|
Got my first one star review!
“If everyone who wrote a book did this they would all be bestsellers” sounds positive to me!
Anyway…
Today is all about your Amazon product page (how your book looks to potential readers on Amazon). Thank you Wendy Haan for your question that inspired today’s 3-2-1!
Why are we covering this?
Whether you’re a traditionally published author with a publisher that handles your listing…..
or a self published author in charge of your own publishing…
It’s absolutely VITAL you’ve taken a hard look at your listing and the components mentioned below to make sure you’re not missing out on potential readers
For example…
We see A LOT of traditionally published authors who have a block of text that their publisher threw up years ago that does nothing to sell the book.
If this is you, you CAN get this fixed!
We also see a lot of self-published authors getting to the end of writing their book and making the mistake of not optimizing their listing due to exhaustion just from writing the dang thing.
Which is totally fair!
So here’s a quick guide to improve your listing today….
3 Secrets
1. Book Covers: After working on over 1,000 books we’ve seen what sells and what doesn’t. Here’s what we’ve gathered marketing various covers.
NO
– Clip-art looking images and shapes with generic coloring (just some colored shapes)
– Putting your face on the cover unless you’re snoop dog or similar level of famous
– Something that is a bit too far fetched from the topic from the book (like and F1 action shot for a business book)
– Something that is confusing to the eye (like a 3D gold cover with a background red color?)
YES
– Cover text big enough to be read in thumbnail size on Amazon
– Clean, colorful, simplistic, readable, clear
– Non-generic Image that specifically relates to the topic
2. A+ Content (“from the publisher”): Same with book covers, we’ve seen the good, bad, and ugly. Here’s our internal review process for A+ content:
NO
– Block text
– Hard to read text
– Modules that don’t add anything new
– Generic business images or clip-art generated
– Repetition of images like book cover (doesn’t add anything new)
– Too much text in too many colors & formats
YES
– Custom images
– Simple and organized color scheme
– Easy to read and digest
– Each module ads something new
We had someone do some initial designs that went against our best practices which is why I have examples of good vs. not so good A+ content for my own book. If that person was you, we’re still appreciative of your efforts and hopefully this will help with future projects!
3. Book Description: Next to the cover and title, the next most important listing component to get right
There’s not one golden format for a book description. The main thing is that the first line excites the reader enough to go onto the second line. The second line needs to excite the reader enough to go onto the third line and so forth until the reader clicks buy.
The first few lines are the most important as those are above the “read more” button. Your goal is for those first lines to be so intriguing that someone either clicks “read more” or just buys it already.
NO
– Block text (like the Soul Retrieval example above)
– Sensory-less plain sentences like “This book is about how to overcome your nerves” vs. “What would change in your life if you looked forward to getting nervous?”
-Repetition of features (every single word should address a different aspect of what the reader can expect) or present the information in a way that appeals to a different type of reader. (qualitative vs. quantitative)
YES
– Thought provoking question(s) in the first few lines
– Well known accolades or awards
– Bullet point takeaways of what the value a reader will get
– Cliffhanger so that the reader HAS to buy the book to figure out what happened
If you liked this, come back next week we’ll cover Amazon reviews, editorial reviews, and META data.
2 Links
1. Chirp – bookbub but for audiobook specific promotions. Check it out here.
2. I’m releasing the entire audiobook for Before The Bestseller in 2 episodes per week over 9 weeks. Listen along here. Topics covered so far:
BTB #125 What you need to know before spending an hour or dollar on marketing your book
BTB #126 Make marketing your book much easier
BTB #127 Building your marketing team
BTB #128 Your Author Twin and Time Hacks
BTB #129 Email Lists for Authors
BTB #130 FREE Reader Seeding
BTB #131 Amazon and Amazon Ads
BTB #132 Meta Ads
BTB #133 Additional Pay-to-Play Strategies
BTB #134 Organic Social Media
BTB #135 Podcast Guesting
BTB #136 One by One & Corporate Bulk Buy
BTB #137 Ratings and Reviews
BTB #138 Moonshots & Turning Speaking Into Events
BTB #139 Gatekeepers
BTB #140 Your Launch Team
BTB #141 PR and Making Lists
1 Quote
“Read, read, read. Read everything – trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
– William Faulkner
with love and sincere appreciation,
Alex
BeforeTheBestseller | ShelfLife
alex@getshelflife.com
|
