A Little Kindle Secret That Has Boosted My Book Sales

Thanks so much for this post!

April, you might want to credit the source for that. There's a section in this Kindle book with the copy/paste codes, and the author of the second book you linked is, I believe, a client of the author.

Make A Killing On Kindle (Without...

If you are doing more than a line or two, and you have at least a passing familiarity with basic HTML, Find & Replace is your friend...

In my experience, I have always only added this code to the book edit page through KDP. I tried toying around with it in the Author Central area about a month ago, and I wasn't able to get it right.

If I remember correctly, my code was stripped when I edited through Author Central.

However, If I click on the HTML tab within Author Central after I add the code through KDP, I can see all my code the way I placed it in KDP. I just have not yet had luck adding it through Author Central.

So, in a nutshell, using the KDP edit area has always worked best for me.

I know it may take longer to update this way, but in my experience, it has never taken the full amount of time Amazon says it will. It's always been like 25 minutes at most.

Again, this is just my experience.

You can do some of this formatting through the WYSIWYG editor in Author Central, but you're limited to just using bold, italics, numbered lists and bulleted lists. There's no way to add images, colors, or centered text.

And if I remember correctly, if you try to add just regular HTML (in the HTML area) to try to achieve these extras, Amazon strips them.

No you don't.

Although I only have one Kindle book this is awesome. I knew of people who had this in their descriptions, notably some higher profile authors. Plan on using this in future Kindle publications.

Woww, great stuff.. Thanks for sharing.. I just publish my first Kindle book yesterday and will see how it goes... Thanks again!

1. Erase what you have in your description box in your KDP account. ( make sure you have a copy of your description somewhere on your computer)

2. Open up an HTML program like Komposer or even a Wordpress post editor.

3. Write your description in, then click on the HTML tab, copy your HTML

4. Paste it in here: Online HTML to ASCII convertor » Web Tools » DynamicGuru.com | Dynamic Guru

5. Copy and paste your converted ascii text into your Book's description edit field

6. Manually create spaces by using "return" on your keyboard ( I haven't found that HTML will create spaces for you, though I could be wrong)

7. Hit save, wait till the book is published, and you should be good to go

Hoe that helps. Let us know how it turns out.

Folks, don't make it more complicated than it has to be for yourselves.

Granted, Amazon's Kindle platform leaves a lot to be desired from the seller's perspective, or rather they make it more complicated than it has to be from a user-friendly aspect. They are more concerned with making sure the *readers* of Kindle books get consistently positive experiences. I can understand that.

But I also realize that in the long run, the Kindle platform will continue to evolve and meet more and more of sellers' feature requests. Hang in there, fellow Kindle book sellers! In the meantime, we can continue to help one another with threads like this and the post quoted below. Thank you, BoomBlogger!

Sadie

I've been able to embed images successfully in the description. My advice though is to not go too crazy with changing the description. I stick with the basic H2 tags, bold, italics and one image to help track page views.

Andy

This has been a big help, thanks.
Just to clarify the process that worked for me. (Since there is some confusion bouncing around, especially on the Kindle Boards)

• The Ascii tags mentioned in the OP can be used in Author Central.
• You don't need to edit the book in full KDP mode (which takes ages to go through) At least I didn't.

1. Login to Author Central and find the book you want to pretty up
2. Click the 'Edit' next to 'Product Description'
3. Above the little editing window you will see 2 yellow tabs 'Compose' and 'Edit HTML'. Oddly enough you can ignore the 'Edit HTML' tab.
4. Enter the Ascii tags from earlier either side of any text you want straight into the normal compose area
5. Preview, then Save it.
6. It probably looks terrible. Code tags might remain around the text but don't worry this is just a preview.
7. Go and have a cup of coffee, or Tea (if you're a Brit like me)
8. In about 20-30 mins the changes should go through and the formatting will have worked on the Book's actual page. No more tags etc

Bear in mind this is just what worked for me but I don't see why it wouldn't work for anyone else!


If you found this helpful feel free to check out the book I'm testing it on and give me a "Like"
HEART OF THE SELKIE - (Paranormal Romance) Short Story: Sam Asher: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

But keep in mind that Amazon wants uniformity in their listings. They want things done a certain way. There are lots of books using this code but it is not how they have the site set up.

I would not be surprised if down the road, they eventually froze the editing process for people using this type of code and made them contact them directly. One of my author friends put a book review in her description (which is not allowed) and now has to contact them for any changes.

Just something to think about.

I have just formatted my recent book description. All worked well except adding a picture. KDP even refused saving changes until I removed an unsupported <IMG> tag. NOTE: I made changes via the bookshelf editing feature. May be it worth trying formatting the book description via the Author page.

BTW, did anyone try to submit a book sample (larger than Amazon Look Inside feature shows) to a document sharing site and than linking to it from a book description page? Or this is against a KDP Select TOS?

I never edit my descriptions in author central, only in KDP.

But it works in Bookshelf if you convert it into ASCII code. I just did it.

Unsure as to whom your question is directed. Personally, I received this question or ones similar to it so often that I recently wrote a post about it on my blog rather than address the real concerns behind it over and over.

Especially when it comes to fiction books (my preferred genre and the one that brings home the bacon), this is really not a question that is going to have the same answer for any two authors.

Even with one author, *consistent* income is non-existent. One of my books may bring an income of 200 USD one month and 600 USD the next. There are *so* many variables involved:

- Did you research your niche/sub-niche such that your book(s) are virtually guaranteed to rank well on the Kindle platform?
- Are you producing quality content?
- Are your books proofread/edited/formatted well (professionally)?
- Do you author/publish regularly?
- Have you developed a fan base?
- Do your books have reviews? Are they mostly positive reviews?
- Does Amazon promote your book(s) heavily?
- Do you promote your books outside of Amazon, maybe outsource your book marketing?
- Was there a full moon the day that your book appeared on the Kindle platform?

...and on and on and on...

Personally, I think that the main reason my first fiction book did so well was due to pure luck and circumstance.

Yes, I spent quite a bit of time and effort researching the sub-niche/target audience that I wrote for, but Amazon promoted my book so heavily that I felt absolutely no need to do any outside promotion.

I authored and published my first book on the Kindle platform more than 18 months ago, and Kindle fiction-writing products and services were not nearly as plentiful, not to mention that most of the authors in my sub-niche didn't (and still don't to a great degree) seem to bother to edit their books well so mine stood out - which was one of my goals, but still...

I look back and wonder how much more success I would have had if I had also marketed my books outside of Kindle. I have since learned my lesson and am now learning how to market my books outside of Kindle.

I am sure that you can see how hard this question is and how the answers to it will vary greatly. Within six months, I was able to quite my 9-to-5 job at which I made about 4k USD per month. I make more and more each month, partly because I continue to author and publish new books, but honestly I am not that prolific a writer.

I feel lucky if I am able to produce a new book every two to three months, but I realize (with much gratitude and disbelief sometimes) that the only reason I am able to take my time and work at my own pace is because I was able to develop an anticipatory fan base early on in my "career".

And the only reason I was able to develop such a fan base was largely due to Amazon's heavy promotion of my first and subsequent books and to a smaller part, I think, due to the entertaining nature of my writing.

Again, not every fiction or non-fiction writer is going to experience this. Everyone forges their own path.

Personally, I suffer greatly from writer's block, and none of the Kindle products that I have bought here on the Warrior Forum or outside of it have helped with this particular aspect of my writing process. I have accepted it. It always goes away eventually, and my creative juices start flowing again.

Do your research, ask some people who are doing what you want to do questions (like this) before you go whole hog on using Kindle to make your fortune or even to just bring some extra income.

It does take time, effort, and self-discipline (as does almost any business model worth its weight). If writing was easily profitable, many more people would be doing it successfully.

I wish you all the good luck (and discipline) in the world.

Sadie

Good information. Thanks for the info!

Actually it still work fine. I just used it, but here is what happens:

When you drop in the ASCII version (&lt; and &gt; ) and save it, Amazon turns it back into HTML. At that point you can preview your book, and before you go to the second page, re-paste the ASCII code.

Everything works as before - even the orange H2 letters.


Don't use Author Central to create your description if you need or want a long description. For some crazy reason Author Central limits your decscription length to 2,400 characters, while adding a description at the place where you drop in your book allows 4,000 characters.

:-Don

Hmmm, that's weird! It is working fine for me. I wonder if there is a glitch in your code. What are you using to write the code? Is it Word or is it a simple text editor?

I find it easiest to write the code in Word using the standard HTML bracket tags, then use find and replace to change all the < into &lt; and to turn > into &gt;

Can you zip the file and email it to me so I can take a look at it? I will PM an email address to use.

:-Don