Plug Your Book! by Steve Weber (books to read to be successful .txt) π
Many of the new readers liked Touching the Void so much, they wrote rave reviews on Amazon's site. These "amateur" book reviews, written by real climbers and armchair explorers, resonated deeply with the next wave of shoppers. More sales, more good reviews.
Ten years after the book's launch, Internet-powered word of mouth did something that no team of marketing wizards could do--it landed Touching the Void on the bestseller lists. The story was adapted for an acclaimed docudrama. Simpson, his writing career turbocharged, followed up with four successful adventure books, a novel, and lecture tours.
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The e-mail blasts are sent to registered subscribers of e-mail newsletters, so the messages aren't illegal spam. But just in case things don't go as well as planned, some consultants suggest you also pester your family, friends, and coworkers to buy your book on the special day to ensure it has enough sales to move up.
... and this is success?The marketing literature for Bestseller Campaigns give plenty of references that seem to back up the promises. Dozens of earlier Bestseller Campaign books are listed as success stories. But a quick check of their actual sales on Amazon reveals that several of these books haven't been successful at all.
As shown in Figure 2.1, the sales charts for these books zigzag all over the place, a sure sign the book is going nowhere. Further, look at the sales ranks--they're a long, long way from No. 1. Obviously, these books are selling only a few copies a year on Amazon.
And these are the success stories? The flameouts must be spectacular.
On the other hand, look at the three bottom sales charts in Figure 2.1, the ones for books promoted with Web sites and blogs. Their sales ranks are much stronger, and the trend lines are flat, meaning steady sales. These books probably sell more copies each day on Amazon than the "Bestsellers" rack up in a whole year.
Haywired recommendations#What goes wrong with the Bestseller Campaign books? Some of them are probably wonderful books, but nobody's buying. Meanwhile, books with genuine word of mouth can have strong, steady sales for years.
A bit more digging into these Bestseller Campaigns shows the real reason they can collapse. When readers follow their own curiosity, they tend to buy lots of the same kinds of books. For example, the Amazon customer who buys Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times tends to buy the following books, in precisely this order:
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
1776
His Excellency: George Washington
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey
Easy to see the connection, isn't it? These five titles are the Also-Bought list, the guts of Amazon's recommendation engine. (You can see the Also-Bought list for any book on Amazon under the heading #Customers who bought this item also bought#....") Customers who've bought only some of the books on the list soon receive recommendations for the rest in personalized e-mails or on the Web site. This results in tons of sales, and Amazon has it down to a science.
Bestseller Campaigns, however, throw a monkey wrench into this recommendation process. Instead of Amazon recommending similar books, it spits out unrelated books. For example, one Bestseller Campaign book, Hidden Souls of Words, is categorized Religion/Spirituality but its Also-Bought list includes completely different kinds of books:
The Attractor Factor: 5 Easy Steps for Creating Wealth...
How to Be Wildly Wealthy FAST: A Step-by-Step Guide...
Turning Passions into Profits: Three Steps to Wealth and Power
The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness...
Life's Missing Instruction Manual: The Guidebook You Should...
What's the connection? There isn't any, except they're all Bestseller Campaign books. They were all pitched, high-pressure, perhaps to the same lists of people, no matter what their tastes in books. A few people bought, but some of them may have wanted the "valuable free bonuses," not the book.
And now we see the real problem: Amazon isn't recommending Hidden Souls of Words to anyone who actually might want to read it--people who like Religion/Spirituality books. This book's best chance at word of mouth is gone.
To be fair, a few of the Bestseller Campaign success stories really are bona-fide successes, including books by Gary Renard, Gary Rebstock, Dr. Bruce Lipton and Joe Vitale. Books by these authors sell year after year on Amazon, but is it because somebody ran an Amazon Bestseller Campaign? Or is it because these authors energetically promote their books year after year by blogging, writing articles, and giving interviews?
To be doubly fair, the consultants who advertise Amazon Bestseller Campaigns would surely tell you that a single technique doesn't support a book for long; steady sales depend on continuous promotion. Still, the question remains: Why do their clients actually fare so poorly?
Authors who ignite real word of mouth using techniques described in this book can draw a real audience who buys and recommends their book. But don't expect to hit the jackpot next month, if ever. Nothing in publishing is simple, easy and guaranteed.
Another problem with Bestseller Campaigns is the increasing unreliability of e-mail blasts. Despite laws against spam, junk e-mails are a growing problem. Increasingly, Internet Service Providers are deleting some e-mail blasts, even legitimate ones.
Is it worth it?#It's pretty easy to do the math on Bestseller Campaigns. If you assume a cost of $2,700 and a profit on each book of $5, you'll need to sell 450 books to break even. (That's if you do the campaign yourself after taking the classes; if the consultant does it for you, it costs $15,000.)
The bigger question is, could your time and money be better spent sparking real word of mouth for your book?
If it's important to have a stellar Amazon Sales Rank for a day, you can do it much faster and cheaper by simply buying a few hundred copies of your book from Amazon yourself. Have a copy shipped to each member of your high-school class, your neighbors and in-laws, and every newspaper and magazine editor in your region. That would spark some _real _ word of mouth for your book.
Beating people over the head isn't going to create demand for your book. Instead, create a way for readers to find you on their own_. That's_ when you'll have an audience, and that's what this book is all about.
Keith Donohue had an idea for a book, a story rattling around in his brain for years. But he could never find the time to write it. With a full-time job and a family with three young children, putting it off was easy.
Then Donohue turned 40, and a short time later came the events of Sept. 11, 2001. He decided, "It's now or never," and the red-haired Irishman began writing. He wrote on scraps of paper on the subway to work in Washington, D.C., and scribbled during his lunch hour sitting on park benches.
Finally, after several months of rewriting and polishing, the story was finished: _ The Stolen Child_, a fantasy inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem and what Donohue knew of the changeling legend.
And that's when things got really hard. It took Donohue two years to find an agent to shop the manuscript to publishers, nearly causing him to give up. He received 10 rejections, and was considering self-publishing. Then Donohue got a call from an agent who'd had the manuscript for a year but misplaced it. Soon, publisher Nan Talese, who runs an imprint at Doubleday, took on the book, and it seemed success was at hand.
By 2006, Donohue's book was finally in print. But then another hurdle, seemingly worst of all: The critics weren't impressed with The Stolen Child. In fact, they completely ignored it; not a single major newspaper reviewed it. Ask any big publisher, and they'll tell you: Any novel stiffed by the critics has no chance of becoming a bestseller.
But the story wasn't over. A review copy of the book ended up in the hands of Linda Porco, Amazon.com's merchandising director. She passed it among her office mates, and it was unanimous--everyone loved it. So Porco tried something new. She got more copies of the book and mailed them to Amazon's most active customer reviewers. They review books on the site as a hobby, assigning five stars to the books they love, one star to the books they hate, and an essay explaining why.
Within weeks, 13 of these Amazon Top Reviewers posted a rave review. Promptly, _ Stolen Child_ became Amazon's bestselling fiction book, and reached No. 26 on the New York Times extended bestseller list, an unbelievable climb for a novel with no big newspaper or trade reviews. Now the book is in its eighth printing and the story is being shopped to Hollywood. And--oh yeah--now Stolen Child has plenty of professional reviews.
All this caused quite a stir in publishing circles, but it didn't surprise the folks who actually buy books. Increasingly, readers turn to online reviews written by peers to find out if a book is worth it. Talese, the publisher, says a traditional function of professional critics--building awareness of a new book--is practically obsolete in the Internet age:
We're trying to reach readers. [Professional reviews] have been a way of announcing that a book exists that readers might be interested in, but they are being given less and less room in the newspapers.
Critics argue that amateur reviews are meaningless, that they don't apply the professional critics' intellectual rigor. But when was the last time you ran out and bought a book after seeing it reviewed in a newspaper or magazine? The truth is, many "professional" reviews are simply rehashes of publisher-generated publicity. Most of the time, professional critics don't tell readers the one thing they want to know--whether they'll like the book. Today, all it takes is a quick skim of customer reviews on Amazon, and you've got your answer. Whatever the amateur reviewers lack in highbrow sensibilities, they make up in credibility and relevancy.
Credibility through peersSuccessful books have lots of positive reviews on Amazon, and it's no coincidence. It's another point in the positive feedback loop: Good books garner good reviews, which leads to more sales. Good reviews on Amazon are particularly crucial for books by new authors and niche books.
Positive reviews on Amazon boost your sales not only on Amazon, but everywhere people are buying books. What percentage of buyers at brick-and-mortar bookstores actually made their choice by reading Amazon customer reviews? There's no way of knowing exactly, but rest assured it's a substantial and growing number.
Amazon's reviews are effective because they're often written by people who are knowledgeable and passionate about the book and its topic. They're seen as an objective evaluation from someone with no ax to grind. Sure, many inept and biased reviews appear, but they're easily ignored and far outweighed by the good ones.
In the case of a niche book, an amateur reviewer with the right expertise in the topic can critique it better than any professional reviewer can.
Getting more Amazon reviews#Traditional book marketing strategies call for mailing hundreds of review copies to reviewers at magazines and newspapers. But for a new author with a niche book, chasing print reviews can be more of a distraction than a strategy. A better way to launch your campaign is by finding 100 to 300 readers in your target audience and giving them your book. Ask them to post an honest critique on Amazon. This costs nothing more than mailing review copies to traditional book reviewers, but will likely have a bigger, more immediate impact. Here's where to find review candidates:
From Amazon's list of Top Reviewers who regularly post reviews of books similar to yours.
Amazon users who have reviewed related titles, or books by authors with a writing style similar to yours.
Acquaintances and colleagues interested in your book's topic.
Participants in Internet discussion boards and mailing lists relevant to your book.
Registered visitors
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