Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
So You’d Like to Become An Amazon Bestseller!
Don’t wait. Publishing insider and Outskirts Press CEO Brent Sampson reveals revolutionary advice guaranteed to increase your book sales on Amazon. Learn the powerful secrets used by successful Amazon authors every day. This informative and practical “how-to” guide shares new techniques that are proven to work.
Solutions Revealed!
Discover step-by-step methods for improving your exposure on Amazon and increasing your
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Review by Brandon Simpson for Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
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This book about Amazon marketing does not live up to its hype. It will waste your time and money. It is full of tactics that will teach you unethical practices, marginal techniques, and ways of spamming Amazon in violation of its guidelines. The book suggests you to do the following tactics, which are not helpful at all.
1. Don’t write a 5 -star review of your own book. This is unethical and a violation of Amazon’s guidelines. Customer reviews should be written by customers, not the authors who wrote the book. These reviews will be overlooked by potential buyers, who will not find the review helpful and ignore it.
2. Don’t ask anybody for 5-star reviews. In his book, he tells the reader to give his book a 5-star review if they liked it. When I give a copy of my book to a reviewer, I don’t say anything that may suggest I want a glowing review. Besides, 5-star reviews are usually generated by hype. Most browsers usually don’t read the 5-star reviews or the 1-star reviews. The 2, 3, & 4-star reviews are usually read more.
3. Don’t end every review with the title of your book. This could be seen as blatant self-promotion. Others may see is as a way of stealing sales. This is also a violation of Amazon’s guidelines. It’s also problematic because you may write more books. If you have 50 reviews that mention your older book, you would have to revise all fifty of them and mention your new one. There’s an easier way to do this. Use your Amazon Signature. It can be changed at any time, and you can say something like “John Doe, `Author of Whatever Book.” If you write a second book, you can change it to “Author of Whatever Book #2.” Believe me, revising all of your reviews is very frustrating.
4. There is no “magical” way to remove a 1-star review. If the review is fair and balanced, it will stay. A review can be removed if:
-the reviewer clearly hasn’t read the book
-is attacking the author
-and more!!!
5. The book suggests you to also write a bunch of Listmania lists and So You’d Like to Guides. I did all this for several weeks with no results. It was a waste of my time. Some people may even view this as a form of spam. I decided to delete most of my guides and lists.
The author suggests you to publish your book with a self-publishing company. There’s nothing wrong with having your book published by a self-publishing company, but you can actually keep more of the profit by publishing it yourself. The book explains that there are two ways of having your book listed on Amazon: 1. Publish your book with a self-publishing company that can offer a 20% trade discount or 2. Publish your book yourself and sign up for Amazon Advantage, in which case you’d have to supply your own book to Amazon who’d also buy it at a 55% trade discount. But this begs the question, “If a self-publishing company can offer a %20 trade discount, why can’t I?” This question led me to research the web to find the answer, and I ended up at “Aiming At Amazon.” This book tells you how to do what the self-publishing companies charge you to do. You can save hudreds of dollars by taking the advice in “Aiming At Amazon.” So it appears that “Sell Your Book On Amazon” is an advertisement (albeit a very subtle one) to self-publishing companies, and I also felt deceived that the author didn’t include this piece of information.
One thing that really bothered me about this book is that the tips are *guaranteed* to increase sales. It’s not a good idea to guarantee anything, especially on the internet. From my experience, nothing is guaranteed. I did everything this book recommended, and so far the results have left me very disappointed. In fact, I remember one month when my sales were much LOWER than they were the previous month. Not exactly something I expected from tactics that were *guaranteed* to increase sales.
Another important thing that this book doesn’t address is that Amazon marketing only works if you write a GREAT book. Word of mouth spreads quickly online. So internet buzz will help a great book, but will damage a mediocre one. I finally accepted the fact that my first two attempts at publishing were failures. But I didn’t like how this book filled me up with false hope, making me think that these tactics would increase sales. My third at attempt at publishing has much better results, but I’m using tactics from “Aiming At Amazon” and “Plug Your Book.” I only made about $40 in the first month of my first book’s publication, and I was using advice from “Sell Your Book On Amazon.” By employing the advice in “Aiming At Amazon,” I’ve already made $300 in just two months.
There are those who love this book. I, however, am not one of them. I suggest you to skip this book and seek out other books on internet publicity. This book will only disappoint and frustrate you. And since I did everything this book said, I’ve got a big mess on Amazon that I need to clean up.
Brandon Simpson
Review by Jeff Lippincott for Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
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I enjoyed reading this book. It does a pretty good job of explaining how to make the most of Amazon if you are interested in using it as a marketing tool for your book. The author spends a lot of time telling us how to set up our “Profile Page” in Amazon. Interestingly he calls it an “author” profile page. I have one of those myself as an Amazon user, but I’m not a published author … yet.
Much of what the author talks about in this book is what I have been doing to build my presence on the Amazon site since January, 2006. I have been writing book reviews, creating Listmania lists, and Amazon Guides. I have also studied the profile page options and experimented with how my profile page will be viewed by the masses.
Based on the Profile Pages of many authors I have examined over the past year and a half, I think there is a definite need for the instant book. Very few, and I mean VERY few, authors are taking advantage of the things explained in this book. I highly recommend that authors who are not taking advantage of Amazon’s offerings get a copy.
I was a little disappointed after reading this book when I turned to the author’s Profile Page at Amazon. He did not seem to be practicing what he preaches. He only has 19 book reviews, 10 Listmania lists, and zero Amazon Guides. And the Listmania lists were not packed to the brim with books. As a result, the author lost some credibility in my eyes. But then again, I am an educated consumer when it comes to the content included in this book.
I prefer to name the biographical section on a Profile Page as “In my own words.” And I disagree with the author that this section should be written so all of its content will be neatly included on the Profile Page. I recommend writing a blurb about yourself as long as you like. And Amazon will let you write quite a bit here.
I would have liked the book better if the content related to Listmania lists had been more accurate and more complete. For me, the Listmania lists are critical to establishing a presence at Amazon. And it is a presence that you want to establish if you want to sell books! To build my lists I pick a subject I want the list to be about. Then I find two or three highly popular books on the subject. “Highly popular” means a high star rating coupled with a sizeable vote count. I write the book’s vital stats on a small stickem: title, author, pub date, ISBN, star count, vote count, and whether it has a table of contents. Then I check the information Amazon provides on that book regarding related books and books customers buy who buy that book. If those books are rated high, then I prepare a stickem for them, too. I keep repeating the process for the books I create stickems until I have a stack of stickems 25 to 40 high. By the way, Listmania lists now allow for 40 books (not just 25 as the author suggests). Then I rearrange the stack of stickems in order of publication date so the newest book will be at the top of my list and the oldest book will be at the bottom. Then I build my list on Amazon.
After I post my Listmania list I then examine the Listamania lists and Amazon Guides that Amazon attaches to the right side of my list. I scan through those lists to look for some neat books that I might not have included in MY list. I then add those neat books I uncovered. Hopefully that will get my book count in my list up to 40.
As the author says in his book, Listmania lists are pretty easy to build. But building one is no guarantee that it will be popular. And you want popular ones in order to get known on Amazon. Keep building lists until you get a nucleus of popular lists. You may consider deleting the unpopular ones. The popular ones are the ones that are going to help you get known on Amazon. Also, those are the ones you will want to take the time to create an Amazon Guide for. Theoretically you shouldn’t create an Amazon Guide unless the books included in it are from a popular Listmania list.
I don’t like the use of Author Blogs on Amazon. It’s not that I don’t like blogs, but I think they should be a part of an author’s Web site that is referenced just above the biographical section on the Profile Page. I don’t like blogs on the Profile Page because they mess up the layout of that page and become the Profile Page. I don’t like having to scroll down the Profile Page to see things other than the blog.
All in all, this is a pretty good book for anyone who wants to market themselves, their business, or THEIR BOOK on Amazon. 4 stars!
Review by Reader Views for Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
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Reviewed by Tyler R. Tichelaar for Reader Views (9/07)
Brent Sampson’s “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is the book I have been waiting for so I can understand how Amazon ranks my books and how I can better promote my books on Amazon. As an author myself, my books have been listed on Amazon, but I had no idea I had any control over how popular they could become.
While I had already been doing a couple things Brent Sampson suggests, primarily writing book reviews, I learned there is a great deal more I can and should do. Brent Sampson takes us step-by-step through the jungle of Amazon. He explains to us about creating an Amazon-Connect account, which includes a profile to show up on your book-detail pages. He explains in detail all the aspects of the Book-Detail page for a book. And he provides instructions for all those features on Amazon such as writing book reviews, participating in listmania, creating tags, and “So You’d Like To” guides. Throughout the book, he gives excellent advice. Not being the most computer-savvy individual, I never would have figured out on my own the many features he discusses. I guarantee “How to Sell Your Book on Amazon” will sit by my computer for a long time and be frequently referred to as I learn to use Amazon to my advantage.
My greatest revelation from reading “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is that Amazon is not only a bookstore but a networking site for authors. I have already been promoting my book at other sites like Myspace, Facebook and Shelfari, but I now realize Amazon is a fantastic networking site to meet readers, and to group and associate my book with other similar and more popular books in my subject area. I am guessing it is far more effective and lucrative than those other sites as well.
I would say “Sell Your Book on Amazon” is 95% user-friendly. I actually sat at my computer and followed the steps on Amazon as I read the book, so although the book is only 164-pages long, it took me a good week to read through it, spending a few hours each night working on my author profile and creating tags and lists on Amazon. I did get a bit confused at times, but I think that’s because Amazon may have changed the placement of a few things on its website. I hope Mr. Sampson is diligent about keeping the book updated because I think it is already a bit out-of-date in one or two places because of Amazon’s website changes. The only addition I wish the book had was a chart listing all the different addresses for Amazon programs–Amazon-connect, a seller-account (part of Amazon-connect), an associates account, and the different email addresses to contact Amazon depending on the section you need help with. My head rather swam as I grew to realize you don’t just have one Amazon account, but probably several different ones depending on whether you’re selling or directing traffic from your website to Amazon, or simply purchasing from Amazon. I did greatly appreciate the several pages in the back of the book designated for notes. I now have several pages of notes for quick reference when I need to perform a task on Amazon.
Brent Sampson also recommends authors tell people to go to Amazon and write 5 star reviews for their books. He even asks the reader to write a five star review for “Sell Your Book on Amazon.” I am happy to comply with his request, and at the same time, follow his advice that I sign my review with a plug for my own book.
- Tyler R. Tichelaar, author of “Iron Pioneers” available on Amazon.
Review by Ben Rothke for Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
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Sell Your Book on Amazon is a very helpful book for any author who wants to maximize their profits from their published books. A main premise of the book is to publish your book via an on-demand or self-publishing company. By doing this, an author can reap greater profits, rather than the publisher or Amazon taking up to 90% of the revenue.
While the book has many helpful hints on publicizing your book on Amazon, an underlying problem though with it is that it does not address the fact that a good book is not about publicity, sales secrets or hype, rather it all about the content. A good book can generate its own buzz and spawn greater sales with a little help. But a lousy book is a lousy book and any attempt to make it a best seller via Internet publicity will likely fail, and give the author a bad reputation.
The problem is that a book like this can make a lousy author think they can get their book on the New York Times best seller list. It is simply not that easy. An author selling their book on Amazon is no different than a singer selling their songs on iTunes; it is all about the content.
That is why I have a problem with one of the suggestions in chapter 2, where the author writes “I will reiterate this several times throughout this book, because it’s true: one of the best ways to sell more books on Amazon is to publish more books”. The author uses economy of scale to justify this based on promoting a book. This is an absurd premise on which to write a book. But economies of scale will only work when there is a quality product. Churning out books on Amazon and relentlessly promoting them is an unlikely way to generate sales unless there is something worth reading.
Any aspiring writer should first ensure that they have the capabilities to write a good book. While self-publishing can generate more profits, one of the benefits of publishing through an established publishing company is that they will vet the book in advance to make certain the author can write, and that the book is likely to generate sales. Such a process makes sure the inferior author’s books stay unwritten.
Most potential writers should first spend some time honing their writing skills. After they do that and are able to create quality content, should the use a book such as this to help sales. If an author does that in this order, they will likely be successful. But writing a book in the hope that hype and sales secrets will make it sell will almost certainly be a formula for failure.
Review by Gord Wilson for Sell Your Book on Amazon: The Book Marketing COACH Reveals Top-Secret “How-to” Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers
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As a writer and editor, I’m used to being beat down. Rejection slips are just the beginning of the obstacles authors face. Dan Poynter’s foreword to this book is so upbeat and inspiring, however, that I got instantly recharged. More than that, it helped me regain the vision that had sustained me when I began following the calling to write many years ago. When I cracked the cover of Brent Sampson’s book, I found, as many authors will, that I was already doing some things right, merely in the course of following that calling. For years I had searched, as do all authors, for some viable way to publish books, trying agents, traditional publishers (hence the rejection slips), and most recently POD, Print on Demand, publishing. I believe, as Dan says in the foreword, that POD is the future but, as Brent points out, it also holds pitfalls. Luckily Brent covers that in depth in his book. As with traditional publishers, it’s important to scrutinize the contract details, as POD publishers are not all alike in the benefeatures they provide the author (with a contract from a traditional publisher, get a lawyer to look at the contract). The great advantage to POD is you keep the rights to the book, as well as the royalties. Of course, you also do all the work yourself, which is where Brent’s book comes in.
This book is limited to Amazon, but Amazon is unique among online booksellers. Nearly every week there’s another new Amazon term with “What’s This?” next to it. Click that and it’s often clear as mud, so I go running to Dan’s books, just as I need Dummies books to figure out gobbledegook in other programs. Brent goes step by step through all things Amazon (almost all things Amazon; he doesn’t cover Amazon Associates, the program by which you can sell Amazon items on your website), even showing screen shots of his own book detail and profile pages. Brent is nothing if not self- promoting, but as he points out, “you found out about this book somehow didn’t you?” Yeah, and even thinking I already knew everything in it, I still bought it, so convincing is his PR, which is to say all that promoting works, at least on some of us.
Some of what he suggests I was already doing. I was already writing reviews, guides, and lists, but not to promote a book, simply to keep my hand in writing. Did I have a book to promote? Sort of. The book I was most recently involved with I compiled and edited and wrote supporting copy for. Crying for a Vision and Other Essays by Steve Scott lists me as editor not author. One great use of POD is to reprint out of print books. However, one must always make the second edition “value-added” because Amazon will have an ad next to the new edition for someone selling the old edition for two bucks. Even though once you click on it and kick in the shipping, it may come out to quite a bit more, it’s still enticing. In our case, the core of our book had come out as a slim collection of essays in the UK, which we edited and beefed up with four new essays, an interview, a new introduction, and a study guide. All of which makes the new edition unique and attractive.
If you are an author, you can put that as your signature which shows up on your reviews, and also in the bio on your author profile page through AmazonConnect. Luckily, Brent covers all that. I had a learning curve even beginning to write reviews, guides and lists one summer several years ago, that could have been smoother with Brent as the “coach”. For those of us who shy away from the dog eat dog world of book marketing, Brent offers another viewpoint. Amazon is essentially a computer, or, if you like, a computer program, a customer- centered “smart” program that analyzes each person’s viewing and buying habits and tailors their Amazon experience based on that info. So think of it as working with the computer, or as maximizing your impact and visibility with Amazon provided tools.
I don’t really think the appeal of this book is limited to authors and publishers. It’s for anyone who wants to get into their Amazon experience more, understand more what’s going on, and if nothing else, to have the answers for all the times Amazon asks “what’s this?” Amazon really is a free chance to voice your opinions world wide, with profile pages, blogs, tags, and other arcane things that Brent, luckily understands. For authors though, it’s a gold mine. Brent demystifies all of the above and offers endless invitations to the write stuff.