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Niko

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Hi,
My project
I have been working on my first online business for a few months now and my very first product will be a Meditation book in French (currently writing it).

My question:
What method/process would you recommend me to best pre-launch/launch this book?

- What should be the launch price?
- How do I get many positive reviews (even before the actual launch)?
- What should be the final price after the promotion phase?
- For the Kindle version and the printed version?
- What should be the Freebie, if any?
- The emailing sequence to sell?
- Etc.?

To help you make your replis specific to my situation, here is my current status:
  • A few months ago, I set up my blog home page and created a landing page (I have no other content on my blog: zero article as of today) offering to subscribe to my newsletter. Deliberately, I decided to offer no Freebie/Lead Magnet to create a list of highly-motivated persons.
  • In the meantime, I started posting health-related posts on Facebook.
  • As of today, 110 persons have subscribed to my newsletter after reaching my Blog landing page.
  • I also have a Facebook page with 600 subscribers.
  • I have not initiated any emailing to my mailing list yet.
I am waiting for the Meditation book to be fully ready to start promoting on my blogs and through emails.
 
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Niko

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Anyone?

I am sure some guys here have experienced turning self-published (e)books into successes?
 

Niko

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Well, that's why I took the time to describe the context :) Thanks so much for those who can provide insight and concrete tips.
 
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MTF

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I don't know the French market or how popular Amazon is in France, but perhaps you'll find it helpful.

- What should be the launch price?

I always start with $0.99 to get some momentum. After a week or two, increase the price to the target price which is usually about $2.99-$4.99 for self-published books. This is the e-book price; you don't have as much flexibility with physical copies.

- How do I get many positive reviews (even before the actual launch)?

Send early review copies to your list and any other followers you have. Keep in mind that usually no more than 20-40% of people will eventually leave a review, so if you have 50 early reviewers, you probably won't get more than 10-20 reviews.

- What should be the final price after the promotion phase?

As mentioned above, between $2.99-$4.99 is the sweet spot. I tested higher prices but they don't work that well.

- For the Kindle version and the printed version?

Kindle as above, printed depends on your printing costs. I usually make about $5-6 per physical copy. People who buy physical copies are a little bit more price elastic because the prices are higher to start with (for example, the difference between $17.99 and $22.99 is 28%, the difference between $3.99 and $7.99 is 100%).

- What should be the Freebie, if any?

If you want to build your list and continue publishing new books, offer a solid freebie like another book (initially it can be short, eventually I'd offer a full-length book).

- The emailing sequence to sell?

Don't have any good tips here. I usually send a few emails during the launch week (offering some incentives like a giveaway for buyers) and that's it.
 

Niko

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Send early review copies to your list and any other followers you have. Keep in mind that usually no more than 20-40% of people will eventually leave a review, so if you have 50 early reviewers, you probably won't get more than 10-20 reviews.

Sorry to ask but since Amazon has put in place their systems of Verified Purchase a few years ago, how can you have people of your list place Verified reviews for you on Amazon?
 

Raoul Duke

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spraybottle

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Hey great job doing the initial steps besides just writing the book to build a brand and following. What you want to do is about 1 week before the launch date, start warming up your list on all channels. Let them know you have a book coming out, let them know exactly how it helps their issues and how it's going to benefit their lives, and give them sneak peeks or excerpts. From there, when the listing is live on Amazon, you want to blast that Amazon listing out to everyone. You're right about discounts and verified reviews. I wouldn't do a larger discount than 20% off list price. Also run it in tandem with your sponsored ad campaigns.

In the mean time, make sure you know all the main keywords you want to rank for as well as all the long tail keywords as well and layer them in your description. Take a look at your competitors who are currently ranking organically for those main keywords and make sure that your listing is better than theirs. The cover art is a part of this equation so make sure that's on point (and make sure you take a look at your listing on mobile because most people are shopping on the phone. You'd be surprised how some of your images depending on resolution and DPI look funny on phones).

It's hard to track conversion rate because that platform i believe doesn't tell you unit session percentage so just use common sense and make sure you're listing is spot on and better than your competitors.

Get a keyword rank tracker and plug in all your keywords into it. You want to monitor these and make sure that the keywords are all moving up.

Run your sponsored ads and go on the caution of more than less with sponsored ads. This will give you valuable insight and data into what converts for your listing, and which ones bring you the best ACOS for you to run a second manual campaign for those keywords. CPC for books should generally be <$1.00 and i doubt you have much of a budget for advertising and margins to work past $1.25 but run the numbers.

Your main goals are: reviews, sales, and ranking for the first page for your main keywords and long tail keywords. If you have even a few reviews by that point, you should see a spike in sales and be well on your way to a successful product.

A bunch of other things you can do from this point on but you should mainly focus on what's going to drive 80% of your sales which is getting found on Amazon one way or another when people type in your related keywords and converting them into a buyer. You could also have a follow up email sequence that encourages people to drop a review as well.

Edit: well I probably should have asked if this is going to be a physical book or if it's an ebook.. but hope you got some insight
 

MTF

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Sorry to ask but since Amazon has put in place their systems of Verified Purchase a few years ago, how can you have people of your list place Verified reviews for you on Amazon?

They won't be verified reviews. When people borrow books via Kindle Unlimited their reviews show up as unverified, too.
 

sparechange

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MJ did barely any marketing for his book. Why? Cause its the best book on business, I bought Unscripted and told my friend about it then he bought 2 copies. Multiple sales from just me finding out about this forum hearing tons of people talking about it.

Word of mouth + having a good book is the best way.

Ive never seen an AD for TMF or Unscripted , infact I don't even like reading much yet easily went through both books.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTveImPn0WE


There ya go
 
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Niko

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Wow, what an answer!

A THOUSAND THANKS!

This is close to perfection. Close, not because of you, but because of me.
Because of my complete lack of knowledge on how to get referenced well on Amazon. Could you please point out to a tutorial or ebooks training me on Amazon SEO, on what really works and will give me the knowledge I miss to actually implement the plan you suggest?


Hey great job doing the initial steps besides just writing the book to build a brand and following.
It's been killing all free time, including my nights, week-ends and holidays for close to 2 years. I hope to get the book ready in the coming 2 to 3 months. The challenge is not to expedite and sacrifice it to gain a few weeks when you reach the end of the writing process. I also won't have a budget to have an editor review it (in French). Too expensive for me at that stage, especially if it happens I make a flop in the end... I will go incremental and ask afford myself an editor if it becomes a best-seller - LOL. (I know, it should be the other way around)

You're right about discounts and verified reviews. I wouldn't do a larger discount than 20% off list price. Also run it in tandem with your sponsored ad campaigns.
- Why is that about that 20% discount?
- Sponsored ad campaigns: You mean on Amazon? Not on Google AdSense or Facebook, right?
If so, please know that I know NOTHING about that, as explained at the beginning of this message. No clue also about the budget it represents and the method to use to make sure my book royalties cover the costs or running the ad campaigns.
Not sure also on how to create a successful ad campaign and not throwing my D's thru the window.

In the mean time, make sure you know all the main keywords you want to rank for as well as all the long tail keywords as well and layer them in your description. Take a look at your competitors who are currently ranking organically for those main keywords and make sure that your listing is better than theirs.
Same question here: What method should I follow to identify the keywords?

The cover art is a part of this equation so make sure that's on point (and make sure you take a look at your listing on mobile because most people are shopping on the phone. You'd be surprised how some of your images depending on resolution and DPI look funny on phones)..
I can say 200% I have a good eye for design, so I will know it what the freelancer I am going to hire to design the cover is shit or looks professional. On the downside, I have a talent to think like an outlier and like underground type of styles. Not sure if my English words are correct here. Basically I have a natural tendency to like non-mainstream, unusual style and aesthetics. That's one big wonder I have about the possibility for both my book (which will be VERY different from what already exist) can find a market or not. For the same reasons, I am not sure I am the most appropriate person to choose the best cover. I think I will rely on my freelancer's advice.


make sure you're listing is spot on and better than your competitors.
How do I do that?

Get a keyword rank tracker and plug in all your keywords into it. You want to monitor these and make sure that the keywords are all moving up.
You mean a keyword rank tracker specifically for Amazon? Or for the net? Example please?

Run your sponsored ads and go on the caution of more than less with sponsored ads. This will give you valuable insight and data into what converts for your listing, and which ones bring you the best ACOS for you to run a second manual campaign for those keywords. CPC for books should generally be <$1.00 and i doubt you have much of a budget for advertising and margins to work past $1.25 but run the numbers.
I am lost here :) Would need a concrete example...

You could also have a follow up email sequence that encourages people to drop a review as well.t
This is in my plan indeed. I am just wondering if there is the secret sauce to convert as many people as possible into taking the time to write a review. May be in offering them a gift... ? What and how are other questions...

Edit: well I probably should have asked if this is going to be a physical book or if it's an ebook.. but hope you got some insight

Both. I am targeting around 150 pages in 6 x 9 format.
Why is that? Do you see other marketing and sales opportunities?
I will go with CreateSpace but I also know about the traditional technique of offering the printed book for FREE on your own web site and making the customers compensate for the Handling & Shipping Fees. Not sure there is much money to make here since the margins will be really tight and the process might be cumbersome between finding a printer and shipping each books to each customer. But I understand this may be a good option to build your list when running ads on Facebook.
 

spraybottle

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Hmm... so I responded to this late last night so I didn't fully read all the details. Now that I have I do have a few concerns. I can help answer these and guide you in the right direction. However, I'm worried I might be throwing you down a rabbit hole with Amazon because I don't think Amazon is very large in France. So even if things are set up well on that platform, you might spend all this money and time only to find out it doesn't generate much income for you at all. In fact, your time is probably better spent building your own email list and marketing to them.

It sounds to me like you still have ~2 months before things are patched up with the book. I would continue to build your audience on your current channels and try and establish yourself/brand as an authority in your space. Release some awesome posts/content and keep directing traffic to your email list. Build that up, and when your product is live on Amazon, then send them to that space to purchase. All the other tweaks I mentioned about with Amazon probably won't provide you big results. If you sell well on amazon, you will rank for most of the keywords even without REALLY optimizing it in the simple fact there won't be as much competition. Plus, these tweaks are things you can do after it's launched on Amazon.

So let's get back to square one and let me give you some actionable advice you can do while finishing your book and some future steps:

1. Build your email list. - Keep posting awesome content and keep building your following and collect emails.
2. 1 week before launch warm your audience with the stuff I mentioned earlier.
3. Finish the book and launch on Amazon.
4. Send out the email with the launch and direct them to buy on Amazon.
5. Start thinking about other viable products in this niche. Start engaging with your groups and ask them what their pain points are. What they struggle with in life, and what they're looking for help with.
6. Craft your next product/service around that pain point and make it awesome.
7. Keep building your brand/audience/email list.
8 Rinse and repeat with the new product.
9. Eventually, try and build and land higher ticket products/services. IE: 1:1 coaching, group coaching, a program/course that helps them solve their pain points that keeps them up at night, etc.

This is how I would approach this.
 

Niko

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Thanks again. Take no offence but nothing new for me in your latest reply (the 9 step process you are defining has always been crystal clear in my mind and I am slowly moving forward with it: It takes so much time),
as opposed to first and excellent first reply, which gave me ideas of new trails to follow.

Your first reply was more specific to my actual need: How to orchestrate my Meditation book launch?

Your provided many ideas and I asked precisions about it, especially regarding:
1. How to get my book referenced well and visible on Amazon? What methods, concrete best practices?
2. How to create an ad campaigns (sponsored ads) on Amazon? What methods, concrete best practices?
3. How to consider, use and promote the physical, printed version of the book, as a complement to the eBook?

I have zero experience in those 3 domains above am I willing to learn about best practices, experience, possible shortcuts and recipes if it makes sense.

You seem to say the French market is too small to bother but:

- If I go to amazon.fr, select "Boutique Kindle" (Kindle Store) and search for Meditation, I get 50,000 results. Damn, how to get visible here?
- If I do the same for Printed Books in French only, I get 20,000 results.
 
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jlwilliams

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Watching with keen interest. I have been working on a book too. At this point all I have is raw, unedited writing that is far from a book but that is where I'm taking it.
 

spraybottle

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1. How to get my book referenced well and visible on Amazon? What methods, concrete best practices?
2. How to create an ad campaigns (sponsored ads) on Amazon? What methods, concrete best practices?
3. How to consider, use and promote the physical, printed version of the book, as a complement to the eBook?

Okay I understand where you're coming from. I still don't think it's going to yield as much result as focusing on building your own email list but let me at least answer these questions for you.

Here's a resource I found that does a good job explaining the different ways you can sell your books on Amazon and which program might make the most sense for you: Sell Books on Amazon-A 2018 Guide to Amazon's 5 Book Selling Portals

1. Getting found on Amazon is a beast of its own. I would re-read my original response to understand generally what practices you need to focus on and how to go about doing it.
2. How to create an ad campaign on amazon? There's lots of resources on how to do it. It's too hard for me to explain that on a forum post and honestly watching youtube videos by searching "how to run ppc amazon" or variation of on youtube is going to be your best bet.
3. Yes look at the resource I linked. They will tell you how to join one of the programs for selling physical books (IE: FBA or Amazon advantage) as apposed to KDP kindle.

You could also join facebook groups for sellers on amazon as people have tons of questions like yours every day and they get answered by other sellers in the community. I have a 1:1 coaching program that I'm about to privately launch but that's for people who are currently selling on Amazon so I can walk them through what needs to be done with the listing and PPC, but since you haven't launched yet I can't really point you in that direction either.

Good luck hope you get some good information from others here as well.
 

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