by Ben Zackheim | Jun 19, 2014 | Writing |
How to price your ebook can be a tough decision.
Which is surprising since there aren’t many standard price points to choose from!
$.99 – $9.99
That can be broken down in fifty cent increments or one dollar increments. ($1.49, $1.99, $2.49, etc.)
Sure, you could charge $1.27, or $6.73, but price points like that tend to make customers think they’re buying a used item.
So with a max of 19 prices, how do you price your ebook?
What does the competition charge?
Get a clear picture of what people expect to pay for your kind of story.The best place to start is to look at what the competition charges in the Top 20, then price-match the books that you’d like to compete with.
For those of us who write in those annoying little gray areas where it’s tough to find the competition… well… we need to dig a little deeper to find good facts to work from.
My Shirley Link mystery series for Middle Grade to Young Adult is a perfect example. Not many indys write in this specific category, which makes it hard to price match with competitors. I’ve found that most people just won’t pay a Nancy Drew price for an indy book.
Not enough competition to price-match? Try, and try again!
After a lot of trial and error, I’ve settled on my latest pricing strategy of:
Shirley Link & The Safe Case (#1): FREE
Shirley Link & The Hot Comic (#2): $.99
Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest (#3): $2.49
Shirley Link & Black Cat (#4): $2.99
It’s a cross between the pricing strategy of Romance ebooks and Kids ebooks. Start free, make #2 cheap, then crawl up to $2.99, where I can start to make some good money.
Frankly, it’s been a tough road to find the right price for Shirley Link! But I’m definitely getting closer as I try different prices and roll out new books.
Should I go free?
Perma-free is the term we use to describe a book that is free “forever.” Many series authors make the first book in the series free because it helps increase visibility. Going perma-free, when done right, can mean higher sales for the rest of your series.
If you write a series, then do the following to decide if you should go perma-free on Amazon.
1) Do 3 Free Promo Days with book #1.
2) Measure the sales of the entire series post-promo.
3) Answer this question: If your entire series did this well all the time would you be happy? If the answer is yes, then ask a follow-up question. Would you be happy if your series did half as well all the time? If the answer to that is yes then make the first book perma-free. Why? Because the book is strong enough to act as a good entry-point for your entire series. So it’s likely that it will drive satisfying sales. If the answer to either question is no, then perma-free is probably not for you.
If your free book doesn’t rocket readers into your other books, then permafree is not a good pricing strategy.
The bottom line is this: your audience will send strong signals if your price is wrong. For instance, if you see slow sales after a successful free promo day on Amazon, then one reason could be the price point. “But I charge one buck for my ebook!” you might say.
The problem could still be with your price.
Your price may be too low.
Try jacking it up 50 cents. Yes, really. It worked for my third Shirley Link book.
One last tip is to reach out to fans. Ask them what they think the book is worth. Your readers can offer some keen insights on topics ranging from pricing to book description to, of course, story content!
How did you decide the price for your ebook? Do you experiment a lot, too?
Check out my post on how to make your book free on Amazon.
by Ben Zackheim
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Prepare your book for its KDP Select free promotion days
Amazon KDP Select has a bridge to sell you! No, really.
The $11 Million question: Is KDP Select worth it?
Want to do more research on pricing your book? Here’s some good reading:
Smashwords survey
PBS
Nick Stephenson (with nifty graphs!)
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by Ben Zackheim | May 12, 2014 | Book Promotion, Sell your book |
Cheat sheet. Use it once you’ve read the rest of this post!
In my last post, I covered the general rules of choosing the right genre for your book. I spoke briefly about Amazon’s categories. I’ll go into more details now.
The ground rules for Amazon categories are simple:
Every genre on Amazon gets to have its own tidy list of popular titles.
Each of these lists is often visited by fans of those genres.
Amazon scours their popularity lists for books to promote.
So how do you show up on a popular Amazon list?
Choose the right genre when you publish your book on Amazon.
Once you’ve identified which genres you belong in, you need to decide which genre is easiest for you to get in the Top 20. We’re shooting for the Top 20 because that means your book would show up on the first page of that genre’s Amazon page.
Good place to be…
After we find the easiest genre to place in, we’ll shoot for a tougher genre. Just to keep things interesting!
How to choose the right genre for your book on Amazon
Okay, let’s say we write a Mystery ebook for kids with a female detective (like oh, say, Shirley Link). Here are some of the possible categories on Amazon. I dug these up by rummaging through Amazon’s genre lists (seen on the left hand side of this page)
Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Mysteries & Detectives
Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Mysteries & Detectives/Detectives
Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Action & Adventure
Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Literature & Fiction/Beginner Readers
Kindle ebooks/Literature & Fiction/Chapter Books
Kindle ebooks/Literature & Fiction/Women’s Fiction/Mystery, Thriller & Suspense/Women Sleuths
Any of these genres would work for the book. So how do we choose which genre we can get to #20 in?
Using Theresa Ragan’s sales estimator, I get a ballpark idea of how many books I’d need to sell to crack the top 20 of each possible genre.
So the #20 book in Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Mysteries & Detectives/Detectives is Nancy Drew & The Bungalow Mystery.
But, more important to us is the book’s overall Kindle rank of 39,589 (see image below).
Checking Theresa’s sales estimator, this means the book sells between 3-15 copies per day.
Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery sales rank info from the book’s product page on Amazon:
On the other hand, Kindle ebooks/Children’s ebooks/Mysteries & Detectives is a tough one. The 20th ranked book has an overall Kindle sales rank of 3,239. This means the book sells between 30-50 books per day.
Spirit Animals Book 1 sales rank info from the book’s product page on Amazon:
I think I can manage to sell 3-15 books per day, but 30-50 will take some ingenuity. If I can find a way to crack the tough Action & Adventure Top 20 list then that will mean much more exposure to more people. I’m willing to claw my way up that genre’s listings over the long haul. One good sales day could be a game changer.
Conclusion
It’s fine to choose low-popularity genres for your picks. You’re more likely to be seen by fans of those genres if you rank high! But don’t be afraid to experiment if you’re not happy with sales. Yes, it’s possible to lose sales because you’ve changed genres, but if you do it with a marketing plan to back it up then you can gain crucial customer knowledge.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments. Don’t forget to use the cheat sheet above. And pass it on to a writer friend.
Thanks for reading!
By Ben Zackheim
Helpful tool: Sign up for EBookTracker to get details on any book’s ranking over time. The tool won’t help you see actual sales, but it will give you insights around your favorite genre’s movers and shakers.
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by Ben Zackheim | Apr 13, 2014 | Book Promotion, Sell your book, Writing |
We need to eat. Forget it.
We need to go pee. We won’t.
We need to sleep. Yeah, right.
Writers go from one discomfort and life-draining behavior to another when we work on our stories. But then comes the dreaded moment when we must write a book description.
Suddenly the pain is too much to bear.
Most of us choke. But why? Maybe we feel that explaining the book will make it sound so bad (to us) that we’ll question why we even began writing it in the first place?
The problem with such a bad habit is this.
The fourth most important step to sell books online is the book description.
Fourth, huh? How do I figure that?
1) Write a great (professionally edited) book.
2) Have a great cover.
3) Put a few glowing reviews directly above the…
wait for it…
4) Yup. The book description.
The reader will know they’re on to something special when they spot a cool cover and enthusiastic responses from real readers. But the book description is where you’ll either close the sale or lose them. That means you need to treat it with the same respect you showed your story.
I want to talk about some critical steps we can all take to craft the best possible book description. And at the end of the post I want to share a new idea I had. I’m trying it out now and I think you should too.
Why is a great book description important?
Let’s first define what I mean by a “great book description.”
A great book description will help you sell books.
That’s why it’s so important. So for this post we’ll be honing in on the actual sale like a (super-friendly!) sniper.
Be warned. Part of what I’m talking about is number-crunching. Part is craft. There may even be some art to it. But the goal here is to give you all the info you need to produce an effective book description that sells books.
So. Rubber, meet Road.
How to write a book description that sells books
Tip 1:
Get reviews before you launch your book. What do reviews have to do with a good book description? We’ll get to that in a sec.
Reviews should live right above your product description. Don’t rely on the retailer’s reviews section to sell books. They build their product pages to sell a variety of products, not just books. Book pages need testimonials in a clear and obvious place — just like the back cover and flaps of real books.
Tip 2:
Using the reviews, craft your description. Show the potential buyer just how right the reviewers are! Act as a mirror to a couple of the key terms/phrases that your reviews use. If a review calls your book “an enlightening romp through one man’s middle life” then you can verify that in the book description by using words like “enlighten” and “middle life.” It’s a great way to subtly say, “That reviewer is so right!”
Tip 3:
The first sentence should be as good as your book’s first sentence. Remember how you pounded on the first sentence of your book until it was just right? Do that with your description too.
Tip 4:
Use terms that the online retailer’s search engine will love. Yes, we’re getting into uncomfortable territory here. Where’s the art in all of this, Ben? That’s up to you to find. But I’m obligated to tell you that Amazon scans your book description for terms that help its search engine find your product.
So be sure to include terms that reflect the genre you’ll be placing the book in. If your book is the story of a reporter investigating the death of her cousin at the hand of a serial killer at the start of World War II, then be sure you include terms like investigative journalism, World War II and serial killer in your description.
By the way, that’s my mom’s book, The Last Train to Paris. Go Mom!
There’s a cool way to check on what terms Amazon readers like to search for. Just use Amazon search! Enter a term that applies to your book. You’ll see a whole bunch of suggestions. Amazon is essentially telling you that these terms are what their readers are searching for. Use that to your advantage and find a word or term that’s a good fit. Choose a couple and put them in your book description.
So I should advise my mother to include the terms World War 2 historical fiction in her description. It’s appropriate to her book and it ranks high when people begin to type “Word War 2”. Of course, being my mother, she will ignore my advice.
Tip 5:
Target the shopper, not the reader.
Aren’t they the same? Probably, but not necessarily. I learned as a writer of books for young people that the book description must appeal to the adult who’s buying the book. Not the kid who’ll read it. A cousin of mine, Nerissa Nields, wrote a book that has “gift” written all over it, titled How to be an Adult. Yeah college graduates’ parents might want to jump on that one.
Tip 6:
Test! Post the description to your favorite online hangouts and ask for feedback. Send an email to trusted resources. Yes, that includes family and friends, as long as they have a good track record for giving constructive criticism.
I’ve found the community for BookGoodies on Facebook and the Createspace forums to be packed with people who love to give useful feedback.
If you’ve read this far then you might want me to cut to the chase and just get to this “new idea” I mentioned earlier.
Here it is…
Tip 7:
Don’t write an excellent book description. Write two excellent book descriptions.
Why?
The first will be for your launch audience. The second will be for the long-run.
What’s a launch audience? It’s the audience you know you have access to from the get-go. It can include your email list, your Facebook followers, etc. Did you read my post about Twitter analytics that help you identify your target audience? In a nutshell you can use Twitter to find out the specific interests of your followers. If you can identify specific interests of your followers then you can use words and terms that resonate with them.
Yup. That’s a breakdown of my Twitter follower’s interests.
Go read the post. It lays out just how incredible this data is. It’s key to our never-ending quest to reach people who might be interested in our books. I wish Facebook offered the same robust insights, but they took the opportunity to charge us for targeted marketing.
Tip 8:
Tweak! Never stop adjusting the book description of your books. The beautiful thing about self publishing is that it allows you to make fast adjustments based on good data. If your book is suddenly newsworthy because of world events, then by all means head in and edit it! If a new term starts catching on that applies to your book, use it! You get the idea.
Conclusion:
A book description isn’t some alchemical element that could blow up in your face if you call forth the wrong incantation. It also won’t work if you just write, “Me book be gooder than your thinking it could of!” Find a process that works for you. Use your talent to write and use your curiosity about your audience to dig into what will make them more likely to click the Buy button.
By Ben Zackheim
Note: This post contains two affiliate links (in Tips 4 and 5), both of which are links to books on Amazon. One book is by my cousin, the other book is my mother’s. They’d better be fine with this, or Thanksgiving is going to be very uncomfortable this year.
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by Ben Zackheim | Mar 14, 2014 | Writing |
If you haven’t picked up the latest Shirley Link book, Shirley Link & The Black Cat, then now’s a good time. The Kindle ebook is a buck, today only.
I’m trying out the new Amazon Countdown Deal thingy. It lets me put a book on sale for a limited amount of time. I’ll be sure to post about my experience when all’s said and done.
Want to know more about the fourth volume of the Shirley Link series (for middle school readers)?
Shirley Link, girl detective, is back in the critically-acclaimed Middle Grade mystery series! And this time, there’s a black cat involved…uh-oh…
In her fourth adventure, Shirley Link takes a walk on the dark side of her hometown. When a young man, known for making trouble, is targeted as suspect #1 in a string of robberies, Shirley works hard to find the truth.
But even if the young detective proves his innocence, can she save him from himself?
Join Shirley on her most daring case yet!
Emily Neuburger, Everyday Fun blog, Parents.com
“Shirley Link is a new girl detective series that my daughter is crazy about. This is an amazing series, my friends! Your kids will be hooked and you’ll feel really good about it.”
Edward Hemingway, Author/Illustrator, Bad Apple
“This Veronica Mars for the tween-set is funny, smart, and full of preternatural wisdom.”
PopBop (Top 1000 Amazon reviewer)
“There are early middle grade mysteries out there, but most of them have sketchy characters, and a lot of them plod along fairly predictable arcs. This series has an engaging heroine, a lot of attitude, and a much snappier overall feel.”
A great middle school read for girls and boys from 8-12 years of age (and their parents, of course)!
by Ben Zackheim | Feb 19, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing |
A step-by-step guide, with best practices!
Yup. Blog posts about Amazon KDP Select free promo days are as common as bad drivers on I84.
But I want to do something a little different here. I want to lay out steps and include details about why they are important. I’ll also give you a basic overview of boosting posts on Facebook. These days it’s best to spend five bucks to get the word out.
Once you sign up for KDP Select and figure out what you can do with your exclusive Amazon ebook, you may find a small bump in the road. Actually it may look more like a big, honking wall. The wall is spray painted with large words…
“Now what?”
Here’s what.
1) Decide why you’re doing the KDP Select free promotion days. Don’t just do it to see what happens. I can tell you what happens. Lots of people download your book and add it to their vast library. That plus $17 will buy you a coffee.
Here are some great reasons to do a free giveaway that will actually add some momentum to your efforts:
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You want the reader to buy the next book in the series. Provide a sample of the next book in the back of the book you’ll be promoting. Provide a link to buy the next book too. If you haven’t done this already, it’s a good idea.
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You want the reader to buy another book you wrote that is not in the series. Same as above.
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You want newsletter sign-ups. Definitely recommended if you don’t have any other books available to buy, because this way you minimize the risk of losing them before your next book comes out. People forget things. Even authors they enjoy.
-
You want reviews. Make a level-headed case at the back of the book for writing a review. I lifted my copy from David Gaughran:
“Word-of-mouth is crucial for any author to succeed. If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on Amazon. Even if it’s just a sentence or two. It would make all the difference and would be very much appreciated: [link to book on Amazon]”
For your first promo I don’t believe you should shoot for more than one of the above goals. Why? It’s hard enough to track progress on one front, much less several. You can always adjust your tactics for the next free promo.
Once you’ve chosen your general goal, choose a specific one. Are you going for sales of the next book in the series? Great! How many do you want to sell? Just guess. Set a goal and be ready for failure or success. Both can be daunting, but it’s essential to measuring the success of your effort.
2) Decide how many days you want the free promo to run. I suggest a minimum of two. This way you can spot whether downloads are accelerating over a substantial period of time (implying a hunger for your book and/or wise choices on the marketing front) or not (implying you’ve missed the mark on marketing).
My opinion is that five days is too long. Especially if this is your only book. Why is that? Because free promo days are a great way to get people to give you a try. If you don’t have another book to sell them then you’ve lost them.
Also, five days is too long because you don’t want everyone who WOULD download your book to see it and download it. You want to leave some room for word of mouth to set in. The longer you keep the book free, the more likely you are to exhaust your potential audience in one go. Now, if you want to just get maximum exposure then five days is an option. Just don’t expect too many sales after the five days is over. You’ve gotten on their Kindle, and now you have to hope they convert to other books in the series or other titles you’ve written.
3) Buy one guaranteed spot. If you can avoid it, do not choose a date for the promo days first. Please. Choosing the date first means you’re setting something in stone before you know the availability of your marketing options (i.e. Bookbub, Bookgoodies, etc.)
So first, choose one of these sites to buy a guaranteed spot.
Bookbub
Booksends (formerly Bookblast)
Free Kindle Books and Tips
BookGoodies
AskDavid
Manybooks
These are the top-notch options for your free day advertising. Choose one, secure a date, and then choose more from this category if you can afford it, and if they can accommodate your dates. Bookbub is tough to get on. They may turn down your money. But one or two of these sites will be happy to take that heavy dough off your hands. I’ve had an especially impressive result from Manybooks. Shirley Link & The Safe Case hit the top 500 Free list on Amazon and it took four days to settle down. Highly recommended.
4) Make a list of friends you can count on to share and bug ’em. Prep an email to them. You’ll send it out a day or two before the promo.
Dear friends!
I apologize for the group email but I want to reach as many people as possible for this. I’ll be giving my ebook [book name] away for FREE on [date]! Why free? It’s a limited time deal on Amazon that will expand my readership and give me a chance to find some new fans.
I could use your help on the promo day. Please keep an eye on [Facebook, Twitter]. When you see my announcement, please Like and Share. The sharing part is important since it will help more people see the deal.
That’s it! I appreciate any help you can provide to get the word out. I’ll let you know how it goes!
Sincerely,
5) Tell the following sites about your KDP Select free promotion days. Be sure to track who you’ve told in your app of choice. I use my Google Docs marketing journal (which I’ll write about one day)
Best websites for marketing your Amazon KDP Select free days
You can also use the Author Marketing Club tool to submit. The tool is a little wonky but it works.
6) Now head in and set your free days on Amazon’s KDP Select site.
7) Now go to your social networks of choice.
Twitter. If you have a Twitter Ads account then you can schedule tweets to go out whenever you want. If you don’t have a Twitter Ads account, it’s worth it. It’s free and gives you incredible stats and some useful features. Sign up for Twitter Ads here. (it’s a Twitter-owned service) Some people use Hootsuite or Buffer to queue up their tweets for later. Both are excellent options. Set up seven tweets per day of your promo. Don’t make them all sales pitches. Make them intriguing.
-
Write a riddle.
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Include an excerpt.
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Ask a compelling question that your book answers (fiction or non-fiction).
-
Include pics (cover, interiors).
-
Include vids.
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Include every media you have for your book!
I recommend you buy some ads on Twitter Ads to get the word out. But wait until the next promo. For your first promo, give Facebook some hard-earned cash. They’re getting good at delivering readers to me.
Facebook. Do two posts for each day of the promo. Again, set these posts up ahead of time. You should consider boosting your posts with a $5 spend. It increases awareness of your promo. Just make sure you target correctly and set the post date for the promo date. How do you do that? It’s easy.
Draft your post (please include an image of the book cover to make the post appear nice).
Then click on the Boost Post button at the bottom of the post window.
Notice the elegant layout. Amazing how Facebook can make great interfaces when money’s involved, huh?
NOTE: Facebook changes their design all the time. The boosting process will always be similar, though.
Just select “People you choose through targeting” to get the range of options you’ll need. Then fill out information that you think appeals to your target audience. The Interests window is especially important. Put words in there that relate to your genre and book. So if you wrote a book inspired by “It” you could enter “horror, stephen king, violent, scary clowns, it.” Yes, you can get as specific as you’d like. The more specific, the better. With these data in place a whole slew of people who are interested in King, It, and scary clowns will get your ad served to their page.
Some people don’t get great results with Boosts and prefer running Facebook ads. These show up as promoted posts in the feeds of people who you target. The process of setting up an ad is more complex, but you can get the lowdown on how to do it here. If you want to take a course in Facebook ads, sign up for this course.
Pinterest. Post your cover art, interior art and marketing images. The copy should tout the free promo days.
7.1) Add a keyword. Thanks to Julia Derek in the comments section, you get this excellent tip. A couple of days before the promo, head into KDP and add the term “free ebook” to the book’s keywords. It will take several hours to a couple of days to go live. This should help people find you if they’re looking for free ebooks. Don’t forget to remove the keyword term after the promo is over, though.
8) On the first morning of your KDP Select free promotion days, monitor! Go to your marketing journal and see which sites you informed of the free days. Did they post the promo? Not all of them will. Be aware that some sites will post at the end of your day (it’s a big world!) Take note of which ones posted. You’ll want to have that list handy for the next promo.
Go to the site(s) where you paid for promotion and make sure you got what you paid for.
Post the deal to these promotional sites. They only accept additions on the day of the promo.
Addicted to eBooks
Snicks List
Send out an email to your friends, reminding them and offering some new details/news that will make the email worth a read.
Hi all!
As I mentioned, my ebook is free for today on Amazon! Please share the post on your timeline. If you don’t see it, here’s the url.
[insert url for shared post, tweet, etc.]
Thanks so much! I checked my dashboard and have [number] downloads so far. So excited.
Sincerely,
If you’re happy with the results you can post about your success on social networks. It might be nice to send a final email with the good news if you feel like that’s a good idea.
And, of course, head to Amazon KDP to check on the progress. Watch the downloads roll in! It’s fun. Don’t forget to eat.
9) If downloads accelerate on day two, consider adding another day to your promo. Increased interest in your book over a 48 hour period may be a sign that you’ve broken through to a larger audience than your genre warrants. In other words you may have broken into Amazon’s “mainstream” a little bit. If this happens then adding a day will allow for you to capture a much wider audience. Ideally, you’ll go back to charging for the book right when the interest peaks. This way you’ll pick up sales from people who were interested enough to pay for your book.
10) Was it a success? You should keep promoting for a few days after the promo is over. Tout your rise in the rankings, new reviews or whatever stands out as a positive result. But also evaluate the performance of your campaign. Remember how you set a specific goal for your promo? Did you meet it? Exceed it? Give the readers a couple of weeks to show their intent. It takes a while to read a book for some of us!
Take a realistic look at your results. Gauge what went right and wrong with the promo (you will see what worked and what failed). Write these down. Don’t assume you’ll remember because you might not, which means you learned nothing. With all this data, draft a plan for the next promo. And congratulations! You’re on the road to getting much better and being more comfy with marketing! No small task, friends.
Let me know how your promo goes.
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You may also like:
Amazon has a bridge to sell ya!
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by Ben Zackheim
