even if you diligently spend a lot of time self-editing. There are five main stages to editing a book to the proper standard, although some stages can be combined, repeated, expanded upon, or even skipped, depending on your individual needs (which is a polite way of saying: depending on how much of a dog’s dinner you made of things). As a regular maker of dog’s dinners myself, I have become intimately acquainted with all five stages and can break down how to e ..read more
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How To Design A Book Cover That Sells
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Getting your book cover design right is the arguably most important stage in self-publishing a book. Handle this delicately if you want to have any chance of success — this is not an area where you can skate by. Without the right cover, no one will give your book a chance, no matter how well-written it is, or how diligent your editor. This comprehensive guide will break down the anatomy of a great book cover so you know what you’re shooting for, but that’s just the beginning. It will also show you how to research your specific niche so that you know what readers are already responding to, wher ..read more
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How To Design A Book Cover That Sells
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Getting your book cover design right is the arguably most important stage in self-publishing a book. You must handle this delicately if you want to have any chance of success — this is not an area where you can skate by. Without the right cover, no one will give your book a chance, no matter how well-written it is, or how diligent your editor. This comprehensive guide will break down the anatomy of a great book cover so you know what you’re shooting for, but that’s just the beginning. It will also show you how to research your specific niche so that you know what readers are already responding ..read more
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Facebook Engagement Bait and Shadow Bans
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Authors using Facebook can unknowingly practice what is known as engagement bait, and could be in danger of receiving shadow bans. Websites try to keep your attention as long as possible, but the stakes are higher on Facebook where a drop in engagement can cost millions of dollars. Or FACEBOOK as it now insists on calling itself, like a shouty man outside a pub. Content which keeps people on Facebook – like video or pictures – gets much more organic reach than content which sends people away, such as a link to your books on Amazon. Not only that, Facebook will also give preference to content w ..read more
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9 Ways To Unleash The Power of Free In 2021
David Gaughran
by David Gaughran
3y ago
Authors are giving away more stuff than ever before: permafree books, reader magnets, and ARCs are just the tip of the iceberg. What’s going on? Should you jump on the free train? Does any of this stuff generate money? Let’s break it down. The self-publishing landscape today looks very different from when I started ten years ago, that heady time when ebooks first exploded in popularity. But some things are suddenly feeling quite similar. The impact of the pandemic and lockdowns has seen a lot of economic change occur in a short space of time. With an increase in online purchasing for painfully ..read more
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