Make Your Book Work Harder: How To Use Multiple Platforms To Make More Money

By Nancy Hendrickson

WHY YOU NEED TO GET YOUR BOOK ON MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
While you may think that the entire world is on a single book-buying platform, nothing could be further from the truth.
As eReaders and eReading Apps proliferate, so do book-selling services and sites. If you're selling your book on a single platform you're missing at least 40% of the digital reading audience. This book was written for authors of fiction and non-fiction who want to expand their reach and increase their income.

Created by two experienced authors, Make Your Book Work Harder walks readers through the maze of book-selling platforms, including some that are well-known and others that may never even be on your radar. These other platforms are becoming increasingly important. For example, Apple reports more downloads of the iBooks app than the Kindle app. The iBookstore is now the second biggest seller of eBooks, right behind Amazon.

If you get your book into Smashwords you can have them release it to the iBookstore – plus many others, such as Kobo, Nook, etc. And don’t stop there! Think about whether your book might make a good audio book.

One of the Bonuses for anyone who purchases this book is a free download guide to book promotion on Facebook that can cost pennies a day. The authors have also created a secret Facebook group for readers of this book only - a group where new additions to the book will be introduced first, so you'll get a head start on trying new techniques for making more sales.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nancy Hendrickson
• Release date: Nov 8, 2013
• ISBN: 9781311189080

Nancy Hendrickson

Nancy Hendrickson is the author of five books and hundreds of magazine articles. She is a specialist in Internet marketing, online family tree climbing, and early American history. She currently lives in San Diego, California where she spends her free time flying a stunt kite.

Book preview

Table of Contents

Introduction

SECTION ONE: Get Your Book On Multiple Platforms

Increase Your Earnings Right Now By Getting Your Book Onto Multiple Platforms

ACX : Produce An Audio Version Of Your Book

Sell Your Book In The iBookstore, Kobo, Nook, Sony, And More

CreateSpace: Get Your Book Into Paperback

Little-Known Publishing Alternatives

Udemy: Turn Your Book Into A Course

SECTION TWO: How To Promote Your Book Without It Taking Over Your Life Or Bankrupting You

Marketing Is Not A Dirty Word

Track Your Marketing

Maximize Social Media Without Wasting All Of Your Writing Time

World Literary Café

BookGoodies

BookBub

More Promotional Opportunities

YouTube

Sending Requests For Guest Posts & Reviews

SECTION THREE: What To Do Before You Say I've Tried Everything!

Name Recognition

Advertising

Write More

Four Reasons Your Book May Not Be Selling

SECTION FOUR: Save Time & Improve Your Writing

Outsourcing – One Of Today’s Best Time-Savers

Organization For The Busy Author

Overcoming Perfectionism

FAQ

Resources

About The Authors

Praise for Make Your Book Work Harder

This book gives you exactly what you need to make your book work harder! Nancy and Michelle provide tools, tips and strategies to leverage your book on multiple platforms that will produce results. This book is for the person that is ready to see amazing profits from their efforts. Definitely a must-read for every author.

- Montina Sparkwisdom Portis, international video marketing coach; author of 'YouTube Video Marketing Secrets Revealed: The Beginners Guide to Online Video Marketing'

I'm really enjoying the book so far! It's so well written - very clear and easy to understand. I'm sure this will be extremely helpful to indie authors, and it's very unique in the things it covers. I love the title too.

- Julie Farrell, contemporary romance author

This is exactly what I needed – but didn’t know what to look for! Interesting and easy to understand and implement.

- Andrew Harrison, author of ‘Archery Without Pain’

© 2013 Nancy Hendrickson & Michelle Campbell-Scott

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be used without sole permission of the copyright holder except in use of a review.

Published by Green Pony Press, Inc.

The publisher and authors have attempted to be as accurate as possible in the creation of this book. The content, including but not limited to: statistics, screenshots, availability of products, etc., are as accurate as possible, as of publication date. Due to the rapidly changing nature of the Internet, some statistics, terms of service, etc., may have changed. While all attempts have been made to verify the information provided in this publication, neither the authors nor the publisher assume any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contrary interpretations of the subject matter herein. The views expressed are those of the authors alone and should not be taken as expert instruction or commands. The reader is responsible for his or her own actions.

Some of the links (excluding any and all links to Amazon.com) in this eBook may be ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, we may receive an affiliate commission. Please understand that we only recommend products or services we use personally and believe will add value to our readers. We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: ‘Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials’.

Cover design by: Robin Ludwig Design, Inc.

MAKE YOUR BOOK WORK HARDER

How To Make Use Of Multiple Platforms To Make More Money

Nancy Hendrickson

&

Michelle Campbell-Scott

Green Pony Press, Inc

GreenPonyPressKindle

By the same authors:

Sell More Books

55 Free Promotions That Work

PR for Authors

How to use public relations, press releases, and social media to sell more books

Introduction

Content is King. Promotion is Queen.

Bob Mayer

IN THE BAD OLD DAYS, authors had to approach traditional publishing houses, cap in hand, to ask them to publish their books. Often they would be turned away and told that publishers don’t talk to authors, only to agents. So the author would have to dig out the Writer’s & Artists Yearbook and schlep round the agents who represented works similar to their own. The trouble with that was that often they were already representing similar authors and taking on someone else would mean mixed loyalties.

It was often down to luck and timing rather than the ability to write well. Publishers, to be fair, have always had a difficult job trying to predict and ride with the latest trends – e.g. vampires, werewolves, orphan wizards. If a modern-day Hemingway came along with a fantastic book during a period where only misery lit was selling, the book wasn’t likely to survive the slush pile.

It was difficult for authors … and not always lucrative. Even once they had been accepted, authors were generally paid just 10 or 15% by traditional publishers, only received 2 payments a year, and didn’t receive regular reports about how their book sales were doing.

So when Amazon opened up the Kindle platform to allow people to publish their own books, it was like every author’s prayers had been answered. Here was a way to put your book onto the database of the biggest bookseller on the planet – completely free of charge – and earn up to 70% royalties.

Many authors jumped in gleefully – ourselves included. We’ve done very well from Amazon and have no complaints. Nancy was traditionally published originally and decided to leave her last publisher to become an Indie (independent author) because the royalties were higher. She knows first-hand just how little marketing publishers actually do for their authors.

The Kindle gold rush was very, very lucrative for a small band of authors at the top of the pile – some you may have heard of such as John Locke, Cheryl Kaye Tardiff, Amanda Hocking – and some who manage to stay under the radar such as Steve Scott and Tom Corson-Knowles. For many authors, though, the sheer number of books available on the Kindle platform mean that it is getting hard to be found.

The figures are interesting. The UK’s Guardian newspaper reported in May 2012 that the average salary earned by Indie authors was just $10,000. Half of the 1,007 authors surveyed earned less than $500. $500 a year!

The survey decided to classify the ‘top earners’ as those who could live off their royalties, which amounted to 10% of those surveyed. Interestingly, they noted that the top earners wrote an average of 2,047 words a day, compared to 1,557 words a day for the lower-earning authors. So writing more seems to help. Not if your book isn’t found though.

As we said, it is getting harder to be found. You may be familiar with Amazon’s KDP Select, the 90-day exclusivity contract that you can enter into when you publish on Kindle. It means that you can offer your book free of charge for any 5 days in that 90-day period. This used to be very effective. It meant that – if you promoted your free days via various methods – you were able to get a large number of downloads (thousands, in many cases), which accelerated your book up the bestseller listings.

There are free and paid bestseller listings. Getting into the top 100 of the free listings meant that your book had had a few thousand downloads. What that does is make it visible. People notice it. So when your book returns to being paid, it is still visible (for a while, at least) and more people buy it than did before the free promotion.

This has worked well for lots of authors, us included. However, Amazon changed the rules in March 2013. Their affiliate program ‘Amazon Associates’ allows people to earn commission from sales made on their sites. It is used by people with websites who promote Amazon products (not just books, all kinds of products), and people click through to Amazon’s site and often buy something. Amazon then pay commission to the Amazon Associate – known as affiliate commission.

Amazon changed their policy and stopped sites which promoted free Kindle books from gaining affiliate commission. Here is their policy:

"Associates who we determine are promoting primarily free Kindle eBooks and meet both conditions below for a given month will not be eligible for any advertising fees for that month within the Amazon Associates Program. This change will not affect advertising fees earned prior to March 1, 2013.

At least 80% of all KindleeBooks ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links are free Kindle eBooks

20,000 or more free KindleeBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links."

So that means that many of the sites which promoted free Kindle books have closed down, or changed their policies about accepting free book information. We used to be able to schedule a couple of free days, then tell dozens of sites about them, and receive tons of valuable free publicity and downloads. Not anymore.

Kindle free days are more difficult to promote now and not as effective in terms of sales afterwards. This isn’t a wholly bad thing for authors though, as many of us felt that too many people were only interested in free books. Lots of Internet Marketers jumped onto the Kindle bandwagon in the last couple of years, seeing it as a quick way to make a buck. They hurt Indie authors because their books were often rushed, unedited, badly formatted, and made from a mishmash of articles and content scraped from the Internet. So, as we said, it isn’t a totally awful thing that Amazon is tightening up its rules. Maybe the Internet Marketers will move onto the next thing and leave the field clear for the lifelong authors.

But if that great method of promoting our books is less effective than it was even six month ago, what options are left open to us? We need to make our books work harder. We need to make each book available in multiple formats – eBook, paperback, audio – and promote it cleverly and inexpensively. Then move on to the next book. Keep writing, that’s key.

In this book we cover how to sell your Kindle book now that KDP Select isn’t working as well as it used to, and how to make it work harder by making it available in various formats. We’ve written it to cater for both the newcomer to Kindle and the seasoned author.

In Section One we cover how to get your book onto multiple platforms, quickly and easily.

In Section Two we cover promotional techniques with a marketing plan and ideas/resources to make it less painful and part of your weekly routine.

In Section Three we cover what to do if you have your book on every available platform, you do regular marketing on and offline and it still isn’t selling.

In Section Four we look at how to save time and improve your writing.

Let’s roll …

SECTION ONE: 

Get Your Book On Multiple Platforms

Increase Your Earnings Right Now By Getting Your Book Onto Multiple Platforms

"Most worthwhile achievements are the result of

many little things done in a single direction."

Nido Qubein

GETTING YOUR BOOK ONTO MULTIPLE platforms is something you can do right now to enable you to earn more money from your existing books without having to do much to them. By doing this,