Tag: Amazon

Amazon Bitch – Part 2 of 2

On By TomIn Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Review, Short Stories16 Comments

£ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $ £ $

We can lie and fall into the self-denial category, or we can come right out and admit that we may enjoy our writing, but we would like to make some … no, a lot of money from it. I’d love to see one of my stories being adapted as the basis of a movie, but maybe that’s a topic for another post.

My suggestions on how to be successful with sales are based on my own experience, not on a list provided on the Internet. There are several on there, I know.Smoke & Mirrors 020614

1. Present your books to the best standard you can. Consider the actual writing, punctuation, grammar, editing and formatting. Do not under any circumstances publish something that has only been written in one draft. My average for a novel is four drafts. My short stories usually take about six or seven drafts.

2. Pay to have eBook covers designed. Sales of my novels increased dramatically after I’d had the covers designed by a professional. Expensive perhaps, but following the revamped covers, the sales of one of my novels paid for the covers of all three novels in less than three months.

3. More than one title assists sales, but that doesn’t mean you should rush out your next book. Take your time, get it right and watch your books sell because readers trust your name and brand. Do not allow your name to be discredited by a poor book – and poor reviews.

4. Increase your social platform. There was a time when I scoffed at social media, but now I use it daily. Why? I post a link to my author website on three different Facebook groups daily. I occasionally post on Twitter, but not as often.

5. If an author website is beyond your reach financially, get a blog organised in the meantime. My first blog lasted over a year before I realised how many mistakes I was making with the content.

6. Only when you have two or more books to promote – consider an author website. If a website is out of reach – use a blog template to build an author website, but treat it as an author website – not a blog. If necessary, set up two blogs. One used as a blog, and the other as an author website. If you have any issues about the difference, please feel free to check my own.

7. Organise an Amazon Author Central page. This can be done on both the UK site and the US site. I have a page on both.

8. Review the work of your peers, and don’t stick to your own genre. I’ve reviewed Young Adult, Supernatural, Romance, Thriller, Suspense, Erotica, The Classics, Humour, Science Fiction and Children’s books. You will gain by:
a) possibly learning something, and, b) the recipient author and others might even check out your work. We all need each other, and we need to do our best in writing and support.

9. Price your books appropriately. Use common sense and remember you might become the next Stephen King, or Jackie Collins, but until you are at that level – be honest and realistic, not over-confident and greedy.

10. If you intend to produce a collection of short stories, publish a couple on one or two reading and writing sites and get feedback / reviews / critiques from total strangers. That really is a wake-up call. Make the number of stories in an anthology worthwhile.

Coming Around - 020714

***

However you read into my blog posts or my occasional Facebook rant, I am not a know-it-all, and I accept that I sometimes make a mistake, but I put myself and my writing through the wringer. I give many hours over to learning about and improving my craft.

We owe it to each other and to the industry not to put something out there half-cocked. If your mum, dad, brother, sister, boyfriend, girlfriend, or Auntie Agnes likes your writing then I’m happy for you – but please don’t take their word for it that you’ve got it right and you’re good.

Why do I rant about getting the writing as good as we can?
1. Would you ride a bike, or drive a car with loose wheel nuts?
2. Would you buy a keyboard with two letters missing?

We are asking people to give us money for these things that we write. It’s a transaction whereby we suggest that what we’ve produced is worth money, and the buying public pay their hard-earned money in good faith.

I keep my book prices low. I don’t do it because I’m rich, because I’m not. I also don’t do it because I haven’t made any effort, because I work damn hard. I keep my prices low because I’m not a household name and I’m realistic. I want to build my personal brand and I will only be able to do that with a good catalogue of books that have received good reviews and are making sales.

I can sense that I’m going off on a tangent, but I hope I’ve managed to get at least a couple of points out there.

Lest I forget, I don’t expect to see my sales increasing after leaving Kobo and Smashwords, but within 24 hours of enrolling on the Kindle Owner’s Lending Library my books were being borrowed again. If it gets to a healthy level I’ll write a post.

All comments are welcome as always and thank you for reading.

***

Amazon Bitch – Part 1 of 2

On By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, Poetry, Short Stories7 Comments

Yes, I’m coming out as an Amazon Bitch.

Ten Days in Panama - the cover 2904

Apart from reading conventional books, as a Kindle user it was logical for me to self-publish on Amazon when I eventually took the plunge.

I published Ten Days in Panama in November 2012, happy to leave it and get on with other projects. Sales were occasional and single figures inside any given month.

I published Beyond The Law in October 2013 and it made sales quite fast, comparatively speaking. It also reached double figures in one month before I made any effort to ‘promote’ it on social media. Beyond The Law - the cover 2904

In both cases I enrolled in the KDP Select (KDPS), and Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL). I figured that a little bit of extra publicity would be good, even if it meant that some folk might borrow my hard work, instead of buying it.

My sales increased a little – for three reasons.
1.  I had more than one book on the system. The more titles you have out there, the better.
2.  I was making an occasional sale to far off lands like Japan and India, and I saw my books being sold, and occasionally borrowed.
3.  I increased my social platform, which in my case meant going on Twitter and Facebook more often than twice per month – and I joined a couple of Facebook groups.

I tend to work on more than one project on an ongoing basis, so May and June of 2014 saw publication of my two short story anthologies, which were rapidly followed by my third novel, Amsterdam Calling in July 2014. I didn’t enrol any of these on the KDPS or KOLL schemes.
Amsterdam Calling - the cover 260714

In July 2014, I allowed my 90 days to expire on my first two novels, so I was free to publish elsewhere. I published all of my work on Kobo and also on Smashwords. During 2013 – 2014 I published my five-book series of poetry anthologies and they increased my profile.

Bang up to date and by mid-October 2014, I had not sold a single copy of anything on Kobo. The books sold on Smashwords only just made it to double figures. Neither of those sites has worked for me. Over the same period I’ve watched sales of my novels increase steadily on Amazon, but the reasons I will relate in the second part of this tale.

With effect from 21st October 2014, I have unpublished from both Kobo and Smashwords. As soon as I had confirmation, I went to my Amazon bookshelf and enrolled my full collection on both KDPS and KOLL.
In the next post I’ll talk about how to increase sales, in my humble opinion.
Thank you for reading and any comments.

See you at the weekend for Part 2.