After months, maybe years of work - editing, cover design etc. you have a shiny book, all ready to publish.
After carefully considering whether you should try to go with a traditional publisher or indie, I'm presuming you've chosen the indie path.
Amazon still have the market share of ebooks, so you will probably want to at least publish there. There's a whole other post on Kindle Unlimited vs Wide btw. But either way, you will be faced with these options:
This is actually a complex question and needs careful consideration. Have you even decided which sub-genre your book is in? Time to do that now if you haven't.
You want to give your book its best chance of being seen. And some categories are bigger than others.
This is the first way Publisher Rocket can help. That link takes you to a very helpful, in-depth article. But basically, there's a 'category finder' tool within Publisher Rocket which will help you discover which categories are best for your book.
Top tip: Once you've chosen your best categories and set up your book in KDP, you can add up to TEN categories if you email KDP Support (via the help on their site).
And then there's the KDP keywords to choose. Phew, this can all get a bit confusing and a little overwhelming.
These keywords will help when readers search for books - we want your books to show up in searches, right? Right.
So, back to Rocket we go, and research Keywords using that tool. Another helpful link right there.
So, that's probably enough to get your book 'live' on the Amazon site. And it'll probably help if you publish on other sites such as Draft2Digital (which push your book out to all other platforms). They actually can put your book on Amazon too, but I personally keep mine separate so I can access the advertising features on Amazon.
Ah, advertising!
I'm very sorry to say, that your book won't be magickally discovered my millions of readers just because it exists.
Once that publish button has been pressed (if not before), the marketing starts! Now, you don't need to panic over this at all. Take your time. It's all a learning curve.
I've already written a blog post on your marketing options and how to go about it even if you're an introvert (which most authors seem to be btw).
One of the most effective advertising methods I've discovered is AMS adverts - Amazon Marketing Services.
The bonus there is that you're putting your book in front of people already on the Amazon website who are literally searching for books. In the above-mentioned blog post, there's links to two very good courses (one run by Dave Chesson, the creator of Rocket btw). It's really worth doing your homework on AMS ads - there's a lot to learn to make them both effective AND profitable.
Like I said, you don't have to do everything all at once. Breathe.
But, when you're ready, and you've done one or both of those courses, then you'll want to find AMS Keywords (different from the KDP ones). Yes, I know, nothing's ever simple, but this is the system we have, so we just have to learn how to use it. (*sending you an Internet Hug*)
OK, these are the ad keywords. The ones that will pop your books up more because you're paying to advertise your book. Have you ever searched Amazon and seen a 'sponsored product'? This is what you're creating with AMS ads. This is how you get there.
It's a highly competitive market - there's millions of books and many authors and publishers all trying to get their book/s noticed.
Again, Publisher Rocket can help you find the most competitive and best keywords to use in your ads.
AND there's now a UK option in Publisher Rocket! Click on the flag in the top right to choose the country you're advertising in. The US is the largest market, but more and more are using other Amazon sites to advertise on. This actually involves setting up advertising console accounts on each of those sites too, but once you've done it the first time it gets easier.
I'm honoured to say I helped with that (in a very small way). I was one of the beta testers for their UK section.
DO keep a spreadsheet, so you can track your spend and royalty income - keep track of where and what you're doing.
So, if you think it sounds like a useful tool, and there's no pressure to, but if you do, then you can download Publisher Rocket here. At the moment, it costs $97 as a one-off fee. I do like to point you to free stuff normally - the publishing world costs money and we like to make savings. But I personally feel this one's worth paying a bit of money for - a lot of work goes into it, especially when Amazon make page changes and they have to adapt.
Always in love and light,
TL
(post includes affiliate links)
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