Publishing Your Book: Amazon: Part Six

once upon After writing a book, many people want to know how one goes about publishing a book. A well-known author once said recently that “it’s no great feat to get one’s book published—it’s no great mountain to climb.” He is right, but his opinion is subjective. To you, reading this blog, it is a huge mountain to climb to get your book published. There are many paths you can take up that mountain, but it is still a huge feat.

Amazon is a huge online seller, who have recently moved into brick and mortar stores. Sales take place on Amazon every single second of every single day. For an author, it’s almost essential for you to have your book placed on Amazon, and those authors who ignore Amazon are making things much harder for themselves. In this article, I’d like to go over some of the details of working with Amazon. We will begin with rankings.

Rankings

As soon as you make your first sale on Amazon, your book will gain a ranking. The ranking shows how well your book is selling. The slower your sales, the further your ranking will fall. There are many millions of books on Amazon, so your ranking can, quite easily, be in the millions. As you sell more books, your ranking will climb. Several sales an hour will see your book inch slowly up the bestseller charts. When your book reaches a high enough position with its ranking, it will start to figure in the category’s top 100s. These are the 100 bestselling books in your chosen categories. Featuring in those top 100s will give you more exposure and more sales.

Searching for Books

The keywords you choose when you upload your book to Amazon will feature heavily when it comes to having your book found by readers. So think carefully about the way people search for books in your genre. Do they search for “action-thrillers,” or do they search for “books like Ben Hur?” How do people find the books? Get out your pen and paper and list how you personally find the books you read, but be aware you can’t use the names of famous people in your keywords—so don’t get caught with “books with John Wayne” as you are highly likely to get a warning from Amazon about using such terms.

Pricing

Pricing is key to selling books. Look at the other books in your genre and see how they are priced. Also make sure to note the length of your book. If you have a short, 30-page book, it may be best to price it at 99 cents. If your book is a huge bonanza—try $3.99, and don’t be afraid to try price promotions, either.

Cover

Be sure to look at the cover you’ve put together for your book, and remember that people will only see it as a little thumbnail. Does your cover stand out when it’s a third of its size as a thumbnail? Some authors put together exceptional covers without ever realizing that browsing readers will only ever see a small image of their cover. If it doesn’t stand out, people aren’t going to buy the book.

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