The $11 Million question: Is KDP Select worth it?

by Ben Zackheim | Jan 3, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing | 11 comments

Yes, Kindle Direct Publishing Select is good and bad for writers

I’ve wanted to write this post for a long time. I’ve used KDP Select for every one of my Shirley Link books at one time or another, and I’ve had some epiphanies about the KDP Select Global Fund that I’d like to share. Some of my insights come from watching Amazon grow since its early days. I think I’ve identified some consistent behavior that works for us little guys, and some bad habits that do not work for us in the least.

The benefits of KDP can be summed up quick and easy (just like Amazon likes it!):

Get your share of the $11 million KDP pie (known as the KDP Select Global Fund)
Free promotional days
Countdown deals
70% on all sales to Japan, Brazil, India and Mexico.
“Promotional possibilities”

I’ll cover the KDP Select Global Fund today. The rest of the touted benefits will be covered in their own posts.

The Amazon Treasure Chest: Do not pass go, do not collect $200

If you’re an indy writer, there’s a number you see floating around the mondo web. It’s a distracting number. It’s the kind of number that forces you to pay attention. Amazon loves to tout it. Lucky authors swear by it. And the rest of us are mostly confused by it.

$11 million.

The $11 million is cash from the KDP Select Global Fund that Amazon doles out to authors who opt-in to KDP by offering their book(s) exclusively on Amazon. If an author signs up for KDP Select and her books are borrowed by Prime members then she gets a cut of the monthly-updated fund.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell:

Sally is an Amazon Prime member. That means she pays $89 a year to get free shipping and other benefits from Amazon. She browses for books on Amazon and stumbles on one for sale at $2.99. But what’s this? Just above that price is a message informing her that she can read the book for free because she’s a Prime member.

All she has to do is borrow the Kindle book for as long as she wants and then check it back in from her device when she’s done. She decides to borrow the book.

The author gets up the next morning and checks her sales. In the Units Borrowed column of her online report (or the “Units Sold or Borrowed” column on her downloaded spreadsheet) she sees that someone borrowed her book last night. How much will she get paid for this borrowed book? Amazon determines the amount based on the size of the till (usually around $11 million) and the number of books borrowed in that month. Whatever percentage of the overall borrows that a book delivers is the percentage of the till that the author will receive.

I’ve seen first-hand that the amount paid for the borrow often matches or exceeds a straight sale.

So that means KDP is worth it!

Well, maybe.

There’s an old saying that comes to mind. “If you want to win the lottery, you have to buy a ticket.” One of the reasons that Amazon touts their monthly number is to activate that same trigger in your brain that sweepstakes do. Yes, you could win the lottery and KDP could do bonzo business for you. But unlike a lottery, you can do very well on Amazon, and in self publishing without it. You can find a following and make a good living. So you don’t have to buy a ticket to win on Amazon. But you do need to join KDP if you want a slice of the prize. A slice of the prize that could get you more visibility on Amazon, and consequently more sales.

The KDP treasure chest varies by month. It’s been over 10 million more than under a million in 2015. But what does that mean? Do you really have a chance to get a piece of that large pie?

Here’s the playing field you’re performing in. There are over 20 million Amazon Prime members who can check out your KDP Select book for free. Amazon has a big stake in showing those millions of people all of the amazing benefits they get for their $89 membership fee. One of those amazing benefits is your book!

But does Amazon do enough? Or, like the $11 million hard-sell, is it an ethereal opportunity, floating around for a few dozen people to leverage?

We’ll cover that in my next post about “Promotional possibilities.” Why do I have that term in quotes? Because it belongs there. It really, really belongs there.

Go to part 2!

by Ben Zackheim

Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk: How Facebook is like a kidney punch

by Ben Zackheim | Dec 22, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 0 comments

I like to poke fun at social marketing, but I do respect those who can do it well.

I’ve been reading Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook by Gary Vaynerchuk. The premise of the book is that social marketing is like boxing, where you loosen up your target with jabs, then deliver a strong hook to close the proverbial deal. While he makes a lot of great points, my favorite advice covers the three characteristics of a great “right hook” social network post.

From his book:

1) They make the call to action simple, and easy to understand.
2) They are perfectly crafted for mobile, as well as all digital devices.
3) They respect the nuances of the social network for which you are making the content.

You’ll have to buy the book to dig into the meat of it, but he is onto something. I’ve found that a simple message always works best, especially if you know exactly who you’re trying to reach. It’s not new advice, but it’s tightly packaged in a list that I can put on a sticky note. Vaynerchuk also gives us his take on what exactly the nuances of each social network are, so the particulars of #3 are covered. Actually, the examples of good and bad social posts is the best part of the book. We get to see some hilarious near-misses, dead-on copy with complete photo failures, and so on.

You’ll close the cover with a new sense of what’s possible, which is what the author is going for. His frustration with how business is done is palpable throughout the tome. I get his irritation, having worked at Sony, Viacom and Aol over the years, it was rare that something nimble and new was crafted. Hopefully JJJRH will sit on the desks of managers throughout the mondoweb.

I recommend the book to anyone who’s ready to take social marketing seriously. One caveat (where I risk sounding stuck-up, but I’d rather sound stuck up than recommend a book that’s not a good fit!): The book is written clearly, but it does assume readers have struggled with the ins-and-outs and ups-and-downs of social marketing. If you’re new to this world then you’ll probably end up reading sentences a couple of times to get the gist. But when you do get it, you’ll be ahead of the game.

WordPress themes for writers and authors

by Ben Zackheim | Dec 19, 2013 | Book Promotion, Digital Identity, Writing | 30 comments

There are a lot of beautiful WordPress themes for writers and authors in the wild. Here’s a list to help you cut through the chaff. I’m confident you’ll find a theme for your book on this page.

Remember, we all want to sell books with our site. So choose a theme that shows off the cover, book excerpts and basic book info. Without distraction. I chose the themes below because they all do this well.

Click here to get the theme that I use…DIVI!

WordPress themes for writers and authors

1. Author Pro Theme

Sometimes it’s easy to recommend a new WordPress theme for writers and authors. You see it and you just know that the designer is also an author and understands the challenges involved with having a good site. The Author Pro Theme is just such a theme.

The theme includes all of the fundamentals, such as mobile responsive functionality (to make it look good on mobile devices) and hefty customization. But it stands out on two fronts:

1) A Landing Page feature that comes in handy when you want a no-distractions page for selling your book.

2) The $100 also includes the Genesis framework, which is a series of WordPress-compatible features like SEO tools and security. You also get personal support. From experience, I can tell you that Studiopress’ hand-holding is the best I’ve ever come across. If you don’t like to spend hours messing with plug-ins and code then the premium price is worth it.

Oh, wait a third benefit is the Author Pro plug-in which allows authors to easily add books to their sites. The books can display custom information, such as ISBN, description, price, publisher, and editor. This helps give the site a cohesiveness that any author who wants to sell books directly to the reader will want to have.

Download Author Pro Theme

2. Brown

This theme has the worst name of any theme ever created (ever-ever!) but it also enjoys serious breadth. It stands out for its focus on simple layout and fast navigation from book to book and the books’ content. Clicking on a cover gives the customer a chance to read some excerpts. Other benefits of the theme include:

Responsive (looks nice on all devices)
Good support
Speed! Just be sure to optimize your images. No 1 megabyte pics allowed… ;-)

Download the Brown theme here

3. BEBO Author Landing Page

This WordPress theme for writers and authors stands out for its slick design and a couple of cool features that you don’t find everywhere.

A timer widget. This lets you run a timed promotion on your site. These are available as a plug-in for your WordPress site, but it’s cool that the feature is built in.
Three styles. All of them are nice looking too.

Other features include mobile-friendly design, video and an attractive master slider that will give you a chance to highlight your book cover.

Download the BEBO WordPress theme for authors here

4. Parallax Pro

Parallax sites are those sites where scrolling down adds nifty animations like sliding, fades, color changes, etc. It’s a cool trick and people still go nuts for a good Parallax site. The best one I’ve seen as far as simplicity and extension is Parallax Pro. It’s on the pricier side, but the hundred bucks includes the Genesis Framework, which allows for easier updating and editing when it’s time to make changes to the site.

Highlighted features (in addition to the Gensis Framework) are Landing Pages (necessary for your books and for promotions like newsletter sign-ups), HTML 5 markup and fully mobile-friendly.

Parallax Pro Theme

5. X | The Theme

X | The Theme is a catch-all kind of theme, promising a full suite of tools for everyone. This is especially true when you consider the fact that X is actually a suite of themes, not just one. Yup, the developer has crafted a single package with multiple designs, one of which will likely fit your needs. X also comes with a suite of free tools (like Mailchimp integration). This saves time and heartache caused by third-party plug-ins.

Here’s a list of features:

WooCommerce integration
Extensive styling options
SEO optimization with 2015 ideas
Shortcodes
Responsive
Disqus or Facebook comments extension
Free Soliloquy slider

Download X | The Theme here

6. Author Theme for Writers

If simplicity and focus is your thing (and it should be) then you’ll need to consider this WordPress theme for writers and authors. The layout is simple, the slider is an unbloated, straight-forward thing and the product pages have almost everything you need. The one missing feature is a way to read a sample.

Highlights from the features list are:

Easy to use Options Panel
Premium Documentation & Support
Built in Slider
Custom Background Image/Color
Custom Button & Link Colors
Custom Logo Upload
Custom Reviews Shortcode (I like this idea!)
Book Page Templates (YAY!)
Google Font Integration

Get Author Theme for WordPress here

7. Preface: A WordPress Theme for Writers and Authors

The thing I love the most about this theme is its simplicity. One of my main rules for a good book site is an elegant, FAST first impression. Preface does that well. Moving between pages is like lightning. And each page shares a look and feel that makes it easy for me to see what the author wants me to see. If I had to guess which theme was written by an actual author, it’s Preface. The list of features bears that out:

Book categorization
Book Launch Landing template! (FINALLY!)
Book Filter template (Useful for large libraries)
Showcase your books from your 404 Page (Clever. Essential.)

Get Preface: A WordPress Theme for Authors here

8. Bookish

One of the details that set this theme apart is the parallax design. “Parallax” is the style that you see on some sites where the background image scrolls at a different speed than the image in the foreground. It’s a fun effect that can be used to guide the customer through your content.

The theme also touts the following features:

Works on mobile devices
WooCommerce compatible (to sell your own books)
Google fonts
Dark & White Layouts
Infinite Color Schemes
jQuery enhanced slider and effects.
Well commented code.

I read through the comments by users. There have been several bugs that have taken a while to fix. Bugs are common, but watch the discussion to see if the response time improves. Devs must support their themes, no matter how noisy (and annoying) customers get! If the outstanding bugs don’t appear to impact your goals, then consider the Bookish theme.

Get Bookish here

9. The Novelist: Responsive WordPress Theme for Writers and Authors

This theme is for those of you who lean heavily on excerpts to sell books. There aren’t a lot of page types (like in the Preface theme above) but it is a theme that lets you hone in on the work you do. Stumbling on a site that looks like an open book immediately tells the reader that they’re in the right place.

Among the features that the theme touts (beyond the bookish design) are Responsive design (to look good on mobile devices), support for the beautiful Google Fonts library and customized backdrops.

The theme has great ratings and folks seem happy with the FREE support.

The Novelist: Responsive WordPress Theme for Writers

10. Minimum Pro

This theme offers:

Custom backgrounds and headers
Mobile-readiness
Threaded comments.

The $100 includes Copyblogger’s Genesis framework. Genesis is a toolset that makes the site easier to customize. It’s a good thing to have when you’re building a new website and still in design/self-education mode. Genesis adds features like:

One/two/three column pages.
Left/right sidebars.
Fixed-width, for when you don’t want tech messing with your content.
Custom headers/menus.

Why could this theme steal my business away from Cleanspace? It’s good looking, expandable, updated often, and it’s made by the Copyblogger folks who simply make excellent products with fast support. As I add more book series to my roster I’m positive that my website needs will change. If they do, I have my eyes on Minimum Pro.

Check out the Minimum Pro WordPress theme here

11. Cleanspace Business Theme.

I used this theme for years. It does a number of things well.

First, it looks great out of the box. I’d have to work really hard to make it ugly. And, believe me, I’ve tried.

Second, it includes a number of visual features that I like, including a huge slider that displays large images across the width of my site. The sliding animations that I’ve made with the tool are incredible. You can check out the slider on my homepage (note that I do turn it off sometimes, so I can’t promise it’ll be there).

Third, I chose my theme because it’s a premium theme. I want the support that comes with premium purchases. I’m not too happy with the help I’ve received from the developer, but the community is helpful. I’ve run with Cleanspace for several months without a hitch. Fingers crossed, but I think I chose a winner.

But one theme that always threatened to steal me away from Cleanspace is the next one on the list…

Download Cleanspace here

12. Rain WordPress Theme for Writers and Authors

If you’re looking for a WordPress theme for writers and authors that presents your content elegantly, check out Rain. It’s perfect for a site that is just for one book. You can upload an image of your choice and it appears fogged on the left side of the screen. You could put an image on the site that hints at a place or event in your story. Cool! The writing is presented in a simple, clean way (with Google Font support) and scrolling up/down from one page to another is lovely.

I could do without the ability to play an ambient audio file, but to each his own. The site owner can turn the audio off.

Benefits of the theme include:

Designed and built by Elite developer. The boards have happy people and a load of comments by the creator.
Responsive (for mobile devices)
Table of Contents screen allows you to string together your content in a way that’s familiar to readers.

Beware of one thing. Widgets are not supported, which makes sense. You wouldn’t want to soil the sweet design with widgets, right?

Get Rain

13. Best

The simple Best theme includes:

Responsive design (meaning it will look good on mobile devices).
3 page templates.
Multiple menu types.
Multiple page layout options.
Header/logo uploader.
Color options.
Change site background.
Shortcodes.

Best is a simple theme, with a simple blog-like layout. It would work nicely for writers who plan to do more blogging than selling. If selling is important to you, though, you can skip to the next one.

Download Best here

14. Blackbird

This is one of those solid themes that just look professional. Its features are pretty impressive, too.

Includes (from their site):

10 Different Color Skins, WordPress Themes to get Site Ready in 1 Click.
Individual Page/Post Customization – Change various layout options on each individual page (or globally if you want).
Dropdown Menus – Unlimited levels.
Mobile-ready.
Extensive documentation.

I do love the colors they make available. And you can switch between colors with a single click. When I used this theme I considered making a contest where I’d change the color once per week on Sunday; anyone who could tell me what the colors had been on my site the previous week would win a prize. I didn’t get around to doing it. But you could ;-)

Download Blackbird theme here

15. Evolve

I used this theme for about six months and was very happy with it. I somehow corrupted the site install one fateful evening, which made me look around for new themes. That’s when I ran into Cleanspace and we fell in love. But Evolve is a very competent free theme that I recommend to anyone who’s building an author site.

Benefits of the theme include:

Ready for mobile technologies.
Single blog post or blog grid layouts on the home page.
Slideshows.
Unlimited colors.
Over 500 Google Web Fonts.

That last feature is a beauty. Google web fonts allow you to play around with type design on your site, which can be important to standing out in a crowded field and getting the important points across. Make sure you get a second opinion on how the site looks before you play around with fonts too much. It’s easy to get carried away and make your page look blechy.

Download the Evolve WordPress theme here

16. Themia

This theme is similar to my own in that it offers a wide slider at the top that can dominate the screen. I like that look because it lets me highlight what I want without having to think too hard. All I have to do is upload an image, make a call to action and I KNOW that everyone will see it, because they literally cannot miss it.

I also like Themia for its full width/product pages and easy-to-read buttons.

Here’s a useful tutorial that will help you decide if it’s the theme for you:

Download the Themia WordPress theme here

17. Responsive

Responsive is another simple, free theme that I used for several months. It has a good rep for support even though it’s free. Nothing is more valuable to someone just starting out, with limited time to futz around with webbie doohickeys.

Some highlights of the theme include:

Adapts your website to mobile devices and the desktop or any other viewing environment.
9 Page Templates, 11 Widget Areas, 6 Template Layout.
Easy Logo Upload, Social Networking and Webmaster Tools (we’ll discuss this in the plug-ins post later).
Responsive is WooCommerce Compatible (important if you want to sell books directly, we’ll also discuss this in the plug-ins post).
Multilingual Ready.
Search Engine Friendly.

A great starter theme! It’s where I started ;-)

Download Responsive here

NOTE: Some links are affiliate links. The themes I’ve tried before are noted and highly recommended. The rest of the themes look fantastic and have shining support according to the theme comments.

WordPress themes for writers: Build an author website with WordPress (Part Three)

by Ben Zackheim | Dec 18, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 0 comments

Our sordid story so far…

In the previous installments of WordPress for authors and writers, I’ve talked at you incessantly about the need for authors to focus. A good summary would be, “Define what you want out of your website and find the tools to make it so.”

But what does that mean? Well, if you’re looking to sell books then, in my opinion, it means apply BaB to every aspect of your site.

Bab? Isn’t that short for Barbara? No, that’s Babs.

My BaB is a design mantra that I think all authors should apply to their sites:

Books – show us your books!

action – give us an easy action to take now!

Blog – keep them coming back for more!

Why is the “a” lowercase? Because it should be right in the middle of everything you do, but not in an obvious way. The action should be obvious, logical and clear in its messaging. Does the action need to be a Buy button? Nope. It could be a sign up button, a follow me button or a play video button. But whatever action you want from the visitor it should be a central part of all design decisions.

Much of this theory is based on how people sell web services or non-fiction books (think weight loss programs and cloud services). But fiction writers need to start thinking the same way. We have something to offer and, if we band together, we can come up with standards that will help everyone sell their books from their site!

Someone asked me why they should even bother making a site that tries to sell their book. Their point was that Amazon spends millions on designing product pages that work, so why not just lean on the Amazon page. It’s a good point! Amazon makes great product pages. But they need to follow a one-size-fits-all road. They can’t design a page that’s meant to sell your book. They can only design a page that’s mean to sell “books”. As in “all books”. However, I do lean heavily on Amazon. When I point my visitor to my buy button, they DO go off to Amazon. But I’m not willing to depend on their site to sell my book. I think I can do a better job.

The problem with how authors sell books today

As I researched this post, I ran into author site after author site where I had no idea I was even on an author’s site. I’d see blogposts, images, links, all jumbled together. Some of the sites are really beautiful, but they don’t scream “BOOKS ARE HERE!” which they should if they want visitors to know that, well, books are there. One of the things I’ve learned after selling things online for 15 years is that your site is your business card. It needs to state what you do up front. It’s likely that you list “Writer” or “Author” in plain English on your card. You need to give your site the same focus.

Bottom line: Every page of your site should have one purpose, and you should focus on it like an ion cannon clearing the way for the Rebel envoys. This way your visitors will have all the information they need to decide whether or not you should get their money.

Tell the story of your site before you design it

I spent many months, working hard to craft a flow through my site that is enjoyable for the visitor and maximizes my chances at converting them into a paying customer.

I started by telling the story of my site. What does a site’s story look like? Mine was simple. I want visitors to notice my books. I want visitors to consider buying my books. I want my site to be entertaining and useful to people.

With those three thoughts in mind, I started to focus on how to make a site that makes these dreams come true.

Here’s the flow I wanted to create for my audience:

With quality blog content, search engine optimization and clean code I’d bring the person to my site. I knew that a huge majority of them would know nothing about me, or my books.
The visitor quickly notices she’s on a site where I have books to sell.
She reads my blog post and sees the buy options for my books.
The curious visitor exits to where I want them — namely, Amazon — where I cross my fingers and hope that Amazon (and my book copy on Amazon) converts them to a sale.

And this is exactly the flow I got! Google Analytics shows me it’s the path that a plurality of my visitors take.

But it wasn’t easy to get there. I worked with every web service and piece of software under the sun (from Dreamweaver to Kompozer to Blogger to Tumblr) I found the one-tool-to-bind-them-all.

WordPress.

It’s almost as if they created WordPress themes for writers and authors!

Read part four of my series of WordPress for authors and writers.

Why you should run Goodreads giveaways

by Ben Zackheim | Aug 6, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing | 7 comments

I talk to a lot of writers, and one of the most common questions I get is, “what can Goodreads do for me?”

The answer is, “Goodreads is good for creating interest around everything that has to do with books”. As a reader, a writer, or a reviewer you can lose yourself in Goodreads if you plow through the horrible interface and abandon yourself to it. I’ve been a member since January, 2012 and I’ve only skimmed the surface. But one feature (besides ads) that I’ve benefited from over time is the Goodreads giveaways feature.

After running a number of Goodreads giveaways I want to help dispel any confusion about why or when to run them (I’ll do ‘how’ in another post). As an author I’ve had hundreds of people add my books to their shelves using contests. It’s worth every minute I’ve invested.

Okay, so the most frequently asked questions are:

1) What are the Goodreads giveaways good for?

Simple. They get your book in front of hundreds, or even thousands of people. And not just any people, READING PEOPLE. Our favorite people.

When a reader enters the contest they are opted-in to add your book to their Goodreads shelves. That means most entrants will have your book added when they enter. So what? you may ask. The big deal here is that if your book is not released yet then everyone who added the book to their shelves will receive an email when your book arrives! Let me repeat that, if you are promoting a book by doing a giveaway on Goodreads, and the book is pre-release, everyone who adds your book to their shelves while entering your contest will receive a launch email from Goodreads.

Yeah, it’s awesome.

2) Can I run a contest for a book that I’ve already released?

Yup, and it will definitely help you get exposure, too. The downside is that there will be no launch email sent out by Goodreads since your book is already out there. But you will get on a bunch of shelves and you’ll be able to get reviews, plus some new friends to follow your Goodreads status and event updates.

3) How can I maximize success?

Two things, run the contest for one month. This gives it time to find traction. Two, advertise the giveaway on Goodreads. This will give you the best chance to find people who are interested in books like yours.

If you’re doing a giveaway for a pre-release, then do your first contest 3-5 months before launch to build buzz. You’ll need to give away proofs, because, well the book isn’t out yet! Also important to note, you cannot give away ebooks at this time.

I hope this clears up any confusion about what Goodreads giveaways are good for. Did I do a good job of that? Let me know in the comments!

To read:

How to set up Goodreads giveaways

Don’t miss this priceless slide show presentation that Goodreads gave recently about how to promote your books on Goodreads!

Does advertising on Goodreads work?

The Ultimate Guide to Goodreads for Authors

by Ben Zackheim

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