You have been self-publishing but got a little sales coming in. It is maybe because of your book page. Learn how to optimize your Amazon book page as well as some tips to make self-publishing easier for you.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret as to the number one way of finding out if your sales page on Amazon for your books is properly optimized.
By the end of this article, you can tell whether a page is properly optimized. You're going to have the steps necessary to optimize your page. You're going to feel great that you've done what is necessary to get your book to sell more copies.
So the topic we're hitting today is Optimize Your Amazon Book Page. Grab a copy of my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist. It includes the secrets I share on this Blog to getting your book published and also selling.
So from my own story. When I first got started with my very first sales page, it was terrible. The problem is that I revealed all of the secrets which is something I don't do.
I don't tell you my third secret on this blog if you've figured it out yet. I would just put all of the details and what exactly was in the book into the description. It was a huge mistake since the description isn't about describing the book.
Rather, it is about convincing the person that this is something they need and must buy. Those are two separate things when it comes to descriptions. This is funny because we call it a description when in reality it's a sales letter.
We're trying to tell the person they deep down do not wish to buy. They're looking for a reason not to buy your book. Then as they start to read, we're overcoming the barriers with defeaters.
So they have objections to buying, we're defeating those objections. In the end, they feel like we absolutely must buy this book. My thing was my description was "Here's exactly what I cover in the book."
That is not what a description on a properly optimized Amazon book page looks like. The other thing is I had no biography. So they didn't have a picture of my little face.
When you click on it, you'd come into a description establishing why I am an authority. It can be an authority on the non-fiction front. But it also could be an authority in terms of the fiction front.
You've written so many books or so many blogs. You're a well-known person. People love you, they're following you. This is another reason I tell you about content marketing.
Because we're building up a brand around our name. So that when people think of our name, they're going to associate it with exactly the types of books that we're putting on to the market.
They're going to say "I trust you to deliver another great story". If you have no bio, you're going to lose readers. Because when they get there, they're going to look for that bio.
Some of them will look for a bio but not everyone. The next one is my chapters didn't have labels for the look inside. So when you get to Amazon, you're going to notice that they have an area where you can click and look inside.
It will show them the breakdown of the book. Starting with the table of contents. Where they can see whether those things listed in the table of contents tempt them to buy the book.
You have to think about each of the chapter headings in your book. They should be like their own title trying to sell the book. I know for some of you fiction writers, you don't want to use chapter headings.
But I find that the chapter headings can pull the person in. When they see the different chapter headings and they see those titles. They'll be like "wow this sounds exciting".
Or for a non-fiction "this seems like it's going to be meeting my problems". It's not about the experience of reading the book. It's about selling the book.
In the first place, getting the book into people's hands. Often, we think about what experience are they going to have when they read the book?
But in reality, if they don't purchase the book, we're never even going to get to that point. That is a huge mistake that so many authors including myself made when first getting started.
How to optimize your Amazon book page? The next thing is no call-to-action in the description. This one was something I never even thought about. I figured you have the description.
You describe the book and that is mistake number one there. When I get to the end, if they want to buy the book, they'll just go to the top and click Buy Now.
Check out this related article: How To Find Success In Self Publishing
The problem is that psychologically, you will get a 9 or 10 bump in your sales. Just by telling the people at the bottom of your description.
"If you'd like to read more or you want to check out. If this exciting thing will solve your problems or entertain you, then go up to the top of the page and click Buy Now."
This has a huge impact on a lot of people when they're looking at purchasing. They get to the bottom and go "yes, I need to click the Buy Now button".
What are they supposed to do now if nobody tells them what to do? People will just sit there and do absolutely nothing. They need to be led and guided to that every step there.
So if you tell them and they see it, we're going to get a 9 or 10 bump on the number of sales that we're making off the sales page. It is something you are not going to want to forget.
I've recently had one of my Coaching clients (you know who you are out there) and there were a number of these elements that were missing from their description. So it made it very easy for me to say "Okay, we're missing this".
Goal Of The Sales Page
It also depends that you're in a profitable niche. We were looking at one that was maybe not so profitable. But my goal if you've already written a book or had a book written by a ghostwriter, it's to make money off of the book.
To get this book onto the market regardless of whether it's in a profitable niche. We can move it which I've discussed before to some of my coaching clients. How we can shift your title and shift your genre a little bit to get it more profitable.
But even in an unprofitable niche, let's optimize your Amazon book page so that we're selling on your sales page. The final thing that I discovered in my personal experience was that the goal isn't to sell a million copies for our description.
With our sales page, title, reviews, all of that. But rather, to increase the chances of a sight of a sale. That is something you need to think about.
It is a fact that we are not looking to get a million copies of your books. Such a huge mistake that so many people make. Rather, we're just trying to get people to look at this.
And then consider increasing the chances that they will make a sale. So, optimize your Amazon book page. The first tip of the day on how to optimize your Amazon book page is the goal to get people to buy.
The goal of the sales page is not to inform them about the book. It is not to let them know your favorite hobbies. Nor let them know all the other books you may or may not have written.
The goal of the sales page is to sell the book. I know it's really hard but you have to think and understand that this is something they discovered in the 1920s. The sales copywriting people discovered that certain words cause people to buy.
We want to use the words that people are looking for. They have barriers and they have desires. We're going to play into that to ensure that those people are going to see that our book is good and fit for them.
That's another thing which is we don't promise things that we're not delivering. So, if we make promises in our description, then we're going to deliver on those exact same things. The same thing I do when I'm selling my courses and coaching.
I tell you what it is. Here's exactly what you're going to get and you're going to exactly get that. I mean all of my coaching clients are very happy with the sessions.
But if they're not happy, they can get their money back. I carry out the promise, I'm not here for today and go on tomorrow. I'm in it for the long haul.
Check out this related article: What is the greatest misinformation you have read about book publishing?
I'm going to be here 10 years from now doing this because I love self-publishing. That's one of the reasons why I'm in it. So when you go to their sales page, we are going to use the words that are going to cause people to buy the book.
But we need to make sure that what we're saying is also in alignment with what we're selling. We are not tricking anybody. It is a very clear transfer.
We're exchanging money for the value of time and effort that we've put into that book. The best thing you can do is to help people make it easy for them to buy. By overcoming the barriers and objections that they have to make that purchase.
Then they go straight ahead and do it. Number two on how to optimize your Amazon book page is that the author's bio needs to be in place. Use your face and build a brand around yourself.
Check out my Content Marketing Course to show you how you can build a personal brand. Which you should be doing even if you're not publishing books.
So that when somebody Googles you, they're going to be able to associate you with what it is you're interested in. Or which books you're writing about. Number two, look inside, assume it needs to be professional.
That includes your copyright page. Even if you saw this with a session I had with a coaching client recently. If you have your copyright pages, just maybe your name or the title of the book or something like that, it doesn't look very professional.
Our goal is that our books look identical to the books that will be done by the major publishing houses. So make sure you see how they're doing it. We're not stealing from them but we're making sure that all of the same elements are there.
Even if nobody needs those elements, it will impact when they do look inside. They're like "oh I see it was done by this publishing house". Use your last name publishing for example for the publishing house, whatever you decide.
I think I like to use Chris Andrew Baird - CAB Publishing or something like that. So you have like a sort of a publishing title and that's what you're doing, you're self-publishing. So it's not a problem.
But it makes it a little more official with regards to that on your copyright page. So that one way of optimizing your Amazon book page. Then we come to the reviews.
If you have no reviews, ask friends and family. Nobody should be within your house but ask people you know if they can leave a review.
Understand we're not asking them to leave a thousand reviews. We're saying we need at least one review that also is a match between what your book is offering.
And that person has to have purchased at least $50 in Amazon products in the last year for that review to go live onto Amazon. Then the review needs to say yes it delivered on the value that was promised.
So this is a thing we're going to be doing, you're still building up your email list and such. But we want to get that review in place by whatever we have to do to get a review on there.
Credibility On Having More Versions
You have to decide for yourself, you could wait until you get a purely organic review. But the problem is that those are usually going to be negative and this is a huge problem.
That's the reason why I would say, you have co-workers, you have colleagues. You have friends and you have a family. Can somebody please leave a review on this book?
Let's not put books on Amazon with zero reviews at all if we can help it. So, how to optimize your Amazon book page? The next thing is our prices. They're going to see the prices on our sales page.
That's where the pricing comes in. It's very important if you have the books in multiple formats. You're going to have different prices.
So they're going to see your paperback is a lot more expensive. I'm telling you, you need to be making at least $5 off of each paperback sale. And $2 off of your Kindle sales.
That is for each time you sell a copy, regardless of where you live in the world. That's how much money you should be making. So they're going to see across through on the paperback sale price to see that your Kindle price is much lower.
And that can lure them in to get the Kindle. But usually goes the opposite direction. They come in and see that low Kindle price. Then it lures them to get the audiobook or the paperback book.
The more versions you have, the more credibility you have including hardback versions of your books. So when your readers are coming to the sales page, they're going to see these books in the formats that they like.
They're going to say "this got to deliver value because of all of the formats that are available for the book". So that gives you your prices and formats.
Then finally, your description. It should not be a wall of text. Instead, it should be broken into bullet points that are easy to follow.
They are going to tell people the value or the benefits of getting the book. They are not going to give away all of the secrets of your book. You're not going to have to put spoiler alerts into your description.
Rather, we're going to have them follow those bullet points which are promising to deliver the benefits. Not the features but the benefits of purchasing your book. Does that make sense?
The final thing was of course this call-to-action at the end of your description. But let's get to the secret answer of the day. How to optimize your Amazon book page?
We've had an awful lot of content here. Our secret answer today is running Amazon ads. It will make it easy to see where in your sales funnel, you're losing customers and just hitting this one first as they get to your page using Amazon ads.
They're going to show you how many impressions you're getting. So when people look at the thumbnail of your ad for your book, they see the title of your book as a subtitle.
They see how many reviews you have on the book. And based upon that, we're going to see how many of those people click. Of those people, we can see how many of those people buy.
Check out this related article: Do I Need To Use My Real Name When Publishing My Book?
There's the top of the funnel. It is how many people see the ad, then how many purchases are made. Then how many people get to the sales page.
I remember in the early days, there's this one of the rules of thumb. I was working to make a profit off of these books. It was that for every 10 people who see my ad, one of them needs to click.
For every 10 people who click on my ad, I need one of them to buy. That gives me 1% of all the impressions. 1% buy rate and with that, I break even.
If I do better than that, then I will do better than breaking even. But if we see a lot of people giving us impressions but nobody's clicking, that tells us your cover is terrible.
Your title is terrible or maybe you have no reviews or your reviews are below three stars. As I've said before, our goal of all books is to be organically between three and five stars. We're not going for a six to ten-star review.
We're looking for three to five stars. It is the quality we're looking at. So when they see that if they are clicking and getting to our sales page and they're not buying, then that tells us that they were tempted by the thumbnail.
The thumbnail of your book was good enough. But the problem is when they get there, your sales page is not optimized. So this is how we tell, it's a very important secret you need to pay attention to when it comes to putting your books on Amazon.
This is why the ads are not just about driving traffic to get sales. It would also tell us if we need to change our thumbnail or if we need to change something on our sales page. Because we're not getting the conversions that we should be getting.
The final thing I want to say is people are looking for reasons not to buy your book. Our goal on our sales page is not to give them any of those reasons. They come with objections or some people would call objectors.
We come to with defeaters that defeat those objections. Do you see it? A person comes to your page and goes "well, maybe this isn't for my kind of puppy".
You see it like if they're doing puppy training, on your sales page on the description, you're going to say these tricks and tips work for all kinds of puppies. You might get exactly poodles and other types of dogs for example.
Then the person would say "oh that works for my kind of dog". You see, we defeat the objection they have and that is to not buy your book. You have to remember they're not looking for a description of your book.
They're looking for a reason not to buy. We want to make sure that we defeat all of the objections they have not to buy. And we put a compelling offer in front of them at the right time.
So that they're going to come back. They're going to purchase that book. If they don't do it right away, they'll at least do it afterward.
But my question for you today is have you optimized your Amazon book page? If you have, write "Yes" below in the comments. And if you haven't or don't even know how to optimize your Amazon book page, write "No" below in the comments.
Because I need to know where you're coming from. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.