SNM118: How to Improve a Book Listing

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how to improve a book listing on today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by ECM Rush started in 2008 with one mission to make online competition fair and transparent, with equal opportunities for all. To find out how SCM Rush can help you compete with the big boys. Go to serve no master dot com Backslash ECM rush today. Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. Sometimes people find me after they've had a book out for a few years, and it's living in basically the middle of nowhere. The book is selling a copy a year copy every couple of months, and we don't really think of a book as an asset. If it's making us less than a dollar a year, we find more change in the couch that we make from Amazon. And when you're in that situation and you're thinking my book is tanked, there's nothing I can do. You're wrong. You book can be saved and turned around recently, actually somewhat. I worked with, approached me and said, Well, I have this old book We help me out and sew It motivated me to put together this lesson, but together today's episode some of these things are things we talked about before. But it certainly bears repeating, kind of dialing it into the message stays strong. And these exact things I did that took his book from basically being a corpse digital corpse into something that's actually doing pretty well. Now it's now it's a round number three and forced category will hit number one, probably in a couple of days, and he's doing some really simple steps. He's not putting money into the book. He's just putting a little shattered into the book. So one of the first things you could d'oh! And they've got about seven of these. He changes that you can make to improve your book listing, So let me take you through all of them. But the 1st 1 is changing the cover, and I find that this isn't actually a critical step. It really makes a difference. I've had to change the covers on a few 1,000,000 books before. What happens when you change the cover is really magical. Most people on Amazon they're searching around. They see your book cover isn't a clicker, don't quick. So if your sales a really low, that means nobody's clicking. So people's only knowledge of your book is the title on the cover, and they don't remember the title very well. Because a lot of books have the state title. There are dozens of books with really similar titles. In fact, if you, Stephen Search serve No master, I think there's a couple of other books that have similar type titles that come up. I don't think there's an exact match for that title, but a lot of other books have similar titles. You know about Don't serve that master. No serving a master. I think there's a lot of romance books now that I think about. I'm gonna remember the listening to start when I checked it. There's no fortune. There's no exact match. Is in the same niches, mate. But if you have a book on potty training, how many different ways can you say that or a book on Get more sleep or get more yoga? But titles are on very similar. So if you change the cover and people have only ever seen the cover for not the listing, it really becomes a brand new book to people they go. I haven't seen that one before. And as we've talked about again and again and again, the cover determines whether people click. So changing the cover can immediately turn your book into selling once a month or so in twice a month, it will nearly double your sales because it will increase your number of clicks, and that's the first step. I always recommend it, even if you are in love with your cover. This is a way to kind of get a fresh start, and I find that most people kind of make a couple of key mistakes with covers. The biggest one is that it's hard to read when it's small. So when you're redesigning your cover the first at this, make sure it can be read when the size of a postage stamp. I'm bye. Well, actually, I 99% of the books I read. Now I get through Canada LTD. So when I choose and Kim Unlimited download the covers everything, because I do it through my Kindle I do to my device. So the covers in black and white and small and all I can see when I'm scrolling through are the cover and the name. Now for a lot of covers that covered a waste because I can't tell what's happening. Probably at least half of the covers. Now I have pretty much exclusively really SciFi and a little bit of dancing. And even though I almost exclusively write non fiction, I don't read nonfiction very often. I guess it's just a matter of my entertainment being different from my work. But when I'm scrolling through so often, I looked at the cover and I can't tell what's happening and for me on the cover, I look for one of two things for science fiction book. What I want to see on the cover really is a Space Marine. I want to see a person in that looks kind of like a robot on a planet shooting laser. As soon as I see that I go, I'm gonna read this. Lately there've been a couple of books that have that on the cover that are really about space brains. But I so grab because I cover works on me. Otherwise, I look for something that shows like a spaceship shooting a laser in front of a planet. Those are the two things that work out for me. It's a very simple formula that makes me no okay, that's what this is about. It tells me future space and combat those things I'd like to read about. I don't read every sub genre of science fiction. I don't really enjoy classic 19 fifties style science fiction Ray Bradbury era. I've read a couple of those books. I'm just different baseball that those books usually had heavy morals in the story, like there was always a really strong, heavy message, and there's nothing wrong with that. It just doesn't appeal to me very much. One of my friends on Lee likes basically pre 1980 science fiction, which is a different style of story, and that's absolutely fine. But the cover tells me what type of book I'm looking at so in the book is not the right kind of cover. I often skip over it, changing the cover, making it readable in black and white and small will get you a larger audience because people will then know your books about a lot of people. Don't click on your book because he can't figure out what it's about. You also want to be sure your name is readable. A lot of people there go. My name is not that important, but it ISS the name of the author often determines. If I read a book, sometimes I see a book, and if I see the author's name is two initials in the last name, I go. It's probably a ghost writer, lower quality book, and it almost always is. It almost always is. That's why my pen names have a first and last name because I don't trust. There's no reason now for a person not to use a real first or last name. No, I understand. Back in the day, there were authors who wanted high their gender behind their initials. That's 150 years ago. Nowadays, you could just use a pen name It's no problem. These little things add up. So I like to see the author's name and also, once someone likes it. Also, they want to read more and more of your books. So changing the cover, making it readable, making a pot, making it different colors. All the things we talked about great and great covers. That's a great way to bring little new life into your book. That's what act you can do that costs $5 we'll immediately change the trajectory of your book. Second step is to add formats. Lot of the books I see that are in purgatory or worse, they're able. Call me. I want to talk to someone About that they go, Oh, it seems really hard to turn a new paperback book. You can hire someone on fiber for five or $10 before my yearbook to paperback. Worst case scenario. You can't do yourself. You can't figure out a copy and paste in the word. You could spend five or $10. You sell one or two copies of your book. You cover those costs. Soon as you have a paperback version, your sales increased by about 40%. That's my experience when I've done that before people see a buckle. Migo. Not a real book, not a real author. Independent author. Probably not a good book. It's another flag similar to the two initials one. But if you have a paperback first and give you a little more credit, if you have the audio book version as well and that you had to do this over and over again in previous episodes, if you have the three versions, you start to look like a real book. When you have the three versions, you'll start selling copies of all three versions, but you'll also increase your Kindle sales. But people see Kindle paperback audiobook. They buy more of the Kindle version. It all ties together. The others book is more real and more likely to buy it. And that's a good thing. The next step you can take is to change the description. In fact, I just rewrote the entire serve no master description last week for my prime book. But you know what? A lot of people have already seen this description, so the people who respond description of seen it. Let's put in a new descriptions of now a new batch of people who see my book If you change your cover and your description of basic have an entirely new book. That's all it takes to give people a brand new 100% new experience, though Now look at your book and go. This is something I've never seen before because, first of all, people of color dog like You had clicked on. The other book will click on thinking it's a new book when every description, if it's the same description before they go. I've seen this. It was a new description. Get a brand new lease on life changing description. Tightening up the messaging to really connect with your audience is critical. Having a really good, really Chris message, I find this is a very common error for people who approach me and say, I have an older book Has problems, eh? I didn't realize how important description Waas. It's never that they did anything intentional. Simply, they didn't know how critical that step is. And they have like three or four sentences or two paragraphs describing the book when really what you want is to Max out the word count that Amazon I'll give you and follow a formula we have headline. You have bullet points. You have benefits to the reader. Why? The book is awesome. All those things are really important to end with called action. Hey, this book is also click at a cart right now You're gonna love it, So rewrite your description. You don't have to be a copy. Ready, Master, I'm not a cop. Ready, Master, I have worked my way up to where I'm a paid copyright on tier two. I'm not tear one. I'll probably hit to your one in about a year if I continue to take lots of lots of copy writing job because I want to master the craft. But even so, each time I get a little better, if you do my descriptions, we can find a really good book in your category and use their with a great description. Go. I'm gonna model this and that's how I've always done it. I've just found better and better models as I've improved my book as have improved my cop earning skills by sales. So take the time to rewrite your description, even takes you a couple of hours. It's okay. It's a long term investment. I only changed my descriptions every three months or so. You can do it less frequently. If you have less time once a year, it's fine. Three months is the most frequently should really need to do it. That's really just going back and tweaking going. You know what? I've changed some things about the book or my opinion. Let me tweak it. Let me add a new reviews. These little steps will keep your book fresh, keep it in motion. More people notice it because that when the listing changes, the book gets a little traction. Once you've got that new description, you absolutely need to create HTML version of description. Now I'm making a piece of software to specifically address this problem in. It's gonna be free. It's a free little tool that I'm gonna put on my new website, and I'll post the link below this video because I haven't finished the tour. I've been going back and forth with the designer for the past week, and hopefully by the time you get this episode in the time it takes to add and release this episode, I'll have finished editing and customizing my software, but it's gonna be on my other website. It's gonna be on my Kindle sniper website, my book tool. So that will be the main to rule on that website to help people with Kendall. And it's gonna help you to write in comfort your description in HTML. I use the tool on Friday to write the new description of Serving Master. And so I kind of found as you do a couple of small problems, and I'm just tweaking those once they're complete once they're perfected, then I'll release the tool, a post the link below. I'm really excited about that tool making my own. I've been using some other tools out there. They're OK, but this is going even better because with my tool, you type in your description and will actually show you what your page will look like. You click a button and say, Preview me and I'll show you your book. Cover your book title and how the description actually look in Sit two. How will look when it's inside of Amazon, and that's a very valuable piece of Intel. Having HTML description will make your description pop. It will increase your conversions and it will get you more sales. That simple is that having words and one stage development having words that are bold, it having words look like headlines having words that are underlined, having words and italics having words that are actual bullet points, this little dots, all those little things really add up. Very valuable little steps, and they're great with it. Jazz up and prettify your listing. So five days to get more reviews, you can always get more reviews. You can always send up more free copies you could always use have so many previous episode, Do you listen? The older episode about getting podcast refuse but are getting more book reviews. You have fresher book reviews, the better. So always send, offering free copies to Facebook groups. Always be offering free copies on Twitter. Always been giving away copies to people that are fans of your other books. Whatever you can do to get copies out there into the world, if you email every single person, Amazon offer them a free copy. All of those things are great. Give away copies anyway you can to get reviews Now I know that I do it all the time you give me 100 copies. Sometimes you get five reviews. So what, those five years, they're worth it? Absolutely. As you get more reviews, we do know Step Number six, which is Editorial reviews Amazon. If you log into Author Central after you create your profile and added some pictures, you can go to your book listings pages and gives you more section. Do you ever wonder when you see what's really top of the line books? And it says about the author and has a section that says From the back cover and from the other has 45 extra sections. You go, Wow, this is so pro. How do I get a pro listing? It's not anything pro. It's simply eminent. Author Central. When you log into Author Central, it gives the ability to create your author profile. And if you look at my page, you can see a picture of me. I chose my picture. I wrote descriptions. Links to my vlog and social media presence is haven't connected to my blog's so every podcast episode actually get shown on my author page. All these little things add up your value. You can create a custom link. So if you go to amazon dot com backslash, I think user or author something backslash serve. No master pulls up my profile, and you're you consider to be your often in you create customer It's worth doing. Have a really memorable link Every time I can. I try to capture the name. Serve no master, as much real estate as possible, so that when people Google serve no master Onley. Things that come up are my properties rather than a competitor or a fan or anything. Does anything wrong being a fan? I'm certainly happy when fans follow me, but I certainly don't want to lead to. Something has nothing to do with me. So capturing that real estate is the first step you connected to your blog's gonna put some videos they used to let you connect to YouTube and the chain there are seen in the rules for your Amazon author paid. That's why I don't give a lot of advice about it because the rules have changed so often, used to be able to connect her Twitter feed. Now you can't use We're looking at your YouTube feed. You can't, so I don't know where Amazon is going, it seems like they kind of have a plan. I think they may be doing something integrate with good reads. So it's very good chance to buy time. You hear this episode, or in the future, Amazon will have changed how the author profiles are presented again. But as of right now, you could upload videos directly to the profile. You can't connect it to your blog's RCs feats of just block post. You can upload around about 10 pictures. All that's really worth doing to beef that profile up. And then once you've done that, you then go and you click on your book and you can manage your listing and so you can combine your different addition. Do you say, Hey, this is the paperback version. This is my book, the audiobook for us, and sometimes Amazon will list. Your book is three different books separately, the three different editions you wanna merge them into one. So then you refuse to start to show for all editions. It's a great way to get your Kindle reviews onto the paperback version listing and onto the audio book listing all very, very valuable. And one of the really great things that have a thing called editorial reviews. And most people use this section for, ah, copping a pastry and they get a review from a famous author from The New York Times. Yeah, that's wonderful. If you have those. No, I certainly don't. I'm not that fancy. I don't have reviews from celebrities. Well, you could do is take the best reviews for Amazon reviews and just pull a copy at a sentence. So I'll have a really great sentence. That's a servant Master changed my life. I can't wait to see what life holds for me and then just from Stan Lewis and I just think dash ST Louis. So what you could do is create a section that's just your best reviews, your favorite reviews, and it doesn't let you do whatever you want there. So that's what I do. I don't know things sketching unnecessary. The other thing you can do is if someone leaves a review on a blogger they'll put on Amazon. You can leave a review and then you say the names personally, seeing them in the blogged, which is really cool, these little things you can d'oh to beef up to perspective. If you're listing, and if you have an order listing, you've taken the time to get others reviews, you might as well put them in a really great presentation. What you're doing is here is improving the presentation, aesthetics or everything. When people scroll down, they will say, Oh, well, look, the editor reviews that. Just say, God, this must be a great book. They don't even read him half the time they just see that they're there and it changes how they perceive the book. What we're trying to do with older perception. We want people to perceive your book. That's a professional book published by a real publishing company that has a real reviews. If we can do that, we can move your book out of the fly by night E book Home published Appearance category. People take you more seriously and you'll bring a lot of new life into this old book. Listing. The seven step or a little list of seven is working your author Central Profile. Now I already described all of those things, so I jumped one ahead. So to make up for that, I'm gonna give you a special bonus number eight or number 7.5, if you want to call it that heavy, like to count is to change categories. Once you've made all of these changes, moving your book in a new category is awesome is now. You get a fresh heads every time. Move categories. Amazon gives you a shot. They give you a little bit of friction. That ominous foot wasn't side is a rock category. And this happening before I told you I had a book that was dead something, a copy a month. And now it tells a couple a couple copies today, just cause I finally got into the right category. Amazon allows you to have two categories for every book, two categories for paperback and one category for the audiobook version of your book. So having different editions means you started to appear more, more categories. And when you play things right, sometimes well, you're listing instead of showing your ranking of three categories are sure you're ranking in seven, which is awesome. Take the time thio Check for new categories that relate to your book and jump into them. There's a new category didn't exist before. That's what happened to me the most relevant category Red Book didn't used to exist. It is already existing. I'm Woman book into it, and I got some amazing traction. He's really simple steps, these seven or eight steps, if you will. I feel like I'm urged The author Central and with the editor reviews one. These really gonna help you bring new life into a book when you've done all these things, even though you haven't changed the content of the book, all right, I was anything about that. You don't need to change a single word inside the book. None of that means to change. For this. It will seem like a brand new book. It's now it's in a new category, so different people are seeing, and it's got a different cover of different description. 99.999% of people will assume it's a totally different book. It won't even make the connection with the version. Before the wasn't selling. It is how you turn old, book into a brand new book and get you some amazing results. It can really help you to go to the next level, so just because you made mistakes a year ago, two years ago, five years ago, The book doesn't mean you're stuck. You can now do things to turn everything around, and these are some powerful ways. You can rebuild an old Amazon listing and bring new life into an old book and start getting the sales that you deserve. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe, so you never miss another episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race hit over to serve no master dot com forward slash podcasts Now for your chance to win a free coffee of Jonathan's bestseller, Serve No master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you tomorrow. Thank you for listening to the serve. No master podcast. Email your questions to podcast at serve. No master dot com and your question with my answer might appear in the next episode.