Earlier this month I conducted an author metadata audit workshop and the homework was a 30-minute audit. The objective was to help authors understand the role of metadata in selling books by showing how their online public information is used by search engines. This posts explains the importance of metadata and outlines the steps you can follow to do a simple 30-minute audit. It concludes with meeting notes that share additional insights about how you can build a stronger online presence by … [Read more...]
Calculating Your Book’s ROI: Standalone P&L or a Marketing Investment?
I was recently asked the question “David, do you think this book is going to sell?” The author was essentially asking if I thought her investment in creating an eBook edition of a long-ago published hardcover print book would earn out. It’s a tough question to answer for a service provider because “no” means no business, but “yes” means I’m setting expectations. I said “no.” I went on to say that I thought we were asking the wrong question. We should be asking whether or not the book will … [Read more...]
Searches for Free eBooks Down 28% from December 2010 Peak
According to Google Trends, searches for the term free ebooks doubled between December 2009 and December 2010 but has since dropped by nearly 75%. Searches for the term "free ebooks" during the last five holiday seasons What got me interested in looking at the trend of searching for free eBooks was the Pew Research Internet Project report released January 16, 2014: E-Reading Rises as Device Ownership Jumps. According to the report: 50% of Americans now have a dedicated handheld … [Read more...]
Do Author’s Need a Website? Maybe, Maybe Not
It seems like a forgone conclusion that every author needs a website. But with the free services that major retailers and social media websites provide, do these investments of time and money pay off by helping authors sell more books? A panel discussion at a recent Digital Book World conference made a strong case for authors to question this investment. Social media—especially Facebook—seems to be a worthy alternative to authors trying to build and engage a community on their own. In fact, … [Read more...]
How Publishers Can Create and Use Linkedin Company Pages to Form Relationships
Situated in the middle between authors and book retailers (Amazon!), book publishers must develop relationships with readers or face potential irrelevance. The key then for publishers is building an addressable audience that they can reach when it comes time to announce a new book, a new author relationship, or some other noteworthy news. That’s where Linkedin Company Pages come into play. Like other forms of permission marketing—email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.—your Linkedin company page … [Read more...]
The Mathematics of Kindle Publishing: It’s All About Traffic
This was the provocative title of a post by Lidia LoPinto this week in the Marketing on Amazon Linkedin group that I moderate. Lidia maintains that authors should apply Internet search engine optimization (SEO) principals to their Amazon presence and that traffic to their book page, more than reviews, is a greater driver of revenue. "Reviews, in my analysis of various categories, do not influence page position for relevance nor do they affect sales. The only parameter that is significant is the … [Read more...]
5 Resources to Seek Free eBook Reviews-Ideal For Priming the Pump
There was a query this week from a member of my Linkedin Group Marketing on Amazon asking how to get his book reviewed before he starts using his KDP Select free promotion days. It's a good question and echoes the advice I gave here after running my first KDP Select promotion. (Promoting your free days without having reviews should be a last resort.) I've talked about the topic of reviews before (see resources below) but given the ever evolving nature of this subject I have a few … [Read more...]
Book Bombs-A Marketing Tool for Authors and Book Publicists
Orchestrating a book bomb to launch or promote an eBook can be a great marketing strategy for authors. If you are not familiar with the term, a book bomb is when a group of people purchase a specific book, on a specific day, from Amazon (although there is no technical reason why it couldn't be another eBook retailer). So far book bombs seem to be organized in one of two ways: author-initiated or community-initiated. I read about a couple such community organized events on Teleread (Rise of … [Read more...]
A Linkedin Group to Help Publishers Market on Amazon
Amazon commands a large percentage of the market for both print and eBooks. It is almost like a "Google for information products". We thought it was time to create a dedicated Linkedin community around marketing on Amazon. A place where people could network and learn from each other. Click here to visit the group or search groups on Linkedin for Marketing on Amazon. … [Read more...]
Fargo Newspaper Repurposes Article Series on Kindle
We are a big fan of distributing content through multiple channels and in different formats. Sure, there are complexities. It costs more [cash and/or time] to re-format and maintain the necessary accounts. So why bother? For marketing and analytic insights. Get outside your market and usual audience to see if it makes sense. The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead in Fargo North Dakota has done just that by publishing a recent series of articles as a Kindle ebook. Titled Vistas and Visions: Microsoft in … [Read more...]
