The Unofficial Author's Guide To Selling Your Book On Amazon: Self-Publishing, #1

By Richard McCartney

This book is going to show you the top 5 secrets to selling your book on Amazon.
These are rock solid proven tips that are sure to make your book more visible on the only online store that counts – Amazon.

This Unofficial Guide answers many of the most important questions not addressed in KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing).

-  What's the best way to launch my book?
- How can I increase my book sales?
- How can I get hundreds if not thousands of reader to download by book?
- What's the best way to get book reviews?

This guide will show you how best to prepare your book to maximise sales, and find the ultimate sales solution:
Getting Amazon to sell your books for you!

Bonus worksheet:

This book links to an online learning center for self-publishing authors, with step-by-step guide lines on how to further improve your sales and marketing results.

Get your copy today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard McCartney
• Release date: Nov 30, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393526513

Book preview

Introduction

It’s been 3 years since I first published this book and, boy, has a lot changed on Amazon and how it promotes and sells books on its web store.

I guess that’s the main reason why I felt compelled to write a new edition of this book, since several of the methods I covered to promote your book back then have largely become redundant. In fact, if you look at most books published prior to 2019 on the subject of self-publishing, they have nearly all become out-dated in one way or another.

Has so much changed in such a short period of time? Well, yes, as the following subtle but significant changes will show.

---

The main page for your Amazon book has altered in a number of ways:

- Gone are the low-ranking reviews that Amazon clearly decided might be detrimental to sales. Previously Amazon displayed the lowest 1-star reviews and highest 5 star ranked reviews on the right hand column of your main book page.

- ‘Sponsored Products’ (that appear if you pay to use Amazon’s Marketing Service) are often displayed higher up the page than the ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ section. I have even seen several times the situation where the ‘Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought’ section does not appear at all.

- Far more weight has been put on Amazon verified purchase reviews over non-verified reviews, to the extent that non-verified purchase reviews rarely show. The consequence of this is big for authors who provided their books for free in exchange for honest reviews, because these reviews are unlikely to appear on your main book page.

- Perhaps rather strangely, Amazon has replaced the word reviews in favor of ratings when displaying the total number of reviews for your book.

---

Getting reviews for your book has become more difficult:

- Gone are the e-mail addresses of reviewers Amazon used to show on their profile page – so you can no longer email them asking for a review.

- Amazon has also become more stringent on who can post reviews, allowing only those who have spend at least $50 on their credit card to post reviews.

- Amazon’s strong preference for verified purchase reviews means any author forwarding ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) files to readers in return for a review is seriously limited, since these non-verified purchase reviews will not appear on your main book page. More on this subject later.

- Amazon now limits the number of non-verified reviews you can publish per week to a max of five per week when I last checked.

---

Amazon favoring Kindle Unlimited over free book promotions:

While it’s going too far to say that the days of free book promotions are numbered, there are clear signs of Amazon wanting to take stronger control of who can offer free book promotions, on which devices, and when. Here are clear signals of this happening:

- The free Best Sellers tab has disappeared on mobile devices allowing you only to view paid Amazon Best Sellers. This might sound unimportant, but is a clear sign that Amazon is starting to limit your options in finding free books, as more and more of us turn to smartphones to make our purchases.

- For Kindle Unlimited eBooks, a ‘Read for Free’ button now appears in favor of the former ‘Purchase now’ link. In other words, Amazon is happy to advertise free books if the book is on Kindle Unlimited, which is a paid subscription service.

- The post-free period when your Amazon Sales Rank could still be reasonably high, as you book converted to a paid book, has all but gone. Amazon now seriously lowers your Amazon Sales