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Smart Book Launches – Part 2

Smart Book Launches – Part 2

Smart book launches are vital to the success of a book. They set the tone for their lifespan. With upwards of 5000 books a day being uploaded, you need to make sure your book can be found. Your first step is to understand how the retailer uses metadata.

Your first step to creating a smart book launch is to understand how the retailer uses metadata. Each one uses it differently. For example, for Amazon, both the title/subtitle and seven keywords are the most important factors when it comes to SEO. The rules are simple, never duplicate a keyword and avoid misspellings and plural forms. If the word appears in the title or subtitle avoid using it as a keyword in the seven boxes. Amazon auto corrects for misspellings. The keyword ‘book’ and the following: books, books are considered duplicates and get ignored.

Many people make the mistake of using the Google Keyword Tool or other web keyword tool. People don’t search on Amazon as they do on Google. The best way to discover keywords for your books on Amazon is to use a scraping tool like Scrapebox. You can scrape directly on Amazon to find in real-time what people are searching for. You are looking for high relevancy, high-volume, and low-to-mid competition words.

The next step in a book launch is to have a cover that pops. Getting your book listed at the top of Amazon where more than 80% of books are sold,  doesn’t matter if your book doesn’t grab attention. A professional cover designer will focus on making the book pop out at the thumbnail size. Readers skim down several books at a time. Having your book cover look great as a thumbnail is a key to getting it clicked on. A professional graphic designer knows how to use titles and graphics and make them clearly visible as a small image. Or, if want to or need to do it yourself, use a tool like Canva.

If you are using Kindle Select, take advantage of their promotions right away. Amazon has an Algorithm called A9. A new book is treated differently and it’s important you show activity early. Sales, reviews, and clicks all help a book rank. Free promotions through KDP are a great way to get reviews flowing in and word of mouth going. But I’ll share much more about reviews in upcoming posts.

A smart book launch also needs social proof. Get reviews, but get them in a way that follows Amazon terms of service. Do a quick Google search to see what Amazon does to accounts that violate their review policies.  Places like StoryCartel.com will list your book for free in exchange for reviews. Both methods get results and don’t violate policy.

Smart book launches require strong marketing. Bookbub.com is a great site to use, however, it’s hard to get a new book listed there unless you already have reviews, so use this service once you have a number of reviews posted. Also, check out services like Sharegoblin.com to get your book listed on social media accounts. Backlinks to your book are noticed by Amazon and they drive traffic to your book page.

Use a click tracking link through a site like Bitly or another site. This way you can track where traffic is coming from and do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

Take creating smart book launches seriously. You’ve spent, most likely, hundreds of hours writing and now publishing your book. Getting over the finish line of book success requires this attention to detail and tapping into tools like the ones I referenced, above.

Stay tuned for more smart book launch advice. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, click here.  Also, always feel free to contact me here to ask for a tip or two. If you want more, reach out for a consultation, but one or two tips? I’m happy to share it on my dime.

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