Do you want to have that bestseller flag but you're afraid that you'll fail because you are not an expert writer? Let me tell you the reasons why you don't have to be an expert writer to be a best seller and be a successful writer.
Today's article has three points and you're going to want to stick around because the third point is a secret as to the absolute best way to become a best seller on Amazon. So let's get into today's topic.
The topic we're going to be discussing today is you don't have to be an expert writer to be a best seller. When you're getting started, everyone who starts writing imagines a world where maybe you could be a best seller.
And you would see the little flag next to your title saying "bestseller" or "Amazon's number one bestseller". But the problem is you're not an expert writer. You might be "okay" as a writer, not even all that great.
So you're thinking this is completely impossible. Therefore, you're going to want to stick around because I'm going to tell you not only is it possible but it can be done if you follow the correct steps.
Make sure you grab a copy of my free Self-Publishing Checklist. Because it's going to tell you the secrets you need to know to get your book self-published and selling. So let's get into it. From my own story, when I first got started, well I had no writing background.
I wasn't a professional writer. I had written quite a bit in terms of papers and things for school and at work. I am also writing a bit and just general email back and forth.
But in terms of writing books or blogs or these sorts of technical writings, I hadn't done anything along the lines of that. I did have some ideas that I wanted to get out into the world and that was why I chose the non-fiction route myself.
Now for you who have stories, you'd be starting with that, right? So you start with that, but then you're thinking "but I'm not a great writer, I'm somebody who's got these ideas and I'm practicing". "Let's say I'm an okay writer, but not a fantastic one."
I remember even the grammar and the spelling, I mean sometimes you all will even find issues. I've got even on the videos and articles that I'm putting here, you know where this word is misspelled. That is a problem but the fact is that I've never claimed to be a wonderful writer.
Because to be successful doesn't depend upon being an outstanding writer. You don't have to have that. And the funny part of it is even with music, to be a professional singer, you don't necessarily even have to have amazing vocal quality.
It's simply the style and the presentation and the whole package that gives you the ability when it's all pulled together. To see the songs you're selling or the movies you're creating or a lot of these other things come together where it resonates with people.
And it transcends the actual quality per se of your ability into something even better. Because you're helping people or you're making people excited with what you're writing. So that's just something that I initially discovered because I'm simply not a professional writer.
Once you've sold thousands and tens of thousands of copies of your book, maybe at that point, you're professional. This is always a little tricky of an issue but you know what I'm saying. The second thing is I marketed my third book using all of the strategies that I'm teaching here.
Now I've learned some strategies that I'm sharing with you all on this blog and my YouTube channel. That's why it's important to subscribe but I was using even just a fraction of these strategies on my third book. When I did my first book, I was of course asking "how do you even do this whole self-publishing thing?".
And that's why we break it down and keep it easy but by the time I reached my third book, it was starting to flow a bit. And I realized let's see if I try all of the strategies. We're just pulling it all together and the fact is I started to see the rank on my book go higher and higher.
I was completely blown away by that and finally, after some time, I think it was only about a month or six weeks I hit the Amazon bestseller. Where I got the tag in the category that was closely matching.
Now some people will sell your services to guarantee you Amazon bestseller flags on your books and they can deliver on this. Because what they will do is they will choose a category that isn't related at all to your book.
Choosing Related Categories
Maybe the category is Growing Carrots and you're writing a book on Snake Shifter Romance or something. And then why is your book under that category? Well, they're doing it to rank in Growing Carrots, right? So they can get the best seller flag on their book.
But the thing is you have to have at least 100 books in that category to get the flag a year or so ago. So then they would choose whichever categories had at least 100 books and then throw their book. Amazon has since then started cracking down on that particular practice.
Now with the book that I had put out, I chose a similar category and there are subcategories. And this is one of the strategies you're going to want to do of course which is choosing categories that are related to your topic.
But they don't have to be exactly right but don't put it under children's books if it's a book on Heart Surgery or something. You see how silly this would be to get your book to get the best seller flag. You'll see sometimes he's a best seller and then the categories are unrelated to the topic of the book.
So this is something that will get you in trouble with Amazon and I would not suggest it. In the case of my book, I was within categories that are similar enough to the book. And I did hit that number one status inside of the thing, an Amazon bestseller.
It bounced back and forth so it wasn't just a one-time thing. It was there for a period of I think it was three weeks. So that I maintained that status as an Amazon bestseller.
Then it dropped out of it but then it came back after running ads and doing other tricks that I've shared with you on this exact blog and my YouTube channel as well. So the thing is you don't have to be an expert writer to be a best-seller.
The first point is you must choose the right market. If you choose the wrong market that is a market where there are too many books or you choose a market for which there are so few books that you don't even know if people are buying those books.
We have a problem, the hot markets are books for which there are lots of sales being made in those markets and very few books in those. That's the reason I use KDSpy which you can see as my affiliate link below in the description of all of my YouTube videos.
That's the best tool that I found for myself. Maybe you would also find it, I'd like to hear if you have found that to work for you as well. Because it quickly will show you the rank order when you do a keyword search.
You just click a button and it immediately tells you their Amazon rank. The only thing we care about is how many of the books are at the top I think 20 to the top 100 are in the top 100 000 on Amazon? And then we look at how many books exist?
So when you searched that keyword in the Kindle store, how many books came up? And based upon those two numbers, we have enough to figure out a magical keyword. That is a keyword where there are not that many books but they're selling a lot of copies.
So this is something you're going to want to implement if you haven't already done it. And don't think that people are going to buy it just because your book is high quality and you are an expert writer. Because my question to you is who's going to buy the book?
How do they know that it's high quality? You see the challenge that you face here, so having a high-quality book is not enough. You have to have an audience or you have to sell it in such a way and use high highly technical.
You're almost using brain science psychology where you're getting into the mind of your readers. Or the people who are considering and saying "what do I need to have on the title and the cover to help those people decide that your book is what they want to get.
So that's the first thing, choosing the right market is very important. The second thing and I've mentioned before is you need to optimize your book, your cover, your title, the description, and your table of contents when they do the look in your author's biography, right?
So with the authors where they have sort of like a little text on you as an author that also will play a role. And then the pricing, making sure that your pricing is around like $2.99 to $9.99 for your Kindle books, right? $2.99 in general if it's a single book.
And then you just raise it by a dollar for beyond that so that the pricing is very affordable. So that we have our book optimized. We're making this book so that it is going to sell and we are not ignoring the top sellers in our same category.
Why are people buying those books? Because there's something they're doing that you should also be doing. If you think you're going to be creative and have a cover that looks completely different than the others, you're going to lose.
Because your readers, the people with money have their credit cards out. They've told you what they want it's on the best sellers in your categories so just take a close look at what exactly is already selling. And make sure yours is not that far off from that.
You Can Leverage An Audience
Then you can beat them on the quality front. You notice I haven't mentioned that you're the best expert writer, we're just saying getting these things in order can be done. And these can push these sales in and we're not talking about putting garbage on the market. We're saying books that are going to be between three and five stars.
I know the three stars is a little iffy but the fact is if you have three stars, you can still get this book to sell. It's one and two where it starts to die, your books will go to a graveyard where nobody will buy them.
But between three and five stars on average from these organic readers is perfect in seeing book sales come across. But let's get to the secret answer of the day why you don't have to be an expert writer to be a best seller. And it is you can leverage an audience well if you have one.
So you start building one immediately, people are going to resonate with you. And you may be thinking who would resonate with me? And the answer is there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people in the world when they hear your voice or read your words.
There's something that they connect with and it isn't because you're grammatically correct or because your books are the most amazing in the world. But just because of the ideas and the ways that you as a person express those ideas that it connects with them at a deep heart level.
As a result, they can't wait to read your books and we need to get those people on our email list and that's back to the marketing side of things, right? So then we're able to get in touch with them.
We have maybe a Facebook group. You have a YouTube channel, you have these ways where you're making it or you have a blog. Easy to get in touch with you. We're not like distant far away.
Somebody using a pen name we don't even have a face on it but you're able to be in touch with them. We're building that connection between you and your readers.
So guess what you come out with your next book and you ask them "can you leave reviews for me?". And they leave reviews on your books which pumps it even higher. Now we get even more sales and when you do say "hey I'm coming up with a new book".
Your readers are excited. They're pumped, they're pre-ordering your books in advance. So we're pushing forward that best-seller status right from the beginning if you happen to have the audience. Now I tell of course how to build this audience using content marketing.
I have a Content Marketing Course that I use specifically for helping you figure out how do you link together this blog or videos or podcast. How exactly do you build that audience and do it for free? So you know, check that out if that's of interest to you.
But if you've already got an audience, you don't need to do that. But most authors don't put your book on the market and you hear crickets because nobody is going to buy the book. Unless you already have some network of people you already know since it'd be too high of a risk for a lot of people.
So the thing is that you want these people, they're in your audience, they're excited, they're fans - super fans of yours and they're telling their friends about your book. And they're telling their friends "you have to read this book".
So you get this exponential growth of new readers that are coming into it as a result of it and this is the reason why. Now did I mention anything about being an expert writer? No, of course not, you don't have to be an expert author on this front.
Check out this related article: 3 Ways To Find More Readers
You simply have to be somebody who's okay and the more you write, the better you're going to get your books are going to go up in quality. And you're going to find more readers if you can stay in the same genre. So don't be hopping around.
Just stick in the same genre, building up this audience. And every single month, we're continuing to grow the audience and it's so exciting. So many authors never get to this point because they think, just put your book on the market and that will be enough.
And it will not be enough and then you're like "oh I guess the writing thing didn't work". And I'm like, "no, the books are great but why aren't people reading them?". It's because we need to invest time in building that audience and that is by far the most powerful, my secret point of the day.
But I want to know from you, have you ever had a best seller on Amazon? And if so, what were the tricks that you used to get that bestseller status?
I want to know from you because it will help me better understand how to make blogs in the future. You can also give me ideas that maybe I'm not sharing here. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.