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.
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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.
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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).
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Include pics (cover, interiors).
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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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Amazon has a bridge to sell ya!
The $1.1 Million question: Is KDP Select worth it?
by Ben Zackheim
by Ben Zackheim | Jan 11, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing |
Amazon recommended books are getting an upgrade (or a downgrade, depending on your point of view). I was browsing my books’ pages this morning when I saw a little pop up window appear on Shirley Link & The Safe Case‘s product page.
See that window dropping down from the upper right portion of the screen? It’s certainly in your face. At first I thought it might be a recommendation based on an author I follow on Amazon. But I don’t subscribe to his updates.
(Quick aside: Yes, you can follow authors and receive updates about their latest releases. Just visit their author page and look for the “Stay up to date” section on the right side of the page.)
I wonder if it’s a new feature to show Amazon recommended books to readers, or just a trial balloon. Amazon is known for trying new stuff all the time. I hope it’s widespread. And, uh, I hope I can find a way to take advantage of it with my books.
Have you seen this Amazon recommended books feature before?
If yes, how long ago? Do you like it, or is it too aggressive? Let us know in the comments.
by Ben Zackheim | Jan 10, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing |
If someone tells you, “I have a bridge to sell ya!”, would you believe them? Of course not!
But what if the mayor of New York City was the one talking? That makes it a tougher question. It’s conceivable that he could sell it to you. He’s the mayor! But wouldn’t he have to massage the bureaucratic engine of the city to make the sale happen? Isn’t he just one powerful person in a city of powerful people?
That’s the conundrum we find ourselves in with Amazon. They actually do have a bridge (to success) to sell us, and they could indeed sell it to us.
But will they do any of the hard work required to make the sale?
Does Amazon KDP work hard enough to justify your exclusivity?
As I mentioned in the last post in this series on KDP, there are over 20 million Amazon Prime members who can check out your 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 benefits is your KDP Select book! But to finish my point about the promotional possibilities, there’s just no way to tell when/where/whether your book will get a spotlight of any kind. Amazon has many ways to highlight books. Recommendations, newsletters, lists, you name it. But Amazon is also a long tail company, meaning they’ll only give real love to the top 20% of products in any category, leaving the 80% who don’t hit their proprietary criteria to fend for themselves.
It’s one thing to say you have the bridge, it’s quite another to say, I’ll walk you through the sale. Just like the mayor of New York doesn’t really know how to make the sale happen, Amazon can’t promise that KDP Select will be a bridge to success. But they want you to think it can.
Remember that scene in Jaws, when the captain gets a peek at the shark for the first time?
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” he says, while watching the death of him swim away.
The way I see the bookselling world is as follows:
“We’re going to need a shorter list…”
If you think about it, we’re all on a bunch of lists.
Our names and our books are in the databases of businesses across the bookselling spectrum, from Amazon to Smashwords to Ingram. If you’re #457,098 on a popularity list, or a best-selling list, or a “best of” list then your visibility is — well, it is what it is.
Now, if your name and/or book is #412 then you’re much more visible! You’re more likely to show up in a newsletter, or to get reviewed, or to show up in a recommendation widget on some site somewhere, somehow.
In the same vein, to survive in the publishing world you need to be on a shorter list. I say do press releases, because it puts you on a shorter list. I say post your book to every site that allows it, because you’ll be on a shorter list. I say share as much free content as you’re comfortable sharing because you’ll be on a shorter list. My point is, if you’re not high on many lists then you need to be on a bunch of short lists.
So let’s say the unsayable here: The enticing promise of KDP Select is that Amazon will help your books get visible within their ecosystem. Anyone who says that Amazon doesn’t promise this is splitting hairs. Of course they don’t promise exposure. In the same way that Amazon splashes their $11 million+ Global Fund figure on KDP’s homepage in hopes of triggering your “lottery brain”, they want to plant the seed of hope that they’ll do some heavy lifting for you once you sign up — in the dark, behind the scenes, via newsletters or recommendations or pixie dust they will work their magic for you.
Guess what. They won’t strain anything.
Here’s what they will do to get your book seen:
1) They’ll allow 20 million+ Prime members to borrow your book (this is often worth as much or more cash than an actual sale)
2) They’ll give you five promotional days to give away your book for free. If done right (i.e. if you do a lot of work and spend money advertising) then you have a VERY good chance of showing up on Amazon’s semi-visible Top Free Books list. This is a tab that sits behind the best seller list on the genre pages. It’s getting harder to find as time goes on.
3) They’ll let you put your book on sale for a fixed amount of time using Countdown Deals. It’s a new feature, but there are some stories of success beginning to circulate. Amazon is big on good ol’ high-pressure sales tactics (see above for “I have a bridge to sell ya” and “Buy a raffle ticket and win big money!”) It looks like the tried-and-true method of limited-time sales also performs well.
Yes, sign up for KDP Select right away. Before it’s too late.
Here’s the thing that took me 2 years of playing the KDP Select game to learn. When Amazon takes a risk with you, you tend to come out on top. But like any business, when the risk stops paying off they’ll pull back in an instant. What that means for us is that Amazon likes releasing new services and features that are high-risk and beneficial to authors.
And then they’ll neuter it. Overnight.
An example?
KDP! What a huge shot in the dark it was for Amazon to open their market to small and self-publishers. Those who signed up early with quality work are the stars of our time. KDP best sellers and big movers got exposure, sitting right next to their big label counterparts, stealing eyes and hearts. While KDP authors are still given equal weight on the best seller lists, they’re relegated to a sorta-visible tab on genre pages. Yes, it qualifies as one of those “shorter lists”, but it’s more like a shorter, hidden list. The indisputable fact is that Amazon has pulled back their efforts to make KDP books visible on their site.
Need another example of Amazon taking risks and sharing the rewards, until they get tired of the risk?
The free promo days. Those free days were a huge risk that Amazon took with thousands of authors, and thousands of authors shared the rewards. But once Amazon grew the hell out of their library and snagged exclusivity on boat loads of books they dialed back their support of the promotional days. They did this by penalizing web sites who promoted the free books to readers. There are a lot of reasons why they did this, some of them ultimately good for our industry. But I’m not making a value judgment here. I’m just stating the fact that when Amazon tries something new (and we go along for the ride) then we tend to come out smelling rosey.
And that’s why I’m willing to say that, as of now, it’s worth signing up for KDP Select.
The Countdown Deals product is new. Amazon is taking a risk in launching it. With KDP they gave us a new market, with free promo days they gave us an effective way to be seen, and with Countdown Deals they’re giving us a dynamic way to sell.
From the Amazon description of Countdown Deals:
1) They’re time-based: Not only does this give you more control to decide how long the book is discounted, but the time remaining for the promotion is visible to customers to increase excitement for the price discount.
2) Customers see the regular price: It’s easy for customers to see the great deal they’re getting, as the regular price is included on the book’s detail page, right beside the promotional price.
3) Royalty rate is retained at lower prices: You will earn royalties based on your regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, if you are using the 70% royalty option, you’ll earn 70% even if the price is below $2.99.
4) There’s a dedicated website: Customers can easily browse active; Kindle Countdown Deals at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals, providing yet another way for books to be discovered.
5) You can monitor performance in real-time: A new KDP report displays sales and royalties at each price discount side-by-side with pre-promotion performance, so it’s easy to compare.
Pay attention to #4. A dedicated Amazon site is a tremendous asset for authors. It means that the same avid readers that made free promos such a huge hit now have a place to browse great deals.
In the final analysis, the biggest benefit of joining KDP Select is the experience itself. You learn a lot. You experience how Amazon thinks. You sense its reach like never before. You spot opportunities in small corners of their world. For instance, by signing up for KDP Select I learned a whole bunch about how to leverage free promotional days to help sales. I use that knowledge with my non-KDP Select books, as well.
So give KDP Select a try with one of your books. If you don’t like it, opt out so you don’t auto-renew after 90 days.
What do you think? Do you think Countdown Deals are a seismic shift in the Amazon bookselling ecosystem? Or is it a bust-in-the-making for authors? Let us know in the comments!
In my next post, I’m going to break down, step-by-step, how I set up my free promotional days. This routine consistently gets me to the top 5 in both Young Teen Mysteries and Women Sleuths genres on Amazon.
by Ben Zackheim
by Ben Zackheim | Jan 3, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing |
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!):
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Get your share of the $11 million KDP pie (known as the KDP Select Global Fund)
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Free promotional days
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Countdown deals
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70% on all sales to Japan, Brazil, India and Mexico.
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“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.
by Ben Zackheim
by Ben Zackheim | Dec 22, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing |
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.
by Ben Zackheim | Dec 19, 2013 | Book Promotion, Digital Identity, Writing |
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.
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… ;-)
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.
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.
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
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
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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…
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?
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.
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 ;-)
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.
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:
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 ;-)
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.
You might also like:
WordPress for authors and writers (part three)
WordPress for authors and writers (part two)
WordPress for authors and writers (part one)
Top 5 writing contests
Ben Zackheim
