Roland Yeomans's Blog, page 19

NOIR-vember: AMAZON A+ CONTENT

 

This extra content appears underthe section ‘From the publisher’ 

and usually comprises a selection of images ortables giving the reasons why a customer should add your book to their basket.

The main aim of Amazon A+ is toincrease a customer's understanding of the book which hopefully then leads to ahigher conversion rate 

(the number of times a customer goes on to buy the bookafter browsing the content).

Evidence shows that media-richcontent, with eye-catching graphics to keep the browser’s attention, 

gets moreimpressions than text-only content online so, 

if you want customers to spendmore time on your Amazon product page engaging with your book, spending thetime to enhance the listing is worth the effort.

Go to my book page: 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

To see how your new book can be used to guide new readers to some of your old books.

A nice tutorial to show you how it can be done using Canva:

Amazon does have some guidelinesto what you can and cannot include, 
so you’ll need to stay away from anypricing information. 
This includes special promotional pricing or deliverypricing.

NOIR-vember: BOOK MARKETING

 

You can make so much more by ACTIVELY MARKETING your book rather than just throwing your bread upon the waters  ...

Trust me ... do that and all you will get is soggy bread! And not the kind you can spend.

And no, you cannot lie. Amazon frowns on that kind of thing!

Amazon is doing this for the money. You help them. They help you.

Amazon ranks your book on sales and reviews.

We talked about reviews yesterday.

https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2023/11/noir-vember-reviews.html

High sales brings them more $ from your book, thus

Getting Amazon to place your book higher in their ranking.

Yes, I know that you already know all this. But what you do not know is how to get those higher sales.

What about E-Mail Lists?

Yeah, how many newsletters clog your own email?

 How thrilled are you to see yet another?

How many of them do you read compared to how many you send to the Trash file?

Your blog is essentially your E-Mail List.
HARSH TRUTH:
If folks aren't reading your blog,they will not read your newsletter either.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Duh, right? 
Pushing a stalled car is obvious. It is hard. But that doesn't mean it does not work.
But pushing a stalled car is easier when you have others pushing with you.

Go to Reddit, Quora, and Facebook Groups ...
Look up the topic of your book to get in front of the eyes of those who are talking about the subject of your book.
Join a group that is posting regularly ... and be entertaining and interesting.
Don't become an Amway sales person. Don't pitch right away.
Offer them laughter, information, and support.
Think:RECIPROCITY
BOOK-BUB https://www.bookbub.com/partners/overview

No Matter how you try to MARKETHave FUN with it!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW
I have found the perfect theme for the dimensional craft, Sentient, in the above novel of mine.

NOIR-vember: MARKETING

 

You can make so much more by ACTIVELY MARKETING your book rather than just throwing your bread upon the waters  ...

Trust me ... do that and all you will get is soggy bread! And not the kind you can spend.

And no, you cannot lie. Amazon frowns on that kind of thing!

Amazon is doing this for the money. You help them. They help you.

Amazon ranks your book on sales and reviews.

We talked about reviews yesterday.

https://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2023/11/noir-vember-reviews.html

High sales brings them more $ from your book, thus

Getting Amazon to place your book higher in their ranking.

Yes, I know that you already know all this. But what you do not know is how to get those higher sales.

What about E-Mail Lists?

Yeah, how many newsletters clog your own email?

 How thrilled are you to see yet another?

How many of them do you read compared to how many you send to the Trash file?

Your blog is essentially your E-Mail List.
HARSH TRUTH:
If folks aren't reading your blog,they will not read your newsletter either.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Duh, right? 
Pushing a stalled car is obvious. It is hard. But that doesn't mean it does not work.
But pushing a stalled car is easier when you have others pushing with you.

Go to Reddit, Quora, and Facebook Groups ...
Look up the topic of your book to get in front of the eyes of those who are talking about the subject of your book.
Join a group that is posting regularly ... and be entertaining and interesting.
Don't become an Amway sales person. Don't pitch right away.
Offer them laughter, information, and support.
Think:RECIPROCITY
BOOK-BUB https://www.bookbub.com/partners/overview

No Matter how you try to MARKETHave FUN with it!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

NOIR-vember: REVIEWS!

 

Begging does not help. I know. I tried!

FIRST RULE: HAVE A QUALITY BOOK
COVER THAT SIZZLES
INTERIOR THAT RIVETS
SUSPENSE THAT WON'T QUIT
LAUGHS THAT HAVE TO BE SHARED
ENDING THAT SATISFIES
REQUEST FOR REVIEWS THAT ENTERTAINS

SECOND RULE: GET VERIFIED REVIEWS FOR FREE!
For FREE? Doesn't VERIFIED mean your book was bought?
NOT THIS WAY.
FIRST: Your Book has to be in KDP SELECT
SECOND:You have to have 2 back to back days left inyour 5 day free book promos
THIRD:You will need a BookBit.co account(No legal Amazon hassles)You can get 14 day free trial
bookbite.co
Set up a promotion on Amazon KDPat least 10 days away to give yourselftime to choose your reviewers
FOURTH:Upload your book to the site;List it as free book promo

ANOTHER SITE:
pubby.co/
And no, I do not get anything from either site. I am just doing it for my friends.
There are more ways for you to get reviews, and I will cover them another day.
Oh, AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW NOW!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNR5T9DW

NOIR-vember: PRICING

 

Pricing your book on KDP can be daunting. I hear many of my friends say:

"My book is an alternate history of WWII like THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, 
I think I should charge at least $1o for my Kindle book."

"Ah, did your book win the Hugo award, was made into an Amazon series, are you Philip K Dick? No?
You are unknown. Tempt a potential reader into trying you out."

FREE IS GOOD
Youcan offer your Kindle eBook for free for up to 5days out of 
each 90-day KDP Select enrollment period. 
Free BookPromotions are for Kindle eBooks only.
(You can imagine my anguish when my formatter sent me an ePub that Adobe cannot open!)

Especially, since I have just discovered how to use KDP Select to garner free Verified Customer Reviews!

More on that next post.

KindleCountdown Deals: 
Kindle Countdown Deals allow you to offer your book at adiscounted price for a limited time. 
This can help increase your book'svisibility and sales.
It appeals to the human instinct of striking while the iron is hot, to save on the full price to come.
WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY
Remember you have only 30 DAYS to get Amazon's attention so that they think it is worthwhile to push you out to the public.




Free and it helps you to compare lengths of novels similar to yours ...
How long are they? How long is yours? Then, ask how well known are their authors compared to you?

Questions: 
Will the reader pay about the same price for your Kindle as compared to your print book? 
How much difference in price between the two? Give the reader incentive to buy your Kindle.
Pre-Orders prices should be cheaper than day of publication, or why should the readers bother?

FOURTH QUARTER IN BOOKS
People are more in the mood to spend money on gifts during the 4th quarter.
Consider that in pricing your new book. Make it easier for people to give multiple copies of your book to friends.

Consider giving a free Kindle gift yourself to each person who buys your new book.

NOIR-vember: KEYWORDS

  

Here's a list of some of the most searched for niche-relatedkeywords on Amazon KDP along with their search volume:

Dog – 2 622 608.

Babies – 2 621 138.

Kids – ​​2 620 967.

Beach – 2 581 690.

Women's – 2 579 365.

Easter – 2 579 200.

Showers – 2 577 586.

Men's – 2 576 991.

Unicorns - 2 623 214

 

Any help in choosing the keywords for your new KDP book?

Probably not

Unless your book is about a unicorn being chased by a dog ona beach Easter Sunday as kids cheer and babies cry.

 

Oh, Amazon removed the Keyword tab recently

It's now under Product Details. Shows you how important theythink Keywords are.

 

And while the number of those reading for entertainment hasdwindled ...

 

There are enough readers remaining in the 7 English speakingcountries to support our books ... for a time.

 

Males are drawn to tales of adventure, thrillers, coming ofage, and accounts of war.

 

Females are interested in romance, intrigue, and stories oftrying to fit in a world that looks through them ... or their clothes!

KEYWORDS, of course, can be KEY phrases ... not KeyParagraphs, mind you!

 

What KEYWORDS for the modern remnant of readers today?

 

Take MISFIT

 

What female or male does not feel at times a misfit,especially in school?

 

Imagine what an ANGEL might feel who, alone of her species,

was created as an infant to grow up, first in an orphanage,then in a human home ...

 

at the request of a dying woman who did not want hergrieving husband to become a monster ...

not realizing he was already was one.

 

What inner turmoil might that angel feel as she struggled toblend with humans

 

who could not cope with what she was if she but relaxed foran instant?

 

What if she met a young man who saw the anguished soulwithin and loved her for it?

 

 

What might she become if she saw her mortal forbidden lovein danger?

 

Already more KEYWORDS spring to mind:

 

Angelic Forbidden Love; Angel Lost; Star-Crossed Lovers

How about AKASHIC RECORDS?

 

The Akashic records are a compendium of all universalevents, thoughts, words, emotions and intent ever to have occurred

in the past, present, or future in terms of all entities andlife forms,

not just human.

 

What if it were not a compendium but a sentient constructshaped by Hands That Were Not Hands?

 

Abandoned by this planet when it was trapped by enormousgravitational fluxes?

 

What if after lonely millennia of not being able tocommunicate with the humans on this planet,

 

She reached down to an infant and found ... CONNECTION?

 

Only to have a global war called World War II place thatlife at risk?

 

 

What might such an entity do? Would its wrath be any moreintense than the angel's?

 

Would the duo team up to save the one soul that matters tothem?

 

What fractures in the very structure of reality might occurat their actions?

 

What sort of KEYWORDS occur to you at the above scenario?

Am I shamelessly trying to get you to help me with my ownKEYWORDS for my new book:

 

SAME AS IT NEVER WAS?

 

Of course, I am! What do you say? Will you helpme?

NOIR-vember: THE STARS BY WHICH WE CHART OUR BOOKS HAVE CHANGED

 Scientists believe it was a swarm of multiple asteroids hitting the earth that killed the dinosaurs.

Are we authors the new dinosaurs?

or the new Argonauts,

charting our voyage by old star charts?

The times they are a'changing. Remember Keywords?

The keywords you use in themarketing of your book are significant factors in how Amazon's algorithms rankit in search results, right?

WRONG.

The stars you see in your sky are not the ones the dinosaurs saw when their world came to an end.

Blame the flood of low content books and AI written books swamping the market.

Amazon doesn't want unhappy customers who buy a book with a different cover only to find an old one looking back at them ...

or worse an unentertaining one.

What to do?
Be different. Put out quality, high content books.
How?
Great covers. Enticing interiors with illustrations.
Absorbing stories.
At a loss on how to do covers, illustrations, or even how to write well?

Hire Professionals
THE URBAN WRITERS: https://theurbanwriters.com/
FIVERR: fiverr.com 

I don't use them, mind you. All my mistakes are my own!

Amazon has changed from a SEO algorithm to a Performance Based Algorithm.

Keyword ranking is a lot weaker now thanks to those scammers who want to ride the coattails of winning keywords 

without putting in the effort of doing the work.

Amazon wants to see performance before they show your book to potential readers ...

That means 30 positive reviews in 3o days!

How am I going to get 30 with my new book?

Now, the doctors tell me this could be my last book, so I would like to go out with a bang.

If any of you would take a look at the pdf of my

book and review it, I would deeply appreciate it!

And then, there is the specter of Artificial Intelligence.

In the last 2 months, Amazon wants you to list if your book is AI generated or AI assisted. 

If you have an AI generated image in your book but the words are all yours ...

then, your book is AI assisted.

You really do not want Amazon to wrench your book off their site!

NOIR-vember_ LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?

 

Each person carries a blueprint within his heart of the person he/she will love.

What seems to be "Love At First Sight" is but the realization of that dream we carry within our heart, our mind of that set of parameters we hold close.

Plato, sensing this, was right for the wrong reasons when he wrote that all knowledge is but recollections from a previous existence.

That is not true as he states it

But it is true if we believe that we already have the ideal in us ... 

one which is shaped by our experiences, our desires,  our habits, and our thinking.

Otherwise how would we know immediately upon meeting a person that this was the One for us?

Life crystalizes the moment the dream is seen walking, 

and the person is seen as the incarnation of all that we love.

The liking seems instantaneous because it has been waiting within us for a long time.

"We're born alone, we live alone,we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusionfor the moment that we're not alone." 

- Orson Welles

What do you think?

NOIR-vember_ DEATH IN THE HIDDEN VALLEY OF PARIS

 {From the journal of Samuel McCord}

(Couldn't Karl Urban play McCord?)
The birds were singing in the many gardens of the City of Lights this spring.  

The leaves were green and ripe, the fragrance of life thick in the air.  
The multitudes of fountains sparkled under the eternal sun seemingly laughing with the sheer joy of being alive.

And I was sitting on a park bench in the Swiss Valley deciding whether or not to let myself bleed to death.

(photo courtesy of Lionel Allorge)
The Swiss Valley -- 

it was located just a stone’s throw from Champs-Élysées and hidden beneath a dome of green so tall and vibrant 
you might not see the stone staircase that winds between the ivy, chestnut trees, and drooping flower petals. 

 I certainly did not.  
But then, my eyes weren't working so good right at the moment.

I watched the splatter the drops of my blood made on the pavement at my boots.  
I stopped watching. 

I had seen that particular grim rain too often in the past.  I always endured.  
But of late I had started to wonder why I bothered.

This “Swiss Valley” was built from scratch in the late 19th century by the park designer Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand. 

It is a lovely illusion, where nothing is quite what it appears at first sight. 

In that, it was a lot like my life -- 

which I guess is why I chose it as a spot to die -- 

that and it was close enough for my wobbly legs to take me -- and I liked its pond.

 The rocks that form the pond and waterfall are sculptured from cement; so is the “wooden” footbridge.

(Photo Courtesy of Remi Jouan)
  But the space, nearly 2 acres of semi-tamed wilderness in one of the most urban swaths of Paris, has always been a favorite spot of mine.

On the park bench, I was enveloped by evergreens, maples, bamboo, lilacs and ivy. 

There were lemon trees; a Mexican orange; a bush called a wavy-leaf silk-tassel, 
with drooping flowers that belonged in an Art Nouveau painting; and another whose leaves smell of caramel in the fall. 

A 100-year-old weeping beech shades a pond whose waterfall pushes away the noise of the streets above. 

The pond, fed by the Seine, can turn murky, 
but the slow-moving carp don’t seem to mind, nor does the otter that surfaces from time to time.

I wondered if the carp or the otter would mind when I toppled over dead into their pond.

I heard a scampering of tiny feet and a little girl's voice speak in French.  
I had to shift gears mentally to translate.

"Oh, God is good.  I am so lost, Monsieur.  Could you help me, please.  Oh, no!  You are bleeding!"

I turned with difficulty to see her clear, or as clear as I could manage in my present shape.  

How many fashions had I seen come and go?  Too many.  There was a time little girls wore dresses. 

 No more.  
Now, this small street orphan wore torn jeans, dirty T-Shirt, and scuffed tennis shoes more holes than fabric.

"No, Little Lady.  I am dying."

"You mustn't die!"

Her eyes grew wet.  
"I have seen too much death, Monsieur ... and who would see me home?"

She rubbed an angry hand over her wet eyes and pulled herself up as tall as she got, 
"And it would be rude!" 
I smiled drily, "Reckon it would at that.  Can't have a Texican be that, can we?"

I wrenched myself to my feet.  
"Now, first to a doctor and then to a bank."

"Why a bank, Monsieur?"

"So you'll never be hungry ever again."

And she never was. 

NOIR-vember_ BRIGHT MIRAGE

 BRIGHT MIRAGE

{A Beware the Jade Christmas Interlude}1000 words

 “To live in hearts we leave behind  is not to die.”
– Ingrid Durtz


Lucas often told me behind enemy lines that I was like Anna Karenina,  
the kind of woman that if you want to kill, you have to hit with a train.

I wondered if those words haunted him when I died in his arms.   
Since possessing this young policewoman’s body three months ago here in New Orleans, I have never asked.

We have talked about that which really matters.

That first night after the Le Prete murders when I awakened in this body in that horrid mansion, 
we had a wide-ranging conversation:

We talked about love, fate, and everybody’s inability to truly leave the past behind. 
It was all said in a simple kiss that had my lungs feeling as if they were going to burst through my chest.

I put the last candle on the Yule tree in my modest room in the Ponchartrain Hotel, 
courtesy of Lucas who needlessly refused to tarnish my reputation with my sharing his own suite. 
When you have died and reawakened in another’s body, a tarnished reputation was the least of your worries.   
Being alone with the dread that I would return to the Darkness was the chief.

Perhaps that was why I was celebrating Saint Lucia’s Feast this thirteenth of December as I had as a little girl in Sweden.

I softly sang:
Natten går tunga fjät 
(The Night steps heavily)
Sankta Lucia, ljusklara hägring
(Saint Lucia, bright mirage)
Ute är mörkt och kallt
(Outside, it's dark and cold). 

There was a knock on the door.  I sighed.   
My table was not yet fully set.   
The lussekatt, the traditional holiday rich, spiced sweet bun flavoured with cinnamon and nutmeg, still hadn’t arrived from the bakery.

I opened the door to a startled Harry Stills.

“What the blazes?” 

Harry was the hotel detective. 

He was a wiry man whose seamed face said he’d seen more than he wanted, had cared more than was wise.  
 Harry wisely trusted Irene Dupré, the actress, not at all 
and looked upon me as the daughter he’d lost in 1920 to the Spanish Flu which killed anywhere from 3 to 6% of the world’s population.

“Your hair’s on fire!”

I shook my head with its candled-adorned halo.  
 “No, Harry.  Tonight is the Feast of St. Lucia. I am dressed like her, and this Christmas Tree is ablaze with her candles.”

He darted in my room, shutting the door behind him.   
“Honey, you’re lucky you got me riding shotgun for you. The management catches you lighting fires in your room, and it won’t be your room!”

I patted his face.  
 “I was an O.S.S. agent, Harry.  I burn down a building only when I mean to.”

I walked to the table, picked up a goblet, and handed it to him. 

 “Here, have some spiced Glögg.  
 Its name means ‘glow,’ and being served warm and made up of red wine, port, and brandy, it will certainly add a glow to your chest.”

Harry eyed my tree, counting the candles silently. “There’s an empty spot in the center.”

“That is its heart where a very special item is placed.”


He hesitantly withdrew a faded scarlet ribbon whose gilt edges were nearly invisible.  
 “This was Ruthie’s favorite Christmas ribbon.  I’ve nearly worn it away, thinking of her over the years.”

His wet eyes blinked,

“I've just about worn it out, but it was worn out with love, and that's the best kind of worn-out. Maybe we're all like this ribbon. 
Maybe there really isn't any such thing as mortality.  Life simply wears us out with love.”

Nazi bullets had ended me, but this was Christmas, and my gift to Harry was to allow him to warm himself in this bright mirage.

I kissed his cheek. 
 I forgot how spiritual Harry was despite his police past.   
I’d been raised a Methodist where the highest sacrament was the bake sale.

The door opened without any knocking.  
 Irene Dupré, the lover of my dead sister, Marta. 

 She was as unbalanced and deadly as the Cheshire Cat, but Marta always fell for the dangerous ones.

Irene elegantly walked towards us in a gossamer gown, speaking in a voice like the Taj Mahal by moonlight.

 “You came back from the grave while my Marta is denied me.  You look so much like her.   
The sight of you quickens my heart yet wounds it in the self-same moment. I hate you.”

Only then did I notice the Luger in her hand.

Harry reached into the pocket where he kept his gun.  I shook my head.  He would not reach it in time.

Irene’s insane eyes met mine.

The synchronic circles of our pasts triggered a lethal domino-fall, 
and the steady clinking grew until it drowned any possible words I could say with the silent thunder of consequence.  
 Still, I spoke, for Lucas could not survive me dying again without him.

“You can let grief destroy you.  Or you can realize that every moment of the love you shared 
possessed more meaning than you realized. The laughter of each day you took for granted was priceless.”

The Luger trembled.

 I continued.

“One day you will be driven to your knees.  Not by grief, but by gratitude for what preceded this loss. 
The ache will always be there, but one day not the emptiness, because to nurture the emptiness, to take solace in it, would be to disrespect the gift of the love you shared with Marta.”
Irene husked, “It is like listening to Marta.  For that ….”

She pocketed the Luger.  
 “I will let you live if for nothing else than to hear the echoes of her voice.”

She turned, walking out of my room into the night.

Harry rasped, “You know the difference between an asshole and an anus?”

I shook my head.

“An anus can’t point a Luger at you."

The laughter that followed was Harry’s Christmas gift to me.