Monday, July 25, 2016

How to Make an Amazon Best Selling Book

The theory for producing a best selling book is to drive as many people as you can to buy your book through the narrowest time frame in a book category that doesn’t have very many books in it. You also want to pick a category that doesn’t have a popular best selling author or big selling book at the top that you have to take on.

This is why building your platform is important; you need fans to do this. If you can do this it is very likely that you can create a bestselling book. Maybe even a #1 category best seller. It won’t last long so be sure to screen capture the Products Details area of the Amazon sales page for your marketing. Generally this technique works best with Kindle books because you can lower the price down to $.99. But I have also seen it work with paperback books but the per book price will by much higher.

Step 1. Research Your Categories.
• Look at your competitors books for category ideas

• Select specific book categories that have under 5-7000 books in them, better if you can find one with low thousands or even hundreds of books.

• Try to find a category that doesn’t have books in the top 2,000-5,000 overall Amazon sales rank. Also look for categories that don’t have a superstar writer or celebrity at the top. It is almost impossible to beat them, look for different categories

• When you upload your book, select the BASAC book categories as close as you can to the Amazon categories. Be sure to include in your description and keywords and even your title/subtitle the Amazon categories that you want to be in. You are helping Amazon figure out where your book should sit.

Step 2. Pre-Launch Your Book
Remember the goal here is to drive as many sales as you can through the narrowest time frame with as many people as you can.

• Prepare and send out your launch announcement or any articles that you might be releasing to your Blog and Influencers network.

• Send press releases out to PR sites free and paid.

• Try to build a street team around your book launch. These are fans that you have that support you and will buy the first copies and post though out their networks. This can be huge, even just a couple of people can make a huge difference.

• Set up a virtual book tour. A virtual book tour are articles and interviews that you have created about you and your book that are hosted on other people’s blogs and websites. Start early and build these relationships.

• E-mail your list that you are launching your book and would love to have their support. Give them the book link and instructions on when to buy.

• Lower your Kindle price to $.99. Have a few friends buy a copy of the book and write several positive reviews. You want to make sure everything is working sales wise. It is ok to have the book live, just keep it quiet.

• If released over CreateSpace lower your price as much as you can.

Step 3. Launch/Release Your Book.
Remember to create a best selling Amazon category book you want to drive as many people as you can to buy your book through the narrowest time frame in a book category that doesn’t have very many books in it.

• Announce your book is live on your social media sites, include a cover shot and the link to Amazon.com.

• E-mail your list that your book is now live.

• Announce your book is live on your blog, websites, make a book trailer video and host on YouTube and all your sites. Any and everyplace you have exposure to the world, announce your book is live.

• Get you street team announcing your book is live through all their social media sites with live links to Amazon

• If you are giving away a free bonus gift tell everyone how to get it.

• Conduct a Virtual Launch Party on Google Hangout.

• Release your Virtual Book launch and tour.

• This is key, post your progress in your social media accounts during the launch day about what is going on, how exciting it is. Make it an event. Encourage others to join in, get your fans involved to get you over the top to a #1 position.

• Be sure to screen capture your Amazon ranking as you climb, don’t try to guess the top, just keep recording the screen during the day. This information is located in the Product Details section of your Amazon book sales page.

• Amazon updates on an hourly basis but sometimes nothing happens for hours and then it starts to roll, you will have to pay attention for 24 hours. Having a few fans in other time zones can really help out with the watching.

Step 4. Re-Release/Announce the Book Release at the End of The Day
• Re-e-mail your list and repost in Social Media about your launch, be sure to not burn out this list.

• You can push books over the top during the night by letting readers know how close you are to #1.

• Watch what is happening the next day, some countries take a day or so to catch up to the #1 ranking.

• International best sellers can be done with as few as 3-5 book sales, build relationships with fans in other countries.  This turns you into an International Best Seller

• Remember to check your rankings and screen capture, #1s and Hot New Releases

Step 5. Thank Everyone for All the Support
• Thank everyone for the support and help. Especially thank your super fans and anyone that reposted through their networks for you.

• Update all your bios about your new best selling #1 status.

• Post the screen shots of the new rankings and the success. You will be surprised, people will still be buying. People like success.

• Have your book cover update with a best selling burst or banner.

This post is a companion to the Launch Case Study of my own Amazon International Best Selling campaign for my Book Marketing Checklist for Self Publishing release.
http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/2016/11/how-i-launched-my-book-marketing.html

Don't Have a Book? Read My Series on How to Easily Create Your Own Book

Friday, July 22, 2016

10. Launch and market your book though the popular social media channels

10. Launch and market your book though the popular social media channels; FaceBook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, your website, and YouTube.

Use your book in your office, give it away to clients. These lessons make great videos and blog posts. Give it out to potential and current customers. Make the book available on your website as a pdf download.

A. Announce your book through the popular social media channels.

B. Give your book out to potential and current customers.

C. Make your book available on your website. Produce a pdf for use as a lead magnet to bring people into your email list.

Time to get your book out to the world. Use social media to highlight the book and to distribute your key tips.

Use an email management company like AWeber or MailChimp to manage your mailing list. Save your new book as a pdf file and use it as a lead magnet to give away in exchange for someone signing up to your email list.

Signup email list box

Autoresponder

Drop in the tip list

Blog posts

I have an entire book on how to launch and market your book called Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Available on Amazon if you want to learn more.

Click Here to Read a Bonus Chapter: How to Make Your Book an Amazon Best Seller

Thursday, July 21, 2016

9. Publishing Your Book. Three different options for creating a book.

9. Publishing Your Book. Three different options for creating a book.

1. E-Book, two files need, the book insides saved in html and a cover saved as a jpg file. Upload both files to KDP.Direct/Kindle/Amazon. MS Word works great for creating the book. To create the cover use Fiverr.com or Canva.com.

2. A print book, use CreateSpace.com, they are the print-on-demand self-publishing side of Amazon.com. Two pdf files required, one for the interior and the other for the cover. Find a local freelancer to lay your book out for you. Usually created with Adobe InDesign but PowerPoint can work also.

3. A Quick print book, usually stapled. Create two files, the interior usually done with MS Word and a cover, Fiverr.com or Canva.com or a local freelancer.  Create two pdf files and take them to a local quick print shop for printing. Instruct them to run them out and staple to make a book. For the interior of the book, set your page setup to 5.5” x 8.5”. This works really well.  The cover will be 8.5” x 11” landscape if your book is under 32 pages.

If hosting on-line at Amazon, add descriptions, author bio, categories and keywords.

A. Set up your free accounts at Amazon, Kindle KDP, CreateSpace

B. Upload your book to Amazon or take the files to your local print shop

C. Fill in all of the description copy, pricing, categories and keywords.

D. Review the books using the Amazon proofing features.

E. Push the book live or get it printed. Because of print-on-demand you only need to print limited amounts. No need for a garage full of books.

Click Here to Read Chapter 10: Launching and Marketing Your Book

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

8. Formatting Your Book For Kindle

8. Formatting the Book for Kindle If sending your book to Kindle then save it as an html file for the web. If you are going to print, export or save as a pdf file. Also export your cover file.

A. Decide where and how your book is going to be published. Local, ebook/Kindle/Amazon, paperback/CreateSpace/Amazon, pdf

B. Format the book insides for the appropriate platform or platforms

C. Format the cover for the appropriate platform or platforms


Kindle Formatting Guidelines

Basic Guidelines for Kindle Books
• Keep your formatting simple
• Produce a clean, basic document
• Use Paragraph Formatting for global layout and spacing
• Work in a standard 8.5 x 11” document

Formatting Guidelines
• Avoid tabs and spaces for indenting paragraphs
• Use Paragraph Formatting to adjust indents
• No headers or footers
• No page numbers

Formatting Guidelines
• Do not use Returns between paragraphs
• Use Space Before and Space After for spaces between paragraphs
• Use Page Breaks between chapters
• Insert images “from file” do not paste

Formatting Guidelines
• Format Chapter Heads with MS Word style features. Use H1 Head and H2 Subheads
• 12 points for text, 14-18 points for heads
• Use Arial/Helvetica, Times Roman or Georgia for fonts

Formatting Guidelines
• Bold, italic or underline use format font menu, the format palette or the tool bar
• Turn charts and graphics into artwork
• Add live http web links to your book

Image Guidelines
• Every Kindle is a different size
• Use color images
• Author pays for download, be efficient with images sizes
• Avoid charts and tables, turn them into .gif graphics

Image Guidelines
• Amazon recommends a picture ratio of 9:11
• Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11, old standard was 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4
• Kindle Fire HD 8.9 display 1920 x 1200, 16:10
   • At 72 dpi 12.5”  x 15.77” inches
   • At 300 dpi 3” x 3.66” inches
• Kindle processes, .gif, .png, .bmp, jpeg files
• Kindle book format suports .jpeg and .gif
• 300dpi or 72dpi or 96dpi image resolution
• Up to 5mb per image, I find this way to big, keep under a megabyte

Bottom Line for Picture Sizes
• Pictures 900 x 1100 pixels, 9:11
    Old standard 600 x 800 pixels, 3:4
    300dpi or 72dpi, gif format

At 72dpi, 12.5” x 15.75”
At 300dpi, 3” x 3.66”
Color
.gif or jpg format

Cover Guidelines
• Longest side must be minumum of 1000 pixels, shortest side 625 pixels, or 13.8” x 8.7” at 72 dpi and rgb jpg format.
• I like building covers at 6” x 9” at 300dpi or 1800 pixels x 2700 pixels

Click Here to Read Chapter 9: Publishing Your Book, Three Options: Print, eBook, PDF

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

7. Creating Your Book Cover for eBook or Print

7. Book cover. Create a separate file for the cover. For an ebook/Kindle, front cover only and save it as a jpg. For a printed book on CreateSpace, set up a full cover spread, back, spine and front. Both Kindle and CreateSpace/Amazon have online tools you can use to make a cover. If you are using a local quick print shop like Staples you can leave out the spine.

A. Review books on Amazon and in store for covers that you like, they can be used for inspiration and to guide the cover designer. Look at the sample ideas.

B. Find a local freelance designer to design and layout out your cover.

C. Test several ideas and titles with associates. Facebook is a great place to do this.

D. If you are going to publish your book on Amazon then reduce your cover to thumbnail size and be sure it is readable. If you are going to print at a local quick print shop have a mock-up made for review.

We do judge books by their covers. Your reader should know at a glance what your book is about. I follow the “Don’t Make Me Think” philosophy of usability author Steve Kruge. Your book cover should have a title and if you need to give more clarity a subtitle. Subtitles are a great way to add in some important keywords to your title. Also add your name to the cover. To help with design and layout ideas look at similar books in your market. Amazon is the perfect place to do this. There are many services that can help you produce a compelling cover. You contact a local graphic designer, on-line services like 99Designs.com and Fiverr.com and most of the book publishing sites offer design and editing packages.

Click Here to Read Chapter 8: Formatting Your Book for Kindle

Monday, July 18, 2016

6. Formatting Your Books Insides for Kindle or Print

6. Book Insides. Format your book in MS Word or some similar word processing application such as Google Doc, Pages, or Scrivner. If you are going to print your book, create an original document that is the page size of your book. 5 ½” x 8 ½” is a great size and is easy to get printed at a quickie print shop for those first copies. If you have access to Adobe InDesign that works very well. A local designer can help with this stage.
A. Set up a page template that matches how you are going to produce your book. Print local, ebook/Kindle, Print on Demand CreateSpace/Amazon, or pdf for your web site. Review books you like for design ideas.

B. Design and layout all the book’s pages, a local freelance designer can help with this stage, though you can do it yourself in a program like MS Word.

C. Print the book out and do another round of edits.

D. You are striving for a 28-36 page book. Remember we aren’t doing a manifesto, this is a quick short book.


Layout your edited book, add in photos and or graphics. A good size if you are using print-on-demand is 6” x 9”. If you are printing your book at a local quick print shop then 5 1/2” x 8 1/2” is a good size because it is based on standard 8.5” x 11” page size. If international one half of A4 works well also. Margins should be 5/8” of an inch.

We are looking to create a book in the 28-36 page length. If you are printing your book using a local quick print shop and binding the book with staples then you want your page count to be a unit of 4. Something like 20 to 24 pages works very well.

There are many ways to publish your book, but I highly recommend putting it up on Amazon as a print book using CreateSpace.com or an ebook through their Kindle program.

If you are setting your book up for print, add in a header with the book name and in the footer add in page numbers and maybe your web address.

Click Here to Read Chapter 7: Creating Print or eBook Book Cover

Saturday, July 16, 2016

5. Have your Book Edited and Proofed.

5. Have your book edited and proofed. After your book is formatted and laid out have it printed out and re-edit again.
A. Print out your book on paper and read through. You will see things on paper you never see on the computer screen

B. Locate someone who can edit your book and send a copy to them. Could be a local freelance editor, teacher or someone on-line at a site like Fiverr.com or ODesk.com

C. You can have just a copy editor for spelling and grammar or proof reader or you can go deeper with a development editor. But all books need editing.

D. Update your book.


All books need to be edited to fix spelling and grammar. Editors can also fix continuity between all the sections. Edit before you have the book layed out and then again after it is layed out and almost ready to go. It is amazing how many things we don’t see when the book is just sitting on our computer. Give the editor a printed copy to work from.

Click Here to Read the Chapter 6: Formatting Your Book for Kindle or Print

Friday, July 15, 2016

4. Flush Out the Balance of the Book, Author Bio, Resources, Services

4. Flush out the balance of the book.
Add an author bio along with a photo and contact info at the back of the book. Add a resource list at the back of the book, an intro for the front, a table of contents and any additional info that might apply to your book. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. We are talking 28-36 pages when done. This isn't a manifesto.

A. Add your author bio including photo, contact info, resources, introduction, front matter, table of contents (the 10 points), legal info, copyright, title page.

B.  Add in any products, consulting, programs, or additional info that your reader might find useful. Add in back cover copy

C. Add in your book title and subtitle, make this one of the last thing you do. Don’t fall in love with the working title.

How long should this book be? This isn’t a manifesto but here are some guidelines.

• Kindle/Amazon e-book shoot for around 8,000-12-15,000 words.

• CreateSpace/Amazon, you need to be a minimum of 24 pages, 36 works pretty nicely and 50-70 makes for a decent size book.

• A quick print book, local printer kind of book, your book needs to fit into a unit of 4 so 24, 28, 32 pages, etc., even 12 can work very nicely.

If you are a consultant, a tips book can be an essential part of your marketing. In the back highlight your programs and services. Make this section very clear so readers can find it. Add in a nice photograph and be sure to have a Call to Action. You want your reader to do something, contact you, higher you, invite you to speak at an event, or just make things clearer. The goal of a book like this isn’t for big sales, though that might be nice. The goal is to support your marketing and help develop leads. Customers love getting a free book, so be very open to giving them away. Sometimes you are selling this book, sometimes it is a free giveaway for signing up to your mailing list.

Click Here to Read the Chapter 5: Editing and Proof Reading Your Book

Thursday, July 14, 2016

3. For each lesson expand the 1 paragraph to 3-5 paragraphs, flush out the concepts.

3. For each lesson expand the 1 paragraph to 3-5 paragraphs, flush out the concepts.

A. Expand each lesson to 3 or 5 paragraphs

B. Again no editing, just writing

C. The cooking timer method can be very effective here for getting done text.

In Step 3 we fill out each of the 10 lessons. Write 3 or 5 paragraphs for each one. Personal stories and experiences can add a great edition to your book. We go deeper. We aren’t writing a manifesto but quick lessons about our topic. We want our reader to come away with some great actionable lessons based on our experience.

Writing Tips
Use the cooking timer method. Set the timer for 10 minutes and just write with no editing. You cannot stop until the time goes off. No correcting, no editing, no stopping. If you don’t have anything to write, start writing gibberish until something pops in. Write today, edit tomorrow.

Again searching on top 10 tips on our topic is a great way to flush out our lessons. YouTube videos, related blogs and books. Look at the book’s reviews, remember we are looking for experience lessons here. Amazon book reviews are an excellent way to see what other books on our topic might have missed or subject that need to be included.

Click Here to Read Chapter 4: Adding Your Author Bio, Resources and Services

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

2. Write out one paragraph for each tip or lesson, just one paragraph.

2. Write out one paragraph for each tip or lesson, just one paragraph.

A. Write one paragraph for each tip, not two, just one.

B. We are not concerned with editing here, just writing out the paragraph

C. Use some of the sites that you used to find your ideas, to flush them out to full paragraphs.

This is a key part of the process of creating your Tips book. For step two just write out one paragraph based on the tip or question. In step three we will expand it but the goal here is just get down some expanded ideas. The tendency at this stage is to start writing out the entire book, don’t do this. It is pretty easy to get bogged down and never complete it. We want to keep everything moving. So just one paragraph.

Writing Tips
This is a good step to also look at the sites you pulled up yesterday on Google from the 10 Ten Tips search. If you are a little low on ideas, see what others have written. You should be able to write at least a paragraph.

Click Here to Read Chapter 3: Expanding Your One Paragraph to 3-5 Paragraphs

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

1. Write down the 10 best tips or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise.

1. Write down the 10 best tips or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise. Keep these to one or two sentences each. #1 is your best then follow with 9 more.

A. Write down your #1 best business or experience tip or lesson.

B. Now write down nine additional lessons. Keep these to a sentence or two. No paragraphs just the lessons.

C. Use the Google Top Ten tips in search technique, Amazon Book Table of Contents or the Book Review technique to find and flush out your ideas.

These are the main tips or lessons about your experience or expertise that you want to pass on to the next person or might be useful to a customer. This is the core of your book. This first pass is a quick exercise. You most likely know all of these right off the top of your head. I usually start this process by asking, “what is your number 1 tip?” Don’t do a lot of thinking on this, just write down your number 1 tip. Ok now write 9 more and you are done. You can always change these later, but these tips are usually the things you tell people all the time.

Tips to come up with your list
Collect customer comments over a period of time. This is a great way to pull together a list of a Frequently Asked Questions that can be converted into a book for your business. Look for the common questions and summarize them.

Google the phrase, Top 10 Tips on XYZ, with XYZ being your subject. You will have a good list of search results that you can use to fill in your own list.

Using the Amazon See Inside feature you can easily look through similar books on your topic. Look at the Table of Contents for additional tips ideas. Add in some ideas from the Book Reviews and you can create a business lessons book pretty quickly.

Making a How-To Book, photograph the steps for completing a process, write captions and longer descriptions, add your bio and any additional info and you have a book.

Click Here to Read Chapter 2: Write One Paragraph for Each Tip

Monday, July 11, 2016

Overview: The Top Ten Tips Technique Quick Steps

Welcome back to my series on Yes You Can Write a Book. In this series of posts I take you through and overview of the steps needed to create your book.

1. Write down the 10 best tips or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise. Keep these to one or two sentences each. #1 is your best then follow with 9 more.

2. Write out one paragraph for each tip or lesson, just one paragraph.

3. For each lesson expand that 1 paragraph to 3-4 paragraphs, flush out the concepts.

4. Add an author bio along with a photo and contact info at the back of the book. Add a resource list at the back of the book, an intro for the front, a table of contents and any additional info that might apply to your book. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. We are talking 28-36 pages when done. This isn't a manifesto.

5. Have your book edited and proofed. After your book is formatted and laid out have it printed out and re-edit again.

6. Format your book in MS Word or some similar word processing application such as Google Doc, Pages, or Scrivner. If you are going to print your book, create an original document that is the page size of your book. 5 ½” x 8 ½” is a great size and is easy to get printed at a quickie print shop for those first copies. If you have access to Adobe InDesign that also works very well. A local designer can help with this stage.

7. Create a separate file for the cover. For an ebook/Kindle, front cover only and save it as a jpg. For a printed book on CreateSpace, set up a full cover spread, back, spine and front. Both Kindle and CreateSpace/Amazon have online tools you can use to make a cover. If you are using a local quick print shop like Staples you can leave out the spine.

8. If sending your book to Kindle then save it as an html file for the web. If you are going to print, export or save as a pdf file. Also export your cover file.

9. Upload your book files to Kindle, or CreateSpace.com, CreateSpace is the print-on-demand, self-publishing side of Amazon.com, or take the two pdf files to a local quick print shop. If hosting on-line at Amazon, add descriptions, author bio, categories and keywords.

10. Market your book though the popular social media channels; FaceBook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, your website, and YouTube. These lessons make great videos and blog posts. Give it out to potential and current customers. Make the book available on your website as a pdf download.

Click Here to Read Chapter 1: Writing Down Your Best Ten Tips 

Friday, July 8, 2016

Use your experience and knowledge to create a leave behind or lead generating book to build your business.


In this series of posts we will be using the lessons you have learned in your career and business and now want to pass on to your employees or customers. A great way to do this is to create a book which makes for a great leave behind, introduction to what you do or lead magnet for your business. Treat it as if it is your business card. This book is simple for you to make and easy to produce. To do this we will use a techniques I have developed called the Top Ten Tips Technique. This series takes you through all the steps from creation to publishing to marketing.

1. Using the Top Ten Tips Technique to create your book

2. Writing, design, editing and formatting your book

3. File prep, Kindle, CreateSpace/paperback, or quick print, Re-editing

4. Uploading to Amazon or quick printing for publishing

5. Marketing with your book

Click here to Read an Overview of How to Start Creating Your Book

Series: Yes You Can Write a Book. If you would like to dig deeper I have developed an online video course that you follow to help make your book.
http://bruce-the-book-guy.usefedora.com/courses/7-steps-to-publishing-your-book

Tuesday, July 5, 2016

Favorite Book Marketing Resource

At the end of my Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishers I include a listing of some of my favorite book marketing resources. These include websites, books, book marketing leaders, excellent examples of author websites and some general info on building your own author website.

Websites
50 Ways to Kickstart your Publicity from Molly Green Writer, blog. How to get your planning going for your book release
http://www.molly-greene.com/authors-50-fabulous-ways-to-kickstart-publicity/

71 Ways to Promote and Market Your Book, Kimberley Grabas put together this excellent set of tips on book marketing on her site YourWriterPlatform.com
http://www.yourwriterplatform.com/promote-and-market-your-book/

How to Build a Top Notch Media Kit from Molly Green Writer, blog, what are the media kit parts
http://www.molly-greene.com/how-to-build-a-media-kit/

How to Write a Killer Author Bio from Divrit.com blog
https://blog.dlvrit.com/2015/04/killer-blog-author-bio/

Some of my favorite writing and publishing resources, all available at Amazon.com. (Affiliate links, but I read all of these books and recommend them)
•    Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success), by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. This is an excellent book on setting up your book funnel and how to link one book to the next. These guys know their stuff. One of my favorite recommendations

•    61 Ways to Sell More Non-Fiction Kindle Books, by Steve Scott. Steve writes on lots of topics but I found his book marketing info fantastic. Like cross link you other book title at the back of your book and add live links to other sites, videos and books in your book.

•    Kindle Publishing Package: How to Discover Best-Selling eBook Ideas + How to Write a Nonfiction eBook in 21 Days + 61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books by Steve Scott. Once you have several titles you can bundle them together to make another book. This is very easy to do and you can give great value to the reader. Look at not only the titles but how they are put together.

•    Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book by Tim Grahl. Time also has an excellent blog on book marketing. Tim has had some great success helping authors become best sellers. Check out Tim's website at http://timgrahl.com/

•    Book Launch Blueprint: The Step-by-Step Guide to Launching a Bestseller by Tim Grahl

•    Author Quick Guide to Making Your Book a Best Seller by Kristen (Eckstein) Joy. Kristen has a series of books on publishing and marketing that each basically ask and answers one questions. They are all quick reads and are excellent. Her advice is practical and easy to put into action

•    Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, Steve Krug. If you are building a website then this is THE book to read. The Don't Make Me Think is also my mantra for book covers. Don't make the reader have to think about what your book is about. Make it clear.

•    Publish and Profit by Mike Koenigs. Books are so much more than just books. They are a means to promote your positioning in the world. Books can lead your readers to all of your other products and services. Mike is a master at telling you how to do this. I have been a Mike Koenigs fan for a long time. A lot of lessons here.

•    How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn. Joanna has a duel carrier, she writes thrillers and mystery books and she teaches how to be a self-publisher. Her books on self-publishing and marketing are excellent. Easy to understand and to put into action from someone who knows.

•    The Story Grid by Steven Pressfield and Shawn Coyne. I have been reading all of Steve Pressfield's books, some are historical fiction, some history and the rest on the art of being a writer. Steve has gone through a long path to learn his craft and I have really enjoyed learning his lessons. He also has an excellent website. I have just started to get into the Story Grid. It gives you some paths to understanding what your are writing. I have some friends who rave about this book. Check out Steve's website, http://www.stevenpressfield.com/

I Also Follow These Authors/Teachers
•    Nina Amir, http://howtoblogabook.com/

•    Joan Stewart, http://publicityhound.com/
  
•    Joel Friedlander, http://www.thebookdesigner.com/

•    Pat Flynn, http://www.smartpassiveincome.com/

Book Formatting
•    Building Your Book for Kindle for Mac by Amazon

•    Building your Book for Kindle for the PC by Amazon

•    From Word to Kindle by Aaron Shepard 

Good Examples of Author Book Media Pages
Media page for Michael Stelzner’s book launch
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/launch/media.html

Joanna Penn, from the Creative Penn, one of the top in this area
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/
Here is her media area http://www.thecreativepenn.com/contact/

Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week Guy
http://fourhourworkweek.com/overview/

Mardie Caldwell, has an excellent example of a interview questions pdf
http://www.mardiecaldwell.com/press-kit/

CJ Lyons, Thriller writer
http://cjlyons.net/contact/for-media/

Stephen R. Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, though
Dr. Covey has passed, but the site that promotes his books is set up very well and is a good example.
https://www.stephencovey.com/

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro
http://theproductivitypro.com/newsroom/


More Info on Building Your Author Media Site
Standout Books
https://www.standoutbooks.com/author-media-kit/

Tim Grahl
http://timgrahl.com/how-to-build-the-ultimate-author-website-in-1-hour/

30 Day Books
http://www.30daybooks.com/your-author-websites-media-page-14-items-to-include/

The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

 To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below

Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan 

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Sunday, July 3, 2016

The Importantance of Building Effective Descriptive Copy for YouTube and Amazon

Question: I was asked a question about a comment I made about putting lots of words in your YouTube video description, what did that mean? I thought I would share the answer here

Answer: So video like on YouTube or books on Amazon are found by search, people go to the search box and search for stuff, Also they go to Google and search for stuff. Google and the other search engines use words to find stuff.

I am including Amazon in this answer because the same thing applies there also
YouTube and Amazon have description boxes that you can put your video or book description into. On Youtube you can also put live weblinks in, this is a live weblink, http://www.brucethebookguy.com This is not brucethebookguy.com. Note the http:// at the front

Even though the site may figure out that the link is actually a link and treat it like that. This is important because you can send people to your website from YouTube if you do this.

On YouTube you can have up to 5000 characters in your description, the more words the better. YouTube can figure out what your video is all about based on these descriptions and then they can catalog the video correctly, just like Amazon can figure out what your book is about from the description. The goal is make your videos very easy to find from the search boxes.

You are working two audiences, Audience 1, your viewer who might read the description and learn about your video and you and Audience 2, the search engine, Google or YouTube or Amazon who needs to feed the video or book to the viewer. They need to know what the book is about so they can deliver it to the correct audience.

The key here is to have good descriptive descriptions. Correct keywords. Live http web links to all your social media sites, Lots of good descriptive text. For a video you can also put in the transcript of the video, that helps a lot, for a book put in the chapter titles. What you will discover is that most people don't do this, including very big companies that should know better. Especially on videos, they just throw in one or two sentences without any live links. Use the power of the search engines to your advantage. They are giving you the tools, you just have to use them.

The order of it for YouTube, live http:// web link first thing, then a short descriptive sentence, then a longer, flushed out description, then drop in all your social media links or repeat the top link. Test your links. This will help hugely in getting your videos ranked in search.

Level 3. Authors Who Want to Kick It Into Higher Gear, Try to Really Push Their Book Out to the World

Level 3. Authors who want to go full on. They have been building a platform, building an e-mail list, willing to make videos and share them on their author/book website. They will also take the time to set up and conduct a book launch. Be sure to review the two previous posts, Level 1 and Level 2 on launching and marketing your book.

Before Releasing
•    Build out your author platform further, more connections, more influencers, build your relationships. It is usually recommended to start build your platform of influencers at least 6 months before you launch your book.

•    Continue to build out your author blog or website, more content, more posts. This continues on in all stages.

•    Set up a Facebook open group around your topic.

•    Make additional videos on subjects from your book, remember to have calls to action in your videos and include full descriptions with live http:// web links.

•    Set up and conduct video interviews with sources from your book and industry leaders around your topic. Google Hangout, Zoom, and Skype can all work.

•    Set up an editorial calendar for your posts, post regularly on your blog.

•    Post regularly on your social media accounts, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin, Twitter, and wherever your audience hangs out.

Releasing/Launch
•    Do a full book launch and Amazon Best seller campaign accessing your platform and e-mail list.

•    It is time to access your Top 20 influencers that you have been building relationships with, conduct interviews, do guest blog posts on their blogs. Get their help when you do a book launch.

•    Connect with the bloggers from Level 2 and conduct a virtual book tour with them.

•    Use the Amazon Receipt strategy to build a list of buyers.

•    Create a YouTube book trailer for your author blog or bookstore.

After Releasing
•    Connect with your audience using Webinars and or Google Hangout.

•    Speak at events.

•    Create an audio version of your book.

•    Re purpose your book into a course, coaching and consulting, workbooks, blog posts, video and podcast content, info graphics, reports, online learning, broken into a series of books, SlideShare.com presentations, e-mail auto-responder series.

•    Start on the next book.

The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

 To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below

Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan 

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan