The Power of Amazon
by Laura Peters, Co-Author of Pilgrim Girl: Diary and Recipes of her First Year in the New World
Available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Star Publish
Getting a book published and getting it promoted are two wildly different procedures. Where finding a publisher is a lesson in rejection and a process out of the author’s control, getting that book promoted is a whole class in the author taking the initiative and making it happen. Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s book, The Frugal Book Promoter, contains some of the best advice for the author about to set foot into Self-Promotion 101.
Recently, I focused on Chapter 32: “Amazon Offers Perks: Use Them to Your Advantage” to boost sales of the book I co-authored with Jule Selbo, Pilgrim Girl: Diary and Recipes of her First Year in the New World. Having worked for Francis Coppola’s American Zoetrope for ten years, I know that an important part of promoting anything, from films to books, is creating visibility. Using Frugal’s advice, I created a profile, wrote Listmania lists, linked to other books, and managed to change our Subject Heading connections within Amazon.
Amazon gives excellent directions to walk you through each task. Before you get started though, prepare a small blurb of your interests and write a brief autobiography. I used the one I created for Pilgrim Girl’s website. You will want to have a photo of small file size ready to upload as well. Next, choose a book you like and write a review for it. Your name goes into the Amazon system and you’ll be offered to create an account if you don’t have one already. The prompt offering you to create a profile may come up or you’ll see it. At this point, create your profile. Click here to read mine.
Now, in your word processing program create your first Listmania list. Remember to put your book in the list. The idea here is to create links within Amazon from the books you’ve recommended to your book. For the list, you’ll need to collect the name of the book, the author and particularly the ISBN number, which Amazon will use to connect all the books together. You’ll be offered to write one line about the book.
Please see my lists on Listmania by scrolling to the bottom of my profile to”More to Explore” and click “Listmania.”
Right now, I have two lists posted: Bring an Appetite to Your Reading, and Pilgrim and Thanksgiving Books for Children
Open the first list. Read and enjoy it, then at the top, where you see “Was this helpful to you?” click yes. Now go to the second list and let Amazon know that it was helpful to you too.
Thank you. You just “voted” for my lists and told Amazon that it was helpful which causes Amazon to link the list to the other books on the list raising my book’s visibility.
Last, send directions like the one above to the people on your personal mailing list (You do have a personal mailing list, don’t you? See Chapter 7 of Frugal to learn more) and ask them to enjoy your lists and express to Amazon how helpful your lists are.
Now, watch your Listmania lists appear alongside the books from which you want to draw new readers who will buy your book.
There is a section of your book’s Amazon webpage entitled “Look for similar items by subject.” The idea of this section is to have subjects shared by other books. So if you have a subject such as “Historical United States-Colonial” your book will be accessed when someone wants all books with that subject.
Changing the Subjects section of your Amazon website is a matter of choosing subjects that align with the Library of Congress subject lists. For instance, our book is both a children’s story set in 1620’s Massachusetts and a cookbook. I also wanted people looking for children’s books about Pilgrims and Thanksgiving to be able to find our book, but our subject headings of Juvenile Fiction and even Juvenile Historical Fiction were too restrictive. We needed more subjects! I reviewed the subjects on the Amazon pages for a number of other children’s books about Pilgrims and Thanksgiving to see what was being used and seemed the most likely to draw a reader to our book.
I then emailed Amazon.com at book-typos@amazon.com requesting my suggested new Subject Headings. Within a week, Amazon had changed Pilgrim Girl’s subjects, aligning them with other books in our category.
Promoting a book takes time, but using The Frugal Book Promoter and Amazon you can use your time efficiently and save enough of it to write another book.
Available at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Star Publish
Getting a book published and getting it promoted are two wildly different procedures. Where finding a publisher is a lesson in rejection and a process out of the author’s control, getting that book promoted is a whole class in the author taking the initiative and making it happen. Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s book, The Frugal Book Promoter, contains some of the best advice for the author about to set foot into Self-Promotion 101.
Recently, I focused on Chapter 32: “Amazon Offers Perks: Use Them to Your Advantage” to boost sales of the book I co-authored with Jule Selbo, Pilgrim Girl: Diary and Recipes of her First Year in the New World. Having worked for Francis Coppola’s American Zoetrope for ten years, I know that an important part of promoting anything, from films to books, is creating visibility. Using Frugal’s advice, I created a profile, wrote Listmania lists, linked to other books, and managed to change our Subject Heading connections within Amazon.
Amazon gives excellent directions to walk you through each task. Before you get started though, prepare a small blurb of your interests and write a brief autobiography. I used the one I created for Pilgrim Girl’s website. You will want to have a photo of small file size ready to upload as well. Next, choose a book you like and write a review for it. Your name goes into the Amazon system and you’ll be offered to create an account if you don’t have one already. The prompt offering you to create a profile may come up or you’ll see it. At this point, create your profile. Click here to read mine.
Now, in your word processing program create your first Listmania list. Remember to put your book in the list. The idea here is to create links within Amazon from the books you’ve recommended to your book. For the list, you’ll need to collect the name of the book, the author and particularly the ISBN number, which Amazon will use to connect all the books together. You’ll be offered to write one line about the book.
Please see my lists on Listmania by scrolling to the bottom of my profile to”More to Explore” and click “Listmania.”
Right now, I have two lists posted: Bring an Appetite to Your Reading, and Pilgrim and Thanksgiving Books for Children
Open the first list. Read and enjoy it, then at the top, where you see “Was this helpful to you?” click yes. Now go to the second list and let Amazon know that it was helpful to you too.
Thank you. You just “voted” for my lists and told Amazon that it was helpful which causes Amazon to link the list to the other books on the list raising my book’s visibility.
Last, send directions like the one above to the people on your personal mailing list (You do have a personal mailing list, don’t you? See Chapter 7 of Frugal to learn more) and ask them to enjoy your lists and express to Amazon how helpful your lists are.
Now, watch your Listmania lists appear alongside the books from which you want to draw new readers who will buy your book.
There is a section of your book’s Amazon webpage entitled “Look for similar items by subject.” The idea of this section is to have subjects shared by other books. So if you have a subject such as “Historical United States-Colonial” your book will be accessed when someone wants all books with that subject.
Changing the Subjects section of your Amazon website is a matter of choosing subjects that align with the Library of Congress subject lists. For instance, our book is both a children’s story set in 1620’s Massachusetts and a cookbook. I also wanted people looking for children’s books about Pilgrims and Thanksgiving to be able to find our book, but our subject headings of Juvenile Fiction and even Juvenile Historical Fiction were too restrictive. We needed more subjects! I reviewed the subjects on the Amazon pages for a number of other children’s books about Pilgrims and Thanksgiving to see what was being used and seemed the most likely to draw a reader to our book.
I then emailed Amazon.com at book-typos@amazon.com requesting my suggested new Subject Headings. Within a week, Amazon had changed Pilgrim Girl’s subjects, aligning them with other books in our category.
Promoting a book takes time, but using The Frugal Book Promoter and Amazon you can use your time efficiently and save enough of it to write another book.
posted by Allyn Evans at 9:30 AM
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