Five Ways To Sell More Books On Amazon

While there are other sales options open to you as an indie author, Amazon sales will feel like they count the most to most writers. Here are five quick ways to help you sell more books on Amazon.

Research Bestseller Keywords And Apply Them To Your Subtitle

Use the same keywords as bestsellers in your categories so that when customers search by keyword “Customers with Similar Searches Purchased” will then show your book in the search results for higher ranking but similar books.

As I have mentioned before, keywords on Google don’t really make sense in the same way they do on Amazon. You’re going to have to use your title and subtitle to the maximum advantage, which is why you see books that have elaborate subtitling. Let’s look at these titles without the subtitle:

Unbroken
Wild
Zero Belly Diet
The Nightlife Moscow

Now with the subtitles:

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Zero Belly Diet: Lose Up to 16 lbs. in 14 Days!
The Nightlife Moscow (Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Suspense) (The Nightlife Series Book 5)

You can see how the subtitle would be entirely important to the book’s chance of being found with keywords, such as “World War II”, “Pacific Crest Trail”, “Lose …lbs”, Urban Fantasy” and “Paranormal Suspense” would be good words to count on if you didn’t have a specific book in mind. I’ve actually seen people advise using popular author names in keywords, but that seems spammy and could get you demoted in my opinion for false advertising.

Buy Books In The Same Basket To Highlight Sales On Book Pages

Get readers to buy books in the same basket in the same session so that “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” will populate with your book in higher ranking book pages. This will get you seen on many popular book pages, and hopefully lead to clicks.

Ensure Your Author Central is complete

Amazon advises,

Introduce yourself to your readers. Ensure your author profile is complete. You can use Author Central to upload your picture, add a biography, view and edit your bibliography, and create a blog to speak directly to readers.

Here’s my page, linked to Twitter:

Amazon Sales Widgets Earn 4% More Than A Link

As Amazon is a shop, they love to sell things, and make it easy for you with a nifty widget when you become an Associate. Anyone can do this, and you can choose from a range of links and styles. We always set authors up with an Amazon widget so that books are sold in an attractive way on our site, but you can make your own by joining the scheme here.

Join the Amazon Associates program to earn an additional 4% on each sale you drive. You can use Amazon’s Associates program to create custom links to your book and interactive widgets that present your book in a professional light. When customers click those links and purchase your book, you can earn an additional 4% on each sale.

 

Add a Kindle Countdown Deals Promotion

Since Kindle algorithms changed more than a year back meaning giving your book away for free doesn’t contribute to sales or ranking (unless the first book in a series teases buyers into buying other books in that series), it’s maybe better to use the Countdown Deal KDP Select offers authors to get readers buying more quickly.

List your book in a limited-time discount promotion that incrementally raises prices as time passes. When customers visit your book’s page, they’ll see the discount, and how long they have to buy before the price goes up. You’ll set the discounts and the time periods. Promotions start at the lowest price, and over time, the price goes up to the next promotional list price, until the promotion completes and the original list price is restored.

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