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Today I’m switching it up and providing a (lightly edited) transcript of my latest podcast episode, 7 tips for becoming a bestselling author.
This episode was sponsored by my “Done For You Bestseller” program at //rachelrofe.com/bestseller.
If you have a book that you want more exposure for, or just want the bestselling author title, this is for you.
Bonus: Click here to get the PDF version of this post.
See, I’ve been using Kindle since back in 2010. My first book on Kindle made $3,000 a month right away for a long time, and it inspired me to create 50+ more books over time.
Although I had great success at first, it was very difficult to consistently replicate. It seemed some of my books did well while others flatlined.
Because I’ve always been up for a good challenge, I spent a LOT of time figuring out how to engineer reliable success with Amazon. I’m now at the point where I can make pretty much any book an Amazon bestseller.
(The market has since changed and it’s not as easy to make that much *money* from one book consistently, but the bestseller, no problem.)
Truthfully, I don’t think this is a huge deal. If I’m 100% honest, I think the bestselling author title is a big of an ego metric. Most books don’t sell consistently well just because they’re bestsellers. You get in front of a lot of new people in the beginning, then sales generally fizzle off.
That said, people still seem to salivate over the idea of being a “bestselling author”. It instantly increases your credibility and authority in people’s eyes. A lot of people use that title to be able to raise their speaking fees, fill out events, raise their prices, and so on.
It also helps you stand out amongst joint venture partners and people in your industry, build your email list, and get in front of those new people in the beginning.
I’ve made most of my books bestsellers and have also made hundreds of other people “bestselling authors”. I actually have a 100% success rate with my done-for-you-bestseller service.
And to clarify, when I say “bestseller”, I mean bestSELLER. There’s a lot of people who will sell services where they promise to make you a bestseller, but when you dig deeper, they’re actually putting your book in the FREE store and asking random people to download the book for free. That gets you a good ranking in the free store, but it’s not really a bestseller, it’s a best “free download”. I feel bad for anybody who buys those services.
This post is all about how to become an actual bestSELLER. :)
Here are 7 of my highest leverage tips to get your book to the top of Amazon:
Bonus: Click here to get the PDF version of this post.
#1: Have an excellent book.
This is a little bit of an obvious one, but I’m going to call it out anyway.
I’d love to say that having a high quality book is enough. It would be nice if you could put a great book out it’d instantly go viral.
Unfortunately, we all know talented writers and artists who are great at what they do but are still broke because they don’t know how to market. Talent is important but usually can’t account for the entire picture.
Conversely, you can market a crappy book, but beyond the negative karma, you’ll get bad reviews.
#2: Use an attention-grabbing cover.
A cover is really, really important. If I ever have a book that isn’t doing well, the first thing I’ll change is the cover. One cover tweak can mean the difference between crickets and hundreds of sales.
I recommend having a cover image that describes whatever the book is about. If it’s a weight loss book, for example, it might be somebody who is healthy and trim, someone looking down at the scale with a smile, or maybe someone wearing their “fat jeans”.
When it comes to text, I find the books that do very well either have light text on a dark background or vice versa. It’s dark text on a light background.
#3: Choose the best category possible.
When you choose the categories to list your book under, pick the most specific ones possible. There are some categories that are crazy-competitive, like Business: General, where you’d have to fight very hard to stand out.
If you pick tighter categories – like, say, Business for Women or Business for Internet Marketing (I just made those up), it’ll be easier to get to the top because you’re not competing against as many people.
The other side benefit of this is that people who are looking for your specific type of book will be able to find you easier.
#4: Make sure your description is compelling.
Make sure your book description entices people to buy your book.
Look at other books in your niche and check out the keywords that they’re using.
What I would do is go on Amazon, type in whatever your niche is about, and then check out the bestseller ranking to see which ones are doing well. Every page has a bestseller ranking that looks like this:
If a book has a #1 bestseller rank, it’s the best selling book on Amazon.
Look for a few books in the top 50,000 in your niche and then start seeing if there are patterns in the titles, subtitles, and if there are words that people are using in their reviews. Write those down.
This is the language your market is using, so use that same verbiage in your book description.
#5: Have a catchy title.
When you create your title, if it makes sense, use those same keywords you found in your research.
This way your title conveys whatever the book is about, you know you’re using words that your market wants to hear about, and you’re basing a title off of words that have already proven to do well.
#6: Get momentum built up.
Make sure you have momentum built up for your launch.
Before you launch, give people review copies of your book. On the day your book goes live, have 5 (or more) people ready to leave you reviews (and hopefully buy your book). Reviews are important to Amazon readers. And if you can get people to buy the book, it’ll drive your sales ranking up, which you gets more exposure.
#7: Utilize Twitter.
Twitter is an exceptional place to post your book.
I use Twitter to share all of my books, even the ones in my pen names. (This also takes out the excuse that the only reason my books are bestsellers are because of my audience. Most of my books are under aliases.)
I use popular hash tags to get the word out. For example, if I have a book on gluten-free recipes, I’d use #glutenfree or #glutenfreebook if that’s something that people type in. You can just start typing in a hash tag on Twitter and then it’ll start to auto-populate hash tags that people use frequently, like this:
These hash tags can work VERY well. Sometimes the hash tags are my only marketing for books and they can still do well, depending on the niche.
Not interested in dealing with all of this?
If you don’t want to go through all of this, but still want the bestseller title for all of the side benefits, I also offer a service that can take care of it for you.
The way it works is that you contribute 2 pages or more to a book, and I compile your “chapter”, plus 19 other peoples’ chapters, into an anthology book. This is what I’ve done to make hundreds of people bestselling authors.
My latest service is available through July 1st, 2015, or until 20 people sign up, whatever comes first. You can find it here or by going directly to //rachelrofe.com/bestseller for all the details.
Bonus: Click here to get the PDF version of this post.
