4 Things Authors Need to Know About Amazon
by Aggie Villanueva
Many of us have had books for sale for years at Amazon.com.
Many excitedly await their first book going live. Whichever your situation,
there are just as many of us who unfortunately use Amazon as simply the world’s
largest bookstore listing. What’s wrong with that, you may wonder? After all,
Amazon is the world’s largest bookstore.
Vikram Narayan, CEO of BookBuzzr.com, said of
my book which teaches the principles presented in this article, “…Aggie
Villanueva’s how-to changes your perspective of Amazon from that of an online
book store to that of an author publicity machine."
In that spirit, here is my list of three things authors need
to understand before selling their books at Amazon.com, and to change our
“perspective of Amazon.”
1. Amazon.com is Much More Than the World’s Largest Bookseller
If treated as a simple bookstore you’ll never garner the vast benefits of selling books there. They have created an ingenious marketing engine that drills through several layers of free and automated publicity, each layer completely unique and reaching millions of readers.
And like them or not, Amazon makes bestsellers out of
more writers than anywhere. So why not make use of them? If you don’t
utilize their system then they are indeed just the world’s largest
bookseller. What a waste if all they do for your book is list it. Let me show
you the basics of how Amazon can use categories to sell more of your books.
It all starts with YOU choosing your book categories
wisely.
2. Nearly Every Publicity Function at Amazon is
Based on Categories
The importance of wisely choosing Amazon categories goes far
beyond gaining and keeping your category bestseller or overall bestseller. This
nearly all-inclusive purpose for book categories creates a foundation point.
Like an inverted pyramid, most of your rankings depend on categories. Most
everything throughout Amazon’s ingenious multi-layered publicity machine
starts with and builds upon categories.
Don’t underestimate their importance. You need the RIGHT categories attached to your books (not the smallest) in order to reach your precise audience. Only this tight targeting will kick start Amazon to begin publicizing your books globally on multiple levels. Which brings us to the next point.
3. Tight Targeting: The Force That Moves Amazon’s
Mega-Publicity Machine
Targeting is the key to all successful marketing, and Amazon
knows that. Booksellers all claim to know that, but Amazon.com is the
only site I’m familiar with that actually implements it into their automated
system in ways which go far beyond tallying categories. Tight targeting is the
force pounding that publicity drill through each layer of their various
promotion opportunities. And the first opportunity is always is to wisely
choose your book categories.
What makes it all work is that every level of their marketing
machine forces us to target our audience ever more tightly. That’s because this
is exactly how Amazon markets. From categories to Tags to Customers Who Viewed
This Also Viewed, to their numerous direct mailings, many top-100 lists… Nearly
all promotions choose what to include from within categories. What if you’re in
the wrong one?
Getting a picture here? Everything starts with and depends on
categories, But is it YOU who must initially grease those category gears. The
right categories trigger a targeting mechanism that shoots your book straight
towards stardom.
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2 comments:
Great article. I've numerous books listed on Amazon in various genres (including fiction and non-fiction) as well as in both traditional and ebook format and whilst the categories work fairly well for me, I can't help thinking that I could be doing better with at least three of my 14 titles.
Sadly, this wasn't my mistake but my original publishers and I'd be keen to know if there's a way of changing their category after a period of time.
If only to give them a fresh shot at a potentially new audience.
Thanks for the advice about Amazon and how authors can benefit.
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