These 5 simple tips for your ebook to start selling can help boost sales of your ebooks on Amazon KDP.
With nearly 5 million ebooks available, with an even larger number of paperbacks listed on Amazon, it’s no wonder your ebook might be lost in the crowd.
A promotion may assist a bit, but readers who do searches on Amazon or other merchants account for the majority of ebook purchases. Making your digital book more appealing to buy as well as easier to locate is thus the key to increasing your ebook sales.
So let’s introduce some simple changes that will improve your chances.
Tip 1. Change your two categories
You have two categories (genres) to select from when publishing your ebook on Amazon and most other self-publishing websites.It’s time to look for far more specialized categories if your book is now featured in respectable categories.
If your ebook is included under “Kindle eBooks > Romance,” for instance, it will undoubtedly get buried among the hundreds of thousands of other ebooks.
“Kindle eBooks > Romance > Horror” is a preferable choice because it less titles that compete with each other.
But, even better, is to go even deeper, to a list like, for example, “Kindle eBooks > Literature and Fiction > Literature Fiction > Romance”. This category will give your ebook a much better chance of being found.
When selecting your two categories, my advice is to go as deep as possible and avoid broad categories at all costs.
Tip 2. Find and use better keywords
When publishing your ebook, you can add seven keywords in KDP.
Did you know that brief phrases can be used as keywords? So it’s no surprise that short sentences work best. To find keywords, use the Amazon search field and look at the results and in particular the drop-down list of suggestions. These suggestions are terms that people have used on Amazon, so by selecting one of these terms, you improve the chances of your ebook being found in searches.
If you’re looking to take your Amazon KDP research to the next level, Bookbolt has an outstanding keyword research tool that allows you to spy on your competitors and find the best keywords for your niche.
However, some simple keywords have surprising uses. Amazon lists many keywords that, when used with the right category, make it possible for your book to be listed in a third or even fourth category.
For example, if your book is listed under “Historical Fiction,” by adding the keyword, “medieval,” Amazon will give your ebook an additional category: “historical fiction/Medieval.”
Tip 3. Eliminate unnecessary content
Ebook buyers need to be attracted immediately. To do this, Amazon allows you to download a free sample ( Take a Look option ) that corresponds to around 10% of the ebook’s content.
So, don’t waste your time boring a potential reader with an ebook with opening pages full of credits, thanks to your family, a prologue, a preface, or any other text that might make the reader click “Close View.”
Attract your potential readers by making them immediately dive into chapter 1 of the ebook, the story, the main text.
If you actually want to include this content in your ebook, move it to the end of the ebook.
Tip 4. Change your cover
You may love your ebook cover, but does it really boost sales?
Take time to analyze which books are selling well in your genre. How does your ebook cover compare to competing book covers?
Sometimes something as simple as the predominant color of a cover can make a huge difference. For example, if your ebook is about horror stories, analyze the covers of popular titles. They are mostly dark, black. If your ebook cover is olive green, then it’s time to change your cover.
Again, if you buy a cover, ask the designer if they can make two or three versions, but with different background colors so you can experiment.
Tip 5. Repeat steps 1 and 2
Continue to experiment with categories, but most importantly, keywords, until you achieve success.
If one of your keywords doesn’t get your book listed in the top fifty titles for searches for that keyword, then look for a better keyword. If a keyword lists your book in the top 50, keep it.
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