Step-By-Step Guide To Generating Thousands Of
Dollars Each Month From Publishing Ebooks On
Amazon … Specially For Those Who Have Never
Made A Dime Online!
Plus: 11 Advanced Kindle Marketing Strategies
To Get Into The Amazon Best Seller's List As
Soon As Possible
“Also, it’s important to know that anyone, and I
mean ANYONE, can make money publishing
Kindle books on Amazon. You don’t need
experience. You don’t need to know how to
market things online. You don’t even need to
know how to write. This is one of the only “fool
proof” money making systems I have ever
personally used. A system that I would feel
comfortable teaching my own mother (no offense
mom), knowing that she could make money
doing this, with no prior knowledge.” - Brad
Callen
The Internet has continued to provide amazing
opportunities for people all over the world to
make full time income in the tune of thousands
of dollars every month with little or no financial
investment. One of such opportunities can be
found with Amazon Kindle publishing platform.
The Amazon Kindle platform helps authors to
publish their book as ebook, which is called
Kindle at Amazon, and make them available for
easy download and reading with smart phones,
tablets, and other computers.
Riding on the back of Amazon’s highly trusted
name and marketing expertise, writers and
information marketers can make lots of money
from their ebooks. Some writers do make six
figures in yearly income from their Kindles, while
million dollars earnings have also been reported,
and the beauty of it is that more people are
buying Kindles now than before, and that means
more money for publishers.
This is an opportunity Nigerians can conveniently
participate in and establish a full time income
on. However, you need to know how to go about
it to achieve the success you desire.
The guide you are about to read below is created
by an information marketer named Brad Callen,
who has garnered enormous experience in Kindle
publishing, and has achieved remarkable success
in the business, earning tens of thousands of
dollars as income each month.
He shares all you need to know and do to also
be successful making money from your ebooks.
Among what you will learn in this guide includes
how to create a hot selling ebook in any subject,
and how to make your book a top selling book in
Amazon and continue to pull in the big income
each month. Enjoy reading!
Before we get started, it’s extremely important to
know that, in this guide, I’ll be teaching you the
manual methods that I use to make money by
selling Kindle books on Amazon. What I’ll be
teaching you in this book are pivotal “concepts”
you MUST know if you want to make a full-time
income selling Kindle books.
Also, it’s important to know that anyone, and I
mean ANYONE, can make money publishing
Kindle books on Amazon. You don’t need
experience. You don’t need to know how to
market things online. You don’t even need to
know how to write. This is one of the only “fool
proof” money making systems I have ever
personally used. A system that I would feel
comfortable teaching my own mother (no offense
mom), knowing that she could make money
doing this, with no prior knowledge.
So, if you’ve never made a dime online, or have
tried and tried and have made very little, now is
where things change big time, IF you follow what
I’ll be teaching you. These strategies work. I can
100% promise you that. And it works nearly
every single time, like clockwork. If you don’t
want to take my word for it, just look up
“amazon kindle” on popular marketing forums,
like the Warrior Forum and you’ll see thread after
thread of people that have never earned a dime
online, to now making $1000s monthly. In fact,
I’ve used some of the ranking strategies in this
guide (which are very straight forward, and
simple, I might add) to rank #1 for “weight loss”
on Amazon, in only ONE WEEK!
Here’s the simple process we’ll be taking for
each of our Kindle books we publish:
1. Find a niche topic to write on. One that gets
searched a lot, yet has little competition. 2.
Choose 7 keywords you want to rank at the top
of Amazon for. These need to be highly
searched, low competition words. 3. Write the
book yourself OR have it written by someone
else. I always have it written by someone else
for cheap. 4. Publish your book to Amazon. 5.
Rank highly for the keywords you selected in
step 2 above. 6. Make money. People find your
book by entering 1 of those 7 keywords. They
buy your book. Amazon notices you’re a valuable
book so THEY start promoting you all over their
website. You make more money. You need to
rank highly and make some initial sales through
that, or Amazon won’t start promoting you, and
you’ll be at a standstill.
Ranking highly is critical. 7. Repeat steps 1-6 on
another book.
The process isn’t rocket science. It’s very
repeatable. All of it can be outsourced or done
by yourself. What you’ll find will make or break
you are 2 things: 1. Knowing what hot topics to
write on. 2.
Actually ranking at the top of Amazon for your
keywords. 99% of Kindle publishers just write on
what they feel like writing on. Publish it. And
make no money because they don’t rank
anywhere visible.
How to Get Started as a Kindle Author
One of the most important things you’ll need to
do when writing a Kindle book is decide on a
niche topic. In this section we are going to talk
about how to choose a niche by browsing on
Amazon and doing a little Google research.
Choosing a Niche
Everything - whether it’s in opening a brick and
mortar store, an online store or affiliate site, a
service business, or becoming a Kindle publisher
...everything starts with choosing a niche. A
niche, in its simplest form is an area where you’ll
present yourself as the specialist, a very specific
form of targeting your market.
A quick trip to Amazon.com will reveal numerous
categories, however, we are only interested in
those sub categories under Kindle Books. Let's
say that through your keyword research you’ve
discovered that "Health and Fitness" is a hot
target niche. A quick trip to the Amazon Kindle
site shows us that "Health, Fitness and Dieting"
is listed as a Category. Great. We can start
writing on that topic, right? Not yet.
You need to drill down to the lowest
denominator in your chosen niche. You’ll have a
much better opportunity for success to choose
narrow niches known in the Internet world as
micro-niches, than to choose the broader
niches.
Even though Health, Fitness and Dieting is a very
hot broad niche, if you choose to target that
category you’ll have a hard time ranking in the
top 100 for that broad category. As you will see
at
Amazon, under that broad category there are 15
sub categories, and each of these sub categories
have micro categories. By continuing to drill
down, clicking on any link in the Browse list will
take you even further into the niche.
In my example, I've decided to write on anti-
aging. A hot topic, I think. I've chosen Health,
Fitness and Dieting > Personal Health > Aging.
And, when I click on Aging, I find I have come to
the end of my category list. This is the ultimate
micro niche I will target in this example - my
starting place for choosing a hot niche target for
my book.
You’ll have a much better chance of getting to
the top 100 by drilling down to the lowest micro-
niche category than you’ll if you try the buckshot
approach under Health, Fitness and Dieting.
Verifying the Hotness of the Niche
Now, to make sure you’ve a great niche, you’re
going to want to do some keyword analysis to
find out if your specific niche topic gets
searched a lot. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not
worth your time. The goal is to find a niche that
is searched a lot and has little competition so
you can write your book and immediately get
ranked highly in the Amazon search results.
One thing you should do is make sure your
demographics are suitable for targeting the
segments of society that are ready, willing and
able to buy your books.
Simply go to Google and search for the niche
keyword you've decided to go after. In my
illustration, that will be "healthy aging" so I do a
Google search for that phrase. Interestingly, one
site claims authority in the first two search
engine positions, so that will be a good site to
feed into Quantcast.net to discover the
demographics (i.e., we want to know what kind
of people search for "healthy aging" information).
We are interested in several things: their sex,
ethnicity, income, age - i.e., we want to know if
the profile of those visiting the site at the top of
a Google search for our keyword will be a good
target market for a series of books on this topic.
Now comes a bit of deductive reasoning on my
part. I see the visitors to this site are primarily
female, age 55 - 65+, in an income bracket above
$50,000 per year, are well educated, primarily
African American.
With this information I am confident I have
chosen a great niche for my first series of
Amazon Kindle books. With the main reason
being the avg. income is over $50,000. You don’t
want to dive into a niche to sell to people with
no money. Sounds obvious, but you would be
surprised how many people completely ignore
this.
With that said, I now want to verify this niche
just a little further by searching on Amazon for
what people are searching for in that niche. To
do this, go to the Kindle Books department and
type in the word "aging" and you’ll see a list of
topics people are searching for. These are topics
people are searching for on Amazon. And, there's
even more. Just add a space after the word
"aging" and you’ll see how the list changes.
Now, start adding the alphabet after the space
... like this "aging a" and you’ll see even more
choices. If you do this with each letter of the
alphabet you’ll soon have a list of EVERYTHING
people are searching for that niche on Amazon.
How cool is that?
How to Become an Expert
When an author writes multiple topics in the
same, or closely related categories they are often
referred to as "experts in their field". What makes
them an expert? It's really no secret, when you
write several Kindle books in the same or related
topics under the same pen name you’ll quickly
become known as a specialist in that field.
That's what turns you into an overnight expert in
your chosen niche.
Write "Same Niche" Topics
Continuing with our example target niche, you
should write on several related topics that will be
of interest to anyone purchasing books on the
topic of health and fitness as related to aging,
such as "anti-aging secrets", "sex after 60", "how
to retire without stress" and numerous other
topics. By targeting subjects in the same genre/
niche you’ll quickly cinch your expert status and
make more sales, which is your ultimate goal.
Choose a Good Pen Name
Amazon allows you to open one Kindle publishing
account, however, you may choose several pen
names under which to write. This is great for
cementing your expert status. If for example, you
start out writing in a niche about cooking, and
later want to target a niche about finances, using
the same pen name will be confusing to people
and hurt your expert status.
Little Known Secret: Choose a pen name that
people in your demographic research will relate
to and you’ll get more sales. Think how names
have changed over the years. In the early 1900's
you saw men named Woodrow, Edison, Josiah
and women with names like Martha, Matilda and
Cora. These are known as "old fashioned names"
today, while names such as Kyle, Aiden, Logan,
Mia and Alexis are more common for babies
today.
So, while choosing a pen name can seem to a
daunting task, it doesn't need to be too difficult.
Simply choose two names that your target
audience can relate to. In our example of
targeting the "aging" micro niche, this would be a
name common to the time period between 1945
and 1965.
Where do you find such a name? Sites that have
baby names are a great place to start. The
Social Security site of the US government has a
list of the most popular names for any given
year. Simply search for a year and choose a
couple of names from the boy and girl lists you’ll
find there. Your target audience will relate to
those names because they were born in that
generation. If you need common names for other
countries, simply do a Google Search in your
country for "common baby names 2013",
replacing 2013 with the year that will fit your
niche market.
You’ll see names from 1950 for male and female
babies. To create a great pen name, simply
choose a couple of names from the same or
both lists and combine these. For example,
Robert James, John
Michael, Diane Stevens, Dennis Paul. In some
instances you may need to add an "s" to the
name to make it a surname. However, in a short
time you’ll have a pen name that will match your
target audience, thus increasing your status as
an expert in the field.
Moving right along ... Okay, now that you’ve
chosen your niche and have determined to write
a series of books in that niche, it's time to start
writing.
Writing Starts with an Outline
I know that sounds simplistic ... but you would
be surprised what a big help it’s to simply
outline your book and then fill in the spaces. You
learned it in school and it’s probably the most
important thing you learned about creative
writing: Outline first.
With an outline you’ve a beginning, middle and
an ending. It's like having a roadmap of how to
get from Atlantic City, NJ to Sacramento CA.
With a roadmap you may take a few interesting
side trips on your journey but you’ll eventually
get to the end of the route. The same is true
with the book outline.
Ask Questions
One thing I find helpful is to ask questions. For
example, if I am writing on Healthy Aging I might
ask the following questions:
1. When do people start noticing the effects of
aging? 2. How does aging affect our health? 3.
What steps can I take to maintain good health
as I get older? 4. etc., etc.
As I progress through a list of 5 -10 questions
under each of my Outline topics I will soon have
a good basis for my eBook and all I will need to
do is add interesting facts and anecdotes to
make my story interesting. Make sense?
Where to Find Information
You can find interesting information almost
anywhere you look. I research everything on the
Internet - then, I branch out into other areas as
the need arises. Here's my list of places to
research:
Internet search engines. Blogs. Article
Directories. Libraries. Book Stores. Magazines.
Personal Experience. Interviews. Television
programs (think CNN, FOX, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Katie
Courick, PBS, The Biggest Loser, etc.). Public
Domain works.
Note: Don’t plagiarize, as that is illegal and
unethical. It’s acceptable practice to research
topics using other people's work, but be sure to
credit their work when credit’s due. If you Don’t
want to credit someone else's work, make sure
the information you’ve used is not proprietary to
them (meaning you can find it in more than one
source), and that you haven't copied their words
verbatim. It’s really best to give credit as this
lends credibility to your own work.
What to Do if You Can't Write?
Help! I can't write.
I hear you. And, you’re not alone. Believe it or
not there are many famous authors who can’t
write, but their public hasn't a clue that they
have hired a ghostwriter to pen their thoughts
and ideas. Not to worry, even the person who
can't write or spell can be a good Kindle author
by utilizing the right resources.
1. Using Professional Ghostwriters. Outsourcing
to someone who knows how to write is the
preferred method. Do a Google search for
'ghostwriter for hire' and you’ll come up with
multiple pages for people who write behind the
scenes and let you take all of the credit, income
and glory. You’ll pay them upfront according to
their schedule; they will agree to release the
work to you and that's it. Your name will go on
the book as the writer.
This can be expensive; however there are ways
to minimize the expense when getting started. A
word of caution: never sacrifice quality for a
cheap price. It’s not worth it in the long run.
2. Rewrite public domain works. If you use this
method, ensure the work is out of copyright and
do a complete rewrite of the content. Don’t use
an automated system that rewrites content as
this will reduce the quality of your content and
get you suspended from Amazon. Caution: You
must be careful when using this method,
however, as you can’t claim authorship of the
public domain work even if you rewrite it. The
best you could hope to accomplish in getting
your pen name on the book is to put the Title,
original author, and then "rewritten by [your pen
name]".
Proof Your Work. I can't say this enough - if you
submit poor quality work to Kindle, you’ll have
an uphill battle to fight. People are ruthless in
their criticism of bad grammar, unsubstantiated
facts, and misspelled words. You’ll often find
revisions of Kindle books as a result of the
reviews given.
It doesn't need to be your story as you've been
warned. Have your work proofread before you
submit it to Kindle. You don't want someone to
say this in their review: "This book has the
potential of being great; however, the
grammatical errors make it too difficult to read."
Signing Up With Kindle Publishing Program
Okay, now that you’ve written your book and
have created a killer cover it’s now time to sign
up with Kindle Publishing. If you’ve already done
this step, you may skip this section. It’s very
easy and I’ll step you through the process right
now.
Step One: Signup with Kindle Publishing
Go to Amazon.com and scroll down the page
until you see a list of links. Click on the link that
says Independently Publish With Us. This will
open a new an overview of the types of self-
publishing venues available. Click on the Get
Started link under the Kindle Books section.
After clicking the Get Started link you’ll be taken
to a window where you can either 1) join the
Kindle program using your existing Amazon user
account or 2) create a new Kindle account. This
is entirely up to you. Please ensure that you
read the Kindle publisher Terms and Conditions
before proceeding with the sign up as you don't
want to inadvertently do anything to jeopardize
your account. Note in particular that while it’s
okay with Amazon for you to open up a new
Kindle account, OR to sign in with an existing
Amazon user account, it’s not okay to open
more than one
Kindle account.
Step Two: Complete Your Profile
After you’ve signed up for a Kindle account,
providing only an email address and password,
and have agreed to their terms, you’ll now need
to complete the process. When you click on the
Update Now link of logout and come back later,
you’ll be confronted with this screen to complete
the process: Of course it’s in your best interest
to provide accurate information in order to get
paid for your hard work :).
Step Three: Completing Royalty Payment
Information
Amazon will send your Royalty payments to your
bank account via electronic deposit, or via check
through the mail. There is some lag time when
you first get started, but once you’re consistently
maintaining sales, you’ll get the royalty payment
like clockwork. If the payment is directly
deposited into your checking account you’ll only
need to accrue a balance of at least $10/£10/
€10; if opting for the payment by check, your
balance will need to be $100/£100/€100.
Formatting Your Document for Kindle
Once you’ve signed up to be a Kindle Publisher
and have written your ebook you must format it
in a way that is acceptable to Kindle. This is not
a big deal as it once was because Amazon has
now made it easy to publish your book. Amazon
KDP has provided an excellent and simple to
understand guide for formatting the manuscript.
If you’ll follow their rules and guidelines you’ll
breeze through the process.
Advanced Kindle Marketing Strategies
Often times an author will simply put their book
up on Amazon and wait for the magic to happen.
While this might work for James Patterson or
Amanda Hocking it will not work for most of us,
as we are the "unknown" to the Kindle eBook
buying world. Our goal as new Kindle publishers
is to make it into the Amazon Best Seller's list
as soon as possible. With that in mind I've
created a list of 11 powerful, yet simple
strategies that will give you that extra
momentum to propel you to the top of that list.
You may use them all ... or concentrate on one
or two. You may find it works best to combine
several. These strategies work. But only if you
put them to use!
Strategy #1 - Give eBook Proceeds to a Charity
and Zoom to the Top of Amazon
With this advanced strategy you’ll propel your
Kindle book to the top of the charts within a few
days of uploading it to the Kindle store. To put
this strategy into action, simply locate a charity
that has a vibrant and active Facebook page and
contact them either in person, on the phone or in
a letter.
Your initial contact should relay the following
information: your strong belief in the charity,
that you’re a published author, that you’re
donating 100% of the proceeds from the book
[title] to the charity, tell how the book will
benefit those who purchase it and how it fits
their overall core beliefs, ASK them to make a
Facebook post about the book, as it will
generate revenues for them when their
supporters purchase the book. Attach the book
to your email for their review.
Now, here's what will happen. When the charity
accepts your offer and makes the post on their
Facebook page about the book (stating all of the
proceeds go to charity name), those people who
are strong supporters of the charity will
purchase the book and tell others about it. Many
will repost on their Facebook pages, on Twitter,
on Pinterest ... simply because they believe in
the charity. Your book will make it to the top of
Amazon's charts from the sheer volume of orders
from the charity alone.
But you haven't made any money on it. So how
can that help you? The whole purpose for the
charity giveaway is to build an audience. Once
that is accomplished you own that audience. It's
yours and you can approach them as someone
who is "on their side", someone who believes in
the same cause, so much so that you’ve donated
the proceeds of a great book. They will now
listen when you speak and they will read your
email. You’ve a captive audience for your next
Kindle eBook release where you’ll keep ALL of
the proceeds (minus the fees charged by Kindle).
It's a brilliant strategy.
Strategy #2: Create an "Internet Marketing Type"
Launch for your New Book
If you've been around the world of Internet
Marketing then you may be aware of the hype
that accompanies the successful product
launches. You can use this same method to
create buzz and sizzle - and to propel your book
to the top of Amazon's Best Sales Rank list. It
works well with Strategy #1 as a follow up for
your second book launch.
This method assumes you’ve built a warm
market list of people who have subscribed to
your list. (Hint: If the list is from your charity
give-away book, then you’ll have a very receptive
list). This is the primary reason you should
create your author's blog, Facebook page,
Pinterest and Twitter accounts prior to
publishing your first book. You need to build
buzz and you need to get subscribers to your
list.
So how do you get their name on your list?
Simple and brilliant: In every book you write
you’ll put a link to your squeeze page and offer
them the opportunity to get on your advanced
notification list.
If they love your writing they will feel honored to
be on your list. Any author who fails to use this
technique is leaving a pile of money on the table.
Strategy #3: Set up an Author's Toolbar
This strategy assumes you’ve set up your
author's blog under your pen name. What we
want to do is give your follower's easy access to
you, thus giving you easy access to them!
Although used a lot by savvy Internet Marketers
this strategy is little used by Kindle authors.
You’ll be ahead of the pack by setting it up.
Having an author's toolbar is all about user
engagement with your fans. With it you can
communicate almost instantaneously, answer
their questions, and let them know when you’ve
a new release, as well as remind them to leave a
review. It’s a win/win tool for you and them.
They will love having the access to you. You’ll
love having an actively growing and engaged fan
base as that means money in your pocket.
So head over to www.toolbar.conduit.com and
click on the big orange "Start Now" button. It's
free. It's relatively easy and will increase your
profit!
Strategy #4 - Publish Multiple Books
Simultaneously
One way to jump quickly to the top of Amazon's
list is to write several books in different, but
related, categories and publish them all at the
same time. You don't want to put them all in the
same category; however, you don't want them
spread across totally unrelated categories, either
as this will raise Amazon's suspicion that you’re
trying to gain the system. For example you might
write a series of diet and nutrition books, putting
them under the different micro niche categories
that have related books such as Health, Fitness,
Dieting, Cookbooks, Food and Wine and Self
Help. You can drill down into the micro niches of
these primary categories to find several sub
niche categories that will work. Remember,
you’re allowed 2 categories per book.
Now, the reason you want to dump all of the
books into your KDP account at one time is that
Amazon seems to love this approach and will
give your books a huge boost by promoting your
books on your behalf. This could have a
tremendous effect on your marketing efforts.
Strategy #5 - Sell More Books Through Creative
Branding
It’s one thing to publish a few book on Kindle,
quite another to get people to talking about it.
Yet, to be a successful Kindle book publisher you
need to generate interest in your books.
Thankfully, you don't need to bang your head
against the wall to get people to notice you!
It starts with a killer Pen Name; and then market
that name. You can do this is several ways:
setting up a blog or website under that name,
setting up several social site accounts such as
Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This will
culminate in generating fans and followers that
want to engage with you and spread the word
about your books. Once you’ve built your
audience they will follow you anywhere you want
to go. Your ultimate goal in doing this is to
brand your pen name as an expert in your
chosen niche market, thus getting more traffic to
your Amazon books and more people leaving
good reviews of your work.
Within a few weeks you’ll become the go-to
person for questions about your niche topic,
propelling you into the expert status you've
worked for. Now, when someone sees your pen
name attached to a book it’s not just another
wannabe Kindle publisher, rather it’s the name of
someone who knows what he/she is talking
about.
Strategy #6 - Create Interrelated Titles and Cross
Promote
When you publish your first book you can't do
this, of course, as you don't have another to
promote. That's okay. After you create your
second book you may edit and republish your
first book with a link to your second book. If
someone likes a book you’ve published you can
be assured they will be eager to read more of
your work.
Create a grouping around your pen name and
micro-niche category as the author did in the
screenshot below. She literally owns the
adoption niche with her numerous publications in
that niche.
When you click through on her name it appears
that she writes based on her passion instead of
market research. However, we can't be sure of
that as she could be using numerous pen names
and biographies.
Since the name she is using is connected only to
children in need, children who are adopted or
abused or in foster care, she could easily create
a group around that micro niche and cross-
promote within that group. To do this for your
own books, you simply create a promotional
blurb in each book about another book in the
group and put a link to that book in the Amazon
Kindle marketplace. This will have a two-faceted
effect: more sales and a higher ranking in
Amazon Kindle Marketplace.
Strategy #7 - Focus on Quality, not Quantity for
Positive Feedback
When Amazon Kindle first opened its doors there
were numerous junk books in their store.
However, Amazon cleaned up their catalog and
removed duplicates (created using private label
rights materials), and removed a lot of badly
written books as well. Why did they do this?
Because of customer reviews. The customers
were not pleased with the quality and Amazon
listened. Good reviews are worth triple their
weight in gold to your Kindle business. If the
customer is pleased then you’ll get good reviews.
To ensure this happens produce top quality
work. This means you may need to spend time/
money having your work proofread and edited.
Sure you can shortcut this process, however, if
you do the reviews will be bad and that will hurt
your sales. It could also ultimately get your book
removed, as is Amazon's editorial prerogative.
Strategy #8- Get Rave Reviews to Sell More
Books
Reviews are to Kindle eBooks what picking up a
hard copy in a bookstore and flipping through
the pages is for offline buyers. You can't see or
touch the book. If you can read what others
think about the book, however, you’re "seeing" it
through their eyes. Without reviews your book
will simply collect virtual dust in the Amazon
Marketplace.
The secret is to get the reviews AS SOON AS the
book launches so that on the day your book is
published in Amazon it has a few rave reviews.
There are several ways to do this - and you
should use any method that you feel comfortable
using: • Send a prerelease copy to friends, family
members, and coworkers and ask them to read it
and provide an honest review. Not the best
method, but will get you one or two good
reviews. • Join author forums and get involved -
and ASK people to buy your book; in exchange
you’ll buy theirs. Of course, you’ll each leave an
honest review for the other. One such forum is
http://www.kboards.com. A Google search will
reveal others. • Contact Amazon's top reviewers.
Go to http://www.amazon.com/review/top-
reviewers and you'll find a list of people who are
classified as Amazon's top reviewers. Contact 10
- 15 of these reviewers, send them a
complimentary copy of your ebook and ask for
an honest review. • Find reviewers online. This
site has several reviewers who are willing to
provide honest reviews in exchange for a
complimentary copy of your Kindle book: http://
www.thekindlebookreview.net/get-reviewed/ •
Purchase a
Fiverr.com gig to READ and review your book.
Make sure they are willing to purchase and read
the book - you’ll most likely need to compensate
them for the cost of the book as well as the
review.
You want an honest review, so don't just
purchase reviews from people who will not read
your book.
Strategy #9 - Make Good Use of the Author Page
in Author Central
This is an often-overlooked strategy that will
help to brand you as a serious author. The
author page is similar to an "About" page on
your blog as it’s all about you - the "you" that
the public should know about. If you’ve 3 pen
names then you’ll have 3 Author pages - one for
each pen name.
You’ll need a good "pen name" profile picture -
i.e., it can't be the real you. You can purchase
an image from one of the royalty-free image
resources such as bigstockphoto.com,
fotolia.com or stockphoto.com. I suggest that
you choose an "action" image instead of an up
close image. For example, if you're writing in a
niche about family and children, you might
choose a mother with children around her. If
you're writing in a niche about health and fitness
you might choose an image with someone
running, cooking, playing tennis, etc. Just keep in
mind you’ll need to use the same model for all
of that pen name's profile pictures across your
author blog, facebook page, pinterest and twitter
accounts. The primary reason for choosing a
picture showing the author involved in some
niche activity is to identify with the audience
who will be purchasing your books in that niche.
Secondly, you’ll need a good author bio. You
don't really need to fabricate a lie here - just
describe your reason for being interested in the
niche - i.e., why you’re writing on that particular
topic. List any real writing credentials, awards,
kudos you might have including a list of any
other books published under that pen name. Just
make yourself as personable and interesting as
possible.
Strategy #10 - Set Up a Social Site Link Wheel
for Promoting Your Book
Using your PEN NAME,you’ll setup a several
social accounts such as Facebook, Pinterest,
YouTube, Squidoo and Twitter, etc.You’ll also
need an author's blog and the URL to your
Author page on Amazon Kindle.
Note, before setting up your social accounts, go
ahead and setup an email account for your pen
name at Google, Yahoo, or other such service.
Use that email address to setup your social
accounts. Don’t use your "real name" email
address. Now that you’ve the social sites and
author's blog set up you want to create a "wheel"
that will ultimately lead your visitors to purchase
your Kindle book.
Here's how it works:
1. Create a minimum of 7 blog posts on your
author's blog using actual quotes from your
book. Within each of the posts place a nice
image that relates to the content of your book.
Also place a link to your book on Amazon Kindle
somewhere within the post. 2. On Pinterest,
setup a board for and give it a name. Pin the
images from your blog. 3. Make a post on
Facebook and share a link to your Pinterest
board 4. Make a Twitter post about your
Facebook update. 5. etc.
Strategy #11 - Use Intentional Keywords in your
Title, and Cover and Description
There are four aspects to your ebook that carry
a lot of weight in marketing to your audience:
the Title, the Cover, the Description and Reviews.
These are the factors that will generate the most
sales
IF you use well-placed keywords that tie them
together, thus optimizing your Amazon page. In
order to get the best possible results, target
specific keywords for your niche.
You can find out what people are searching for
by going to Amazon.com and then start typing in
the Amazon Search bar. For example, if I have
written a book on how to have beautiful skin at
any age and am focusing on "anti aging skin
care and nutrition secrets", I will make sure to
use that term in the Amazon title, the Cover
graphic title and at least two times in my
description. Why?
Because Amazon has shown me that is what
people are searching for.
Alright, that wraps up exactly what I would do to
make money publishing Kindle Books. Like I said
at the beginning of this guide, it’s not rocket
science. Anyone can do this. It’s a very
straightforward process that can work over and
over and over again.
Dollars Each Month From Publishing Ebooks On
Amazon … Specially For Those Who Have Never
Made A Dime Online!
Plus: 11 Advanced Kindle Marketing Strategies
To Get Into The Amazon Best Seller's List As
Soon As Possible
“Also, it’s important to know that anyone, and I
mean ANYONE, can make money publishing
Kindle books on Amazon. You don’t need
experience. You don’t need to know how to
market things online. You don’t even need to
know how to write. This is one of the only “fool
proof” money making systems I have ever
personally used. A system that I would feel
comfortable teaching my own mother (no offense
mom), knowing that she could make money
doing this, with no prior knowledge.” - Brad
Callen
The Internet has continued to provide amazing
opportunities for people all over the world to
make full time income in the tune of thousands
of dollars every month with little or no financial
investment. One of such opportunities can be
found with Amazon Kindle publishing platform.
The Amazon Kindle platform helps authors to
publish their book as ebook, which is called
Kindle at Amazon, and make them available for
easy download and reading with smart phones,
tablets, and other computers.
Riding on the back of Amazon’s highly trusted
name and marketing expertise, writers and
information marketers can make lots of money
from their ebooks. Some writers do make six
figures in yearly income from their Kindles, while
million dollars earnings have also been reported,
and the beauty of it is that more people are
buying Kindles now than before, and that means
more money for publishers.
This is an opportunity Nigerians can conveniently
participate in and establish a full time income
on. However, you need to know how to go about
it to achieve the success you desire.
The guide you are about to read below is created
by an information marketer named Brad Callen,
who has garnered enormous experience in Kindle
publishing, and has achieved remarkable success
in the business, earning tens of thousands of
dollars as income each month.
He shares all you need to know and do to also
be successful making money from your ebooks.
Among what you will learn in this guide includes
how to create a hot selling ebook in any subject,
and how to make your book a top selling book in
Amazon and continue to pull in the big income
each month. Enjoy reading!
Before we get started, it’s extremely important to
know that, in this guide, I’ll be teaching you the
manual methods that I use to make money by
selling Kindle books on Amazon. What I’ll be
teaching you in this book are pivotal “concepts”
you MUST know if you want to make a full-time
income selling Kindle books.
Also, it’s important to know that anyone, and I
mean ANYONE, can make money publishing
Kindle books on Amazon. You don’t need
experience. You don’t need to know how to
market things online. You don’t even need to
know how to write. This is one of the only “fool
proof” money making systems I have ever
personally used. A system that I would feel
comfortable teaching my own mother (no offense
mom), knowing that she could make money
doing this, with no prior knowledge.
So, if you’ve never made a dime online, or have
tried and tried and have made very little, now is
where things change big time, IF you follow what
I’ll be teaching you. These strategies work. I can
100% promise you that. And it works nearly
every single time, like clockwork. If you don’t
want to take my word for it, just look up
“amazon kindle” on popular marketing forums,
like the Warrior Forum and you’ll see thread after
thread of people that have never earned a dime
online, to now making $1000s monthly. In fact,
I’ve used some of the ranking strategies in this
guide (which are very straight forward, and
simple, I might add) to rank #1 for “weight loss”
on Amazon, in only ONE WEEK!
Here’s the simple process we’ll be taking for
each of our Kindle books we publish:
1. Find a niche topic to write on. One that gets
searched a lot, yet has little competition. 2.
Choose 7 keywords you want to rank at the top
of Amazon for. These need to be highly
searched, low competition words. 3. Write the
book yourself OR have it written by someone
else. I always have it written by someone else
for cheap. 4. Publish your book to Amazon. 5.
Rank highly for the keywords you selected in
step 2 above. 6. Make money. People find your
book by entering 1 of those 7 keywords. They
buy your book. Amazon notices you’re a valuable
book so THEY start promoting you all over their
website. You make more money. You need to
rank highly and make some initial sales through
that, or Amazon won’t start promoting you, and
you’ll be at a standstill.
Ranking highly is critical. 7. Repeat steps 1-6 on
another book.
The process isn’t rocket science. It’s very
repeatable. All of it can be outsourced or done
by yourself. What you’ll find will make or break
you are 2 things: 1. Knowing what hot topics to
write on. 2.
Actually ranking at the top of Amazon for your
keywords. 99% of Kindle publishers just write on
what they feel like writing on. Publish it. And
make no money because they don’t rank
anywhere visible.
How to Get Started as a Kindle Author
One of the most important things you’ll need to
do when writing a Kindle book is decide on a
niche topic. In this section we are going to talk
about how to choose a niche by browsing on
Amazon and doing a little Google research.
Choosing a Niche
Everything - whether it’s in opening a brick and
mortar store, an online store or affiliate site, a
service business, or becoming a Kindle publisher
...everything starts with choosing a niche. A
niche, in its simplest form is an area where you’ll
present yourself as the specialist, a very specific
form of targeting your market.
A quick trip to Amazon.com will reveal numerous
categories, however, we are only interested in
those sub categories under Kindle Books. Let's
say that through your keyword research you’ve
discovered that "Health and Fitness" is a hot
target niche. A quick trip to the Amazon Kindle
site shows us that "Health, Fitness and Dieting"
is listed as a Category. Great. We can start
writing on that topic, right? Not yet.
You need to drill down to the lowest
denominator in your chosen niche. You’ll have a
much better opportunity for success to choose
narrow niches known in the Internet world as
micro-niches, than to choose the broader
niches.
Even though Health, Fitness and Dieting is a very
hot broad niche, if you choose to target that
category you’ll have a hard time ranking in the
top 100 for that broad category. As you will see
at
Amazon, under that broad category there are 15
sub categories, and each of these sub categories
have micro categories. By continuing to drill
down, clicking on any link in the Browse list will
take you even further into the niche.
In my example, I've decided to write on anti-
aging. A hot topic, I think. I've chosen Health,
Fitness and Dieting > Personal Health > Aging.
And, when I click on Aging, I find I have come to
the end of my category list. This is the ultimate
micro niche I will target in this example - my
starting place for choosing a hot niche target for
my book.
You’ll have a much better chance of getting to
the top 100 by drilling down to the lowest micro-
niche category than you’ll if you try the buckshot
approach under Health, Fitness and Dieting.
Verifying the Hotness of the Niche
Now, to make sure you’ve a great niche, you’re
going to want to do some keyword analysis to
find out if your specific niche topic gets
searched a lot. If it doesn’t, it’s probably not
worth your time. The goal is to find a niche that
is searched a lot and has little competition so
you can write your book and immediately get
ranked highly in the Amazon search results.
One thing you should do is make sure your
demographics are suitable for targeting the
segments of society that are ready, willing and
able to buy your books.
Simply go to Google and search for the niche
keyword you've decided to go after. In my
illustration, that will be "healthy aging" so I do a
Google search for that phrase. Interestingly, one
site claims authority in the first two search
engine positions, so that will be a good site to
feed into Quantcast.net to discover the
demographics (i.e., we want to know what kind
of people search for "healthy aging" information).
We are interested in several things: their sex,
ethnicity, income, age - i.e., we want to know if
the profile of those visiting the site at the top of
a Google search for our keyword will be a good
target market for a series of books on this topic.
Now comes a bit of deductive reasoning on my
part. I see the visitors to this site are primarily
female, age 55 - 65+, in an income bracket above
$50,000 per year, are well educated, primarily
African American.
With this information I am confident I have
chosen a great niche for my first series of
Amazon Kindle books. With the main reason
being the avg. income is over $50,000. You don’t
want to dive into a niche to sell to people with
no money. Sounds obvious, but you would be
surprised how many people completely ignore
this.
With that said, I now want to verify this niche
just a little further by searching on Amazon for
what people are searching for in that niche. To
do this, go to the Kindle Books department and
type in the word "aging" and you’ll see a list of
topics people are searching for. These are topics
people are searching for on Amazon. And, there's
even more. Just add a space after the word
"aging" and you’ll see how the list changes.
Now, start adding the alphabet after the space
... like this "aging a" and you’ll see even more
choices. If you do this with each letter of the
alphabet you’ll soon have a list of EVERYTHING
people are searching for that niche on Amazon.
How cool is that?
How to Become an Expert
When an author writes multiple topics in the
same, or closely related categories they are often
referred to as "experts in their field". What makes
them an expert? It's really no secret, when you
write several Kindle books in the same or related
topics under the same pen name you’ll quickly
become known as a specialist in that field.
That's what turns you into an overnight expert in
your chosen niche.
Write "Same Niche" Topics
Continuing with our example target niche, you
should write on several related topics that will be
of interest to anyone purchasing books on the
topic of health and fitness as related to aging,
such as "anti-aging secrets", "sex after 60", "how
to retire without stress" and numerous other
topics. By targeting subjects in the same genre/
niche you’ll quickly cinch your expert status and
make more sales, which is your ultimate goal.
Choose a Good Pen Name
Amazon allows you to open one Kindle publishing
account, however, you may choose several pen
names under which to write. This is great for
cementing your expert status. If for example, you
start out writing in a niche about cooking, and
later want to target a niche about finances, using
the same pen name will be confusing to people
and hurt your expert status.
Little Known Secret: Choose a pen name that
people in your demographic research will relate
to and you’ll get more sales. Think how names
have changed over the years. In the early 1900's
you saw men named Woodrow, Edison, Josiah
and women with names like Martha, Matilda and
Cora. These are known as "old fashioned names"
today, while names such as Kyle, Aiden, Logan,
Mia and Alexis are more common for babies
today.
So, while choosing a pen name can seem to a
daunting task, it doesn't need to be too difficult.
Simply choose two names that your target
audience can relate to. In our example of
targeting the "aging" micro niche, this would be a
name common to the time period between 1945
and 1965.
Where do you find such a name? Sites that have
baby names are a great place to start. The
Social Security site of the US government has a
list of the most popular names for any given
year. Simply search for a year and choose a
couple of names from the boy and girl lists you’ll
find there. Your target audience will relate to
those names because they were born in that
generation. If you need common names for other
countries, simply do a Google Search in your
country for "common baby names 2013",
replacing 2013 with the year that will fit your
niche market.
You’ll see names from 1950 for male and female
babies. To create a great pen name, simply
choose a couple of names from the same or
both lists and combine these. For example,
Robert James, John
Michael, Diane Stevens, Dennis Paul. In some
instances you may need to add an "s" to the
name to make it a surname. However, in a short
time you’ll have a pen name that will match your
target audience, thus increasing your status as
an expert in the field.
Moving right along ... Okay, now that you’ve
chosen your niche and have determined to write
a series of books in that niche, it's time to start
writing.
Writing Starts with an Outline
I know that sounds simplistic ... but you would
be surprised what a big help it’s to simply
outline your book and then fill in the spaces. You
learned it in school and it’s probably the most
important thing you learned about creative
writing: Outline first.
With an outline you’ve a beginning, middle and
an ending. It's like having a roadmap of how to
get from Atlantic City, NJ to Sacramento CA.
With a roadmap you may take a few interesting
side trips on your journey but you’ll eventually
get to the end of the route. The same is true
with the book outline.
Ask Questions
One thing I find helpful is to ask questions. For
example, if I am writing on Healthy Aging I might
ask the following questions:
1. When do people start noticing the effects of
aging? 2. How does aging affect our health? 3.
What steps can I take to maintain good health
as I get older? 4. etc., etc.
As I progress through a list of 5 -10 questions
under each of my Outline topics I will soon have
a good basis for my eBook and all I will need to
do is add interesting facts and anecdotes to
make my story interesting. Make sense?
Where to Find Information
You can find interesting information almost
anywhere you look. I research everything on the
Internet - then, I branch out into other areas as
the need arises. Here's my list of places to
research:
Internet search engines. Blogs. Article
Directories. Libraries. Book Stores. Magazines.
Personal Experience. Interviews. Television
programs (think CNN, FOX, Dr. Oz, Dr. Phil, Katie
Courick, PBS, The Biggest Loser, etc.). Public
Domain works.
Note: Don’t plagiarize, as that is illegal and
unethical. It’s acceptable practice to research
topics using other people's work, but be sure to
credit their work when credit’s due. If you Don’t
want to credit someone else's work, make sure
the information you’ve used is not proprietary to
them (meaning you can find it in more than one
source), and that you haven't copied their words
verbatim. It’s really best to give credit as this
lends credibility to your own work.
What to Do if You Can't Write?
Help! I can't write.
I hear you. And, you’re not alone. Believe it or
not there are many famous authors who can’t
write, but their public hasn't a clue that they
have hired a ghostwriter to pen their thoughts
and ideas. Not to worry, even the person who
can't write or spell can be a good Kindle author
by utilizing the right resources.
1. Using Professional Ghostwriters. Outsourcing
to someone who knows how to write is the
preferred method. Do a Google search for
'ghostwriter for hire' and you’ll come up with
multiple pages for people who write behind the
scenes and let you take all of the credit, income
and glory. You’ll pay them upfront according to
their schedule; they will agree to release the
work to you and that's it. Your name will go on
the book as the writer.
This can be expensive; however there are ways
to minimize the expense when getting started. A
word of caution: never sacrifice quality for a
cheap price. It’s not worth it in the long run.
2. Rewrite public domain works. If you use this
method, ensure the work is out of copyright and
do a complete rewrite of the content. Don’t use
an automated system that rewrites content as
this will reduce the quality of your content and
get you suspended from Amazon. Caution: You
must be careful when using this method,
however, as you can’t claim authorship of the
public domain work even if you rewrite it. The
best you could hope to accomplish in getting
your pen name on the book is to put the Title,
original author, and then "rewritten by [your pen
name]".
Proof Your Work. I can't say this enough - if you
submit poor quality work to Kindle, you’ll have
an uphill battle to fight. People are ruthless in
their criticism of bad grammar, unsubstantiated
facts, and misspelled words. You’ll often find
revisions of Kindle books as a result of the
reviews given.
It doesn't need to be your story as you've been
warned. Have your work proofread before you
submit it to Kindle. You don't want someone to
say this in their review: "This book has the
potential of being great; however, the
grammatical errors make it too difficult to read."
Signing Up With Kindle Publishing Program
Okay, now that you’ve written your book and
have created a killer cover it’s now time to sign
up with Kindle Publishing. If you’ve already done
this step, you may skip this section. It’s very
easy and I’ll step you through the process right
now.
Step One: Signup with Kindle Publishing
Go to Amazon.com and scroll down the page
until you see a list of links. Click on the link that
says Independently Publish With Us. This will
open a new an overview of the types of self-
publishing venues available. Click on the Get
Started link under the Kindle Books section.
After clicking the Get Started link you’ll be taken
to a window where you can either 1) join the
Kindle program using your existing Amazon user
account or 2) create a new Kindle account. This
is entirely up to you. Please ensure that you
read the Kindle publisher Terms and Conditions
before proceeding with the sign up as you don't
want to inadvertently do anything to jeopardize
your account. Note in particular that while it’s
okay with Amazon for you to open up a new
Kindle account, OR to sign in with an existing
Amazon user account, it’s not okay to open
more than one
Kindle account.
Step Two: Complete Your Profile
After you’ve signed up for a Kindle account,
providing only an email address and password,
and have agreed to their terms, you’ll now need
to complete the process. When you click on the
Update Now link of logout and come back later,
you’ll be confronted with this screen to complete
the process: Of course it’s in your best interest
to provide accurate information in order to get
paid for your hard work :).
Step Three: Completing Royalty Payment
Information
Amazon will send your Royalty payments to your
bank account via electronic deposit, or via check
through the mail. There is some lag time when
you first get started, but once you’re consistently
maintaining sales, you’ll get the royalty payment
like clockwork. If the payment is directly
deposited into your checking account you’ll only
need to accrue a balance of at least $10/£10/
€10; if opting for the payment by check, your
balance will need to be $100/£100/€100.
Formatting Your Document for Kindle
Once you’ve signed up to be a Kindle Publisher
and have written your ebook you must format it
in a way that is acceptable to Kindle. This is not
a big deal as it once was because Amazon has
now made it easy to publish your book. Amazon
KDP has provided an excellent and simple to
understand guide for formatting the manuscript.
If you’ll follow their rules and guidelines you’ll
breeze through the process.
Advanced Kindle Marketing Strategies
Often times an author will simply put their book
up on Amazon and wait for the magic to happen.
While this might work for James Patterson or
Amanda Hocking it will not work for most of us,
as we are the "unknown" to the Kindle eBook
buying world. Our goal as new Kindle publishers
is to make it into the Amazon Best Seller's list
as soon as possible. With that in mind I've
created a list of 11 powerful, yet simple
strategies that will give you that extra
momentum to propel you to the top of that list.
You may use them all ... or concentrate on one
or two. You may find it works best to combine
several. These strategies work. But only if you
put them to use!
Strategy #1 - Give eBook Proceeds to a Charity
and Zoom to the Top of Amazon
With this advanced strategy you’ll propel your
Kindle book to the top of the charts within a few
days of uploading it to the Kindle store. To put
this strategy into action, simply locate a charity
that has a vibrant and active Facebook page and
contact them either in person, on the phone or in
a letter.
Your initial contact should relay the following
information: your strong belief in the charity,
that you’re a published author, that you’re
donating 100% of the proceeds from the book
[title] to the charity, tell how the book will
benefit those who purchase it and how it fits
their overall core beliefs, ASK them to make a
Facebook post about the book, as it will
generate revenues for them when their
supporters purchase the book. Attach the book
to your email for their review.
Now, here's what will happen. When the charity
accepts your offer and makes the post on their
Facebook page about the book (stating all of the
proceeds go to charity name), those people who
are strong supporters of the charity will
purchase the book and tell others about it. Many
will repost on their Facebook pages, on Twitter,
on Pinterest ... simply because they believe in
the charity. Your book will make it to the top of
Amazon's charts from the sheer volume of orders
from the charity alone.
But you haven't made any money on it. So how
can that help you? The whole purpose for the
charity giveaway is to build an audience. Once
that is accomplished you own that audience. It's
yours and you can approach them as someone
who is "on their side", someone who believes in
the same cause, so much so that you’ve donated
the proceeds of a great book. They will now
listen when you speak and they will read your
email. You’ve a captive audience for your next
Kindle eBook release where you’ll keep ALL of
the proceeds (minus the fees charged by Kindle).
It's a brilliant strategy.
Strategy #2: Create an "Internet Marketing Type"
Launch for your New Book
If you've been around the world of Internet
Marketing then you may be aware of the hype
that accompanies the successful product
launches. You can use this same method to
create buzz and sizzle - and to propel your book
to the top of Amazon's Best Sales Rank list. It
works well with Strategy #1 as a follow up for
your second book launch.
This method assumes you’ve built a warm
market list of people who have subscribed to
your list. (Hint: If the list is from your charity
give-away book, then you’ll have a very receptive
list). This is the primary reason you should
create your author's blog, Facebook page,
Pinterest and Twitter accounts prior to
publishing your first book. You need to build
buzz and you need to get subscribers to your
list.
So how do you get their name on your list?
Simple and brilliant: In every book you write
you’ll put a link to your squeeze page and offer
them the opportunity to get on your advanced
notification list.
If they love your writing they will feel honored to
be on your list. Any author who fails to use this
technique is leaving a pile of money on the table.
Strategy #3: Set up an Author's Toolbar
This strategy assumes you’ve set up your
author's blog under your pen name. What we
want to do is give your follower's easy access to
you, thus giving you easy access to them!
Although used a lot by savvy Internet Marketers
this strategy is little used by Kindle authors.
You’ll be ahead of the pack by setting it up.
Having an author's toolbar is all about user
engagement with your fans. With it you can
communicate almost instantaneously, answer
their questions, and let them know when you’ve
a new release, as well as remind them to leave a
review. It’s a win/win tool for you and them.
They will love having the access to you. You’ll
love having an actively growing and engaged fan
base as that means money in your pocket.
So head over to www.toolbar.conduit.com and
click on the big orange "Start Now" button. It's
free. It's relatively easy and will increase your
profit!
Strategy #4 - Publish Multiple Books
Simultaneously
One way to jump quickly to the top of Amazon's
list is to write several books in different, but
related, categories and publish them all at the
same time. You don't want to put them all in the
same category; however, you don't want them
spread across totally unrelated categories, either
as this will raise Amazon's suspicion that you’re
trying to gain the system. For example you might
write a series of diet and nutrition books, putting
them under the different micro niche categories
that have related books such as Health, Fitness,
Dieting, Cookbooks, Food and Wine and Self
Help. You can drill down into the micro niches of
these primary categories to find several sub
niche categories that will work. Remember,
you’re allowed 2 categories per book.
Now, the reason you want to dump all of the
books into your KDP account at one time is that
Amazon seems to love this approach and will
give your books a huge boost by promoting your
books on your behalf. This could have a
tremendous effect on your marketing efforts.
Strategy #5 - Sell More Books Through Creative
Branding
It’s one thing to publish a few book on Kindle,
quite another to get people to talking about it.
Yet, to be a successful Kindle book publisher you
need to generate interest in your books.
Thankfully, you don't need to bang your head
against the wall to get people to notice you!
It starts with a killer Pen Name; and then market
that name. You can do this is several ways:
setting up a blog or website under that name,
setting up several social site accounts such as
Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This will
culminate in generating fans and followers that
want to engage with you and spread the word
about your books. Once you’ve built your
audience they will follow you anywhere you want
to go. Your ultimate goal in doing this is to
brand your pen name as an expert in your
chosen niche market, thus getting more traffic to
your Amazon books and more people leaving
good reviews of your work.
Within a few weeks you’ll become the go-to
person for questions about your niche topic,
propelling you into the expert status you've
worked for. Now, when someone sees your pen
name attached to a book it’s not just another
wannabe Kindle publisher, rather it’s the name of
someone who knows what he/she is talking
about.
Strategy #6 - Create Interrelated Titles and Cross
Promote
When you publish your first book you can't do
this, of course, as you don't have another to
promote. That's okay. After you create your
second book you may edit and republish your
first book with a link to your second book. If
someone likes a book you’ve published you can
be assured they will be eager to read more of
your work.
Create a grouping around your pen name and
micro-niche category as the author did in the
screenshot below. She literally owns the
adoption niche with her numerous publications in
that niche.
When you click through on her name it appears
that she writes based on her passion instead of
market research. However, we can't be sure of
that as she could be using numerous pen names
and biographies.
Since the name she is using is connected only to
children in need, children who are adopted or
abused or in foster care, she could easily create
a group around that micro niche and cross-
promote within that group. To do this for your
own books, you simply create a promotional
blurb in each book about another book in the
group and put a link to that book in the Amazon
Kindle marketplace. This will have a two-faceted
effect: more sales and a higher ranking in
Amazon Kindle Marketplace.
Strategy #7 - Focus on Quality, not Quantity for
Positive Feedback
When Amazon Kindle first opened its doors there
were numerous junk books in their store.
However, Amazon cleaned up their catalog and
removed duplicates (created using private label
rights materials), and removed a lot of badly
written books as well. Why did they do this?
Because of customer reviews. The customers
were not pleased with the quality and Amazon
listened. Good reviews are worth triple their
weight in gold to your Kindle business. If the
customer is pleased then you’ll get good reviews.
To ensure this happens produce top quality
work. This means you may need to spend time/
money having your work proofread and edited.
Sure you can shortcut this process, however, if
you do the reviews will be bad and that will hurt
your sales. It could also ultimately get your book
removed, as is Amazon's editorial prerogative.
Strategy #8- Get Rave Reviews to Sell More
Books
Reviews are to Kindle eBooks what picking up a
hard copy in a bookstore and flipping through
the pages is for offline buyers. You can't see or
touch the book. If you can read what others
think about the book, however, you’re "seeing" it
through their eyes. Without reviews your book
will simply collect virtual dust in the Amazon
Marketplace.
The secret is to get the reviews AS SOON AS the
book launches so that on the day your book is
published in Amazon it has a few rave reviews.
There are several ways to do this - and you
should use any method that you feel comfortable
using: • Send a prerelease copy to friends, family
members, and coworkers and ask them to read it
and provide an honest review. Not the best
method, but will get you one or two good
reviews. • Join author forums and get involved -
and ASK people to buy your book; in exchange
you’ll buy theirs. Of course, you’ll each leave an
honest review for the other. One such forum is
http://www.kboards.com. A Google search will
reveal others. • Contact Amazon's top reviewers.
Go to http://www.amazon.com/review/top-
reviewers and you'll find a list of people who are
classified as Amazon's top reviewers. Contact 10
- 15 of these reviewers, send them a
complimentary copy of your ebook and ask for
an honest review. • Find reviewers online. This
site has several reviewers who are willing to
provide honest reviews in exchange for a
complimentary copy of your Kindle book: http://
www.thekindlebookreview.net/get-reviewed/ •
Purchase a
Fiverr.com gig to READ and review your book.
Make sure they are willing to purchase and read
the book - you’ll most likely need to compensate
them for the cost of the book as well as the
review.
You want an honest review, so don't just
purchase reviews from people who will not read
your book.
Strategy #9 - Make Good Use of the Author Page
in Author Central
This is an often-overlooked strategy that will
help to brand you as a serious author. The
author page is similar to an "About" page on
your blog as it’s all about you - the "you" that
the public should know about. If you’ve 3 pen
names then you’ll have 3 Author pages - one for
each pen name.
You’ll need a good "pen name" profile picture -
i.e., it can't be the real you. You can purchase
an image from one of the royalty-free image
resources such as bigstockphoto.com,
fotolia.com or stockphoto.com. I suggest that
you choose an "action" image instead of an up
close image. For example, if you're writing in a
niche about family and children, you might
choose a mother with children around her. If
you're writing in a niche about health and fitness
you might choose an image with someone
running, cooking, playing tennis, etc. Just keep in
mind you’ll need to use the same model for all
of that pen name's profile pictures across your
author blog, facebook page, pinterest and twitter
accounts. The primary reason for choosing a
picture showing the author involved in some
niche activity is to identify with the audience
who will be purchasing your books in that niche.
Secondly, you’ll need a good author bio. You
don't really need to fabricate a lie here - just
describe your reason for being interested in the
niche - i.e., why you’re writing on that particular
topic. List any real writing credentials, awards,
kudos you might have including a list of any
other books published under that pen name. Just
make yourself as personable and interesting as
possible.
Strategy #10 - Set Up a Social Site Link Wheel
for Promoting Your Book
Using your PEN NAME,you’ll setup a several
social accounts such as Facebook, Pinterest,
YouTube, Squidoo and Twitter, etc.You’ll also
need an author's blog and the URL to your
Author page on Amazon Kindle.
Note, before setting up your social accounts, go
ahead and setup an email account for your pen
name at Google, Yahoo, or other such service.
Use that email address to setup your social
accounts. Don’t use your "real name" email
address. Now that you’ve the social sites and
author's blog set up you want to create a "wheel"
that will ultimately lead your visitors to purchase
your Kindle book.
Here's how it works:
1. Create a minimum of 7 blog posts on your
author's blog using actual quotes from your
book. Within each of the posts place a nice
image that relates to the content of your book.
Also place a link to your book on Amazon Kindle
somewhere within the post. 2. On Pinterest,
setup a board for and give it a name. Pin the
images from your blog. 3. Make a post on
Facebook and share a link to your Pinterest
board 4. Make a Twitter post about your
Facebook update. 5. etc.
Strategy #11 - Use Intentional Keywords in your
Title, and Cover and Description
There are four aspects to your ebook that carry
a lot of weight in marketing to your audience:
the Title, the Cover, the Description and Reviews.
These are the factors that will generate the most
sales
IF you use well-placed keywords that tie them
together, thus optimizing your Amazon page. In
order to get the best possible results, target
specific keywords for your niche.
You can find out what people are searching for
by going to Amazon.com and then start typing in
the Amazon Search bar. For example, if I have
written a book on how to have beautiful skin at
any age and am focusing on "anti aging skin
care and nutrition secrets", I will make sure to
use that term in the Amazon title, the Cover
graphic title and at least two times in my
description. Why?
Because Amazon has shown me that is what
people are searching for.
Alright, that wraps up exactly what I would do to
make money publishing Kindle Books. Like I said
at the beginning of this guide, it’s not rocket
science. Anyone can do this. It’s a very
straightforward process that can work over and
over and over again.
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