The Amazon marketplace is the premier place for authors to sell their books. It’s no wonder why so many people are interested in how to sell more books on Amazon. The problem is that there are a lot of different strategies out there and it can be hard to know which one will work best for you. That’s where Made for Success comes in!
We offer a specialized product known as the “Amazon Optimized Book Launch” process, which is guaranteed to increase your book sales exponentially! In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to five easy hacks that can help you sell more books on Amazon.
How to Sell More Books on Amazon
Learning to sell more books on Amazon isn’t too tricky when you consider the different factors that cause your book to show up in the search results.
Remember, much like Google, the Amazon algorithm operates with its own proprietary blend of magic that helps new readers use keywords in a search that match them up with a book.
Factors like book reviews (especially positive reviews) can all contribute to your sales rank. Reviews as a whole will be a big part of getting traction for your book on amazon.
There are 5 main categories that we’ll go through to help you sell more books!
- Book description
- Categories and keywords
- The power of the review
- Leveraging kindle ebooks for download
- Your author page
We’ll get further into what each and every one of these means and how you can best leverage them in order to reach potential readers and sell more books.
1. Book Description Optimization
Your book description is the radar frequency that you tune for potential readers to discover your book via search on amazon.
When you write a book description, you need to be acutely aware of the audience that you’re trying to reach. Time to put on your marketing hat.
Ask yourself some of the following questions:
- Who are my customers likely to be?
- When I publish this book, who will be the most interested?
- What kinds of keywords would I want to show up for?
Make your book description something that stands out. and speaks to the audience that you want to find.
Writing your book description can sometimes be more important than writing your book itself!
Amazon’s search functionality is calibrated to show customers books that match their search description.
Being that your book description is a dense piece of copy on your book’s listing page (along with your book cover and title), it’s a keyword-rich section of text that the Amazon search algorithm will grab onto.
The description of your book will be a springboard for new customers to learn about your book, and provide an example of the type of content they can expect inside it.
Our Amazon Optimization process at Made for Success takes all of this into account, of course.
2. Categories and Keywords
Piggy-backing off of the book description, sorting your book under the correct categories and genre will be essential enhancing the discovery of the book.
In a nutshell, it’s not enough just to get more traffic to your book, it’s essential that you get the RIGHT customers to your book. This means reverse-engineering all of your content with the Amazon search that you want to show up for.
If you’re writing a self-help book, consider the different keywords and categories that you can pursue.
Here are just a few off the top of my head.
Motivational, inspiring, business, happiness, joy, positivity.
“Self-help” or “motivational” may be one of the parent categories, but the subtext keywords that come beneath it are equally important to consider.
You can use powerful tools like AHREFS or UberSuggest to explore keywords that have high levels of search volume. Choose keywords like those for your book’s category and you’ll be sure to attract more readers and drive more sales on Amazon.
3. The Power of the Review
Buckle up folks, because this is going to be an important one. Reviews are king when it comes to Amazon. They can be the driving factor that will make your book stand out, especially positive reviews.
Think about the best local restaurants that you visit. Do you research each one intently and come to a conclusion all your own as to whether or not it’s a place you’d like to dine?
…most likely, you rely on the reviews.
People find your book based on your description and optimization through the Amazon search, but they become customers once they verify that you’ve got a review profile that’s up to snuff.
So what can you do to drive a person to leave a review?
Well firstly, Amazon doesn’t take too kindly to pandering for fake reviews. In fact, they’ve gotten pretty robust in terms of screening for it.
The best thing that you can do is promote your book to your audience and ask them for an honest review of the book. We make an assumption here that you’ve written a book that is worth leaving a positive review for, so selling books should be a breeze.
Having a marketing engine in place to help get exposure for reviews will be highly beneficial. Some authors will provide a free book in exchange for an honest review (can’t emphasize that example enough).
When the reader finishes your book, they’ll leave a review with their thoughts. This can help accelerate the amount of traction that you get from Amazon. As you continue to gain momentum, you can see your book begin ascending toward the bestseller status.
Also, while we’re talking about marketing, don’t underestimate the power of social media. Authors with well-established social media profiles already have an active audience of fans who will likely say yes to reading a free book in exchange for a review.
Selling more books becomes easier and easier with the more positive reviews you drive, so be inventive in the different strategies that you employ to seek out a review.
Of course, our team has plenty of tips to help your book get more exposure, too.
4. Kindle Unlimited
Here’s where having a website can come in quite handy.
If it’s a well-designed, attractive site that provides value to the visitor and is updated with fresh content periodically, then you have an excellent opportunity for more exposure on Amazon.
If you have a book published, you can easily convert the book into the Kindle format. Kindle, as an eBook, gives you another opportunity to get more traction for your book on Amazon.
Much like Google, Amazon likes when you play with more of their products. So if you are publishing a book, consider publishing a Kindle eBook as well as an audiobook too.
On your own website, you can easily host a landing page that offers a download of the book on Amazon. You may even give customers a promotion code that they can enter on Amazon when they purchase the book.
This is where having a crafty marketing process is going to be your friend.
You want to create a plan that’s going to help you sell more books on Amazon. You can do this by hosting online book clubs, or offering the first chapter for free on your website and then directing readers back to Amazon.
Within the realm of marketing and website, you will also want to have some type of email marketing campaign in place where you can build an audience group that’s curated around your ideal new readers.
There are limitless ideas and tips out there for how to drive more engagement for your book and more sales as a result.
Ranking your website for keywords also gives you more opportunity to show up for a search on Google or Bing as well.
5. Your Author Page
That’s right, you’re the author! You’re the star of the show after all.
Similar to the description section covered earlier, your author page is one that should be well-optimized for various keywords that pertain to the subject matter of your book.
Customers and readers do not always go seeking a book based on the subject matter alone, they often will have a search based upon the author too.
The Amazon algorithm encompasses the description of your book for keywords as well as your own author page. Working within the confines of the algorithm and maximizing the customer experience will be your biggest tasks.
Here are a few things to consider on your author page:
- List out organizations that you’ve been part of
- List any other bestseller books that you may have had
- Think about keywords that matter to your audience
- Think about keywords that you DO NOT want to show up for
- Try listing out multiple books that inspired you to write yours, so you show up for similar searches
- List out any alternative genre you think that your book may fall under
As you can see, there are lots of different things to consider when optimizing your Amazon author page. It’s a lot to take in, but sticking to the fundamentals will be your friend here.
Amazon Algorithm
The Amazon algorithm, at the end of the day, is an impartial mechanism of code. In fact, it will be the most important “customer” that you get to leave a review!
When we talk about optimizing an Amazon listing for an author, we are primarily looking to reverse-engineer what people see based on data and what we know about the amazon algorithm.
If you can learn to manipulate those factors and be ahead of the curve, you’ll have a successful book marketing strategy in place, and be selling plenty of books in no time at all.
If you need more tips or help on your way to becoming an Amazon bestseller, the Made for Success team has you covered. Our Amazon optimized book publishing service has already been shown to be a substantial X factor in many client’s book launches.
Click here to talk to one of our book marketing experts.