5 AWESOME WAYS TO SELL MORE BOOKS

OK, so you’ve just written your non-fiction book and the content is spot-on, appealing and saleable.  You’re sure the text is grammatically correct, there are no spelling faults and your book has been formatted for the Amazon platform.

You may be uploading your book on to the Amazon platform for the first time. Alternatively, you may have published your book on Amazon some time ago and it just isn’t setting the best seller rank on fire but you need to give it some va-va-voom!

Here are the five awesome steps that are often overlooked by authors but can make a big difference to book sales and they are all things that YOU can control. Ensure that you have addressed all five steps before you start any advertising campaigns otherwise you could be throwing your hard-earned cash away.

       1. TITLE/SUBTITLE

The title is important. Does it grab the readers’ attention?  Does it contain keywords that will lead prospective readers to your book?

A good title needs to: 1. Hook the reader 2. Solve a pressing problem 3. Provide benefits and 4. Include the keywords you’re looking to rank for on Amazon.

Compare the title ‘The New Puppy Handbook’ to ‘The New Puppy Handbook: Your Easy Step-by-Step Guide to Choosing, Training and Caring For Your Puppy’.  In this example, the keyword ‘Puppy’ is there in the title.  The subtitle provides the solution to a problem – ‘How do I choose, train and care for a puppy?’ and the benefits are that it’s going to be ‘easy’ and it’s a ‘step-by-step guide’.

         2. COVER

If you want to sell more books without costing a fortune, then check out your book cover. The cover is what attracts people to your book as it has to be eye-catching and ooze appeal.  You have to make people desire your book over and above your competitors and there are ways you can create your own cover through KDP for free.

However, if you get a professionally created cover, it can pay dividends in the long run. You can find amazing cover designers on Fiverr (www.fiverr.com) and Upwork (www.upwork.com). A stunning cover can make your book sales zing but a bad cover can send them on the road to nowhere.

If you’ve already paid for a cover, be honest with yourself or find a group of folks who will critique it for you. Is it good enough? Does it stand the test when compared to other books in your genre?

          3. KEYWORDS

When we think of search engines, Google is probably the one we all know and love.  What many people don’t realise is that Amazon is in the top three search engines in the world.  Keywords are what your prospective buyers will be putting into the Amazon search bar looking for your book.  So you need to identify the main keywords associated with your book.

One of the ways of finding keywords is to type, for instance, ‘puppy a’ into the Amazon search bar and see what other words crop up in the list that appears. Some of these words or phrases may well apply to your book. When you’ve noted them down from this search, then go to ‘puppy b’, then ‘puppy c’ and so on through the alphabet. The quickest way of finding keywords is investing in the amazing Publisher Rocket which does this job for you in a fraction of the time. No serious author should be without this software.

When you’re entering your details on to the Amazon platform, KDP give you the capacity for 7 keywords.  In each of the keyword boxes you are allowed 50 characters which equates to the bold print in the first part of this paragraph.

           4. DESCRIPTION

The description is the blurb that appears on your Amazon sales page. Once a prospective buyer has been bowled over by your ingenious title/subtitle and has been wowed by your cover, the next step is to check out what the book is all about. The description amounts to a psychological exercise in drawing people in because you want to give them no other option but to press that BUY BUTTON for your book.

How’s it done? It’s not beyond any writer to formulate a great description and increase those book sales. Hook your readers with the first sentence showing the reader who this is for and what problem needs to be solved. This is often achieved by asking questions like ‘Have you tried numerous diets but haven’t lasted the distance?’ List your benefits with bullet points. Show them how your book will solve the problems they are having and finish your description with a call to action like ‘To achieve the body you’ve always dreamed off click the BUY NOW button!’

When you upload your description to Amazon, it needs to be shown in HTML code. So for beginners I would suggest using Dave Chesson’s Book Description Generator which is a great free resource and does all the coding for you.

            5. CATEGORIES

You will have noticed that your sales page on Amazon shows three categories and these are where your book is listed. So anyone searching these categories may well come across your offering. Another useful component of Publisher Rocket is that you can check out your competitors’ categories and add these to your own if you wish. ‘But’ I hear you say, ‘I’ve got my three categories already.’ TOP TIP Did you know that you can compete in 10 categories each for Kindle and your paperback?

In order to do this, you need to contact Amazon. Go to kdp.amazon.com, click on Help at the top. Scroll down and click on the Contact Us box on the left. Click on the top box named ‘Amazon Product Page and Expanded Distribution’ and then on ‘Update Amazon Categories’.

The more categories your book is in, the more potential there is to sell more books and make more profit.

Good luck! These five tips will help you to sell more books without costing a fortune. Contact Us if you need further help.