Aiming for the top 100 on Amazon Kindle

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Hi Everyone,
I don't post here a whole lot lately because I've been busy living life, but I wanted to share a few insights about kindle publishing with you.

I've been publishing small reports and guides on kindle since the end of 2008, but I didn't start seriously focusing on it till last year. And since the start of 2012, my kindle income has covered all of my bills... and then some.

I'm not 100% where I want to be yet but I love the progress I've made.

In April, one of my new releases made it to #52 in the overall top 100 Amazon free list. Until then, I'd never paid much attention to ranking other than noticing it in passing. My focus has always been to focus on topics, write prolifically, and cross promote.

My overall bestseller has been going strong for many years. It averages 200-300 paid sales each month, and since the launch of the lending library it gets about 100 borrows a month. Even though it sells well and is rated well, I consider it mediocre at best. Its a beginner's guide on a huge topic and its well done, but incomplete. At best it might be 50 pages.

I just set out to capitalize on that over the last several weeks. I created a much better, full sized book on the exact same topic, and this weekend I'm aiming for the top 100 on purpose.

Everything you read about being successful with kindle books is true:
-Write a great book, report, guide, etc.
-create a winning cover
-Pick a great topic
etc, and I want to share some thoughts on those points.

1. Topic: In my experience, going too niche sets you up for miserable sales. My best results come from popular evergreen topics that are large and have new people continuously flowing in.

2. Writing: write really, really well. And try to create a complete product. I successfully sell extended article length works that range from 3000-5000 words but they're slow sellers. Kindle readers prefer publications that they can spend some time with.

The book that hit the top 100 list in April is about 100 pages. The newest one that getting promoted this weekend is 170 pages and roughly 25,000 words. Thats a decent size for a consumer focused non fiction book.

3. Cover: Quality covers help the books sell. Simple is best, with a large easy to read title. I haven't perfected this side of things yet.

A few other things I've found:
- Most promotions seem to happen on the weekend. You may be able to get your book noticed easier by running a promo during the week instead. The success of this strategy will depend heavily on your market.

- Kindle readers are price sensitive. Some will avoid cheap books while others balk at anything over a few dollars. Many of them are under the impression that there is zero cost to the author or publisher of an book. Knowing your market is important for this aspect as well.

- Your market matters, and the market is not Amazon or even Kindle. The readers likes, dislikes and temperment vary from one topic to another. Your market is the readers in your niche. The better you know that market, the better you're likely to do.

For example: Having a promo on a gardening book during April is likely to be much more successful than in July. A camping book may barely budge in the heart of winter, no matter how much promotion you throw at it.

It's also much easier to figure out successful price ranges when you know who your buyers are. Gardening is a fairly cheap hobby for example, and books are plentiful. Home gardeners get used to picking up 500+ page reference books for just $10 or $15. This means they're not likely to pay $5 for small report, guide or bare bones basic book.

Other hobbies cost extensively more to get started with, and the availability of useful, comprehensive books is much more rare. So spending $25 or more on physical books is standard, thus spending $5 on a Kindle book is a pittance.

Once you really get a handle on the market you're writing for, success starts coming fairly easily. Personally I've started putting much more time and effort into new releases, while going back and improving older content that has shown promise.

So know your market, create content that's designed for their needs and desires, create it well, and you may find yourself sitting on the top 100 list as well
#100 #aiming #amazon #kindle #top

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