Cast a Wide Net - Amazon Book Marketing Tips Part 3

"Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly."- Robert F. Kennedy

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought 

Amazon generates a section on your book page, entitled Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought, which, as the name suggests, lists other books that were bought by people who bought your book. This is another valuable opportunity to market books to people who may already have the proclivity to buy it. By publishing the books listed in Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought in some of your Listmania! lists, your list pops up on those book pages listed in Customers Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.

This is like waving food in front of starving person. You know they are so hungry to eat that they will eat any food put in front of them. It’s the same with the buyers who visit the sites of the book on your Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought list. They are ready to buy a book LIKE yours. You just need to put your book in front of them.

The best-selling book, The 4-Hour Work Week, by Timothy Ferriss, is one such book that belongs in a completely different category, yet it is found in the Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought category on my book page. Why it is there on my book page? It’s somewhat of a mystery to me.

Perhaps people who desire to only work 4 hours a week also feel investing in real estate part-time gives them more free time to pursue leisure activities. Whatever the reason, I’m pleased as punch to have my book associated with their book, since book sales for The 4-Hour Work Week are in the stratosphere.

That allows me to bask in some of the publicity that they have generated by adding The 4-Hour Work Week to my Listmania! lists and So You’d Like to … guides.

Notice the similarities between these 2 books?

My System: Follow the Money

Here’s the scenario that I imagine. Most people don’t know that my book even exists. Let’s say that someone who is searching for The 4-Hour Work Week goes to the The 4-Hour Work Week book page. At the bottom of The 4-Hour Work Week book page is a link to one of my Listmania! lists or So You’d Like to … guides. The potential book buyer clicks on the link to my Listmania! list, sees my book on the list and thinks, “that sounds like an interesting title,” and clicks the link back to my book page.

In my mind I think, “They are caught in my spider web!” Now that they are on my book page, they are trapped. They will see my glowing book reviews, read the promotional content that I’ve added to the “Editorial Reviews” section, and dive into the “Inside Book” feature. They won’t be able to escape my web without at least being sorely tempted to buy my book.

Cast a Wide Net

As I briefly mentioned earlier, my book, as your book may very well too, has appeal across a wide variety of categories. I compose Listmania! lists of books and So You’d Like to … guides on topics that are not directly related to real estate, in order to appeal to those distantly related book readers and sister categories. And, of course, I always include my book near the top of the list. For each book you list, you can include a paragraph about the book. In this case, I include a paragraph that explains why my book belongs on that list. For example, on a “spiritual” list, I’ll mention my book chapter on “Zen and the Art of Home Repair.”

Below is a list of categories directly related to my first book, and a list of more distantly related categories.

Related categories:

Real estate

            buying & selling homes
            home repairs

            investments

            mortgages

            sales

Business & investing

            investing

            personal finance

            small business & entrepreneurship

            women & business skills

           

Distantly related categories or categories that I want to market to:

Philosophy

            ethics and morality

Health, mind & body

            mental health

            happiness

            self help

            spiritual

            motivational

            success

Religion & spirituality

            personal transformation

            New Age

            new thought

You can see how with a little brainstorming, you can exponentially expand your reach to a vast array of readers of related topics, and introduce your book to them.

Coming Soon . . . Hitch Your Wagon to a Best Selling Star - Amazon Tips  - Part 4

How I Got Started In Fixer-Upper Houses

Top (Secret) Book Marketing Tips on Amazon - Part 2

"Opportunity won't find you. You have to go and find it."

This is Part II of my secret techniques on how to promote and sell your book on Amazon. The key is to make it easy people to find your book. The more things you do on Amazon, the more you increase your footprint, and the easier it is for customers to find you and your book.

Write Book Reviews

 An  unbeatable way to help people to find your book is to write book reviews of other books that are in your area of expertise. Make sure that your reviews are insightful, well written, and makes you look like a thoughtful and knowledgeable expert in your field. Don’t write negative reviews of your competitors’ books to make your own book look better. That will only make your review look self-serving. It’s better to be generous in book reviews.

When appropriate, incorporate humor into your review and feel free to recommend other books, within your review, that you feel will be useful to the readers.

To make sure that I generate a well written review, I will write a draft of my review, let it sit for a day or two, and then read through it again and make some modifications before I publish it. By allowing some time for my review to “ripen,” I invariably think of better ways to express myself, or new things to incorporate into the review.

 Look Inside

Look Inside is another Amazon tool that I encourage you to utilize. It gives people a taste of your book by allowing them to click a link and read sections of your book, such as the table of contents, index, back cover, and some of your first chapter. You can sign up for this feature though you Amazon account, then just upload the files that Amazon requests.

Start a New Discussion (of this book)

The Start a new discussion (of this book) feature is another way for you to link your book to a top-selling book. Toward the bottom of each book page is a section that allows you to either start a new discussion, or to leave a comment on an existing discussion. I use this feature to make cogent comments on the book which is being promoted on this page, and then subtly point out how my book would be a useful companion book to go along with it. I don’t look at it as “crowding into their territory.” I look at it as “piggy backing” on their success. Both books probably appeal to the same reader. So, I am only broadening reading opportunities for the reader.

Okay, maybe I am crowding into his territory a little, but if I put it in euphemistic terms, it sounds like I’m doing everybody a favor.

Again, as in writing book reviews, have your comments provide useful information, rather than just doing some bald-faced self-promotion. The former will make readers receptive to your observations, while the latter will turn them away from you and may even result in a backlash. Someone may post a criticism of your comments as being excessively self-promoting.

Excessive self-promotion? Who? Me?

Often you can cover yourself from accusations of self-promotion with a light hearted attitude. For example, you may say something like, “In all modesty, and without crossing the line into shameless self-promotion, I would like to humbly submit that my book is a good companion to this book.”

For me, this is a vastly overlooked marketing tool that Amazon provides. I’d say that 95% of all books have no discussion comments on their book pages. The big sellers will have discussions, but most books won’t. This presents you with the opportunity to be the only voice speaking. Not bad odds for plugging your book. Is there an echo in here?

Coming soon . . .
Watch this space for Part III of my Top (Secret) Book Marketing Tips on Amazon.

Top (Secret) Book Marketing Tips on Amazon - Part 1

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't.
      -- Richard Bach,  Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

      

Writing your book is a great accomplishment. But don't bask in your glory too long because the next step in the process, book promotion, is an equally important process that you must undertake.

It doesn't matter how great your book is, if no one knows that it exists, you won't sell any copies. One of the best ways to promote your book is through Amazon.com.

Capture Your Visitors in an Amazon Spider Web

 One thing that is extremely interesting to take note of with Amazon is that everything you do is connected through various Amazon features, like a spider’s web. You start a discussion group in one place and it appears in the “community” page. You write a book list or a guide and it appears on searches, on book pages, on internet searches, and on community pages. Amazon magnifies exponentially every effort you make to market your book.

The great lesson is to use the tools that Amazon provides, and to use them to their full extent. If you find something that works well, keep doing it over and over.

Get your swimsuit on and prepare to take a dip in the big river. Amazon.com is not only the world’s largest book store, it is also the world's biggest retail store, with over 59 million active customers.

Your Amazon Profile

Amazon gives you a page to describe who you are and what your interests are to people who want to learn more about you. Under my picture, I insert the words, “Investor and Author.”

Everything you put on your Amazon Profile should be used to promote your book. Insert the link to your blog page and your email address in the appropriate spaces. In the “In My Own Words” section, mention any awards your book may have won, and put a strong blurb from one of your book reviews.

People also can view your Listmania! lists, book reviews, and So You’d Like to … guides on your Profile Page.

Your Amazon Book Page

This is where Amazon gives you the biggest opportunity to sell your book to the people who visit your book page. Fill out the “Editorial Review” section as thoroughly as possible. Amazon limits how many words you can use for each individual customer book review. Just pull out the strongest statements from the best book reviews that you have received, and chop it down to make it fit the word limitation. You should also fill in your "From the Author" and "About the Author" sections.

For the "Form the Publisher" section, if you have a strong introduction in your book, I suggest you past that into this section, or as much of it as will fit.

Generate Many Different Listmania! Book Lists

Listmania! lists are, as the name implies, lists of books that you recommend on a certain topic. For example, before my book was published I started generating book lists that were related to real estate investing. My lists included titles such as, “Best Real Estate Books,” Best Books for Investing in Fixer-Uppers,” and “Creating Multiple Perpetual Streams of Income.” In the biographical information I always mentioned that I was author of the forthcoming book Fix ‘em Up, Rent ‘em Out. Then, after my book was published, I added my book to the top, or near the top of all my lists.

Include a lot of books on your Listmania! lists. The list usually pops up on the Amazon book page of every book on the list. That allows everyone who visits the book pages for the other books on your list, to see your list. And, those who click the link to your list will, of course, see your book on the list too.

Fix ‘em Up, Rent ‘em Out could also appeal to people who buy books in other Amazon categories beyond real estate investing. It could be interesting to people searching for books in categories such as “motivation,” self-help,” “women and money,” “spiritual,” and “consciousness.”

So, if I am making a real estate list, I sprinkle in a few titles from some of those other fields. This allows me to reach an audience of buyers of books that are much more popular than mine, and in other categories that may overlap with my own category. People who read books in those categories may consider buying my book too.
I’ll address this topic more thoroughly in a forthecoming blog article.

Each list title also pops up on Google Search when someone types in the same key words. The list not only serves as a billboard for you and your book on Amazon, but on the whole internet as well.

Listmania lists and So You’d Like to … guides (see below) are both found on your book page, just below the Customer Reviews of your book. You can create these guides and lists from your Profile Page.

 So You’d Like to … Guides

This Amazon feature is similar to making a Listmania! book list, but it requires more text in which to teach the reader how to do something. For example, one of my So You’d Like to … guides was “Learn the Zen of Repairing a House.” By no coincidence, that is also the title of one of my book chapters. So with the magic of cutting and pasting, I had a made to order list. The only additional work that I had to do was to attach books from Amazon’s stock that fit in with my topic. Easy as pie.

I think that this feature is a better marketing tool than the Listmania! lists because it is more useful to people. Anybody can make a regular list, but the So You’d Like to … guides call for you to put your brain cells to work, and write something that people will actually want to read. The reward of this additional work that you do is substantial, as you find that more people actually read the So You Like to … guides than they do the Listmania! lists.

Looking at my own Listmania! lists and So you Like to … guides, to date I have 22 lists  and 10 guides. Presently, Amazon isn't showing how many views each list or guide receives. However, when I wrote "Carve Out Your Niche," I had about 7,000 views for my guides (I had 8 guides at the time), and some 5,000 views for my (then 15) lists. That means I averaged about 470 views per list and 625 views per guide.

Not only do I get more “bang for the buck” from the guides (though I’m actually not spending any bucks to do this), but the guides can establish you as an expert in the field. Once potential buyers see that you can offer them helpful information, the next logical step is for them to buy your book.

My most popular guide by far is “So You’d Like to Create Multiple Perpetual Streams of Income.” Naturally, the first stream of income that I list is real estate income, and the first book is my book. From there, I listed some other income streams that came to mind, like write a book, repair a house, fix bikes, and a few others.

After I published this guide, I first started realizing that my guides could transcend one topic area and hit many at once. I noticed that this guide was appearing on book pages across many categories. So I added additional categories, such as stock market investing and using the laws of success which, are some of the most popular book categories on Amazon.

Now my guide could pop up on the book pages of THE most popular books on the planet. And, who wouldn’t want to learn to Create Multiple Perpetual Steams of Income? It has a universal appeal that crosses all categories. And how many people have visited the “Streams of Income” guide?

Out of the 5,000 views I have received for all my guides, this one has received 1,630 hits, or nearly 31% of all views to my guides. That tells me that I have tapped into a “vein of gold,” or a topic that is of interest to people and one that cuts across many book topics. That’s what we’re shooting for!

Watch this space for . . . Top (Secret) Book Marketing Tips on Amazon - Part 2


Why You Must Own Certain Real Estate Books

Inspiring Lessons from Joan Brock's Life

Joan Brock addressing NSA group

The amazing Joan Brock, author of More Than Meets the Eye, gave a presentation to the National Speakers Association Group in Tucson last night.

It was a heart wrenching to hear Joan describe how she dealt with the obstacles of loss of sight, and the death of her husband to cancer. Yet, what is amazing is how she came through it all with an unshakable love of life, and how she now inspires others with her story.

What is HOPE?

Joan talked about using the acronym HOPE when you meet hard times.

H stands for "head." Use your head to think things through carefully. Don't allow yourself to be swallowed up by obstacles.

O stands for "organize." Her life, by necessity, is highly organized. Clothes, food, and everything she needs has to be in the right place. Joan said that when you are blind, you can't just walk in and through the keys down because you'll never find them again.

She raised the question to the audience, "How many people here have written wills or trusts?'. Not many people were that organized.

P stands for "pause." In the National Speakers Association, speakers are taught to pause in their speeches for dramatic effect. In life, when confronted with an obstacle, pause before you respond. Take some time to absorb the change in your life situation, maybe several months, and just pause.

E stands for "encourage." Seek out people who can help you and encourage you. Sources of encouragement come from three places:

1. Friends. The nurse who treated Joan in the hospital when she became blind became one of Joan's best friends in life, and stood beside her though many struggles.
2. Family. Joan mentioned how her family, especially her young daughter Joy, helped her, and became her eyes when she couldn't see. When times are tough,  your family is always there to stand with you.
3.  Her faith in God. Joan's faith in God gave her the strength to carry on in time when she was surrounded by despair.

More Than Meets the Eye  

I read Joan's book before I went to her presentation. In the book, she mentioned that she when she was in the hospital she couldn't sleep at night because she was so depressed.

One night she was listening to the radio and heard a former Vietnam POW was being interviewed. He was an American pilot who had been captured, tortured, and isolated in a Vietnamese prison cell. He managed to avoid going crazy by compiling his autobiography; but only in his mind, since he had no paper and pencil.

Joan maintained her sanity by doing the same thing. She would focus her thinking on her experiences in life,  reliving every minute detail, and it helped her to deal with her stress and depression. Eventually, she would write these memories down, and they became her book.

A Lesson for Writers

I think Joan's experience is a great lesson for us, as writers.

Like Joan, we should allow our obstacles and trying experiences to transform us into better people, and, to use those experiences to inspire and to motivate others.

Joan Brock's Inspiring Life

I recently came across the inspiring story of Joan Brock, who lost her sight as a young mother, then lost her husband four years later, but managed to live a truly inspiring life despite the obstacles.

Joan wrote a book about her life, entitled "More Than Meets the Eye," and now gives motivational speeches.
When life seems too hard, people like Joan Brock help us to regain our perspective. There is a light at the end of long dark tunnels!







Tax tips for real estate investors

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R.L. Stine on How to Get Ideas for Writing Books

R.L. Stine

I attended R.L. Stine's (author of the Goosebumps series) presentation at the Tucson Festival of Books last Saturday.  I used to read his books to my boys at bedtime, and I  enjoyed them as much as my boys did. 

One of the questions that Mr. Stine was asked was, how he does he come up with ideas for books.

He replied was that he came up with the idea for the title Say Cheese and Die while he was walking  his dog. He really liked the title, although he wasn't sure what it meant. He just built a story around the title. He had some kids find a strange camera, and when they took pictures of people, they died. 

For his book The Mask, the story was based on a something that happened to one of his children when they dressed up to go "trick or treating." 

Here is a video of Stine's explanation:

I think the lesson that authors take from R.L. Stine is that we should be ready when inspiration strikes us, and when amazing experiences that pass before our eyes, so that they can pass into our books too. In order to do that, we must be paying attention. 

In order to create, we draw from our inner well

Julia Cameron points out, in The Artist's Way, that we miss opportunities to learn about what's going on around us (like a kid with a mask stuck on his head), and incorporating that into our art, by not paying attention. We can't fill the well of our creativity if we our attention is not focused. 

Many people read a book or a newspaper when riding a crowed bus or train. But, we screen our awareness by putting our attention on reading, instead of the sites and sounds around us. These could all be images for the inner well.

See also:


The Peaceful Warrior and Fixer-Upper Houses

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How to Force Yourself to Write

"I never could have done what I have done without . . . the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time."
-- Charles Dickens

How Charles Dickens Did It

Charles Dickens' books were written in weekly or monthly newspaper installments, and only later were they reprinted as books. The process of writing a new chapter so rapidly literally forced Dickens to write every day. He didn't have the luxury of waiting to be inspired, he had to meet his deadline.

The interesting part is that he was able to produce books that have inspired people for hundreds of years. We might intuitively think that the quality of his work would go do with so little time to write, but obviously that is not the case.

The lesson from Dickens is that if we want to be productive writers, one way is to follow his example and set firm deadlines for when we want, or must, complete a work.

However, since we don't have publishers, or the public, breathing down our neck for the next installment of our work, how do we force ourselves to write?

How We Can Do It

Here are some ideas that have worked for me:

1. Promise someone that you will have a certain amount of text in their hands by an exact date.

2. Reward yourself when you reach certain milestones. Give yourself a trip to see a movie, or an ice cream come, or something else that you really like. When I was writing my first book, I promised myself that I would buy the DVD of the movie Serenity, when I finished my book. When I finished the book I went to the store and bought the DVD.

3. Sign up for something that forces you to write. For my most recent book, I signed up for a book contest in March 2011 that required me to have a copy of my book submitted in 6 months. I got the book in on time, and won an award!

4. Sign up to give a presentation about your book's topic at a specified date.

5. Stop watching television. Save your psychic energy for writing.

6. Stop drinking caffeine, in my case, iced tea. I find when there is no caffeine in my body, my mind works better.

7. Carry a notepad and pen around with you at all times, and at note keep them on the table next to your bed. When you just wake up is when you are in closest contact with your subconscious mind, a deep fount of wisdom. Don't let any ideas slip away because you didn't write them down.

8. Write three handwritten pages each morning, your "morning pages," using only your stream of consciousness. See, Get Struck by a Spiritual Lightning Bolt - The Importance of Writing Everyday.


 Interview of Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) with loooong introduction

 9. Read inspirational books. See, Are You Big Enough to Pay it Forward?

 10. Read books that inspire you to write, such as The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, and The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. See, 3 Reasons Why Authors Must Read "The War of Art."


 Steven Pressfield (The War of Art)

 11. Think about someone who discouraged you from following your dream, or told you that you would never write a book. Walter Bagehot said, "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say that you cannot do."

12. Listen to music that inspires you. I like to listen to Storms in Africa by Enya or Stranger on the Shore.




 For even more suggestions on how to force yourself to write, see:

50 Strategies For Making Yourself Work

The Writer’s Life: Getting in the Mood

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