- Do you have a book on Amazon?
Are you confident you've done everything you can
to set it up for sales success?
If you aren't saying yes, you have Amazon mastered,
then this special author expert interview
with Dale L. Roberts is absolutely for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey, there I'm Julie, the book Broad from Book Launchers,
we're your professional Self-Publishing team,
helping you write, publish and promote a nonfiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers,
and done right, will help you grow your brand,
build your business and make you money.
The best part, you, yes, you, keep all rights and royalties.
Chances are you've already met Dale Roberts,
if you've been watching Self-Publishing videos
on YouTube for a while.
But just in case, you don't know Self-Publishing with Dale,
let me tell you,
he is my go-to guy when I have questions
we can't figure out answers to when it comes to Amazon.
And if there's someone I wanna meet in the publishing world,
he's also the guy I call.
And now, Dale has taken that networking and Amazon expertise
and bundle it all up.
He's put everything he's learned
while self-publishing and selling his books
and put it all into an excellent book called,
"The Amazon Self Publisher."
So here's Dale, to let you know a little about his new book.
- "The Amazon Self Publisher:
How to Sell More Books on Amazon"
is perfect for anybody that's trying to leverage
the Amazon platform,
whether through Kindle Direct Publishing
or other avenues
where they're publishing directly to Amazon.
We cover the main pain points
of getting better keywords, marketing and promotion
and getting more book reviews.
- Okay, so this book is a must read
if you're selling books on Amazon through KDP.
And one of my favorite things he covers,
was the underutilized tools.
He was right, there are things we haven't been leveraging
or highlighting for our clients too.
So I asked him to share
what he thinks is the most underutilized tool
to set you up, to use it.
Take it away, Dale.
- By far the most underutilized tool
when it comes to leveraging Amazon is Amazon Author Central.
Now, this is how you're able to build out a profile
for yourself as an author.
Now, when it comes to a few of the key features,
we could do an entire video series about it,
but I'm just gonna go ahead
and just highlight some of the areas
that you really need to focus on.
First of all, your bio.
Now, this should not be a full autobiography,
covering everything and into your tire life,
what we need to focus on,
is what is most relevant to potential readers
to grab their attention and entice them to buy more books.
So you're gonna wanna make sure
that when you're writing out a bio,
that you think of it kind of like,
well, copywriting, for lack of better words,
you need to be slipping in keywords.
And we're talking about discoverable keywords,
things that your ideal audience is looking for.
So that way, this further indexes your Amazon Author Profile
to be discovered, oh, through Amazon.
The next best feature
is going to be the editorial review section.
I see quite a few people just rehashing
some of the reviews they have inside the review section.
That's not what it's supposed to be for.
You want to get reviews from other areas.
So whether you're using say, Union Square Review,
you're using places that have editorial reviews,
you're using Readers' Favorite,
getting book reviews outside of Amazon,
and you're gonna curate into this section.
And the nice thing is, if they're saying the right keywords
within each one of these reviews, guess what it does?
It's search engine optimizes your author profile,
and of course the book to where it's more discoverable.
- Amazon Author Central is absolutely an underutilized tool.
It's one, you and I have neglected.
I haven't great updated video for you on this subject
which I will link to at the end.
Dale shared the most important tip there,
but truthfully there are gold nuggets in his book
he didn't have time to cover.
So I will link to the book in the description below
so you can grab your copy as well.
But Dale also did throw in a third little tip for you.
So let's give it back to Dale to share that.
- Rather than camping out on your product page,
and slowly but surely eroding relevancy on Amazon
with your title by refreshing your page
to see what your latest reviews are,
guess what?
You can do that all on Author Central.
You can go over and see all of your books
and all the reviews that they have in real time.
So really stop stressing out
and going to your product detail page and hitting refresh,
hoping that your mom or your dad or significant other
has posted a review to your book,
it's gonna be over on Author Central instead.
- So this is a cool tip, because Dale touches on something
we don't always think about.
And that is,
Amazon wants people to land on your product page,
which is your book sales page,
and they want people to buy it.
If you sit there and refresh and refresh and refresh,
looking for that review,
then you could be impacting your conversion rates
and other relevancy within Amazon.
Why not camp out on your Amazon Author Central page
where you can see all the Amazon site reviews in one place?
It's a little thing that people don't always think of.
And sometimes little things add up to give you big results.
So why not give it a try?
Or better yet, rather than refreshing repeatedly,
refresh, refresh, refresh, (giggling)
waiting for a review to pop up,
why don't you go and ask five more people
if they'll write a review for you?
Now, in the promotional strategies for books section
of the Amazon self publisher, Dale talks about networking.
I already mentioned that Dale is my go-to guy
if I need to meet someone in the publishing industry.
What you may not know, is that he is also an introvert.
So I know many of you authors think you can't network
because you're an introvert,
but both Dale and I are introverts
and we get out there and get it done.
And Dale, frankly does it far better than I do.
So I asked him, "What are your secrets
for all our fellow authors to make awesome connections
like you do for book, promotion and beyond?"
- It is all about who you know, and getting more connections
whether inside the publishing industry or outside of it,
really can make a huge difference.
So, I would just recommend that,
when it comes to growing your author brand,
go out try to get into any virtual networking meetings
or if there's some in-person meetings,
try to go to those as well.
But here's the key, don't be a wallflower,
you need to be stepping forward.
Now, this is not to say you should be aggressive,
you don't need to be going over
and squeezing someone's hand, as you shake and be like,
"Ah, I'm, I'm the alpha male here."
No, it's going to be all about
just trying to make connections,
learn more about the other person
than you're willing to give of yourself.
So I see quite a few people trying to network,
and the very first thing they're doing,
is trying to get shower praise upon themselves,
"Me, I love to hear about me."
And guess what?
What a lot of people are doing
when you're talking about you
without even being asked about it,
they're typically tuning you out
and they're thinking about how they can work themselves
into the conversation.
So I would just recommend, step outside your comfort zone,
meet new people, try to get to know them,
and then you can figure out some way
in which they can work within your network
to help build out your author brand.
- I think this is excellent advice.
And we talked about that during a live stream,
and in a video I did afterwards,
speaking about building your brand from your book,
it really is about giving
without the expectation of receiving.
Dale is really generous,
and if he ever asks me for something, which is really rare,
it's always a heck, yes.
Like when he asked me to write the foreword for this book,
he was actually nervous I would say no.
But I was honored.
And truly when somebody who's always generous
with their time and gives you way more
than you've ever given them, asks you for something,
the answer is, yes.
It's not overnight
that this kind of networking stuff happens.
And I think that is what frustrates people.
But networking takes time and consistent effort,
but it pays off so much in the long run that it is worth it.
All right, I wrap this up with a really tough question,
because Dale packed this book
full of great advice for selling books on Amazon,
and I asked him to pick his number one tip,
the big one, the pot of gold.
So Dale, what is it?
- This is the biggest tip
when you're trying to sell more books.
A lot of people automatically go back to keywords
and they think to themselves,
"Well, if I just change XYZ for my keywords
and put ABC in there, it'll just rain money down upon me."
But the thing is, folks, don't get keywords
to try to appease the algorithmic gods, all right?
Put keywords together for your ideal audience.
And then you're gonna need to build your brand
and sell more books to build more relevancy
for given keywords,
so that way it's served to your ideal audience.
So, don't build out keywords based on an algorithm,
build it out based on your audience.
- That was a mic drop moment, my friends.
I've actually never thought of it
quite in that manner before.
So if you hear me saying that in the future,
you know I just borrowed it from the brilliant Dale.
Okay, so Dale, where can folks find your book to get a copy?
Because they really need to get a copy today.
- That's a good question. (laughing)
Give me just a second, I do have a quick link.
- Okay, when your book launches,
you're going to get asked that all the time
and you want that quick link
to come out a lot quicker than it did for Dale. (laughing)
Thankfully, this wasn't live
and technically I could have had my editor delete that part
but then we would have never known
that he didn't have a smooth answer for you on take one.
And I wanted you to see he's human,
and remind you to have an answer like this one, ready to go.
So Dale, where can people find you and your book?
- Hey, folks can go ahead and get ahold of me
over at selfpublishingwithdale.com.
You're gonna find quite a bit of information
about my YouTube channel, my blog, my podcast,
and of course my published books.
We'll just keep it simple, selfpublishingwithdale.com.
And you can get your copy of "The Amazon Self-Publisher"
when you visit dalelinks.com/selfpubbook.
- Okay, so go to dalelinks.com/selfpubbook
and get your copy.
I'll put the link in the description below.
Well, I think that was a really awesome episode with Dale.
Wasn't it?
Did you get a cool tip from today?
If you did, please smash that thumbs up button
on your way down to comment below
and let us know which was your favorite tip.
Or, if you've read Dale's book yet,
what was your favorite tip from his book?
Let's chat about it in the comments below.
And when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win
some sweet #no boring books swag.
We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday.
Make sure you catch everyone by subscribing to the channel
and turning those notifications on.
You're fun, do you wanna hang out a little more?
Okay, great.
This video right here is the latest
on Amazon Author Central.
But if you've seen that,
then I also recommend you check out this one
on building your brand from your book in 2021 and beyond.
Head on over to the one that you most wanna see
and I'll be waiting for you right there.
(upbeat music)