-------- Original Message --------
| Subject: | 5 Steps to Long-Term Kindle Success (don't believe the hype) |
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| Date: | Mon, 28 Apr 2014 15:08:12 -0400 |
| From: | Steve Scott <steve@stevescottsite.com> |
| To: | im1@bydf.com |
| Howya doing? I want you to take five minutes and read this entire message. If you truly "get" what I'm about say, you'll be ahead of the 90% of Kindle publishers who struggle and wonder why they're not successful. Truth is there are a lot of myths about Kindle publishing. It's these myths that cause many authors to fail. The reality is you can boil down the entire process into five basic strategies. #1: Find a Good Niche Spend a few days thinking about your interests and passions. Figure out what special skills and value you can offer to the world. Don't have a particular interest? Then focus on learning one thing and sharing your experiences with the world. When you have a few good ideas, hop over to Amazon and do some research. Click on a few titles that are similar to your idea. If you see at least three books with under a #20,000 sales ranking, then you know it's a profitable idea. #2: Write Great Books I can't overemphasis how important it is to create quality content. When you give readers an enjoyable experience, they're more likely to buy your other titles. That's where the real money is on Amazon... ...Getting repeat readers who buy every book in your catalog. #3: Outsource Stunning eCover Design People do judge books by their cover. This is especially true when it comes to Kindle publishing. My advice is to skip the low quality covers from Fiverr. Instead, invest in one that really catches the eye. You can do this by analyzing other books in your market. See what attracts your attention. Then compile a list of links to these books. After that, go to an outsourcing site (like Elance.com) and hire a professional who truly understands eCover design. Provide those cover examples and talk to your designer. The more he or she knows about what you want, the easier it'll be to come up with an eye-catching image. #4: Publish New Books What's the "real" secret to increasing sales? Publish another book. As you build up a catalog of titles, you'll find that the #1 strategy to increasing sales is to consistently put new content into the marketplace. Not only will you get sales on that new book, you'll also see a bump in all your other titles. Publish a book every 4 to 6 weeks and you'll regularly see an exponential growth in sales. #5: Join KDP Select In the last year, many people have jumped ship on KDP Select because the "free to paid" model doesn't work like it once did. This is good news for you because their loss means your gain. Not only can a new author get lots of visibility by doing free promos, he or she gets borrows on their book (which generate income) and access to Countdown Deals. If you apply all four of the previous steps and publish multiple quality books, Countdown Deals can be your secret weapon to regularly increasing your sales. Simply run a Countdown Deal every three months on a book to increase its visibility and generate sales on your other titles. Rinse and repeat for every book. And if you have 12+ titles, you can constantly run a Countdown Deal which creates a lot of visibility and sales for your catalog of books. ... Now as we close things out, I want to be honest here... I know (for a fact) that 90+% of authors won't bother to follow these five steps. They'll take shortcuts. They'll be lazy. And they'll waste their time looking for a "magic formula" to success. Let me tell you something: There are NO secrets. The authors who are killing it with Kindle follow a consistent strategy: 1. They know their market. 2. They write good books. 3. They pay for excellent cover design. 4. They consistently publish. 5. They use a handful of proven sales strategies My advice? Become that rare self-published author who takes the time to put together a quality book experience. Simply follow these five steps to manufacture your own Kindle success. Take Action. Get Results. Steve "5 Steps" Scott P.S. Okay I lied... There is one secret that separates successful Kindle authors from the unsuccessful ones. Actually, it's not really a secret. It's more like a smart technique that everyone should do. In my next email, we'll talk about this strategy and the best way to apply it. Stay tuned...
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