Self-publishing on Amazon is a simple option for independent authors who want to publish an eBook or paperback book (through Amazon’s print-on-demand service) with less trouble than is usually the case in the publishing business.

Publishing on KDP won’t cost you anything, but Amazon will take the cost of printing your book out of your royalties if you sell paperback copies.

But if you just follow the technical steps to publish your book and become an Amazon bookselling author without taking the time to do it right, you’ll end up with a book you won’t be proud of.

These are steps for taking over the Amazon bookselling market

 

1.     Make things that can be seen.

Make an attractive final cover to make sure you can make an Amazon bookselling book.  This should be a long time before your launch.

Your book’s cover needs to be great, but you’ll also want:

• Graphics that stand out on social media
• A good picture of your face for your author bio
• A clear, professional email footer

These could use your whole cover or just parts of it.

Videos are also great for social media, but images are fine if they look professional and get people’s attention.

Ask the person who designed your cover to help you. Try Upwork if they can’t help you.

 

2.     Reach out to people with power.

Even though your launch isn’t for another month or two, try to find at least 3–5 people in your network with a big following.

These centers of influence could be the head of a professional group, a podcast host, the administrator of a Facebook group, or an influencer, as long as their audience is the same as your book’s target audience. Or you can also get your book to cheapest book printing to reach these influencers.

Send those people a copy of your book early so they can review it, ask them to support it, and share it with their audience when it comes out.

During days 3–7 of your launch week, you should try to plan a big public endorsement for each day. Of course, more is even better.

The goal is to keep your sales high all week, which will make Amazon’s algorithm happy.

I have some suggestions for Day 1 and day 2, which I’ll explain below.

 

3.     Make lists of books to be sold

There are book promotion sites with thousands or even hundreds of thousands of subscribers who will email your book to their list of readers.

These services have different prices, but good advertising sites are worth the cost.

You have to apply ahead of time for these promotions, and not every book gets in (which is another reason your book needs a great cover design and description).

Apply early to have them spread the word about your book on the second day of your launch week in the Amazon bookselling store.

If you can get a BookBub promotion, that’s great, but it’s not always easy to do and can be time-consuming. It is by far the best site for advertising, which also makes it the most popular and helps increase demand for Amazon bookselling.

I also think you should try to get hired by Bargain Booksy and BookSends. These places are more likely to promote your book and are still worth the money.

 

4.     Construct your email list

Set up a free MailChimp account while you’re getting ready for your launch. Enter the email addresses of everyone you know, including your friends, family, coworkers, and clients.

The goal is to list at least 500 people you know.

Check out Voila Norbert if, after adding everyone you can think of, your list is still under 500. It will go through all your LinkedIn contacts and find emails for 20–40% of them.

For about $100, you can scrape 1,000 LinkedIn contacts and get between 200 and 400 emails.

Once you have your list, make your MailChimp book launch announcement and set it to go out on the day your book comes out. That’s your first-day sales boost.

Make sure to use at least one graphic that stands out. Choose still images, not videos, for your email, and put a link right to the Amazon bookselling page for your book.

You can even get people interested by sending short emails before the launch of Amazon bookselling. Tell your contacts a story or two about the book, or let them know about any rewards you might be giving away.

 

5.     Pick your categories.

Amazon bookselling categories change significantly, so you’ll want to choose these as close to the launch as possible.

You can choose up to 10 different categories for your book. Amazon bookselling gives you a few default ones based on the categories you choose in your KDP dashboard.

Use the tickets on your Amazon Author Page to add more categories. We suggest 2–3 classes for paperback books and 7–8 types for ebooks as a whole.

Just make sure that the paperback categories and your first two ebook categories are good fits for your book. All that matters is that.

For the next two ebook categories, look for ones where the best book is ranked between #3,000 and #10,000 on the whole Kindle store.

Find the last few ebook categories where the best book is ranked #10,000 or lower in the Kindle store. The better it is, the higher that number (or worse the rank) is.

It’s okay if only one or two of these categories have anything to do with your book. The most important thing is how the top book ranks.

If you can find a category with a top book ranked 30,000 or lower, it’s not hard to get to number 1 during that first week. You could call that bestseller flag if you sold between 20 and 40 copies daily.

 

6.     Put a $0.99 price on your book for the first week.

During the presale period, which should be short, keep the price of your ebook at full price.

The New York Times has lists of best-selling books, but Amazon bookselling does not. So it doesn’t help to sell books before they come out.

Set the price of your book to $0.99 on the first day of your book launch and keep it there for a week. This will help boost early sales since anyone who was on the fence about buying your book but sees that it’s only $0.99 will probably feel compelled to buy it.

 

7.     Connect with people you already know

Use that MailChimp list to tell people on day 1 that your book is now available in the Amazon bookselling store.

If your list is long enough and your categories are good, your book should reach the top spot (or at least come close).

 

8.     Try to set up a bump every day.

Your newsletter should cover the sales bump on day 1 and day 2 by your promotion lists.

For days 3 through 7, try to set up daily bumps with the people you contacted. If you’re worried that your email list isn’t very big, you can always add a message from an influential person on day 1.

A sales boost can come from almost anything, as long as the people who buy it are the same people your book is meant for.

Every author is in a different situation, so think outside the box about how to market and promote your book.

 

conclusion:

For those who write and publish books, Amazon.com can be a valuable resource. Here you can find an enormous audience waiting to purchase your book, which is exactly what you’re looking for as an author. However, though Amazon offers many services to authors, it’s important to know and follow their rules. You’ll also need to understand the basics of publishing, print on demand, and Kindle eBooks in order to get started.