Best methods to get on Kindle Bestseller list?

Anyone? Kindle is smokin' hot these dayse - there must be SOMEONE out there with some suggestions!

My understanding is that getting on the Kindle/Amazon bestseller list is somewhat similar to a product launch. And once you get on the top 100 bestseller list, as long as you have an excellent product/ebook, you have given yourself enough visibility to STAY on the bestseller list. Obviously, if you get on the list and your product is terrible, you'll disappear quickly, but I haven't had problems with that in the past.

I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear from others on this subject.

The simple answer is to sell more copies than everyone else.

There are tricks such as having all of your friends buy a copy.

But for everyone else, you need to promote your book far and wide, by promoting the book and showing that it is available as a Kindle product.

When I do my first Kindle product, I will use a lot of article marketing to promote the title, along with press releases.

Dana, are you familiar with the Amazon Bestseller campaigns that have been run for books over the years? They would work for Kindle books, too.

In a nutshell, you choose a day when you are going to promote the heck out of your book to drive sales. Line up several people with email lists who will help you promote. Get them to kick in a free bonus that buyers will get. This is usually some kind of download, so there is little or no cost to provide it. The people providing the bonus can require that book buyers opt in to their lists to collect the bonus, so they not only get the exposure of being featured in the campaign, they can build their lists.

On the appointed day, everyone sends something out to their lists urging people to buy the book and collect the bonuses. Because Amazon's ranking algorithm is affected by a group of sales in a short period of time, the ranking of the book goes up pretty quickly. It has gotten harder/impossible to get to #1 in Amazon with this, but you can make it to the top of a sub-list and maybe even the Kindle list.

There is more to running these campaigns than I have listed here (obviously). If you have more questions, let me know.

Good luck with your book!

Forgot to add this--I have a site where I publish author interviews. You are welcome to do an interview with us. (This goes for other Warriors as well.) There is no charge, of course. Send a blank email to interview (at) sellingbooks (dot) com to get the questionnaire and more info.

We also publish articles on all aspects of writing, publishing and marketing books, and you are welcome to submit your articles to us. The articles do not have to be exclusive to us, but they do have to be (1) well-written and (2) about some aspect of writing, publishing or book marketing (including ebooks).

It's not really any different from marketing a regular print book or pdf ebook. Cathy's method and/or a general marketing blitz with professional press releases, radio interviews, etc are the fastest. Make sure the book is both well written and well designed for the kindle too.

One of the first kindle books I published without really trying too hard to make it outstanding bounces around from 2nd or 3rd to about 8th in a couple of its categories. It sells about 100 copies a month in the US store without me doing anything. I recently linked it on my EZA profile though and have been going through the rest of my book list and polishing one at a time so I can boost their sales too. As I polish I'm adding links and covers to related content sites I own and plan to step up marketing for each over time.

Have fun,
Kathy

Well, I can definitely write my own press releases, since that's what I do for a living, so that helps. I am thinking of holding some kind of contest, with a decent prize such as a Kindle, to promote the books on release day. Any suggestions or ideas for contests?

I'm looking to improve my knowledge of Kindle marketing, too.

John Kremer's "Book Marketing Network" might have some useful
information. I used to hang around there a LOT when launching
my first print book - and learned so much of value regarding
book marketing.

The Book Marketing Network - The network for book & ebook authors & publishers

imho, fiction marketing is a different kettle of fish - and
I haven't yet cracked the code, with barely 3 sales of my
first novel in almost a year (of not marketing it, I may add!)

If you'd like to brainstorm some ideas (off-forum) or even
set up a mastermind group with a few other book marketers,
let me know. I'd love to focus attention on my novel, now
that other things are running pretty much on auto-pilot.

All success
Dr.Mani

I would LOVE to form a Kindle authors mastermind group. And I think that we could help each other with book promotions, as well.

Skype or email would be fine with me. We could do both; I understand that Dr. Mani has time/schedule constraints, and other people may as well, but a few of us might be able to get together on Skype.

How should we proceed?

Inspiration for aspiring Kindle Authors: a list of people who are selling more than 1000 books a month. If you charge $2.99 per book, and get to keep 70 percent of your royalties, that is a nice chunk of change every month. There is a growing number of people who make their living writing Kindle fiction.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Guest Post by Robin Sullivan

I would love to have Paul Coleman on board! And anyone else who is willing to put in some time and effort towards achieving success on the Kindle Boards.

We could also do some critiquing of each other's work. I've done a lot of editing when I was working at various newspapers. Warning - I am constructive and fair, but honest! If I don't think something is ready for publication, I will - nicely - say so.

I'd love to be in on anything you guys get going.

I currently have a book on the kindle as well in physical form but I really am clueless about promoting them so I only make a spattering of sales each month. This thread does have a lot of great info in it already, so thanks for starting it Dana.

I'd love to publish more stuff if I knew how to get more people to buy it!

Lee

Hi everyone! Dr. Mani, it is good to see you again (I still haven't forgotten you!!!)

I have been thinking about writing more self-help/motivational ebooks and putting them on Amazon. Perhaps Kindle would be the best option!

Anyway, I'm very interested!

I would be really interested in joining the Kindle Mastermind Group....I've got something that I want to use as a lead generating book on the Kindle.


Paul

Paul Coleman, those are FANTASTIC tips, thank you so much! Paul Wolfe - I hope you join the mastermind group, that would be great. It's late, I'm tired, but I will be signing up to the mastermind group tomorrow and perhaps we can also create a Skype chat room for a Saturday night chat session?

I am available Saturday night. (How sad is that. Ahem.) Anyway- Would everyone like to get together for a Kindle chat on Skype? I am on EST - maybe 6 or 7 p.m.?

Suggestion - some of us have finished work, some of us have semi-finished work. And even those of you who are finished need to get an attractive book cover done, and need to get your book properly formatted for Kindle, and need to find out out how to upload your book, and need to start planning your online publicity tour, and maybe need to get your book reviewed by an editor to ensure that it is ready to be released...

We should all come up with deadlines for ourselves for the next step of our own project, and check in with the group once a week on how we're progressing. I find that I get more done when I have someone to report to.

Which would work better - a Yahoo group, or a Skype group?

Hmmm.... I priced mine at $9.99, perhaps that was a mistake?

I'm actually considering coming out with a series of books (not on IM or MMO stuff) so I will follow that structure with those and see what happens.

BTW - I bought 7 Kindle Power Tips | bookPumper - The Kindle Revolution that cosmokid recommended in this thread and I highly recommend it. There's some great tips in there - I don't think you would come up with these on your own so well worth $7.

Lee

Cool ideas and tips in here. I just started marketing with Kindle and these come very handy.

Paul, thanks for these resources.

I would recommend you get friends and family to review your book and rate it as high as they can (honestly of course!) and that is what sways your ratings with kindle.

I more or less exclusively sell paperback books and kindle versions of said books at this point.

Outside of traffic and something that people actually want to read, I think the single greatest leverage factor in book (paper or digital) is bonus products.

I have a couple of products that I sell via clickbank, which are both 5+ hours of video, as well as audio, etc. one is priced at $27 and another at $77. Both of the products are related to the material I write about.

When I launch a new book, I just email my list and tell them that if they buy the book (and amazon converts VERY, VERY well) and email me a copy of their amazon receipt, or receipt number - I'll send them the download link for the less expensive product.

If they buy 2 books, I'll send them the download links for both products. So they can spend maybe $40 and get two physical products, plus 10 hours of downloadable video worth over $100.

This works out pretty well. Especially on Amazon. The more people that buy your book, the more frequently your book gets featured. For example - If I sell a book on green widgets and somebody buys that, and a book by Donald Trump on green widget deals, when somebody searches for Trumps book, they'll see that customers who bought the Trump widget dealing book also bought my book.

You get free advertising, and literal, exponential growth in sales.

The other good thing is that you have a zero refund rate. I would give my digital products away all day to eliminate customer service work, refunds, and get free advertising and exponential sales increases.

So that is my suggestion. Come up with a digital product related to the book you want to sell. Create some good copy and (I don't do this, but it would probably help) price it well beyond what you could realistically convert sales at. Create a demand for the digital product, and then offer it as a time-sensitive bonus for the purchase of your book, dvd, dvd set, etc. via Amazon and the Kindle platform.

I haven't tried it yet because amazons referral system sells stuff so well, but you could probably just put that offer into an auto responder sequence and do even better.

It's only 35% if you want to price it under $2.99 (just looked in my kdp account to lower my prices!)

Yeah, that's for sure. I lowered some of mine to .99 and then another one to 2.99 but my main one on dog training I kept at 9.99 because people have already bought it at that price and I don't want them to get mad if they see it lower?

Anyway, I figure it could be a good experiment for us to see if the now lower priced ones pick up on sales.

Lee

Couple of quick notes:
- 35% royalty on books priced 0.99 to 2.98 and any books regardless of price that contain primarily public domain material.
- 70% on books 2.99 and up. Have to double check but I think that's capped at 9.99 and you can only get 35% @$10 and up price points.
- if you hold territory rights, you can also publish in UK store with same royalty rights now but payments are separate from US payments.
- kindle books CAN be refunded for a brief period of time. Its amazingly easy to accidentally buy a kindle book.

More later when I have time, especially on pricing
Kathy

I agree on the text chat. The more people we have, the harder it would be to do an audio chat.

I just created a Skype account for the group - unless someone has a better suggestion. Should I post the name of it on here or should I have everyone message me with their skype name?

Also - I'd like to suggest sort of a homework assignment. Before setting a timeline...how about coming up with a list of things that you need to accomplish for your book or books?

For me - I've decided on fiction (urban fantasy genre, which I read a lot of and which is very hot on Kindle and in general):

1.) Website and author pseudonym - check. Picked a name, got the domain name for it, have a website set up with a few blog posts of writing advice on it. Probably need to reconfigure the website as I get closer to publication.

2.) Develop an "author platform"? For fiction authors, this could involve writing short stories and posting them on my site, commenting a lot on urban fantasy (in my case) blogs and Goodreads.com, holding contests, or possibly starting an urban fantasy critique blog.

3.) Write press releases and distribute them online to establish my author platform. This could include announcing my last short story uploaded to my site, any new articles or blog posts on my site, any contests that I run.

4.) Finish my book.

I'm trying to keep this thread useful to the main forum here on the WF - and I think it still is, because if I do say so myself, I think my suggestions here are good ones for self-promotion - but we should also move this to Skype, or wherever else we agree on, soon, too. Feel free to message me here at the WF with suggestions, etc.

Hi all, I'm in for masTermind group.

Okay, so far I only have two people who have contacted me by message for the Kindle Mastermind group Skype. I am going to go through this thread, and message everyone who has expressed an interest in being in the Skype group.

Tonight, I will be on Skype from 7 p.m. EST til 8 p.m. I can record it as text and send it to anyone who wants it.

Just kidding about the chihuahuas. They're like family. Shrill, unhousebroken, hypercaffeinated family.

I think I've messaged everyone who was interested in the Skype group but if I haven't, please PM me.

Anyone know of any specific guide books on writing ebooks for the Kindle?

Hey, I'm new to the forum and I've just released my first product in the online dating niche. I priced my product at 4.99 dollars, is that wise? Would love to get on the mastermind group

Hi there

Thank you for sharing so much stuff on Kindle publishing - I have three small books on there and I have had a massive 3 sales, but hey, its a start. What I wanted to ask is that although I don't have anything to contribute to a brainstorming session right now will you still be making posts on here, because i will subscribe to the thread - and hope I will be able to contribute some advice when I know a bit more about the process - I always knew the writing was the easy part, lol.

Thanks a lot
Ellen

geez this thread is real good....i'd like to peek in on the mastermind group. I haven't gotten a book out yet, but, I intend on getting some created, and, selling them under pen names.

Surprised nobody has mentioned this but Tim Ferris got onto #1 seller list twice and he's documented how he did it too! (mostly internet marketing). He's also documented how Tucker Max got rejected by publishing companies and still hit #1 best seller list. Can read all the gory details here: fourhourworkweek [dot] com/blog/category/marketing/

There's been a lot of excellent tips here. Something that I did not see mentioned on this thread (forgive me if I perhaps overlooked it) is using the promotion tools on Amazon itself.

Here are a few ways to promote your book on Amazon:

1. If you are writing in a specific niche/genre, add a "tag" to your author name in your profile, e.g. <my name> - Romance Author. Anything related to your niche/genere that can also provide you with some good SEO value. I'm sure you know how to get a good keyword for that. You can also add something like "Author of <your book's title>".

2. Amazon provides you with an author page where you can write blog posts.

3. Add related SEO tags for your book. Get your friends/virtual workers to add more tags. Also get them to add the same tags. It will give your book a boost when someone is searching for a specific tag on Amazon.

4. Write quality book reviews for GOOD books in your niche. If you cannot give a 4 or 5 star rating for a book, then don't write a review. There have been cases where authors who wrote bad reviews for other books got bad reciprocal reviews on their own books too. Your reputation as an author is also on the line here - don't write a great review for a crappy book. The link to your own Amazon profile (also displaying your author tag) will be shown with each review. The more quality reviews you write, the more other people will alsos "vote" for your reviews as being helpful, and this helps to increase your visibility and good reputation in the Amazon community.

5. Make Listmania lists about specific topics in your niche/genre and add your own book into the list if you want to. This will also help to improve your visibility. If you make quality lists, other users will "vote" for them as being helpful, again increasing your visibility and reputation.

6. Become very active in the Amazon forums - make posts and threads in your own niche/genre and just be very helpful. Beware of being too over-promotional here.

7. Do social networking on Amazon - invite some friends from your own profile page.

8. Create a helpful "So you'd like to" guide on Amazon - you should find a link to this towards the bottom of any book page on Amazon.

I highly recommend that you read about Amanda Hocking if you have not already. I have never put my ebooks on Smashwords, but they do have a very encouraging blog that makes a good read and has a few tips.

One of Amanda Hocking's keys was selling for 0.99:

Authors catch fire with self-published e-books - USATODAY.com

Keep in mind that you do not get the 70% royalty at that low of a price, but even at 35%, she made a lot of money.

She also recently signed a huge book deal:

Author Amanda Hocking signs seven-figure book deal - USATODAY.com

You probably know all of that, but I wanted to post for those int'd in self-publishing.

One of the things that I learned from Amanda Hocking is that she marketed her books like CRAZY. Many people don't realize it but she really did a great job of marketing herself and her books. I am actually trying to arrange a one hour call with her (for my Kindle Template product) so I can have her details all of her marketing efforts.

Is the mastermind group still open? I work a lot so I might not be available for live chats, but I'm definitely interested in reading the text chats. Another great option for publishing print books is lulu.com. They have a program that allows you to distribute your print books through amazon and they let you get an isbn number for free.

Hey, I know I'm late to this party, but I am a recently converted Kindlemaniac. Actually, I just bought Paul's "Kindle Cash on Steroids" and cranked out 22 ebooks (mostly just reformatted PLR--we shall see how they do) and most of them are live as of today.

I'd love to join the mastermind group, even though I'm still a wet-behind-the-ears whelp of a newb. Actually, I am quite a talented writer (B.A. Creative Writing), but have never published anything outside of a university format. So I think I have that to bring to the table.

Is the group still active?

Thanks again, everyone, for bring such value to this thread.

Yes, I too am interested in knowing what has happened with the group?

Also, I have a really wonderful alternative to Skype if anyone's interested. It's like GoToWebinar only way better with streaming video of all participants when they speak, and the chat function isn't an afterthought. And you can show the contents of your desktip, etc. I have access to it, so it would be free (tho it's very affordable for anyone who wants their own access).

Having published my own fantasy story for the Kindle (Amazon.com: Discover the Blood-Stained Beginnings of the Crystal War! eBook: Joshua Rigley: Kindle Store), I know a few things about how it works. For starters, most indie publishers of fiction tend to price their works at $0.99, which is silly, and doesn't work so well as a long-term strategy. Unfortunately, the marketplace is saturated with such books.

Non-fiction books (especially "how to" books) are easier to write, in my opinion, and can sell for a higher price.

A few tips:

1) The best way to get reviews is to ask for them. Yes, really. Ask friends and family to buy your ebook (if they don't have a kindle they can get the kindle for pc), then review it. Most readers can't be bothered to leave a review, unless you ask them nicely to.

2) Amazon updates its bestseller list hourly. As others have already said, the best strategy is to price your ebook at the rock bottom price ($0.99), and promote the heck out of it. If you can get some heavy-hitters in your niche to join in, you could do an hour long fire-sale.

3) You want people to talk about your ebook. That's how things go viral. You can encourage them to do so by holding contests, giveaway events, and by starting a discussion yourself.

Dana, there is also this website: Real Fast Books by Daniel Hall, where he explains exactly how to publish books both with Kindle, and physically, and gives many ways of marketing them, all on low budget.

And also, it has a forum. I recently bought the membership there, didn't enter the forum yet, but from the webinars it seems, the public there is very active.

My best tip, Dana (and sorry if others have mentioned this, I haven't read the complete thread): create your platform.

In other words, get readers who love you, and read what you write. You need your flock to all buy on the same day, after you launch your ebook.

Steps for how-to nonfiction:

* target a market

* create a blog aimed at the market's interests

* get your blog's readers onto a list

* blog as you're writing your ebook/ ebooks

* when your ebook's live, offer freebies if your list members all buy WITHIN a 24 HOUR period.

Steps for FICTION (this is different, because you're offering entertainment rather than education):

* target readers of a genre (mystery, suspense, romance, science fiction)

If you're writing in several genres, create a new site/ blog for each genre.

* create a website, plus a blog. Most novelists seem to have woeful websites, so that's good for you. :-))

* usual stuff on your website plus your book list for that genre. On your blog, blog about stuff interesting to that genre's readers. (Forensic evidence for mystery fans, romantic stuff for romance fans)

THEN, as above for non-fiction:

* get your blog's readers onto a list

* blog as you're writing your ebook/ ebooks

* when your ebook's live, offer freebies if your list members all buy WITHIN a 24 HOUR period.

For fiction, check out HP Mallory -- Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Author HP Mallory -- she's a pro at marketing her stuff. She regularly hits the Kindle bestseller list.

Angela

Dana, check my post: 5 power tips for selling more Kindle books on Amazon: http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ook-sales.html

Has a master mind been formed? I would definitely be interested in joining - please let me know.
thanks,
--Jack
jack.tackett = skype.

Have your significant other, friends, neighbors, etc. all buy your book (or if you run a free promotion, have them pick it up there at no cost) then have them leave STELLAR reviews (as long as it's not a crappy book). People want to read things that other people recommend. Look at Oprah's Book Club.

I would like to be a part of an author group. Or if one hasn't been started yet, I would be happy to start a facebook group.

Best way is to write good content, ensure your book is the right length, price it correctly (and $0.99 is not it) and then market is properly. If you do this then it will rank in best seller lists and you can then concentrate on getting it to rank sufficiently highly to ensure that sales are self-sustaining.