Amazon Advertising – How authors can make sense of a Sales Report

If you don’t know by now, Amazon advertising is the most powerful ecommerce engine available to consumers and retailers alike.  In a typical month, Amazon can get up to 3 billion visits. Even though not every 3 billion visitors are looking for books, stop and think about how absolutely staggering that number is. At Made for Success, we are focused …

Tell the World with a Book Trailer Video – Author Training Series

Get out the popcorn and dim the lights! As an up and coming bestselling author, it’s time to promote your book the old fashioned way: with a promotional trailer. Whether your book is a fictional story or it’s the true story of a brand, passion or success philosophy, your book ought to be in pictures. Posting book trailer videos online …

Social Media, Book Promotion and the Sweet Smell of Success

Ah, the sweet smell of success: your book is finally a household name, the topic of conversation in coffee houses and the subject of toasts in fine dining establishments. Just yesterday, you turned down a media interview due to your busy schedule. Tomorrow you’re off to Barbados for a quick dip in the salty surf, then a date with a …

Book Publicity Media Kits – The 5 Essential Elements Journalists Need

Successfully marketing your book basically means letting people know that it exists. After all, you wrote down your best ideas so that others would read and enjoy them. Getting more book sales translates to more people sharing your best ideas – fact or fiction— and benefitting from them. As the person who’s primarily responsible for promoting your book, one smart …

Traditional Media Exposure = Rocket Fuel for Your Book Launch

There are several thousand ways to successfully publicize a book that I’m aware of, and some are more effective than others. For example, you can promote your book by selling it back-of-room during speaking engagements, and you may actually make thousands of sales this way. The problem with this approach is that your own involvement limits the number of sales …

Book Reviews: How to Get Book Reviews on Amazon

As an author, the best thing that can happen for your book is that titillating four-letter word we all love and fear at the same time: BUZZ. Getting people to read and talk up your book is what it’s all about. Buzz is the reason for those late nights hunched over your keyboard with an empty cup of something at …

The Write Stuff – Choosing the Best BISAC Genre for Your Book

In the beginning, the world was void – formless, nameless, unreadable. Then everything got categorized, and we’ve been trying to file it ever since. It makes sense, doesn’t it? So too with books. Just as soon as an author writes something, somebody comes along and categorizes it. The most successful authors categorize their work first, then write it. When you …

How to Write a Press Release for a Book Launch

For authors seeking that elusive “best-seller” status, self-promotion can be your best tool for driving laser sharp traffic and increasing book sales. Of all the self-promotion options available, distributing press releases is probably the most overlooked method. It’s unfortunate because it can be highly effective – especially if your press release is picked-up by a major news outlet, journal or …

Smarter Amazon Listings for Books, eBooks and Audiobooks

Getting a book into tens of thousands of readers’ hands is no easy task. One of the greatest challenges an author faces is overcoming the problem of obscurity. Digital book catalogs have unlimited shelf space, making it increasingly difficult for interested readers to find your book. Over the weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a senior executive from Amazon.com. …