Thursday, July 21, 2011

Using Amazon to Optimize Book Sales: Guest Post with Michelle Fayard

Hello, writer friends! As promised, Michelle Fayard and I have collaborated on something fun for you! It stemmed from week one of Deana Barnhart's blogfest, the subject of which was to ask your burning questions about writing. For my blogfest post, I asked readers to share the most successful marketing tips they'd implemented or seen other writers implement. Michelle's comment was so detailed and mentioned several things I'd never even heard of! I asked her for more details, and after a string of discussions, we decided to share with all of our writer friends!

I strongly encourage you to check out and follow Michelle's blog. She is a wonderfully supportive blog friend full of great insights (as you'll see below)! Michelle and I have recreated the course of our conversation in a question and answer format. Enjoy!

Alexia: What is “tagging” on Amazon, and what should authors try to get their readers to do to increase the success of this tool?

Michelle: Tags are keywords readers are likely to use when searching for a book, similar to the label feature of Blogger. Once you set up tags for your book, ask others to tag it with that same keywords, because the more people that do so, the higher up your book will show in a search.

Alexia: How many reviews should an author attempt to get on Amazon as soon as their book is available? What is the benefit of this? What other popular sites allow readers to post book reviews?

Michelle: I recommend authors get at least 10 reviews, each about 75 to 300 words long. According to Berrett-Koehler Publishers, customer reviews are the single most effective tool for selling books on Amazon, as they help potential customers decide if the title is a fit for them. If you ask your contacts to post a review on Amazon, ask if they’d mind posting the same review on Barnes and Noble and Goodreads as well, for example.

Alexia: What is Author Central? What about an Amazon Connect blog?

Michelle: Author Central is a place where you can upload your photo, bio—even videos. Another great thing about Author Central is you can start posting content to your author page as soon as your book is listed on Amazon, which usually is several months before it ships.

Amazon Connect is the former name of a feature that allows authors to tie in a blog to their book listings, either writing them directly from Amazon Connect, the recommended way, or using an RSS feed to pull content in from an existing blog. The great thing is you don’t need to post as often on your Amazon blog as you would a “regular” one; about once a quarter, let your readers know about your book’s highlights and milestones. Some things to get out there include press mentions, reviews and any book appearances you’ll be making. You also can direct readers to your Web site. Some other cool things you can do include enrolling your title in Search Inside the Book and linking to Amazon’s Author Pages from your own Web site. As of May 26, Amazon Connect became part of Author Central.

Having an Amazon blog has another advantage for when your subsequent books come, as you can use it to announce your next novel to your current readers and increase pre-orders, since the blog shows up on all your books’ pages.

Alexia: How does an author coordinate a “bestseller campaign?”

Michelle: What’s great about a pre-order campaign—which is where you do advance promotion to build up customer orders for your book before it’s available on Amazon—is the orders will ship at the same time, increasing your sales rank for that day. It also helps get word of mouth and customer reviews happening sooner. Another advantage about driving traffic to Amazon’s site is the more sales Amazon has on a book, the more its search engines will recommend that title to others and the more it will pop up as a book bought by others.

Similarly, you can do a bestseller campaign, so your Amazon sales rank will be in the top 100 bestselling books for that day. If anything, it inspires you to let a lot of people know about your book in a concentrated time frame. What other authors have done is offer a free gift customers can receive if they buy your book from Amazon on a particular day. The gift can be something readers can download from your Web site or blog. You also can do this as part of your pre-order campaign.

Thank you very much for inviting me to share these tips with your followers, Alexia. Yours is one of the best blogging sites out there, because of features such as your Awesome Books page and your new monthly newsletter.

Michelle, thanks so much for visiting my blog today!! You are a fountain of knowledge!

So, writer friends, do you have any Amazon secrets to share? Or other marketing tips?

27 comments:

  1. Boy, I wish I'd read this a few months back! Very, very helpful tips. Thanks so much, ladies.

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  2. Maybe I need to set up an author page...

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  3. Thank you again, Alexia, for inviting me to appear on your blog. Never did I think as I "stalked" your posts that I'd get to help write one of them one day!

    Jennifer, doesn't it always seem to be Murphy's Law that we come across the information we need right after the time when we most needed it? I hope the tips still will come in handy for you.

    Alex, I love Amazon's author pages and usually look at them before deciding whether to buy a book. From what I've read on your blog, you'd have a wealth of information to draw from for your Amazon bio.

    Richard and Talli, I'm so glad you found the post helpful. It's nice to get to return the favor.

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  4. Wow, very helpful tips; thanks to Michelle and to you too, Alexia, for hosting! Some things I've never ever thought about (but probably need to). Have a great Thursday!

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  5. Thanks for these tips. I have been lacking as it pertains to Amazon. I believe though, that I had tagged my first book according to the different categories it falls into. This reminds me that I need to do that for the other. Thanks!

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  6. Great advice! I love the idea of getting a freebie for getting a book on launch day. Gimmie freebies!!!

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  7. Wonderful information here. I'm copying it and pasting it in a Word doc to save as a resource. Thanks!

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  8. Carol, doesn't it seem as if something new crops up every day for us authors to consider? At least it makes for enough options, so we can select the ones that work best for us.

    J.L., that's good advice about tagging by category. Without that, it seems as if the rest wouldn't work as effectively.

    Jamie, it's good to know that "freebies" really do count with readers. What kind of giveaway would work best in your opinion?

    Donna, a copy-and-paste comment is one of the highest endorsements. Thank you very much, and I'm glad the information was helpful.

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  9. Great post. I'm not quite in need of marketing tips yet, but I bet these will come in handy when I am.

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  10. I checked out Author Central a while back and didn't follow through. Maybe now, since I know a "little" bit more about how all of this works, I'll try to do this with my memoir. And I'm printing this out for reference. Thanks SO much, Alexia and Michelle!!
    Ann Best, Author of In the Memoir, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets

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  11. Michelle, you're awesome. Thanks for the great tips. Alexia great blog you have here, I'm not a follower :)

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  12. Beth, you're wise when you say what you might not need now you could need in the future. Five years ago when I first decided to study the art and science of being a published author, I started saving articles by category for what I thought I'd someday need--not really knowing, of course, if I really would and often wondering how on earth I'd ever learn and do everything. I truly believe that if we can do only a few marketing things, Amazon would be at the top of the list. :)

    Ann, I think Amazon Connect would be a perfect match for you, because your memoir is all about connecting and resonating with others. I'd love to hear how it goes for you.

    Jeanne, I'm so glad you discovered Alexia's blog; it's been one of my Top Ten favorites since my first visit.

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  13. Fantastic tips, Michelle and Alexia.

    Michelle...thanks for all the wonderful advice and info. Will check out Amazon Connect and Author Central.

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  14. Thanks for the encouragement, Michelle. I'm setting aside an hour today to check out Amazon Connect.
    Ann Best, Author of In the Memoir, A Memoir of Shattered Secrets

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  15. Rachna, I'm so glad this post had some information that will be useful for you.

    Ann, I'd be curious to learn what you think about Amazon Connect. I suspect you'll have some great advice to share as a result. :)

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  16. Thanks for the great tips, ladies!

    Nas(Blogger is playing with me and this is my third try! It has eaten up my two earlier longer comments!)

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  17. Great post. And regarding Amazon Author Central, even if your name is listed in a magazine or anthology sold on Amazon, you can create a page for yourself as I did here -- with hopefully more to add in the near future!

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  18. Nas, I hate hearing Blogger has been plaguing you, but now I know it's not just my computer ...

    Milo, that is great to know Author Central's scope includes magazines and anthologies sold on Amazon. Thank you!

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  19. Hi Alexia! This is full of writerly info. Thanks for the great post. Plenty here to come back to!

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  20. L'Aussie, I'm happy to hear this post contains information you can use. I hope you're having a great weekend!

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  21. Ellie, I am delighted you found this post useful and hope this finds you having a great day!

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  22. Fantastic tips I'll have to keep in mind when my book comes out. Thanks so much :)

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  23. Lynda, I'm with you that it's nice to save things as you run across them, so you'll have them when you need them. :)

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  24. Extremely helpful! Superb advice as we're marketing a new book.

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