Book Marketing Show Podcast with Dave Chesson

34. Best Ways to get Fiction readers turned into Subscribers

Turning readers into email list subscribers is sometimes tricky with a book. That’s why having what’s known as a “content upgrade” can be beneficial for both your readers and for your own future sales. Steve Scott returns to talk about content upgrades and how they’ve helped book sales and grown his email list. He talks about different options for content upgrades you can use to entice readers to sign up for your email list. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.

Book awards aren’t just a great way to have your writing recognized, but they may also boost your sales, especially if the award is one of the big ones that advertise their award. Amy Murphy’s series was nominated for the 2016 Dragon Award for Best Military Science Fiction or Fantasy Novel and her nomination opened doors for her and gave her a chance to engage her email list and network with other authors. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e32

Deciding where to spend your time, energy, and money on ads for your book may seem overwhelming. Not only are there ads available through Amazon Marketing Services (AMS), but you can also take advantage of other platforms to advertise your book, such as Facebook. I have a friendly debate with publishing expert Jonny Andrews about the pros and cons of using either Facebook ads or AMS ads for your book. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e31

30. What Price Should You List your Book At?

Authors have more opportunities to make money from their books aside from just selling them. In this episode I talk about creating services and merchandise in addition to your book that readers can purchase as a means for additional income. Gundi Gabrielle is an expert at turning books into even more profit-generating businesses. We look at examples of authors who took their book idea and made something even more. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e29

There are a number of reasons to choose to use a pen name for your writing, including anonymity, separating your personal and professional worlds, choosing something easier to pronounce, or as a marketing technique. When an author plans to pick a pen name, consider creating the author name with the reader's perceptions and their ability to remember it in mind. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e28 

Mastering AMS ads isn’t something you can just throw some money at and hope they’ll work. It takes time and some knowledge of how they work. In this special Marketers & Coffee, Brian Meeks will walk us through three major points to understand when it comes to AMS ads: Don’t trust the AMS ads reporting system, trust the keywords KDP Rocket gives you, and more keywords is better (even misspellings). For more information, visit the show notes at https://kindlepreneur.com/e27

While the adage “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover” may be true, it’s no secret that many people shopping for books don’t take that advice. You could be the greatest author and your book could be phenomenal, but if your cover doesn’t grab a reader’s attention and give them insight into what your book is about, they won’t necessarily buy it. In this episode Sasscer Hill and I dive deeper into what she did to change her covers. For more information, visit http://kindlepreneur.com/e26

A good book description is what turns shoppers into buyers. A good book description should include a hook, an introduction to the protagonist(s), and a summary that leaves them wanting more. In today’s episode, I talk to Bryan Cohen, author of the book, “How to Write a Sizzling Synopsis,” about some tips for doing so. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e25

Titles deserve a lot of love and if you are thinking about giving a book you’ve previously released a “facelift,” changing the title to better represent the book and its content can be a great strategy to help. I will give you tactics to consider if you plan on changing a book title and we go over Amazon’s rules and requirements for book titles and subtitles. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindleprenur.com/e24

We all start somewhere and authors are no different. No matter how far we’ve come, we’ve all had our shaky beginnings, and in this episode, Joanna Penn and I talk about the mistakes we made when starting out and the lessons we’ve learned. Joanna Penn is an author, blogger, the host of The Creative Penn Podcast, as well as lots of videos aimed at helping authors succeed in writing, publishing, and marketing their books. For more information, visit the show notes at https://kindlepreneur.com/e23

Marketing yourself as an author is an important part of marketing your books. Having an author bio picture is important because it is a reflection of yourself and shows professionalism. Even if you think you can’t be photographed, our guest, AJ Coots, considers herself a storytelling photographer. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and this photographer tries to convey all those words with her clients. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e22

We all know marketing our book on social media is important, but are you using an email list to help your book sales? Our case study in this episode is Amy Murphy, an award-winning sci-fi novelist, who started off with basically no email list, but successfully grew her list. Amy will share tips that help authors find success with their book sales, and who may not have time to cultivate and grow a list by themselves, as well. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e21

In our first case study about reviving a dead book, Kevin McLaughlin took his books that were previously selling poorly and, with a few tweaks, he was able to re-release them and garner more sales than before. This episode is the second case study featuring Sasscer Hill. We examine a few things authors can do to make their books stand out to achieve better marketing success. For more information, visit the show notes at http://kindlepreneur.com/e19