After putting in days and weeks of effort to write, edit and finally publish your books, you to reach the largest number of audiences, sale your book fast, make as much impact as possible, and even possibly, become a bestselling author regardless of your niche or the content of your book.
But, this is not always the story of so many published authors. Like you, a large number of self-published authors are not making sales. After putting in the effort to write and publish their book, they merely get anything out of it in terms of monetary gains.
Regardless, some select numbers of authors are actually making the sales. Even though they are very few, these set of authors have found a way to crack KDP sales to get buyers for their books. And some have gone ahead to become Amazon Bestsellers, in their respective categories.
After working closely for a number of years with KDP authors, I’ll be sharing with you in this guide, some of the strategies that’s worked for these authors and how you can use them to make more impact with your goals.
Write the Best Content
Table of Contents
Forget it. Content is the bedrock of everything good, when it comes to making sales with Amazon KDP.
The content of your book is one of the most important factors that will decide whether you can actually sell your book fast on Amazon or not.
Most authors do not understand this. Many people believe that since you’re self-publishing, it’s okay to put in just any kind of content, promote it and expect everyone out there to buy it. But, that’s not how it works.
Even if you’re selling it for 2.99, you can’t put out crappy content and expect people to pay their hard earned money for it.
Even where you have a lot of cash to spend on advertising, you’ll also get reviews from people. And these reviews will reveal to any keen new buyer if your book is actually worth their time.
So, you want to give out your best stuff. Pay attention to creating high quality and valuable content for your readers, if you want to become a bestselling author.
Remember, creating and giving out your most valuable work does not mean becoming a perfectionist or writing your work for 20 years before finally getting the nerves to get it out. These are two different things.
Address the Needs of your Audience
That said, outside creating high value content for your book, be sure to confirm that your content actually meets the needs of your target audience.
I had a situation sometime where I asked an author “what’s your audience”? And he said “everyone”. I was really surprised when he said that because to be fair, everyone cannot be your audience.
Outside optimization purpose, everyone cannot be your audience because your book cannot meet everyone’s needs. So, you have to clearly identify your audience. And then try to use your book to meet them at the point of their needs.
These needs could be entertainment, information, education or solving a specific problem etc. you have to clearly identify your audience their needs and find a way to write your book in a way that will meet these needs.
This is one of your most crucial one way tickets to sustainably sell your books fast or become a bestselling author on Amazon KDP. No two ways.
Design a Book Cover that Stands Out
Your cover images can have a great impact on the success of your book. Most authors do not realize it. On online platforms like Amazon where buyers scroll through a lot of options, you have to make an impact with your cover images within a few seconds. This is crucial.
So if you want to become a bestselling author, you have to fix your book cover design first. I agree the best cover design on Amazon KDP might not get you to sell your books fast but it’ll definitely create an impression that sticks very fast.
It’ll get a “scrolling” potential buyer to stop and have a look at your book. So, you have to make your cover catchy.
Your book cover should not be something mystical that is elusive to your audience. Make it captivating, easy to understand and compelling to them. This is very crucial.
Don’t just leave the cover design details to your graphics designer. Some of them may fail you. Give them details, context and design concept based on what your book is all about.
There are three things you have to keep in mind while designing your book cover. The first is your book’s theme. While designing your book’s cover, ensure that the overall design is based on the theme of your work.
The second thing you have to keep in mind is your audience. Make sure your cover design appeals to the sentiments of your target audience.
The third thing is your preferred design imagery. Where you’re using some images as part of your design concept, remember that all images are not the same. Some images are more attractive and compelling than others, based on what the book is talking about.
Try out different design images and then stick to using the design images that your audience can easily relate to.
Finish with a Bang
I’ve seen a number of books where the content was filled with grammatical blunders. I’ve also seen the ones where the book cover was outright ridiculous.
As an author, you might think that it’s your book, your money and time so you don’t want to pay too much attention to the details. In fact, you might get overwhelmed that you decide to forego some part of the work that’d eventually make your book stand out.
But one thing you must keep in mind is that your readers will not overlook these things. Yes. And it might cost you a lot regardless of whether you’re just publishing your first book or you’ve been in the game for decades.
So, before shipping your book for amazon, edit and format it well. Edit your work like your reputation depends on it. Because it does. Cross check your final draft for typos and grammatical errors etc.
Be sure you cross all the “Ts” and dot the “Is”. And if you’re using a publishing house to publish on Amazon, take steps to request for the final draft of the work before it gets uploaded.
And yes, you can also request for author’s copy from Amazon. Just to be sure, everything is going s it should be.
Optimize with Relevant Keywords
Just like Google, optimizing your book and sales page for Amazon visibility is an important factor that can increase your visibility and drive your sales.
However, Amazon KDP’s search optimization is slightly different from Google’s. So, while Google search engine is optimized for general search, Amazon’s is specifically targeted at buyers. And for you to get to reach these buyers, your book must be relevant to their searches.
Now, there are two ways to optimize your book’s page with keywords – the front end and back end optimization options.
The back end options provides about 9 boxes where you could input with the top search phrases used by people searching for books related to your book on Amazon.
You need to identify the top key search phrases and use them at this point. It’s preferred you target long tail keywords here.
The front end optimization involves your sub title, book description etc. getting a great search optimized sub title might be difficult for people in niches like fiction but there are still ways to go about it.
For authors in non-fiction niches, it’s pretty much straightforward.
In addition to that, do not merely use your book description to describe your books with words that feel just right. Use this as an opportunity to optimize the description with relevant keywords. And still make it relevant for both the search engine and your human buyers.
Engage in Storytelling for Marketing
A lot of new self-published authors do not like promoting or talking about their books. But, you need to know that you’re your number one promoter as a self-published author.
There’s hardly anyone that can tell your story or get people to care about your book, as much as you do. And it doesn’t even matter your niche.
So, if you plan, dream or even aspire to become a bestselling author on Amazon, you have to be ready to engage in ruthless storytelling marketing.
Tell people about your book. Tell them what inspired you to write it, why you wrote it, how you felt while writing it, how the book transformed your life and how you expect it ti impact your readers.
There are lots and lots of stories you can build on from your writing process to finishing, publishing and even your promotional effort. Within all of these are some great stuff you can pick out as content for storytelling. Use them generously.
And remember, you don’t need to be ready to get published before you engage the power of storytelling to promote your book. You can start right there, even as you’re writing it.
And then when it gets all published, you increase the tempo. Storytelling alone has doubled the sales of most authors. This is one strategy you must not fail to leverage, if you want to sell your book fast on Amazon KDP.
Leverage Book Reviews
Reviews are powerful up votes on your book and its content. Turns out, Amazon doesn’t joke with it.
They are also a great way to tell a potential user if your book is worth reading or not.
If you want to sell your book fast on Amazon, you want to encourage your buyers and readers to leave positive, verified reviews on your book.
This has a way of building trust in potential buyers while also increasing the visibility of your work. Outside Amazon stores, you can get buyers to write and talk about your books on other platforms and then link to the book’s page on Amazon.
Use Paid Advertising
There are a number of paid advertising options that can also get you to sell your book fast on Amazon. Chief among this is Amazon advertising itself.
This is a great option that has helped a lot of authors trying to make sales on Amazon. It serves as one of the ways to make faster sales for your KDP books and become a best seller.
Another option is Google Advertising. While this is more expensive, its intent based approach can drive qualified buyers directly to your Amazon page thus increasing the visibility of that page and of course your chances of making sales.
Social Media Advertising is another popular and more affordable option used by self-published authors to promote their books. You can consider starting with this or making a combination of this and as much other paid promotional options that you can afford.
Get a Captivating Title & Description
For your book description, don’t do it just anyhow you want. Make it slap. Go all the way to captivate a potential reader’s interest in your work. Create it in such a way that the moment they check out the book’s details, they are automatically drawn to want to read more.
Alongside your description, choose a book title that is well thought out and relatable for your audience. Do not settle with what comes to your mind first.
Take some time out, play around with different titles until you find the title that sits well with your audience.
To get even streamlined opinion, you can consider running surveys, polls etc. based on your potential topics and then choose what works best with your book, your audience and you.
Create a Bio that Aligns with your Niche
To sell a book fast, you need a bio that will instantly give peole the impression that you deserve their attention.
So, for your author bio section, describe your bio in a way that aligns with what you’re writing about.
Where your book is in a nonfiction niche where expertise may be important, showcase, awards, experiences, qualifications etc. that will create the impression that you’re qualified to write on the subject matter.
Final Words
I believe everyone deserves to write their books, sell it and reach the highest level of impact they can muster. That’s why I put this together.
As you can see, it’s very possible to write and sell your book fast because a number of others are doing just that. The difference between you and them is that they have mastered the strategies that work but you don’t.
Now that you’ve learned about these strategies, I expect that you’ll go ahead, use them judiciously and get your books and yourself to become a bestselling author, regardless of your niche or industry.
Where you don’t know how to fully get started with this, remember, we can get you all the help you need if you reach out to us here.
So, there you have the strategies to become a bestselling author on Amazon KDP. Do you still have other challenges with KDP Publishing? Comment below.
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