by Dan King | Jun 17, 2015 | publishing strategy
I was recently looking back over some of my blog posts from over 8 years ago, and I was struck by how much my writing skills have developed over the years. The heart of the message has stayed pretty much the same, but my writing has certainly evolved substantially. I know the practice of writing regularly will have that effect. But I’ve also tried to be a good student of the craft of writing.
That’s why I always try to make sure I have a book or two on my Kindle focused on developing my writing skills and publishing knowledge. I’ve been learning a great deal recently about things like caring for the words we use, and deep POV. And it’s always a great help to read about the latest trends in publishing and other’s experiences with publishing platforms.
Because people are always asking me about what I’m reading, I thought I’d start publishing some lists of what’s on my radar. This list is the current top 5 from Amazon’s Hot New Releases list in the Writing Skills category. I’ve already grabbed a couple of them for my Kindle, and would love to hear your thoughts on any of these that you might pick up…
Amazon’s Hot New Releases in Writing Skills
- Start Writing Your Book Today: A Step-by-Step Plan to Write Your Nonfiction Book, From First Draft to Finished Manuscript by Morgan Gist MacDonald
- Powerful Premise: Writing the Irresistible by William Bernhardt
- Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris
- Mastering Amazon and Kindle by Rob Parnell
- Character Depth: Keeping readers riveted with real characters, emotion and deep POV by Jordan McCollum
by Dan King | Nov 7, 2013 | publishing strategy
Platform. That’s the big buzzword in publishing these days. You’ve got to build your platform if you’re ever going to be successful in publishing. At least that’s what everyone says, right?
But what if e-book publishing is itself the platform and not the result of building one?
Let me explain by throwing some numbers out there from a recent experience with an author I’ve been working with over the last year or so.
In 2012, Alex Terego had a total of 5 books, all self-published. Throughout the entire year, he sold approximately two dozen copies of his books across all platforms. They were published in print through Createspace, and in e-book format on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble for Nook, and in the iTunes store for books.
If you looked at his blog and social media platform, you’d probably say that this makes perfect sense. He was getting about 15-20 page views per day on the blog. He had about 20-30 followers on Twitter and around 200 likes on his author page on Facebook. There are a few people listening to him, but it definitely isn’t a powerhouse social media platform.
In 2013, we changed the strategy pretty drastically. And the result was kinda mind-blowing…
Over the next year, the total distribution of his books went to over 4,000 copies!
How did we do that? Yeah, I get that question a lot. Here are some points on what we did, but before I share them, let me say this… we didn’t focus on growing his social media platform. (Insert gasp here.) I know, shocker, huh? In fact, I might point out that his social media platform (which still isn’t huge) is growing more as a result of selling books, and not the other way around.
Revising the Sales Strategy
The first thing we did is evaluate the impact of having the book available for sale on multiple platforms (Kindle, Nook, iTunes, etc). Common sense would say it’s important to have the product listed in as many places as possible. You wouldn’t want to miss any sales due to not having your book in certain stores, right?
Wrong.
In my personal self-publishing experience, Kindle has consistently outsold all other platforms (print, Nook, direct PDF sales, etc) combined by at least 20-to-1. On the surface, it already looked like focusing on Kindle would be a good strategy.
Consider this about the availability of Kindle e-books:
This means that virtually every Internet-connected device can give a reader access to Kindle e-books.
Only iPhone, iPod, and iPad users can read books purchased in the iTunes Bookstore. On the other hand, those same Apple product users can download the free Kindle app on their device and read Kindle books.
Exclusivity Has Its Benefits
Another driving factor in focusing on the Kindle-only approach for e-book publishing is the ability to enroll in the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Select program. This option is available when you grant exclusive e-book delivery rights to Amazon Kindle for 90 days. In return, you’ll get some nice benefits from enrolling in this program:
- Your e-book is available to Amazon Prime members in the lending library. Prime members pay an annual subscription fee in order to get some extra benefits, one of them being the free lending library. It means they can get your book for free for a couple of weeks. Even though they get it for free, Amazon has a fund that they payout from, so you still get royalties when your book is “borrowed,” sometimes more than the actual sales price of the book itself!
- You can offer your e-book as a FREE download. Because the greatest enemy of every author is obscurity, getting you book into people’s hands is a big deal. And offering it for free can do just that. There have also been several studies (including my own personal experience) that point to free promos like this resulting in an increase in paid sales after the promo is complete.
- I’ve also tested the discount promotion tool by offering one of my $2.99 e-books for a reduced price of $0.99 for one week. Even at the discounted price, I’ve earned approximately THREE TIMES the royalty rate compared to non-promo weeks!
Common sense would say that switching to a single delivery platform would drop sales. However, the opposite is true. Opening up new promotional opportunities has allowed us to reach new audiences, resulting in an increase in overall sales!
Working the Amazon Ecosystem
Simply switching to a Kindle-only e-book publishing strategy isn’t enough. You still have to work the system in order to get the full benefit from these tools.
In the case of Alex Terego, the first thing we did was to set up a free promotion schedule. We call it Free Friday. Every Friday we would offer (at least) one of his e-books for free on Kindle. We had enough initially to create a cycle lasting about two months before a piece would come up to be offered for free again.
This helped get more of his books out there to more people.
Most importantly, it started getting his books into the “Customers How Bought This Also Bought” section of the page for other books. The cool thing about downloading a free Kindle book is that you still “buy” it. Your purchase price is $0.00, but you’ve “bought” the book. As a result, Amazon will begin to index that purchase along with other purchases you’ve made and use that data to help other people with similar tastes find new books they might like.
The More, the Merrier… Keep Publishing
The final piece of the strategy with Alex Terego is that we continued to publish new content regularly. Having more content out there for someone to find you can help broaden your exposure. I’ve heard similar feedback from other authors too… some say they didn’t see much traction until they published their fourth (or so) piece.
Having a strong launch plan is important for any book launch project. But remember, Alex Terego never had a huge following to begin with. So there just wasn’t much there to build a launch team with who could help by writing blog posts and building social media buzz.
So we used what we had…
While leveraging free promotions for existing books, we began to offer new books for free at the same time. The plan was to entice people to download BOTH Kindle books for free at the same time. If they did, then BOTH would become part of their purchase history, and build a stronger connection between the “Customers Who Bought…” links. This worked particularly well with getting some of Terego’s books to show up on the page for other books of his. The increased visibility built stronger sales for books with that link on other product pages of his.
Final Thoughts
It doesn’t take a massive platform, or thousands of Twitter followers, or (insert other standards you’ve been holding on to here) in order to be successful with e-book publishing. But it does take some work.
A typical book launch starts with a spike, (some “experts” say) followed by a drop into obscurity after the first 2-3 months. It definitely takes some work, but I’ve found the opposite to be possible! My first self-published work only sold 39 copies in its first month on the market. Total distribution/downloads now exceeds 10,000 copies!
The same principles worked for Alex Terego, blowing away our distribution expectations for that next year.
I know it sounds cliche, but if I can do it, and if I was able to replicate it with others, then you can do it too! I’m even willing to the help you figure it out.
by Dan King | Aug 19, 2013 | social media strategy
“Remember this. Hold on to this. This is the only perfection there is, the perfection of helping others. This is the only thing we can do that has any lasting meaning. This is why we’re here. To make each other feel safe.”
― Andre Agassi
I just jumped in blindly when I started blogging seven years ago. I had experience with web development and writing training programs, but the fine art of writing for readers was a new experience for me. I knew nothing about finding (and keeping) an audience captive and growing a platform as a (real) writer.
There was a great deal of networking and studying the craft and technology of blogging that I had to get done. As a result, I owe practically everything I know about blogging to someone else somewhere along the way.
Even today, as blogging continues to evolve, I continue to find myself studying, testing, and experimenting with new tools and tactics.
Over the years, I’ve published somewhere around half a million words of content on the blog, two books (with half a dozen more in development now), and countless social media posts that communicate a message that I never find myself at a loss of words to talk about. And, I couldn’t be more grateful for all of the people who have helped me get to where I am today.
So when I started Fistbump Media in the last year, one of the most important ideals I wanted to drive what we’re all about is this concept of being helpful… being a resource for others who are trying to do the same things that I’ve been able to accomplish.
That’s why we do free webinars and Q+A sessions. That’s why I answer questions and help others, even if it means that I don’t get paid for it sometimes.
We believe it’s important that we (as a community of bloggers) support each other, and help each other reach our goals.
As it turns out, this position of simply being helpful has helped us create some very positive buzz about what we do. My heart honestly skips a beat every time I see another message come through from someone who learned something in one of our events and improved their blogging platform!
We also believe that these success stories can be encouraging to others who are going through the same thing. So we’ve asked some of the people who we’ve helped to share a little bit about how they’ve experienced growth/success on their blogs. I hope that these experiences encourage you to take the next step with your blogging, and encourage you that together we can grow and sharpen our skills.
If you’ve learned and applied something as a result of a Fistbump Media event, then please share your success stories here! And if you haven’t, then I hope you find strength and encouragement in these stories. You can do it too!
#fistbump
