Five Steps to Sell More

Books on Amazon
byClayton Noblit

If your book is on Amazon, your primary goal will be to sell more books on
Amazon.  Selling books on Amazon is all about optimizing for the Amazon
algorithm. Sound complicated? It can be, but don’t worry we have 5 easy-to-follow
steps with detailed instructions that will help you make the most of the Amazon
Algorithm.

The Amazon Algorithm

Explained
Before we get into the steps, let’s explain the algorithm a little bit. The job of the
Amazon algorithm is to best serve Amazon customers (aka readers) who are
searching for something, AND to make relevant recommendations to Amazon
customers on products they may like.

In order to do its job, the Amazon algorithm needs lots of data (called data inputs)
about each product (which in your case is a book). The more data about your book
the algorithm has, the more it will surface or recommend a product to a customer.
When it comes to books, the primary inputs the Amazon algorithm looks for are:
Keywords, genres, reviews, sales, downloads, sales rank, and browse activity. To
optimize your book on Amazon, you need to optimize all these inputs for the
algorithm. In this article we will show you how to do that so you can sell more
books on Amazon. Now let’s get started!

1. Write a Comprehensive Book

Description
Your book description is an important component in educating the Amazon
algorithm (and human readers 😉 ) on what your book is about, and who will enjoy
reading it.  Below are the elements we recommend that every good book
description has:

Accolades

If you or your book have won any awards or distinguishing titles (like bestseller),
be sure to mention that in your book description. Anything and everything is worth
mentioning. Now is NOT the time to be bashful about your accomplishments.

Comparables

Language that compares your title to best-selling authors and titles will let fans of
those popular authors know that they should check your book out next. The basic
construct is “if you like [famous book] then you’ll like [your book], but you’re a
writer, mix it up a bit. Here’s an example from Sleeping Giants, where they use “In
the tradition of…” to drop a few well-known books and authors into the
description.

Emotional, gripping language

Be sure to use language that is evocative. Make  readers feel something by simply
reading your description, and leave them yearning for more. One strategy is to use
the first few sentences from a particularly gripping scene in your book which tends
to work well. However, don’t limit yourself, you can write evocative questions
“Will she make it to the volcano in time?” or statements “Find out if Mike is truly
her soulmate or if he has an alternate motive”, But don’t limit yourself to cliches;
now is a good time to be creative.

Keywords for your genre

Different genres have different tropes that readers learn to look for. For example, in
romance, HEA (happily ever after) stories are popular. If there are keywords that
you know readers in your genre are going to be looking (and searching) for, be sure
to include those in your description.One thing that you don’t want to do in your
book description is to give away the plot. Don’t make it into a spoiler-filled trailer
for your book. Instead, tease readers with just enough to make them curious.

2. Research your Categories and

Keywords
Both categories and your keywords are important inputs to the algorithm and serve
to help new readers discover your book when they are browsing Amazon. You set
both your categories and your keywords in your Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
account.

Let’s start with categories. On Amazon your categories are basically your genres,
and you can only pick two for each book. When picking a category, be sure to pick
the ones that most closely align with the content of your book. In Amazon’s own
words:
“A browse category is the section of the Amazon site where users can find your
book. Think of the browse category like the sections of a physical bookstore
(fiction, history, and so on). You can select up to two browse categories for your
book. Precise browse categorization helps readers find your book, so be sure to
select the most appropriate categories for your book.”

Why is this important? Well, these categories are the basis for Amazon’s charts.
You want the category to match the type of reader you are looking for. If you are
writing a spy thriller, don’t pick romance as a category (even if there is a romantic
element to your book) because readers browsing the Romance charts are not
looking for spy thrillers. In order to see where your book will best fit in, peruse
through the top charts for your potential categories, and see where your book would
be the best fit. In the example below, we logged into our KDP account
(kdp.amazon.com), selected the book we are working on (in our case a Non-Fiction
Thanksgiving Cookbook), and scrolled down to the categories section. We then
navigated down the categories and checked Seasonal and General under Cooking.
This means that our book ranks first in those categories.
 

Next up: keywords. Optimizing your keywords is a fancy term for picking words
you think people are going to search for. Imagine you are a reader, and you go to
Amazon to find a book, what will you type in the search box? Get inside the mind
of the reader and think about what words to add that will make your book easy to
find. You will want to do two sets of research for keywords for your title.
First, you will want to research the main keywords that are associated with your
book’s subject matter. These are the words that you will want to use in your title
and on your book description page. Keywords that you use in your title will show
up in the URL for your book, making it easier for your title to show up in searches
for those words. In the example below, when a reader searches for Thriller, the
algorithm knows that Hit for Hire is a possible result it can show the reader as Hit
for Hire contains “thriller” in the URL, the title and the description.
To do this research, you can use the free functionality of KWFinder, or, if you’re
running AdWords, Google’s keyword planner.
For example: Let’s say you’re writing a book on How to Make Dog Treats. When
you search for related keywords, “Homemade Dog Treats” has almost 10 times the
number of searches (aka Search Volume) that “How to Make Dog Treats” does.
This means that you will want your title and book description to use the phrase
“Homemade Dog Treats”.

Second, you will want to research the Amazon specific keywords that you will
enter for your book. You get to choose just seven keywords for your title, so you
want to choose them wisely. Dave Chesson over at Kindlepreneur has a fantastic
step by step guide on how to research and select keywords that will allow Amazon
to sell your book for you.
Amazon also has a useful resource on how to set keywords for your title, and they
recommend focusing on five types of terms:
1. Setting – for example, “1800’s France”.
2. Character types –  for example, “single dad” or “veteran”.
3. Character roles – for example, “female sleuth”
4. Plot themes – for example, “coming of age” or “family saga”
5. Story tone – for example, “dystopian”
When your book is categorized under the correct genres and supplemented by the
correct keywords, Amazon will do a better job of getting it in front of the right
readers.
3. Get Reviews
We spoke above about how adding a review to your book description can help
make your description more engaging to readers. More broadly, having many
book reviews gives readers confidence in the quality of your work which will result
in more readers purchasing your book. Book reviews are an important input to the
algorithm, so this is another area where it’s worthwhile to focus.  In our research,
we found that the number of reviews is more important than the overall average
review rating (as long as your average rating is over 3.5 stars). This means having
25 reviews with an average rating of 4.0 is better than having 5 reviews with an
average rating of 5.0 stars. There are two key strategies for getting reviews for
your titles:

Ask Your Readers

Do you have a mailing list? You should. If you don’t read our article about email
marketing for authors. When your book comes out, email your readers and ask
them to help you build reviews. Additionally, always include a link in the back of
your book that asks readers to leave a review.
Here’s an example of an author asking for a review at the end of the book. This is
at the end of Nomad by Matthew Mather.

ARC (advance reader copy) Reviews

If you really want to make the most of reviews, try to get them before your book
comes out on Amazon. How? Reach out to your most engaged readers and ask
them to leave a review in return for an ARC. An ARC is a copy of the book you
provide to readers BEFORE the book is actually published. This way, you are
lining up reviews that can be posted to your Amazon book page on the day your
book launches, and you don’t have to wait days, weeks, or even months, before
gaining enough reviews to make a difference.

4. Update your Author Page

Once you have your book listing squared away with a good description, appropriate
keywords, and favorable reviews, it’s time to take a look at your Author Page.
Amazon gives authors the opportunity to set up a page that acts as a central location
for all of their titles on Amazon. You can set up your author page through Author
Central. The author page provides more valuable information to the algorithm:
which readers follow your author page, which readers browse your author page,
which other titles are in your catalog. On your author page you want to have:

A compelling biography

Tell your story in an engaging way. Why do you write? How long have you been at
it? What is your inspiration? Do you have a pet, is it cute, and what is its name?
These are all questions to which readers want to know the answer.

A professional author photo

It is worth getting professional headshots done so you can have a professional

grade photo to feature around the web, It lets readers know that you take your
writing, and the business of writing, seriously. Do a google search for local
photographers in your area and plan on paying about $100 for a professional
portrait. It may seem expensive, but it’s worth it.

All of Your Books

If you have all of your titles linked to your page, then it is much easier for readers
who have found and enjoyed one of your titles, to find more!

Book Trailers or Other Promotional Videos

Amazon lets you link in all sorts of content. If you’ve paid to have a book trailer
produced, be sure to feature it here.

Feed to Your Blog Posts

If you have a blog, be sure to sync it up with your author page. This way readers
who discover you through Amazon can then discover your blog and all of its fun
book news as they peruse your books on Amazon.

Follow Button

If readers are “following” you on Amazon, then they get an automated alert every
time you publish a new book. That’s nifty.

Social Media and Website Information

Be sure to link to your other presences around the web so that readers can follow
you there as well and see what all you’re up to!

Customize your URL

Make sure that your URL has your author name in it, so that your Amazon page
shows up when people search for you on the web.
5. Drive Sales and Downloads of
Your Book
The final step to sell more books on Amazon is to generate the data inputs for sales,
downloads, and sales rank. To achieve this you will need to market and promote
your book. The goal of promoting your book is to:

Drive sales of your book

Good marketing will help drive sales / KU borrows of your book, or free
downloads if your book is free.  The algorithm is more likely to recommend books
that are being downloaded or purchased by readers.

Make your book start showing up in also-boughts

On every page on Amazon there is a section that says “customers who bought this
also bought”. When you promote your title, your book will start showing up in this
section on other book’s pages, increasing the numbers of readers who will discover
your title. If you do not have enough readers browsing your page, then the
algorithm won’t know which similar products to link with your book.

Make your book start showing up on the top charts

Amazon ranks the eBooks they sell according to popularity. When a title is
downloaded by a large quantity of people, it will show up on the Amazon Best
Seller chart.  Many readers come to these charts to discover new books, so if you’re
ranking here, you’ll be getting in front of plenty of new readers. Getting in front of
new readers means that more people will buy your book, which means that ranking
on the charts will help increase your sales rank, which is another input for the
algorithm. You can wait for your book naturally to get on the Best Seller chart, but
after working with thousands of authors, we’ve found concerted marketing is the
best way to get on these charts.

At Written Word Media, we’re huge proponents of running price promotions.  It’s
one of the things we do best, and we know it works. We recommend running a
price promotion and promoting your title to our large audiences of new readers.
With over 600,000 readers across Freebooksy, Bargain Booksy, Red Feather
Romance, and NewInBooks, running a promotion on one of our sites will be sure to
get your title into the hands of readers.

Conclusion
It requires time and effort to optimize your Amazon presence. We understand that
for authors, time not spent writing can be difficult to find. However, this is an
investment worth making. Amazon is one of the most important places to sell your
book, and if you follow these five steps you will have taken the first steps to sell
more books on Amazon.

Update: Thanks to some great feedback from one of our authors, we’ve made
updates to part 1 of this post. We removed the recommendation of having
reviews/testimonials in the Book Description as this is prohibited by Amazon and
we have removed a sentence about putting keywords in the description.