- What does video have to do
with publishing on Amazon in 2020?
Stick around, I've got a special guest here
that's gonna give you that,
and we're gonna give you four other tips
for publishing on Amazon in 2020, stick around.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie, The Book Broad with Book Launchers,
a fabulous self-publishing company
that will help you write, publish,
and sell nonfiction books that build your business,
and I am here with Dale Roberts, Self-Publishing with Dale.
- Yes. - Yes.
A fabulous YouTube channel that I will make sure
you subscribe to if you haven't already,
so many amazing tips and their live streams
are off the hook.
It is what I aspire to in live stream.
(laughing)
- Thanks.
- So you have to check that out.
All right, so today we have five tips to help you
publish your book on Amazon in 2020.
And I'm just gonna kick it right off.
I'm gonna send it over to Dale for tip number one.
- Tip number one is if you're publishing on Amazon,
you really need to further index your titles
by utilizing Author Central.
I've been saying this for years right now.
This is one of the best ways to take your entire catalog
on one page, and rather than just sending
someone to one specific product,
you can send them to all of your products.
And here's the beauty of it.
On Author Central, you can actually put
an RRS feed for your blog.
You can put videos there.
You have your picture.
You have your bio.
There's so much that is still lying over
in the Author Central area that's untapped,
and I think a lot of you are
missing out on that opportunity.
So get on it like yesterday, at least by 2020.
- In 2020, yeah, for sure.
And yes, I totally agree.
Amazon Office Central is underutilized.
So it also means that if you do
a good job on Author Central,
I think you'll really standout amongst authors.
And a lot of publishers ignore this one too,
like traditional publishers?
- Yeah, it's crazy. - Yeah.
So this is a great opportunity, I love that tip.
All right, so I'm gonna take tip number two.
And I'm actually stealing this from some research
that Dave Chesson over at Kindlepreneur,
Publisher Rocket did recently about the seven keywords
that you get to put for your book.
And there's, you may not know this,
but there's 50 characters in each of those seven keywords.
And so, his research revolved around
is it better to go with a smaller keyword
or is it better to maximize those 50 characters?
And the research, although it wasn't a huge sample size
which he was quick to point out in his article,
it showed definitively that you were better off
to maximize the use of those 50 characters
and put in phrases, and Amazon will rejig the phrase
to put it in a different order as it suits your audience.
It does give priority to the order
that you put the words in,
but it will move the words around.
So, using that 50 characters will be an advantage to you
in ranking for certain keywords particular to your book.
So, I thought that was an awesome tip from Dave Chesson,
so I'm stealin' that for 2020.
- Big shout out to you Dave, too,
and I don't think I can add anything else
to this one right here, but just to know that you may want
to read that specific article because it will clarify
a bit more because you don't want to make it alphabet soup.
- Exactly, so I'll actually link to that
in the description down below
so you guys can check that out.
All right, so I'm gonna send it over to Dale
for tip number three.
- Tip number three right here, now this one's a simple one,
obviously common sense though, isn't always common practice.
Amazon Advertising.
It is the most dead simple way, and sometimes,
a slightly cheap way of actually advertising your book
natively on Amazon, and I see a lot of people unfortunately,
thinking they've gotta spend $1,000 per day,
75 cents cost per click, and this is not true.
In fact, I tell some people,
if you're going to start into it
and you haven't done it before, consider starting at a loss,
get it to where your cost per click is low.
When I say low, 10 cents or less, and do the dollar per day.
Something you can afford, and use it to learn
how to use Amazon Advertising because going into 2020,
it's gonna turn into a fist fight
and more people are gonna be aware
that Amazon Advertising is nothing to sleep on.
- Yeah, and I've actually got a couple of followups
and a question for you on this.
So Amazon Ads, interestingly, I'm seeing Amazon is,
if you're not paying, they're not showing like they used to.
You know, the Amazon recommends, it used to be Also Boughts,
a lot of times that stuff's not there
and it's all about paying to play.
So, Amazon Ads are gonna become even more important,
so that's great.
You know, I'm curious, do you find it hard
to actually get to your spend on Amazon Ads
because we'll put five dollars a day,
and so a lot of people are afraid of spending money
on Amazon, but I gotta tell ya,
it's actually hard to spend money at first.
- It can be.
- I wanted to see Dale's perspective on that.
- So what ends up happening is sometimes you're not
burning through your budget on a given day,
it's probably because your specific keywords
you've selected, your cost per click is
probably way lower than what it's supposed to be.
So if you increase your cost per click,
you will definitely meet that.
I've done that like numerous times
'cause having fitness books, when I was advertising,
I said, ah, you know what?
Let's just see what happens.
And I would move my bids up to 75 cents, a dollar,
and I was easily burning through my daily budget.
So that's why I say, be very careful, don't go real high.
And here's the thing is, there's numerous keywords
right now on the marketplace that nobody's bidding for.
You can get 'em for two cents,
up to eight cents cost per click,
which the ROI is insane on a $2.99 eBook,
or a $9.99 print book.
- Yeah, and since we've already mentioned Dave Chesson
having a software program like Publisher Rocket,
makes finding all those keywords much easier
than manually coming up with them all yourself.
(laughing)
- Oh yeah, absolutely.
I don't spend time going anywhere else.
I just grab Rocket.
I'm sure you can just drop a link
down in the description below, right?
- Sure, yeah, we'll put one down below.
- Yeah, go get it, I'm on her channel,
but I'm gonna tell you go get it anyways
because Rocket is phenomenal.
This is one of those tools I do not go without,
and for the primary reason of utilizing it
for Amazon Advertising.
- Yeah totally, all right, so tip number four,
I'm gonna go basics, it's still gonna be applying in 2020.
We're talkin' a fantastic cover.
A title that speaks to your audience
and making sure you have keywords in your book description!
And that that is not written for the bots.
That is still written to sell your book.
But you have keywords in it, it's not gonna change.
It's absolutely not gonna change,
but in 2020 that is still going to be super duper important.
- I feel like I'm in self-publishing church.
I'm like praise, amen.
These are some things I always just try to say to people,
they don't understand the power of what you can do
within your metadata to make yourself more discoverable,
and not only that, to validate the customer's search.
When they come to your book, they can go,
"Oh, that's exactly what I was looking for."
- Exactly, it's so, so important.
And I've done some other videos on your cover,
so make sure you check those.
I'll put a link to the one cover video down below
'cause that is essential, having a cover that stands out,
but is also something that tells them
they're at the right book, right?
You can stand out by having a sci-fi lookin' cover
in your nonfiction category, but that's not standing out
and giving them what they expect.
So, there's an art to this.
(Julie laughing)
- Absolutely. - All right.
So back to Dale for tip number five.
- So here's one that actually had her raising her eyebrows
as soon as I recommended it.
This is gonna be taking you a little off of Amazon
in order to drive traffic to Amazon,
and it's through video marketing.
Now, we can think of video marketing, one of simple ways,
you're already on the space, YouTube.
It is free to upload videos.
It's free to build a following on YouTube.
You can do it on Facebook.
You can do it on Periscope.
You can do it on Twitch, by the way,
don't sleep on Twitch, there are tons of authors there.
And here's the nice thing, you build this up.
When people can see the whites of your eyes,
there's more trust, and what ends up happening is,
is you start to build that know, like and trust factor.
They're gonna go, "Okay, I gotta go check out their stuff,"
and naturally head over there.
One of the strangest phenomenons is
I'm doing a channel on self-publishing,
yet I still get fitness sales and I believe it's
all coming from the YouTube channel.
- Yep. - It's nuts.
And so, this just goes to prove
that if you can get on video,
step outside your comfort zone,
and start to really leverage this because right now,
we're in a new age, and including video and audio
in your marketing plan for your books is going to be
the thing that sets you apart from the rest.
- I love it, I mean, obviously I love YouTube,
and I love video marketing, live streaming,
all these kind of things.
It all goes back to building that platform,
but it is people are more likely to buy from you
if they feel like they know you,
and there's no faster way for people
to feel like they know you than video.
I truly, truly believe that.
So yeah, I love that tip, but it did,
I was like, that's gonna be one of your Amazon tips?
But I love it.
(laughing) - Yep.
- Those are our five tips for publishing on Amazon in 2020.
Have you got a tip for 2020?
Go ahead and share it in the comments below.
And make sure you smash that thumbs up button.
It feels good, I promise, try it.
And then head over and check out Self-Publishing with Dale.
Absolutely a must-watch channel for all authors.
And while you're here, Dale,
what's a video they should check out on your channel?
- You need to take a look at this very next playlist series.
- Actually, where I talk a little bit more
- It's gonna be here, it's gonna be there.
- about selling more books.
So take a look at it.
Follow her direction, don't listen to me.
(Julie laughing)
I don't know what I'm talking about.
(upbeat music)