Apr 7 2014

Sales Psychology for Authors

Salesman pic

Introduction

I had been a salesman at Sears for several years paying my way through college.

  • But I loathed salesmanship.
  • So I found ways to help match people with products that didn’t feel like salesmanship.

Now I’m an author who has books for sale.

  • But I still loathe salesmanship.
  • Marketing is an important tool for selling books.
  • So I’ve discovered ways to help match readers with books that don’t feel like salesmanship.

Many authors feel like writing artists.

  • Their writing is fueled by passion, not by finance.
  • The reason they want sales is to share their passion with readers.

Many authors don’t feel like salespeople.

  • Yet they need to sell books in order to share their passion.
  • So they need to find ways to market their books that don’t feel like salesmanship.

Marketing without Salesmanship

What you want to avoid:

  • Hyping up the book to sound better than it really is.
  • Convincing people to buy your book.
  • Feeling more like a businessperson than an author.
  • False advertising, dishonesty, deception, unethical behavior.
  • Trashing other books to make yours seem better.
  • Short-term sales strategies that may limit long-term success.

What you want to achieve:

  • Describing your book as it really is in a way that creates interest.
  • Increased exposure among your target audience.
  • Content so amazing it generates word-of-mouth sales.
  • A loyal fan base that craves your writing.
  • Branding a positive image as a professional author.
  • A professional author platform focused on long-term success.

I’ve been on the sales floor. I’ve heard people say that a product is bad because it’s not in stock then explain why it’s the best when it is in stock. I saw a salesman get caught selling products to his friends who were using stolen credit cards. Many would ignore customers looking at cheap products so as not to miss a customer looking for a high-end product. I’ve been the victim of people who returned products that I sold then “resold” them under their own numbers. It’s amazing what unscrupulous things one can do just to make a few extra sales.

But I also had the honor to work mostly with honest, ethical salespeople. I enjoyed learning the art of helping people find products that met their needs. There were a few shady salespeople with unbelievable numbers. There were also a couple of amazing, honest salespeople with incredible numbers. The trick was to compare yourself to how well you did the previous month, not to what other people are doing. Some of the notorious salespeople eventually met their doom. And the talented salespeople simply played in a different league than I did.

Don’t worry about authors and publishers who may have unethical practices. Those things tend to take care of themselves. Don’t worry about extraordinary authors whose words seem to turn to gold. They live in fairy tale land. Just compare yourself to your previous self. You’re the only person you should hope to improve.

Use sales psychology to help match readers up with books that fit them well. You don’t really want to sell your book to readers for whom it would be a poor fit. You want readers who are likely to enjoy your book, want to read your other books, and who are likely to recommend your book to others.

Here is some sales psychology that you can use to help share your passion without feeling like a salesperson:

  • Ultimately, the product is more important than the package, but consumers are strongly influenced by the packaging. So while the book itself is most important for long-term success, the title, cover, blurb, and Look Inside are critical toward getting discovered. A cover that looks professional suggests that the content may be worthy. A cover that attracts the target audience helps to match readers with your book.
  • Get a cover that appeals to your specific target audience and which conveys your subgenre instantly. The better your cover achieves this, the more interest you will create in your book just by getting the cover discovered by your specific target audience. If you get a fantastic cover, use it as motivation to make the content of your book equally fantastic.
  • Don’t hype the book up in the blurb, but do write in a highly engaging way and hint at the book’s best elements to create interest in your book without giving too much away. Your goal is to create reasonable expectations for your book while at the same time motivating your target audience to peek inside.
  • Prepare a Look Inside that delivers content that the reader will expect from the cover and blurb. Engage the reader’s interest right off the bat, arouse the reader’s curiosity, and make the target audience want to read more. But ensure that the remainder of the book will live up to the expectations created by the Look Inside.
  • The title, cover, blurb, Look Inside, and the book’s content serve as your sales staff. They can help your target audience find your book, and they can do it in your absence. Online, these are the only things standing between the shopper and the sale. But it’s much more than a sale; it’s a chance to share your passion with your audience.
  • Consumers don’t buy features; they buy benefits. Think about the best features of your book. Then figure out how these features benefit readers. But don’t express the benefits as promises (“This book will make you cry”) or bragging (“better than Harry Potter“). These features should be clear in your description and back cover blurb, and the benefits should be clear. In fiction, the benefits need to be much more implicit.
  • Write content that lives up to the promises delivered by the cover, blurb, and Look Inside. Provide content that readers will believe is a good value. Write content that is likely to elicit good recommendations, such as a highly memorable character, an amazing plot, valuable information, or breathtaking descriptions. A wow-factor can do wonders for reviews and referrals.
  • Interact with your target audience, both in person and online. You don’t need to advertise your book; you can wait to be asked a question like, “What have you been up to lately?” Let people discover that you’ve written a book and ask you about it; then you won’t feel like a salesperson. When you get the opportunity to describe your book, show your passion for your writing. You’re sharing your passion for writing more than you’re sharing a book.
  • Create a catchy strap line for your book that works like a slogan. You want something concise, easy to remember, and which conveys the subgenre clearly.
  • Strive to brand a positive image for you and your book. People don’t run to the store immediately after a commercial. Advertising often works months later, when the customer stands in an aisle and recognizes a brand. You want your target audience to recognize your thumbnail, title, or author photo from having seen it a few times before.
  • In person, place your book in the customer’s hands. Keep your hands occupied. If the customer manages to place the book back in your hands, open the book toward the customer and point to a feature. The longer the customer holds your book, the more attached the customer becomes to it. If your book matches the customer’s reading interests, you’re helping the reader visualize the happiness that your book can provide in his or her hands.
  • Treat your readers well. Think highly of your readers. Consider what you like as a reader, and what you like as a shopper. With everything you do, ask yourself if you feel more like a salesperson doing it, or if you feel more like an author who is sharing his or her passion with readers.
  • People are more likely to get interested in a passionate author than a physical book. Interact with your target audience to help create interest in you, with the hope that such interest will carry over to your book. It’s easier for you to engage your target audience than it is for your book because first someone has to pick up your book and start reading it; they just have to meet you, they don’t have to open you up and turn your pages to discover what’s inside. People you personally interact with are more likely to buy, read, review, and recommend your book.
  • There are many different styles of thinking. You’re just one person. Seek feedback from multiple people in your target audience throughout the writing and publishing process. This will help you gauge how people may react to your title, cover, blurb, Look Inside, and the content itself.

Here are a few ways that you can market your book feeling less like a salesperson and more like a passionate writer:

  • Think of social media as a means to interact with your audience, colleagues, and others, rather than a way to advertise your book.
  • Think of a blog as an opportunity to share more writing and to interact with other bloggers, instead of a means to gain exposure.
  • Think of an author website as a chance to provide valuable content to your target audience, versus a place to sell your book.
  • Think of press release kits, author interviews, and blog tours as opportunities to share your passion with readers, not as tools to stimulate sales.

Remember, marketing is about discovery and branding, tools that can help you share your passion, not about advertising and not about the sales or royalties. Personal interactions serve as a valuable tool that every author can utilize; it’s a chance to let your passion show through.

Motivate yourself. Not with money. Not to be a bestseller. To share your passion. Remind yourself that you’re not marketing to sell books, you’re marketing to share your passion with others.

Get inspired. Find things that other authors have done that can inspire you.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 7 2014

The Seven Deadly Sins of Writing

Seven

1 Lust

When you’ve lost the joy of writing.

When what you gain as an author outweighs what your readers get from your book.

When you form empty relationships in the writing world just to get ahead.

When the book pales in comparison to the hype.

2 Gluttony

When you would do absolutely anything for your muse.

When you keep on writing long after you realize that not one word will be worth keeping.

When you buy thousands of your own books with no intention of parting with a single copy.

When you love your story so much you rewrite it word for word just to enjoy writing it again.

3 Greed

When royalties become more important than readers.

When the packaging far outweighs the content.

When the writing is fueled by money, not passion.

When your autograph becomes a chore, not a privilege.

4 Sloth

When you refuse to consult a dictionary or even to notice spellcheck marks.

When you know your grammar weaknesses, but never check on the rules when using them.

When you realize the editing and formatting are lousy, but just let them go.

When you have amazing writing talents, but never write books that utilize them.

5 Wrath

When you fashion a character after somebody in order to exact your revenge.

When you delete everything you’ve ever written out of rage.

When you are consumed by hatred for your critics.

When you quit writing because you despise what you’ve written.

6 Envy

When you read a bestselling book for no other reason than to discover it’s faults.

When you leave a bad review for a book that you wish you had written.

When you spend more time exploring other writers’ success than writing your own books.

When you would sell your soul to become a bestseller.

7 Pride

When you believe your status raises you above your fellow authors.

When you believe that your writing has no equal.

When you expect everyone to offer nothing but high praise for your writing.

When you can’t publish for fear of criticism.

Writer’s Heaven

Surely, all passionate writer’s go to Heaven, right?

Seven Deadly Sins of Writing

Chris McMullen

Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 6 2014

Why You Want Fellow Authors to Succeed

Compliments

You want your fellow authors to be successful.

You even want books similar to yours to do well.

And it’s not just about creating good karma.

It makes good business sense, too.

Some would have you believe that the way to thrive in the competitive publishing business is to play the cutthroat game and slam the competition. Unfortunately, you can find stories of a few big authors and publishers slamming one another, not just recently, but even going way back. You can also find gossip about more underhanded activities.

But that’s just foolish.

And again, it’s not just because it’s not nice. Economically, it doesn’t make sense if you take a moment to look a few moves ahead.

Highly similar books usually sell together. Some customers buy them all at once. Some buy one today, another in a month, and another a few months from now.

Similar books help one another out through customers-also-bought associations. They also help one another out through word-of-mouth referrals because they share a common target audience and people within that audience do discuss books they enjoy.

When you buy a book online, Amazon recommends similar books. When you visit your homepage, again Amazon recommends similar books.

Foolish authors look at similar books and think, “Oh no! That book looks good. It might take all my sales.” The immature reaction is to slam the competition.

And shoot yourself in the foot in the process.

Most likely, that book won’t take your sales. Most likely, that book will either (A) help your sales or (B) not affect your sales.

When customers really like a book, they want to find more books similar to that.

But there is one way that similar books can take your sales. That’s when you succeed in hurting that book’s sales.

Then, instead of that book’s sales helping your book out through customers-also-bought associations, it’s hurting your sales by not sending traffic your way.

When authors slam one another and a lot of the competition, it creates a bad vibe for the whole set of similar books. It hurts sales for everybody.

Similar books are free marketing for you. Other authors’ great content and effective marketing helps you through customers-also-bought marketing. You don’t need to do anything to benefit from this except continue writing your own books, developing your own author platform, and marketing your own books.

Applaud your fellow authors and watch them help you without even trying.

Act on your jealousy and watch you hurt yourself.

First of all, your efforts to hurt the competition may actually help the competition because you’re giving those other books more publicity, even if it’s negative. And you have to credit people, who can often smell a rat.

Second of all, you don’t want to hurt the sales of similar books that can only help you out.

And what about those amazing authors who break through and make it big time?

Does that make you feel all jealous inside? Do you look at those books critically and think how childish the storyline is, how poorly edited the book is, and completely miss the big picture?

Applaud those authors. If you self-publish, applaud the indie authors who succeed. They’re helping to make a great name for indie authors. They’re reaching hundreds of thousands of readers and showing them that indie books can be amazing.

If you self-publish, you want other indie authors to be successful. Their success builds a large audience of readers who are willing to take a chance on indie books. That helps you.

It’s not just indie author success. It’s any author success. Any author who makes readers love the reading experience creates future sales for many other authors.

There is no indie versus traditional battle. What’s most ridiculous about that is the increasing number of authors who publish both ways. Should they punch themselves in the face?

There is just one battle. That’s you wrestling against yourself, your emotions, and your irrational instincts.

What’s good for readers is good for all authors.

And if there are readers who enjoy a book, that book is pleasing readers and therefore good for all authors, including you, whether or not you approve of that book.

Way to go, Amanda Hocking! You made a huge name for yourself. You made a huge name for indie authors.

Way to go, Hugh Howey! Way to go, E.L. James!

Way to go, Stephen King! Your great works have hooked millions of readers not just on your books, but on the love of reading.

Way to go, J.K. Rowling! Way to go, Anne Rice!

Way to go, all authors, big and small, whose books have pleased readers.

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 5 2014

Newbie Author Book Marketing Mistakes

Marketing Mistakes

Introduction

When you first publish, it’s natural to make marketing mistakes. It’s also natural for toddlers to prefer to poop where they are instead of wasting valuable play time by going to the potty. Either way, as you get older, it pays to overcome these natural tendencies:

  • You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and the first impression is often a lasting one. Try not to make yours with your tongue sticking out.
  • Some of your online activity leaves a permanent record; not all of your mistakes can be undone. If only life came with an Undo button… “I’m so sorry!” doesn’t always work.
  • An important part of marketing is branding a professional image of yourself. Mistakes aren’t easy to overcome. Think before you act. And do a little research.

(1) Me Me Me Me Me Me Me

Try this. (Not really.) Walk around the block. Stop at every neighbor’s house. If they’re home, spend a few minutes telling them about your book. A few hours later, walk around the block and do this again. Repeat every few hours for a week.

You wouldn’t really do this, would you? (I hope not.)

Some newbie authors repeatedly tell the same audience over and over repeating over and over repeating over and over (in case you don’t get the idea, I could go on…) about their books.

You do need to help people discover your book. But you don’t need to transform into a human-size mosquito to do it:

  • Chances are that people will be more interested in you than in your book. Let people get to know you and get interested in you, then when they learn that you’ve written a book, that interest may translate into your book.
  • Most people don’t like advertisements. Let people discover your book. You can mention it briefly at the bottom of posts on your website, for example. When talking to people, wait for them to ask you what you’ve done lately. Then they discover that you’re an author. That’s better than shoving your book down their throats.
  • Focus on what is likely to interest your target audience, then let your book become visible once they are drawn in. For example, a content-rich website helps to get your target audience to come to you (instead of you hunting them down like a hound dog). If your book is on sale, that’s worth announcing up front occasionally, but otherwise you want valuable content to draw your readers in, then mention your book at the end or off to the side.

(2) Another Place to Mention ME

Have you ever seen a list of hundreds or thousands of books at a discussion forum with a title like, “Self-Promote Your Book Here”?

Who is reading these lists? Other authors who are hoping to promote their books! Why would readers go there? The books aren’t even sorted by genre.

Strive to find ways to reach your specific target audience. And see point (1).

You know what these “Promote Your Book Here” threads are really for? They are detour signs designed to keep mosquitoes out of the park. 🙂

But some mosquitoes venture into the park anyway and blatantly self-promote where it’s strictly forbidden (or strongly discouraged). Get ready to dodge those flyswatters!

(3) Money Go Bye Bye

Don’t understand the marketing beast? That’s okay. Just throw money at it. Money will solve all your problems, right? Not! If it were that easy, everybody would be making big $$$ selling books. (It is possible to become a successful author, but it takes quality content, perseverance, hard work, and a long-term perspective.)

Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and many other websites will be happy to take your money to advertise your book. Even Amazon will take your money to advertise (but there is a $10,000 minimum, which is a lot more money than most newbie authors want to watch burn in a bonfire).

I’m not saying that advertising can’t be effective. Just that advertising isn’t going to solve your problem of why your book isn’t selling. If your book’s not selling, figure out how to get it to sell on its own before you start playing the advertising game. When you do advertise, start small and work your way up, and have the sense to quit when it doesn’t seem to be working. Advertising a special promotion may be more effective than advertising one book. And waiting until you have a dozen similar books before you spend good $$$ to advertise makes more sense than advertising just a few books.

There are a lot of people and businesses who will be happy to take your money, and some will promise things you really want to hear.

Much of the most effective marketing is FREE (yeah, baby!) and it’s work that you have to do yourself. Even if a publicist arranges engagements for you, you’re still the one who has to show up, do the work, make a fantastic impression, and not manage to stick three feet in your mouth while doing it. Personal interactions with your target audience can be highly effective because it’s easier to draw interest in a person than an inanimate book, and this is something you can do for free all by your lonesome self.

Paid advertising for books doesn’t work the same way as it does for most other products, and it’s even worse for newbie authors:

  • People need toilet paper. People can live without books. (Honestly, I don’t understand how it’s possible, but evidently it is.)
  • There are a dozen brands of toilet paper to choose from. Amazon has 30,000,000 different books to choose from.

Last time you drove down the freeway and saw a Victoria’s Secret billboard, did you weave over to the exit from the fast lane and head straight to the mall? That’s not how advertising works. It doesn’t hypnotize the audience to buy the product immediately. Advertising strives to achieve branding. You see or hear a brand today, next month, a few times this year, and hopefully many consumers will recognize the brand several months from now when they’re in the market for that product or service. When you’re buying a new product, if you prefer a brand name you’ve heard of before, advertising has worked its magic on you.

(4) Hop on the Band Wagon

I’ve got a busload full of newbie authors here. We’re driving off a cliff because that worked for one other lucky author who managed to survive the fall and the publicity did wonders for his books. Hop in!

If it worked well for others, shouldn’t it work well for you, too?

  • One size doesn’t fit all. Each book has a unique audience. Each author has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Tailor your marketing plan to your specific book, audience, and to your strengths.
  • Marketing is dynamic. What was hot last year might be a dud this year.

Focus on how to reach your specific target audience, especially people who don’t already know about your book.

Consider what fraction of your marketing may actually reach your specific target audience. For example, much of a social media following may be inactive, whereas visitors who discover a content-rich website through a search engine are more apt to be in your specific target audience. This doesn’t mean that social media can’t be effective, just that you need to find a way to use it effectively to reach your audience in order to make it worthwhile.

(5) Please, please, please review my book. P L E A S E.

Oh, no, your book isn’t selling? Maybe some reviews will do the trick. (More likely, they won’t solve your problem.)

  • Don’t beg for reviews. Don’t ask for reviews. Don’t pay for reviews (this violates review guidelines). Do you want to brand a professional author image? Or would you rather look needy? (Maybe you are needy. You need sales. That’s fine. Be needy. But don’t look needy.)
  • If you “recruit” reviews, your reviews will probably look like they were recruited. Recruited reviews are likely to arouse buyer suspicion. Just glowing remarks, a lot of praise without explanation, a lot of reviews for a newly published book with a high sales rank… these kinds of things are like putting a neon sign on your product page: What’s funny about this picture?
  • The unpredictable assortment of balanced reviews that comes about naturally through sales may be the best reviews you can get. (Now getting a blog review posted on a blog is different. That helps to promote your book without affecting your product page.) It’s tough. Buyers want to see reviews, but they really want to see natural comments from strangers. But you don’t have to stimulate reviews to stimulate sales; you can stimulate sales to get natural reviews. (Psst. It’s called marketing and it’s a big secret. If you have memorable fiction content or helpful nonfiction content and you market effectively, sales and reviews will come naturally.)
  • Another no-no: Don’t thank all your reviewers, and don’t defend your book against bad reviews through comments. At first, thanking reviewers seems to provide a personal touch, but many customers feel strongly that authors should try to avoid this customer space. It’s a risk to leave a comment as that may deter sales. Do thank people on your blog—that’s your turf. Your customer review section is the customers’ turf. Don’t get into a turf war. The reviewer will win the battle every time. How? You leave a comment on the review. You know what will happen next? The reviewer will respond to your comment, asking you a question. Now, you have to answer that question, right? Pretty soon what you intended to be one comment turns into a lengthy discussion. You lose; game over.

Of course, you could also do the logical thing and find beta readers from your target audience, join a writing forum, and get your book edited before publishing. You do need feedback. Get as much as you can before your book goes live.

The newbie authors is praying for reviews. Then a bad review criticizes the book and the newbie author is cursing the whole review system.

Newbie authors really don’t know what they want…

Me Me Me Me Me Me Me (Again, but this time it’s really ME)

Chris McMullen, an author who didn’t mention his books at all until the very end of this post (but if you wanted me to shove a book down your throat earlier, all you had to do was ask—it was highly inconsiderate of me not to offer a snack—well, I did sneak one of my covers into the image for this post…). 🙂

A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 5 2014

The Critical Book Sales / Marketing Chain

Chain

Sales Formula

How many books will you sell? There is a simple formula for this:

SALES = (# of views) X (% of buys)

For example, if 1000 people view your book every day, but only 0.5% of those people purchase your book, you would sell 5 copies per day.

The two ways to maximize sales are to

  1. Maximize the frequency with which people view your book—i.e. increase your book’s exposure.
  2. Improve the percentage of people who purchase your book after viewing it—i.e. improve the buying ratio.

Wasted Effort

If your buying ratio is lousy, any time you spend improving your book’s discoverability is wasted because the buying ratio is inefficient. It would be 20 times more effective to raise your buying ratio from 0.001% to 0.1% (that’s 100x better) than it would be to increase your daily views from 1000 to 5000 (that’s 5x better). (The 20 times more effective compares 100x to 5x.)

Too many authors are focused on increasing the number of views instead of improving the % of buys. The latter may be easier and more effective.

You probably get hundreds or thousands of more initial views than you realize. Amazon.com sells millions of books every day (because the top 200,000 or so sell at least one copy per day, and the top books sell hundreds of books per day, adding up to millions overall). Shoppers view many more books than they buy, so there are probably billions of books seen on Amazon every day. At this stage, I’m saying that the thumbnail has been seen, but the book may not have been clicked on.

Of these billions of views, many shoppers click on one of the Last 30 Days or Last 90 Days links, which helps to find new releases. This filters the search results to help books that are otherwise hard to find get discovered in the first few months of the publication date.

TIP: Don’t enter a publication date at CreateSpace or Kindle. Leave this blank and the publication date will automatically be the date that you click the magic button to publish your book. This maximizes your book’s exposure in the new release categories.

Why should we think that a newly published book buried in Amazon’s haystack may be viewed hundreds or thousands of times more than the sales (or lack thereof) might suggest? (Again, by view, I mean that the thumbnail has been seen, not necessarily the product page.)

Because there are unmarketed books that get discovered and start selling frequently right off the bat. Although this is a rare percentage of books, it does happen, which shows that shoppers are discovering books through the new release filters.

Most books that don’t sell frequently on their own generally suffer more from a poor buying ratio than from poor exposure.

Buying Ratio

The buying ratio depends on this critical marketing chain:

  1. What percentage of people who see the thumbnail click on the book to visit the product page?
  2. What percentage of people who view the product page click to look inside?
  3. What percentage of people who look inside purchase the book?

This gives us another formula:

% of buys = (% of clicks) X (% of look insides) X (% of closes)

where the percentage of closes corresponds to point 3 from the marketing chain.

Suppose 1000 people view your book everyday, but:

  • 990 of them don’t click on it because it doesn’t look like it belongs to a genre that they read. In this case, a simple cover mistake may be costing you many sales.
  • 990 of them don’t click on it because the cover doesn’t look like it belongs in the category that it’s listed under. Such a target audience mismatch can greatly deter sales.
  • while 500 of those people do click on your book to see the product page, 495 of those don’t look inside because the blurb describes a different genre than the cover depicted. The cover and blurb must send a unified message.
  • while 500 of those people do click on your book to see the product page, 490 of those don’t look inside because the blurb doesn’t capture their interests.
  • while 500 of those people do click on your book to see the product page and 250 of those go on to look inside, 248 of those don’t make the purchase because the Look Inside doesn’t seal the deal.

More Sales

If you can improve the buying ratio, it will significantly improve your sales frequency.

There are three steps in the chain. Just one problem with these three steps can greatly deter sales even if the other steps are incredible:

  1. Improve the effectiveness of your cover at attracting your target audience. Cover appeal isn’t satisfactory. The most effective covers (A) pull you into them and (B) grab the specific target audience.
  2. Improve the effectiveness of your blurb to engage the interest of and arouse the curiosity of your target audience.
  3. Improve the effectiveness of your Look Inside in convincing your target audience that your book is Mr. Right for them.

A great cover with a lousy blurb = many lost sales.

A great cover and great blurb with a lousy Look Inside = many lost sales.

It’s really hard to make all 3 fantastic. But that’s what it takes to achieve a highly effective buying ratio.

Consider these points when designing your cover:

  • Spend hours researching bestselling covers within your specific subgenre. Find top sellers overall, good sellers with content similar to yours, and the best indie books. These are the kinds of images, font styles, and layouts that attract your target audience. But note that top authors and publishers can get away with a lesser cover due to name recognition.
  • Study cover design tips and mistakes. You can find such lists here at my blog, for example (click the Cover Design tab above).
  • Consider hiring a cover designer. You might think you can’t afford one. It might turn out that you really can’t afford not to have one. If you get a highly effective cover (now that’s a big IF, not guaranteed by hiring a designer, so do your research well) that improves your buying ratio by 10 times, that could make a huge difference over the next few years (especially, when you finally reach the level of having a professional author platform and several books out). On the other hand, if the blurb, Look Inside, or content greatly deter sales, that will put a huge dent in your cover’s potential effectiveness. There are no guarantees.
  • Get feedback, especially from your target audience. Be patient and redesign as needed.

Consider these points when writing your blurb:

  • Spend hours studying the blurbs of top selling books in your specific subgenre. What makes these books seem interesting? Does the writing flow well? Are the easy to read, or do you have to puzzle them out? Do they engage your interest throughout? Do they arouse your curiosity and make you want to click to look inside?
  • Don’t write a summary of your book for your blurb!
  • Ask yourself and your beta readers which elements of your book are most likely to attract interest in your book. Your blurb should use these effectively to draw out the shopper’s curiosity. You don’t want to give out information, but want to plant seeds that will make the reader want to know more.
  • Every sentence of your blurb needs to engage the shopper’s interest. Any sentence that doesn’t can greatly diminish your buying ratio.
  • Any spelling, grammar, or punctuation mistakes can greatly deter sales. Let’s face it: If you make a mistake in a 100-word blurb, that doesn’t bode well for writing tens of thousands of words well. Get help combing through this carefully.
  • Make sure your blurb reads well, flows well, and will be easy for your target audience to comprehend. Most people are looking for an easy read.
  • Shorter is often more effective for fiction. Anything extra increases the chances of the reader walking away. Come out punching, hook the reader, and make the reader look inside to learn more. For nonfiction, concise may also be good, though there are also benefits of showing expertise, qualifications, and listing selling features. If so, use basic HTML or go to Author Central to separate your paragraphs with blank lines and to use bullets to list features.
  • Get feedback, especially from successful indie authors and your target audience. Be patient and rewrite as many times as it takes to nail it.

Consider these points when preparing the Look Inside:

  • Browse through dozens of professional looking Look Insides of top selling books in your genre and compare them closely to your book. Don’t copy them; rather, learn what makes them highly effective.
  • Good editing and formatting are more important than many authors realize. Books tend to have more mistakes than the author realizes because the author tends to see what he or she meant to write rather than every word exactly as it was written. Get help ironing out your Look Inside. Your Look Inside is the only salesperson at Amazon making the difference between Buy It Now and Walk Away. Yeah, it’s that important.
  • The Look Inside needs to grab the reader’s interest right off the bat, arouse the reader’s curiosity, and seem like the kind of book that the cover and blurb depicted. The cover and blurb create expectations; the Look Inside must deliver on the promise.
  • The Look Inside must read well. The words should flow well. Even little things, like avoiding repetition, varying sentence structure, organizing your ideas well into paragraphs, dialog tags, and consistent style can have a significant impact if everything else is right.
  • This last point is huge. Your book idea has to have a significant audience (or a significant niche audience), and the category, cover, and blurb have to be effective at reaching this audience. The first step really is to research the potential of your book, starting by finding similar books and seeing how well they do, then by receiving ample feedback before, during, and after your book is written.

Putting extra time into perfecting the effectiveness of your cover, blurb, and Look Inside can pay huge dividends over the lifetime of your book. Rushing can cost you big time.

The X Factor

There is another factor that can have a huge impact on your buying ratio besides your cover, blurb, and Look Inside:

The impression that the content of your book has on your audience.

This make a big difference in the way of reviews, recommendations, and word-of-mouth referrals.

If you have a fantastic cover, a killer blurb, and an amazing Look Inside, but the content fails to meet the expectations that the cover, blurb, and Look Inside created, everything can backfire.

Bad reviews that highlight important points (i.e. important to buyers) which shoppers can corroborate with your Look Inside can kill your buying ratio.

So it’s also worth perfecting your content. Perfect your storyline, characterization, editing, formatting, and writing. This can make the difference between favorable recommendations and unfavorable criticism. You can’t completely avoid criticism because not everyone shares the same interests, but you want to do your best to limit it and to encourage positive feedback.

There is an abundance of good content already on the market. Writers who can achieve something extraordinary have an opportunity to stand out with marked word-of-mouth referrals. It’s not easy. Sometimes a story or character is just so memorable. Study stories and characters, especially those in your subgenre, that are exceptionally memorable.

There are two more ratios that are worth considering as they also impact your net sales:

  • Your return ratio: How often a customer is dissatisfied with your book.
  • Your referral ratio: How often a satisfied customer helps you reach a new customer.

Marketing

The higher your buying ratio:

  • The more books you will sell without marketing.
  • The more effective any marketing that you do will be.

For a given buying ratio, there are two ways that marketing can help sales:

  • Marketing can help you improve your book’s exposure. More views among your target audience means more sales.
  • Marketing can help you improve your buying ratio. Personal interactions can help stimulate sales even if the cover, blurb, and Look Inside are lacking to some extent.

Marketing is most effective when your efforts reach many people in your specific target audience who don’t already know about your book.

For example, spending a little time every week over the course of several months to prepare content toward developing a content-rich website that will attract hundreds of people from your target audience through search engines every day can give you amazing long-term exposure. 100 people per day equates to 36,500 people learning about you and your book every year. It’s an activity that can start out very slowly at first, but if done right can be highly effective after a year or more.

Long-Term Success

However many copies you sell, whether it’s a few a month or several per day, imagine if you could multiply this number by 2, 5, or 10. Going from 3 per month to 6 per month may not seem like much, but your book won’t be available for just a month. What if your book continues to sell for years? After a decade or lifetime of sales, multiplying all those sales by 2, 5, 10, or more could turn out to be huge.

This is especially true if you’re not trying to be a one-hit wonder. Most new authors’ books struggle. It’s not easy to get discovered. But there is a lot of potential for good writers with good ideas who persevere.

Focus on long-term success. Imagine having several similar books on the market. Now every book that you sell has the prospect of helping to market your other books. Anything you can do to improve your buying ratio can pay added dividends by helping to sell your other books.

Work toward having a professional author platform in the long run. Do a little here and there with this long-term goal in mind. Do marketing that is likely to reap long-term rewards.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 4 2014

A Glitch in the New Kindle Series Changes?

Prequel

Kindle is in the process of changing the way that Kindle series books are displayed in Amazon.com search results, as I recently posted (click here if you missed it). Basically, search results will look like:

Book Title: Subtitle (Series Title Book Number)

For example, a search result might look like:

It Wasn’t the Butler (Guess Whodunit Book 2)

I recently came across an interesting question about this on the Kindle community forum:

https://kdp.amazon.com/community/thread.jspa?messageID=715460

It’s a good question: What happens with prequels, novellas, and short stories that relate to the series?

Authors want to include the series title to help readers find all the books that relate to a series, but authors don’t want to include volume numbers for prequels, novellas, and short stories.

If it’s not really a volume of the series, that volume number may be misleading—especially for a novella or short story, where it’s not another “book” of the series.

Presently, a series title and volume number are required on series books.

Maybe a prequel could be book 0 or i, but will Kindle allow these numbers? Good question!

Many authors use short stories and novellas to hook readers on a series. You don’t want those to be numbered volumes, but do want to make it clear that it’s part of the series so that if the reader enjoys the book, it’s easy to find the series (or to help someone who has read the series find the supplemental content).

I hope Kindle will have a good solution to this problem.

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 4 2014

Anonymous Reviews… Going to Court

Free Speech

The Battle

There is an interesting court battle in progress on the subject of anonymous customer reviews. In my humble opinion, each side has something important at stake:

  • If you, as a customer, are dissatisfied with a product, shouldn’t you have the freedom to express your opinion publicly without having to worry about backlash from the company? If so, reviewing anonymously helps to avoid possible backlash.
  • If you, as a business owner, have your reputation destroyed by fake anonymous reviews, shouldn’t you have the opportunity to defend your reputation? If so, competitors or enemies can abuse review anonymity in an effort to tarnish your reputation.

Pros and Cons

Personally, as a customer, I only review a product if I’m pleased with the product. If I’m dissatisfied with a product, I simply don’t review the product, don’t use the product again, don’t advise anyone to use that product, and don’t ever buy that brand again. I don’t say bad things about the product or company. I’d rather spend my time saying good things about products and companies that I like.

But, also as a customer, if I were about to make a major purchase, I’d really appreciate a heads-up from prior customers who were dissatisfied with a product. When valid, those critical reviews can be quite helpful. Customers are less likely to post honest bad reviews if they can’t do so anonymously or if they may be subject to lawsuits from the company that manufactures the product.

On the other hand, as a customer, I don’t want to be swayed by fake negative reviews from competitors. Anonymous reviews allow for this type of abuse.

In today’s world, business owners need honest customer reviews because consumers are consulting online reviews prior to making purchases. The customer review system only has integrity when it allows for both favorable and critical reviews. Anonymity helps to encourage honest critical reviews.

Unfortunately, anonymous reviewing also invites review abuse.

To me, it seems like a tough call. You can eliminate much review abuse by eliminating anonymity (or allowing the business to find the customer’s identity through subpoena when warranted). But then you lose review integrity because customers will be discouraged from saying anything bad due to possible legal repercussions.

Lawsuits

A case of a business versus Yelp is currently headed to higher court. You can read an absolutely fascinating article about this at Yahoo! Finance with the following link:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yelp-reviews-brew-fight-over-233100483.html

While it is possible to abuse review anonymity, some people have been caught. The following New York Times article tells the story of people paying very hefty fines for planting fake reviews:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/23/technology/give-yourself-4-stars-online-it-might-cost-you.html

These legal battles represent the extremes; these are the worst-case scenarios.

Many businesses see the wisdom in avoiding such lawsuits. Suing customers doesn’t look good for a company’s image and may call attention to valid criticism.

Trust

Websites like Amazon.com have taken great strides toward removing and limiting fake positive reviews. Amazon, Yelp, and other customer-review-oriented websites have a strong incentive to remove and minimize review abuse: Their future success relies on customers being able to trust the customer review system.

Customers are becoming more aware of previous review abuse, both positive and negative. Therefore, customers are learning to be suspicious of all the reviews they see. They are suspicious of favorable reviews coming from friends and family, of critical reviews coming from competitors, and even neutral reviews that may have been planted by either party.

Businesses and authors have an incentive to avoid “recruiting” reviews. Such reviews often seem suspicious and may thus deter sales. When all the reviews are glowing, when the number of reviews seems high for the amount of sales (this can be gauged by comparing the sales rank and publication date to the review tally), or just the way recruited reviews are often worded may trigger buyer suspicion.

Competitors have incentives to avoid trashing the competition, and this goes beyond karma or possible litigation. For one, adding a negative review often results in increased sales. A negative review may add balance and create legitimacy. A negative review raises the overall review tally, making the product appear more popular. Critical reviews may arouse buyer suspicion. However, if a competitor succeeds in bringing down the competition, in many cases this hurts everybody’s sales, not just the company whose image was tarnished.

Such is the case with books, for example. When competing similar books sell well, their sales help to stimulate sales of other similar titles through customers-also-bought marketing tactics. When a foolish author succeeds in deterring sales of similar books, that author actually hurts his or her own sales by limiting the potential of customers-also-bought marketing.

Customers have the opportunity to help make the customer review system trustworthy. Take the time to post honest feedback of products and services that you use. The more customers who take the time to post honest reviews, the less effect abusive reviews will have.

Recently, I’ve noticed on Amazon that Kindle e-books aren’t showing the review tally and rating until I click on them. I’ve heard from others who’ve seen this too, shopping at Amazon.com, depending on the browser (which may not be consistent, i.e. one browser may work for one customer, but not another, and may be opposite for another pair of customers). I kind of like not having the reviews influence which books interest me. Whether Amazon is testing this out or if it’s a temporary glitch, it’s been an interesting experience.

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Apr 3 2014

Series Changes with Kindle

Series

Kindle is changing the way that series appear at Amazon:

  • The change will make it easier for customers to see that a given book is part of a series.
  • The change will clearly show the volume number to help customers find the next volume of a series and to read a series in order.
  • The change will show the series name to help customers find all of the volumes of a given series.

Example

You publish an e-book with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and enter the following information in the publishing fields:

  • Title: Mr. Wrong Feels Oh So Right
  • Series Title: Bad Romance
  • Volume: 3

When people search for your e-book on Amazon, they will see the following in search results:

  • Mr. Wrong Feels Oh So Right (Bad Romance Book 3)

The parentheses show that this book is part of a series. The “Book 3” makes it clear that this is the third volume of a series.

What If

Are you wondering whether it matters if your book is a stand-alone book that could be read all by itself out of sequence?

  • Doesn’t matter. If you publish your book with a series title, your book is part of a series and will include the series title and volume number in parentheses.
  • Anything that comes in multiple volumes will be treated as a series.

Impact

Personally, I like it. When I first published The Visual Guide to Extra Dimensions, volumes 1 and 2, Amazon included Volume 1 and Volume 2 with the title and subtitle in search results.

Several months later, the volume numbers disappeared from search results, and sales did slow a little along with it. Before, it had been very clear that two separate volumes were available. I had contacted CreateSpace and Amazon, and the volume numbers have reappeared and vanished a couple of times.

As a customer, I had trouble buying Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. It wasn’t clear which volume was which, or how many volumes there were. It seems to make sense to wave a flag that says, “Over here, I’m volume 7, buy me next.”

If Amazon is making this change, it appears that someone high up has realized that either (A) this will help to improve sales by helping customers find the books they are looking for or (B) this will improve the customer buying experience because customers have been buying books that they hadn’t realized were parts of series. Maybe both.

Do you have a series published on Kindle? If so, you might want to check what you have entered under the title, subtitle, series, and volume fields. You can update this information as needed to help improve the transition.

Right now, it seems that Amazon is doing this for Kindle. I’d like to see it for print books, too (which would make sense, as many Kindle editions are linked to print editions).

How do you feel about it?

(Speaking of changes, WordPress seems to have made a nice one recently. Now, I can copy and paste from one of my blog articles to another and it retains formatting and links. I like it.)

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Mar 30 2014

Omnibus … or … Omni-Bust?

OmnibusI’ve seen an increasing number of omnibus editions on the e-book market in recent years.

It’s an attractive idea:

  • Customers save money when the omnibus is discounted compared to buying individually.
  • It’s convenient: Customers don’t have to hunt down the separate volumes or remember to buy later.
  • The omnibus allows continuity in reading: When you finish one volume, the next is sitting right there, ready to read.
  • Seeing the omnibus available, you don’t feel worried that the series might not be completed (provided that the omnibus is a complete set).
  • Authors benefit by encouraging customers to buy the entire series up front.

The benefits sound pretty good. So I was about to hop on the bandwagon myself. Until I started having second thoughts.

Are there any disadvantages?

  • Will the presence of your omnibus edition deter the sales of your other books? If so, this may offset the benefits of a stronger sales rank and your reviews may get spread thinner.
  • If you already have some volumes out with good sales ranks and a healthy number of reviews, you’re kind of starting over with the omnibus edition. Maybe the potential savings will help to stimulate many early sales to quickly build up the sales rank and reviews, but then returns the issue of what happens to your other books?
  • If you’ve already promoted your individual volumes, have many links online pointing to your other books, and have already been branding and marketing your books, you need to consider your omnibus with your marketing plans. The omnibus does give you new time in the new release category and provides new opportunities to create buzz, but you must also consider your other books.
  • If you sell both e-books and print books, will you make a print omnibus, too? Paperback customers may appreciate having separate volumes over one mammoth book. Also, for lengthy novels, a single book may exceed the maximum number of pages possible.
  • For Kindle e-books, if you’re planning to set the omnibus price above $9.99, you need to consider that the royalty rate is 35% for Kindle e-books priced $10 and up, so you may actually make much more money selling the e-books separately or limiting the price of the omnibus to $9.99. If your books include many pictures, you must also factor in the delivery costs.

How do you feel about omnibuses, as an author or reader? If you have experience publishing an omnibus, please share it so that others may learn from your experience.

Publishing Resources

I started this blog to provide free help with writing, publishing, and marketing. You can find many free articles on publishing and marketing by clicking one of the following links:

Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers

My original self-publishing guide, How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon.com, has recently been updated and expanded.

Follow me at WordPress, find my author page on Facebook, or connect with me through Twitter.

Mar 26 2014

Controlling How Much of YOU Appears in Your Fiction

An important point to consider when writing.