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Guest Posts

Writing to Market

We think of writing a book as an act of creative inspiration. The muse strikes and we strive to get the story down, get it right, and out to an audience.

If only it was that easy. Writing a good book is challenging. Most successful writers will tell you that selling a good book is even harder. 

On-line bookstores have opened the doors. The market is filled with diverse books from unique voices, offering a cornucopia of great writing to readers. The time has never been better to get your work out.

Getting your book out there requires know-how. While self-publishing authors have boundless opportunities, they undertake the journey alone. Back in traditional publishing days, it was a guided tour, aided by an agent and publisher. Without professionals in your corner, what is a self-publishing author to do? The answer is deceptively simple. The savvy self-publishing author gets informed and uses that knowledge to navigate the strange seas of on-line publishing.

“Writing to market” is a concept self-publishing authors need to understand. What does it mean? Finding out what books readers want to read and focusing on writing those. 

The idea might restrain an author’s freedom. It sounds like focusing on writing books that sell. Writing to market translates to increased sales. But there is more to it than that. 

These are five writing to market realities you need to understand before embarking on your self-publishing journey.

Do Your Homework

Have you been on Amazon lately? 

Do you know what book covers in your genre look like? Do you know how to price a novel? Have you read the book descriptions? This is a baseline of writing to market. You have to know the genre your books are competing in.

If you write science-fiction, you probably read a lot of that genre. The conventions should be familiar. Most authors don’t scrutinize deep enough. Just because you read in a genre doesn’t mean you understand what readers are looking for. Your reading habits can be deceptive. Perhaps you read more classic science-fiction. Perhaps your taste focuses primarily in one sub-genre.

Sampling a range of books in your genre is critical. Don’t rely on your reading habits. Discover the nuanced reading habits of your readers.

It’s About Reaching Readers

Forget sales or a moment. Translate a sale and positive review into what they really mean: signs of a satisfied reader.

I had a hard time understanding this. I believed a sale was the end goal. It’s not though. A sale and a positive review tells you the complete story. It says that the reader liked your cover and description enough to buy it. The review says they were happy. 

Authors need fans. I don’t just mean to boost ego, either. Authors need fans because when you do your job right, they go to bat for you. They like your posts, talk about your books to their friends. 

You want that.

Wait… I stand corrected. You need that

Ignoring Market Signals Leads To Frustration

Jumping into a publishing market that you know little about leads to a cycle of frustration. 

I thought of my first series, The Strange Air, as “paranormal mystery”. I liked to say it was a small town X-Files with a little horror thrown in for good measure.

But as I began marketing, I realized something. While “paranormal” and “mystery” were the accurate descriptions in my head they were ar from what the market thought. I ended up marketing my books with others that were not similar in any way. I promoted mine with books resembling Twilight with covers featuring naughty witches. 

While these are great books, they were nothing like mine. It took me a year (and a gigantic dent in my advertising budget) to figure out two things I could have learned earlier: my genre was limited and I didn’t know what to call it.

Writing To Market Saves Authors Money and Time

Marketing a book is expensive. If an author isn’t careful, they can spend thousands of dollars on the wrong cover, counter-intuitive marketing, and worthless reviews.

Once your book is out, you have crossed the first sea. Congratulations. Now comes the second, more dangerous stretch of water. Selling it. 

In today’s book market, in order to make money you need to spend money. These require investments of time and, of course, capital. Yes, you can sell books without a huge advertising budget. If that’s the case, however, you need a lot of time.

Advertising without knowing your book’s market like throwing darts… blindfolded… on the deck of a ship… in a storm. Your odds of hitting your target are slim.

The savvy self-publisher knows their market. They possess key data like who their readers are, where they gather, and how to give them what they want. 

Translation: they have a shortcut to effective book marketing.

Writing To Market Can Be Easy

Looking back on my first foray into self-publishing, I can see the forest for the trees. Success in any market will be as easy (or as difficult) as you choose to make it.

Spend time in the Kindle Store. Consider a wide range of successful, recently published books that look like yours. Look at what those authors did and emulate it. Yes, it’s OK. Really. Especially when it comes to marketing. Save breaking new ground for the page. Otherwise, do what works.

Read blogs and articles. Network with writers. Keep up with your genre on social media. Readers gather in tribes. They love talking about what they love. Meet them where they are.

Writing is hard enough on its own. Don’t make the business of writing any more frustrating or expensive than necessary. Before writing your book, or perhaps before publishing it, look at the market. Find out what readers want in your genre and be sure your book gives it to them.

Eric Mertz, writer

Erick Mertz is a ghostwriter and editor from Portland, Oregon. You can read more of his thoughts about the craft and business of writing at www.erickmertzwriting.com/. In addition to his role as a professional ghostwriter, he is also an author, self-publishing The Strange Air series of paranormal mysteries, a story world that blends elements of the X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries. When he is not writing, he enjoys a nice cold craft beer and a baseball game, a bit of travel, dungeon crawling with his board game group, and spending quality time with his wife and son.

Categories
Platform and Branding

Nailing Your Metadata: Keywords

Last month we talked about categories. Now we’re going to dig into the other side of the metadata equation: keywords.

Nailing your Keywords

Your keywords are the 7 (on Amazon) particular words/phrases that you’d like your book to come up under if someone searches for them. Most authors make the mistake of picking a few descriptive terms like “bible study” or “romantic comedy”. Unless you’re a NYT Bestseller, it’s unlikely that you’ll rank first on this page of results.

Alternatively, some people pick keywords that no one is interested in or actually typing in. If you are trying to rank in ultra-competitive keywords, you’re in shark-invested waters without a float. If no one is searching for the keywords you’re using, you’re in the desert.  So what’s the key? Picking keywords that are being searched for often, but don’t have much competition. There is a fine line, and it’s a tightrope to balance.

 There’s a statistic that says if your book ranks first overall for a search term, there is a 27% chance a shopper will click on your book. If your book is the second result, that number drops to 12%. The odds of someone clicking on your book if it ranks on the second page are only 7% (for all 10-15 results on the page).

So, you want to be on that first page, and you want to be that first result if possible. But you also want to make sure there are people actually interested in that keyword.

Your job is to research various terms related to your book and analyze the market for it. You need to break down the monthly traffic volume for each possible term, and then look at how fierce the competition is based on the highest-ranking titles’ sales rank. With these numbers in mind, you can choose the 7 most effective keywords to keep your book visible to the right audience.

Pro Tip: How do you analyze the traffic of each term? Well that’s a good question. I use a tool called KDP Rocket to analyze traffic data for all of my clients. It digs into the Amazon numbers to tell you just how often (per month) a term is being searched for, and how competitive that term is. You might be surprised by the results. This is the best tool I’ve found to help with keyword research.

Putting It All Together

Optimizing your metadata might not become a bestseller overnight. It doesn’t have the kind of immediate effect that ad campaigns or discount promotions have. But what it does give you is a competitive advantage and the ability to maintain long-term success from the short-term sales strategies. By updating your categories and keywords, you instantly become more discoverable to target readers, and that is always a good thing.

Vincent B. Davis II is an author, entrepreneur, speaker, and soldier. His first novel The Man with Two Names was published in July 2017 and has since become an Amazon International Best Seller. He is passionate about helping authors improve their brand and platform. He works with publishing companies and individual clients to help them sell more books in the modern publishing environment. Vincent is also the Senior Editor for blueridgeconference.com. If you are interested in contributing a blog for the site, or have any other queries, you can reach him at Vincent@thirteenthpress.com

Categories
Book Proposals

The Why Behind a Book Proposal

No, agents and editors are not sadists. We do not ask you to write an extensive book proposal to torture you; although many say writing a book proposal is harder than writing their book. We ask you for a proposal to help us evaluate three things.

Categories
Platform and Branding

Nailing Your Metadata: Categories

What is Metadata?

Metadata is the information you give to Amazon (or other distributors) that instructs them on where your book should be located, and to whom it should be shown. Most readers will never know what your metadata entails, and just as few will care about it. Amazon’s algorithms, however, care about it deeply. If your metadata (namely, categories and keywords) aren’t correct and optimized, Amazon will not help readers find your book, and therefore it will drift into obscurity and be undiscoverable.

By adding the proper keywords and categories for your book, you help Amazon’s algorithms guide your target readers right to your book. If you have these elements in place, your book will be much more visible to shoppers, and you’ll begin to see an increase in sales.

Keywords and categories are very simple once you understand them, but they can be a bit more complex than most authors think. Let’s dig in to categories:

Nailing Your Category

Your category is not the same as your genre. They can be one in the same, but categories can also be much more complex.

For instance, I personally write in the genre of historical fiction. As far as I know, it’s the only genre my book fits in. However one of my categories looks like this: kindle ebooks -> literature and fiction -> historical fiction -> Italian. The other looks like this: kindle ebooks -> history -> ancient civilization -> Rome.

Whereas my chances of ranking high in the historical fiction category is very  improbable without a huge marketing budget and a well-established platform, I almost always rank within the top 20 of my first category, and top 10 of my second.

Why is that important?

Because people looking through the bestsellers list will see my book at the top of those charts.

It’s all about visibility. Allowing Amazon to do a little bit of visibility marketing for you can lead to a lot of book sales in the long run.

If I had stopped with the most obviously categories, such as historical fiction or historical thriller, I likely wouldn’t have that added visibility by being at the top of my category charts.

Your job as the author is to research your genre to figure out the most optimal categories for your book to be listed in. You do this by analyzing the competition and it’s difficulty, while also testing how popular the category is.

Through the KDP platform, you can select up to two categories for your book to be listed in. Your goal with each should be a book that your book can easily rank within the top 100 in (the bestsellers list for each category shows the top 100). After that box is checked, you want to find categories that you can confidently make a push into the top 20 (the first page of a bestsellers list shows the top 20). At last, if possible, it’s always good to shoot for a category that you have the ability to rank #1 in. You might not be able to stay there very long, but it is nice to know that if you focus your efforts and spend a little bit on marketing, you can make a push for #1.

If you do, you’ll end up with a nifty little status like this:

Bestseller in America

Bestseller in Canada!

Bestseller in Australia! Have you ever wanted to be an “international best seller”?

 How do you do this, one might ask? Well, it’s fairly simple. You need to spend a lot of time yourself digging into the many niche categories on Amazon to find one that your book can accurately fit into. Next, you’ll need to look at the ASBR (average best seller rank) of the #1, #20, and #100 book in that category. Once you have that number, head over to the KDP Calculator, and type those numbers in to see how many books per day that title is selling. If you feel confident in being able to sell that many books per day so that you can place within the top 100, top 20, or have a shot at number 1, than it is the category for you.

Pro Tip #1: If there is a category you find on Amazon that you cannot find within the KDP dashboard to add your book to, you can always email KDP support and ask them to add your book to a particular category. All you need to do is provide the book title, the ASIN number and the FULL category chain, and KDP will do the rest.

Pro Tip #2: If all of this sounds tedious to you, or your want to ensure you have the most accurate data, you can purchase the KDP Rocket software, which distills all of this information in a quick and easily digestible way. I use it personally for all of my clients, and for myself. I can’t recommend it enough, and it will make your category searches much more efficient.

Vincent B. Davis II is an author, entrepreneur, speaker, and soldier. His first novel The Man with Two Names was published in July 2017 and has since become an Amazon International Best Seller. He is passionate about helping authors improve their brand and platform. He works with publishing companies and individual clients to help them sell more books in the modern publishing environment. Vincent is also the Senior Editor for blueridgeconference.com. If you are interested in contributing a blog for the site, or have any other queries, you can reach him at Vincent@thirteenthpress.com

Categories
The Picky Pen

How to Think Like an Editor

Writing is a funny art, isn’t it? Agents and editors (freelance and publishing house) tell us to write, write, write . . . and also make sure that our manuscript is edited well. “Edited well?” But what if we don’t like the word editing because it’s too daunting? What if our minds turn to jelly or we seize up when an agent or mentor tells us to edit our manuscript?

Well. Editing may seem daunting and scary and intimidating, but it’s really just one piece of the writing process. Editing doesn’t have to be so intimidating. Every writer should have an editor, but before sending a manuscript to a personal freelance editor or mentor (or even critique group), we need to make sure that the manuscript is fluid. Simply put, editing is just going through a more detailed process to make sure our manuscript is ready for the public eye. So . . . how do we think like an editor when we aren’t one? I’ll give you some quick tips for thinking like an editor. Ready?

Three Rules for Thinking Like an Editor

1. Am I a one-book author?

Now this is a scary question because agents especially want to ensure that the author seeking representation has more than one story or book idea. If you only have one story idea now and you are finding it hard to come up with another one, please don’t panic.

That’s what your critique group or mentor or friend(s) is for. That’s why you see questions on social media, “Would you read a book about flying saucers in the Carribean?” The author is trying to get feedback on their idea. If you aren’t an idea person (but rather someone who runs with an idea after it’s been fleshed out), you may want to sign up for coaching sessions or find a friend who will listen to your idea strain and then ask you questions about it to get you thinking.

If you have a handful of exceptional one-sentence hooks, that’s a good indication to an editor that you’re not a one-book author.

2. Will my book sell?

Another big question, but an important one. As the author, you will have done your research on other books in the market in the past year that are similar to yours in subject, theme, timeline, and content. If you find many like yours, that’s good. It only means that your idea is being published. Now the trick is to make sure that your hook is ear-grabbing enough to catch an agent’s or editor’s attention. Hooks like “A woman struggles to sell her house but can’t because there’s a hippie living in her basement who refuses to move out” might work. Doesn’t that raise all kinds of questions?

On the other hand, if you can’t find a book like yours out on the market, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it may mean that your book isn’t ready for publication quite yet, or that your genre or subject is too narrow. That said, consider broadening your subject focus or story question. And keep writing!

3. Will I work with an agent or editor to meet deadlines, manuscript edits, and other details?

While the other two questions were super important, this one probably outranks them. Why? Because agents and editors crave for authors who are easy to work with and who aren’t afraid to make necessary changes for the book’s best interest for the needs of the readers. I am not saying you should make every single change that an agent or editor want you to make, for you know where your book stands as far as its core message, and there will be things you will not want to change. However, you can graciously explain why a change cannot be made but keep an open mind in case the suggested change is a good change. A good change will enrich your story, grow you as a writer, and really wow your readers.

If an author can meet deadlines, make clear edits, work with the publisher’s marketing team, and do their part in getting the book into readers’ hands, then that’s the author an agent or editor wants to work with. That’s exactly what thinking like an editor is all about, and chances are, you’ll never be without a writing project or a published book available on your favorite bookstore shelf.

Next month, I’ll share some more tips on how to think like an editor.

But for now, please join in the discussion! I’d love to hear from you!

Take a few minutes and ruminate. What are some other ways you can think like an editor?

About Tisha Martin

Tisha Martin is a writer and editor, and she lives to encourage authors and editors to bridge their relationships and work together for the publishing industry cause, where readers will treasure books for always. With a bachelor’s in Professional Writing, a master’s in English Education, and an editing certificate from the PEN Institute, she has equal passions for writing and editing. Active in ACFW and The PEN, she appreciates both communities. She is the former Assistant Director of PENCON, a conference for editors, where she was instrumental in seeing attendee growth in 2018, up 150% from 2017. She’s also a contest judge for Writer’s Digest. Connect with Tisha on her website www.tishamartin.com and on social media. She looks forward to the conversation!