Penny Sansevieri (@Bookgal) gives practical advice in the video below on how you can get better reader engagement by making some quick, easy, and cheap (meaning free) changes to your book headline and description on Amazon. I am going to try this one one of my books in the next couple of days.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Sansevieri long ago at a publishing conference in the San Francisco Bay area. She's the real deal. I have also interviewed her for this blog.
Take a look at the video and let me know what you think in the comments.
This is the answer to a question that I received and have received before. It goes something like this:
"If I want to publish as cheaply as possible, why should I have my own website? I can just put my books up on Amazon."
This is indeed true. If you are solely looking for what is the cheapest possible way to publish a book, using CreateSpace* and getting your book up on Amazon is definitely inexpensive.
But, and here's my question for you, do you plan on selling books?
There are many reasons why a person might self-publish a book (and, in a future post, I will discuss those). If it's not about the sales and about the money, then your plan is good. You get the book up on Amazon and you point all of your friends and relatives to the site and they buy it. Done deal.
However, if the goal is to sell books, I would suggest that you definitely need your own website. Why, you may ask? Because you need a platform from which to market your books. Now, perhaps you have a blog that gets signficant traffic, and that may work as your platform. For the rest of us, though, it's best to have a place from which to showcase all of your writings.
Just because I am saying that you need your own website, don't think that your books shouldn't also be up on Amazon. I certainly sell many more books on Amazon than I do on my website.
Do you know why bookstores are going out of business? Because many people come in, browse for books, open them, read some of it, and put it back on the shelf. And walk out of the store and to the nearest computer to purchase it from Amazon. Not the only reason, but certainly one of them.
Think of your publishing company website as your bookstore. People come, take a look, and go buy it on Amazon. I am more than fine with that. Notice the key part where they end up buying my book. Yes, I make more money if they buy it from my website, but I still make money from that Amazon purchase. Importantly, when I put up my publishing company website, my Amazon sales grew. Each time I add a product, I notice an uptick in traffic and sales (on Amazon).
So here is a good example where I am telling you that you need to spend a little money on a website. In a forthcoming article, I will tell you about a number of different ways that you can build a book publishing website cheaply.
A short while back, I wrote about the new publishing site. Since that time, I have received some emails as to how well I have been doing with book sales.
As a reminder, I only sell digital products there. Anything print is sold through Amazon. This has worked rather well (particularly since Amazon began discounting the book).
I should note that I also sell the digital products on Amazon as well. So why, you ask, is that important?
While sales have been slow on the new website, I have recently been experiencing a noticeable bump in sales at Amazon. I don't do any marketing right now towards Amazon. Everything is really pushed toward Degree Press.
And yet, a significant bump in sales.
My guess? People find the product on Degree Press and go buy it on Amazon.
And I'm fine with that. However I get the sale works for me.
Right now, the eBooks sell for the same price on both sites. If I sell it on Degree Press, I do make more money. That being said, I never turn down sales.
Here's a good one, though. This appears to be driving up sales of the print book even though I don't even sell that on the site.
If you read the previous post, you will know that I am now back blogging here and, as I said, things just got interesting.
If you followed that link, you will have discovered one of those interesting things; Degree Press, my publishing company, now has a permanent home. I have had a website developed to sell multiple products. I already have four with more coming shortly.
One thing that readers will notice is that I only sell eBooks from that website. There are a several reasons for why this is so:
Most of what I intend on selling will be digital. You want print? I do that for a small number of books, but I only sell those via CreateSpace and Amazon.
Part of my business plan includes selling a significant number of shorter eBooks. If you do go over to Degree Press, you will discover that, of the four current products, three of them are less than 70 pages. That is not accidental.
I believe that the number of people who purchase the digital versions of my books will only grow because I believe that is a trend for all books.
Importantly, I sell the books on that website for the same price that I sell them for on Amazon, but I make more if someone buys one from there.
Finally, I am not planning on shipping books. There are people, like CreateSpace and Amazon who do that so much better than I do.
Forthcoming are a number of new books. These include books about online schools, about alternative ways to attend college, and, one of these days, even a book on self-publishing inexpensively.
I hope that you will stay around. The plan now is to post here a couple of times a week. I believe that I have something to offer you that will speed you along your self-publishing journey.
As most of you are aware, my most recent book is now for sale on Amazon.com. For the most part, any after-publication marketing is waiting until a few other things happen first.
Quite by accident, though, I actually sold a copy. It's always interesting to see what that does to ranking. Remember that until someone actually purchases a copy, there is no ranking.
So, if you look at the data below, you will see that it only took one sale to get it to rank in the 200,000s and it is now #42 in Distance Learning books. Doesn't take much to get it to move up.
What this tells me is that there are many, many books on Amazon that never sell any copies. By comparison, the first edition of this book (which is now no longer available from the publisher) is in the 7,000,000 range.
When last I posted here, I assumed that I was within a very short amount of time of finishing both the text and the database (from which to insert the school listings). Alas, it was not to be.
So where do things stand now?
A week ago, I finished the text in totality. A day after that, I finished the database. I then exported from the database (an MS Access db, if you are interested).
After some editing, I now have a complete book.
I have been considering next steps while I am waiting for the cover to be designed. As usual, I am using eLance to design the cover. My next post will be about the cover and the design.
Since I last published and used Lightning Source, there is now the CreateSpace option. Since I want to maximize the number of places that the book is available, I am considering what to do.
Really, one of the more important locations is Barnes & Noble's website and I can get that done in either place. The difference? If I go through Lightning Source, B&N will likely discount the book on its website which means that Amazon will as well. If I go through CreateSpace (which is owned by Amazon) and get listed on B&N, it's unlikely that Amazon will ever reduce the price. That reduced price is key to sales.
As I noted yesterday, the second edition of Complete Guide to Online High Schools will be available within the next couple of weeks. This availability will include both the print and digital versions.
So what am I doing now?
Yesterday I sent an email to my rep at Lightning Source letting her know to suspend availability of the first edition. I don't want any further print copies sold now because I would prefer that people buy the new version. It will be better and more inclusive of the number of available schools now.
Part of the reason for closing down Lightning Source early is that there are sellers on Amazon still selling my book (although you will note that it is no longer available from Amazon). Where do they get the book from? From Lightning Source, for the most part. Some copies are used. I want that stopped because it is now all about sales for the second edition.
I also went to Payloadz.com to suspend sales of the digital version of my book. Truth be told, the second edition will never make its way there. It will start on Amazon in Kindle form and then, in a few months, I will push it out for sales elsewhere.* The world has changed a great deal since I began using Payloadz. To my thinking, there are now better ways to do digital. More on that later.
This was rather predictable. The State of California needs money. They decided to get some of that money from online sales by attempting to tax folks. In particular, they were looking at Amazon. Governor Brown signed legislation that allowed for this.
Amazon, of course, retaliated by shutting down the accounts of all of the California-based affiliates. This is in the neighborhood of 100,000 companies, charities, and individuals.
I do get California's point. They need money and local businesses can't compete with online sales (in part because what makes the online sales cheaper is the lack of sales tax). That being said, Amazon was very specific about what they were going to do if the legislation passed.
As it happens, I am one of those Amazon affiliates and my account has indeed been shut down. In my case, it was a relatively small amount of money per quarter. Still, every little bit helps. However, I know of a number of businesses that are predicated solely on being Amazon affiliates and selling books as an affiliate. I can only imagine what this will do to their ventures.
If it were me, I would be considering a relocation to Nevada. Perhaps ten feet across the border!
So the time has come to work on the second edition of my Complete Guide to Online High Schools. The first edition has sold well, but it is horribly out of date. Also and importantly, the field has changed. There are many more schools and what made sense just a couple of years ago, no longer makes sense.
What am I going to do differently this time?
Focus on selling the book. I certainly missed some opportunities for sales.
Understand that it does not need to be "Truth." It does need to be true.
Work on the design aspects, but not overly so.
Have more extra copies available for sales and as freebies.
What am I going to do the same?
Still going to use Lightning Source as my printer and supplier. It is a model that has worked well for me.
Increased use of digital versions. In addition to the PDF version from the first edition, I will certainly have a Kindle version.
Outsource the design work, but in a frugal manner.
Focus on Amazon sales.
How do I get started? It's time to update the database. Yes, it would make good sense to always have it updated, but that is just one thing too many for me to accomplish. Thankfully, I have my website from which to draw much of that information.
Daughter #2, who is always looking for a way to make a few bucks, is going to be doing some work for me on that project. She is only 13, but certainly can print out school listings.
I am going to make the attempt to check in with you on a weekly basis and let you know where I am in the process.
