Nick Vulich's Blog, page 10
January 14, 2014
Is Steve Scott the Next eBook Guru?
For those of you not familiar with Steve Scott, he’s penned some of the best books out there on how to write, develop, and market short nonfiction works on Kindle.
Most of his books are no longer than 80 to 100 pages and tackle one specific issue facing Kindle authors. They give you a quick overview of the problem, and move right into solutions you can add to your writer’s toolbox.
Here is a quick rundown of his titles.
Is 99 Cents the New Free? The Truth About Launching and Pricing Your Kindle Books
61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books
How to Discover Best-Selling Nonfiction Ideas – The Bulletproof Strategy
How to Write a Nonfiction Kindle Book in 21 Days – That Readers Love!
There’s also one more he penned under his alter ego – S. J. Scott.
Writing Habit Mastery – How to Write 2,000 Words a Day and Forever Cure Writer’s Block
A blog post doesn’t give me a whole lot of space to delve into each book. Instead I will tell you what I like about each of them. If you like what you see take a chance and drop $2.99 to see if it can help you or not.
Is 99 Cents the New Freewas one of Steve’s book that hit home with a lot of authors. Within a few weeks of publishing it a slew of Kindle authors had their book prices lowered to 99 cents. Was it because of this book, or did they all just get the idea at once? It’s hard to say which came first, the chicken or the egg. One Kindle writer who shoved the strategy into high gear was Jordan Malick. Most of his books are published in the eBay category as he writes about ecommerce solutions – selling on eBay and Amazon. Using the 99 cent strategy he dominated the eBay category at two different times, putting three of his books into the one, two, and three slot. Did he read the book and follow the strategy? I don’t know but his moves did prove – the strategy works! 99 cents can move books if it’s part of a bigger strategy to sell your books.
How to Discover Best-Selling Nonfiction Ideas tackles another problem facing every Kindle author, I just finished this book – What’s next? Getting book ideas is never easy (at least for me it’s not). Getting ideas that are going to sell is even harder. Steve gives you several ideas to help get those creative juices flowing. The ideas aren’t all that new, but he develops them well. Use the Google Keywords Tool to discover profitable niches people are looking for information in. Use the Amazon toolbar to see what searches Amazon suggests. It makes good sense because that’s what your readers are going to see when they start typing in search terms to find their next book.
61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books answers every author's real question…I’ve written a new book now what? Many authors discover that writing the book was the easy part, the tougher half of the equation is trying to figure out how to help readers find it so they can click on that awesome cover art and buy a copy. This book is a good starting point for book marketing. It gives authors a lot of ideas about how they can promote their books. Not every method he talks about is going to appeal to every author, but if you can pick five or six ideas and run with them you’re off to a good start at marketing your book.
Writing Habit Masteryis about developing the habits you need to write consistently. It has a lot tips that will help you write more. Will they all work for you, probably not. It depends on the type of person you are. What helped me most was the advice to break your writing down into smaller more manageable chunks, and to stop winging it and force yourself to outline your book before you start writing.
How to Write a Nonfiction Kindle Book in 21 Days outlines how to plan your book; how to pull everything together so you can accomplish your task; and helps you develop a system for organizing and writing your book.
If you’re new to writing or even if you’re an experienced writer I would recommend Steve Scott’s books. You’re never too good to learn something. Even if you only take away one or two key points from each of his books, that may be enough to push your writing to a whole new level.
Most of his books are no longer than 80 to 100 pages and tackle one specific issue facing Kindle authors. They give you a quick overview of the problem, and move right into solutions you can add to your writer’s toolbox.
Here is a quick rundown of his titles.
Is 99 Cents the New Free? The Truth About Launching and Pricing Your Kindle Books
61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books
How to Discover Best-Selling Nonfiction Ideas – The Bulletproof Strategy
How to Write a Nonfiction Kindle Book in 21 Days – That Readers Love!
There’s also one more he penned under his alter ego – S. J. Scott.
Writing Habit Mastery – How to Write 2,000 Words a Day and Forever Cure Writer’s Block
A blog post doesn’t give me a whole lot of space to delve into each book. Instead I will tell you what I like about each of them. If you like what you see take a chance and drop $2.99 to see if it can help you or not.
Is 99 Cents the New Freewas one of Steve’s book that hit home with a lot of authors. Within a few weeks of publishing it a slew of Kindle authors had their book prices lowered to 99 cents. Was it because of this book, or did they all just get the idea at once? It’s hard to say which came first, the chicken or the egg. One Kindle writer who shoved the strategy into high gear was Jordan Malick. Most of his books are published in the eBay category as he writes about ecommerce solutions – selling on eBay and Amazon. Using the 99 cent strategy he dominated the eBay category at two different times, putting three of his books into the one, two, and three slot. Did he read the book and follow the strategy? I don’t know but his moves did prove – the strategy works! 99 cents can move books if it’s part of a bigger strategy to sell your books.
How to Discover Best-Selling Nonfiction Ideas tackles another problem facing every Kindle author, I just finished this book – What’s next? Getting book ideas is never easy (at least for me it’s not). Getting ideas that are going to sell is even harder. Steve gives you several ideas to help get those creative juices flowing. The ideas aren’t all that new, but he develops them well. Use the Google Keywords Tool to discover profitable niches people are looking for information in. Use the Amazon toolbar to see what searches Amazon suggests. It makes good sense because that’s what your readers are going to see when they start typing in search terms to find their next book.
61 Ways to Sell More Nonfiction Kindle Books answers every author's real question…I’ve written a new book now what? Many authors discover that writing the book was the easy part, the tougher half of the equation is trying to figure out how to help readers find it so they can click on that awesome cover art and buy a copy. This book is a good starting point for book marketing. It gives authors a lot of ideas about how they can promote their books. Not every method he talks about is going to appeal to every author, but if you can pick five or six ideas and run with them you’re off to a good start at marketing your book.
Writing Habit Masteryis about developing the habits you need to write consistently. It has a lot tips that will help you write more. Will they all work for you, probably not. It depends on the type of person you are. What helped me most was the advice to break your writing down into smaller more manageable chunks, and to stop winging it and force yourself to outline your book before you start writing.
How to Write a Nonfiction Kindle Book in 21 Days outlines how to plan your book; how to pull everything together so you can accomplish your task; and helps you develop a system for organizing and writing your book.
If you’re new to writing or even if you’re an experienced writer I would recommend Steve Scott’s books. You’re never too good to learn something. Even if you only take away one or two key points from each of his books, that may be enough to push your writing to a whole new level.
Writing Style Reality Check
I’m doing it all wrong!
Every book I read about how to write faster and better says you need to do a quick brain dump. Don’t worry about how the words come out, they say. Just get into your groove and let it all come out.
I can’t do that.
When I see a typo I’ve got to go back and correct it. Same thing happens when Word shows me those green squiggly lines. I’ve got to go back and correct those grammatical errors. Don’t know why. It’s just the way I’ve been programmed.
For me it’s easier to do it right the first time. I take a lot of time rewriting as I go. I agonize over words. Which one sounds better? Should I say it this way, or would it sound better this way? My thought is if I leave it uncorrected I’m going to let it go and it’s going to be published that way.
I don’t know about you, but I forget things.
If I don’t do something right away when I’m thinking about it it’s gone. Sure I can make myself a bunch of notes. Maybe I will get around to using them, maybe I won’t.
That brings us back to the whole premise of this post, am I doing it wrong?
Most days I still write 1500 to 2000 words. When I’m inspired and things are really clicking I can easily write 7500 words. Can those guys doing brain dumps write that fast? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I’m going to keep doing what works best for me.
How about you?
Do you feel the need to let it all hang out and just let your words flow, or do you stop to correct yourself along the way?
Every book I read about how to write faster and better says you need to do a quick brain dump. Don’t worry about how the words come out, they say. Just get into your groove and let it all come out.
I can’t do that.
When I see a typo I’ve got to go back and correct it. Same thing happens when Word shows me those green squiggly lines. I’ve got to go back and correct those grammatical errors. Don’t know why. It’s just the way I’ve been programmed.
For me it’s easier to do it right the first time. I take a lot of time rewriting as I go. I agonize over words. Which one sounds better? Should I say it this way, or would it sound better this way? My thought is if I leave it uncorrected I’m going to let it go and it’s going to be published that way.
I don’t know about you, but I forget things.
If I don’t do something right away when I’m thinking about it it’s gone. Sure I can make myself a bunch of notes. Maybe I will get around to using them, maybe I won’t.
That brings us back to the whole premise of this post, am I doing it wrong?
Most days I still write 1500 to 2000 words. When I’m inspired and things are really clicking I can easily write 7500 words. Can those guys doing brain dumps write that fast? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. I’m going to keep doing what works best for me.
How about you?
Do you feel the need to let it all hang out and just let your words flow, or do you stop to correct yourself along the way?
January 13, 2014
Kindle, Print, or Audio, Which format is more important to your success?
It seems to me a lot of Kindle authors are doing it all wrong. They have this tenacious focus on eBooks believing that print is dead.
The truth is anything but that. Yes, a lot of people have moved on to the new technology and wouldn’t dream of serving all of their new books up on anything but an e-reader. The thing is there are still a lot of people out there who like to read their books old style. They enjoy the feel of a book in their hands. They want to highlight their favorite passages; they want to make notes in the margins; and they just love to fold the corners to mark their favorite pages. Some people like it both ways. They like the feel of a good book in their hands for those lazy days around the house, but they load up their Kindles for when they’re on the go. Amazon recognized this with their Kindle Match-Book program. It lets readers pick up free or discounted eBooks when they purchase the print version.
What authors need to understand is readers appreciate a choice. How'd that old candy bar jingle put it, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't." Camille Picott in her recent book, Indie Publishing Essentials, touches on this same subject. She tries to make all of her books available in print, eBook, and audio format, because she never knows how readers are going to want her book served up. She writes that many months her audio books outsell the Kindle and print editions.
How about you? If you’re books are only available on Kindle, how many dollars are you missing out on in lost royalties? How many readers are you losing out on because you’re not offering them a choice?
In my own case, the majority of my books are available in eBook and print.
While my Kindle books outsell print copies by a margin of two or three to one, my paperback royalties from Create Space consistently exceed my kindle royalties by hundreds, sometimes close to a thousand dollars each and every month.
Kindle authors, here is my question for you…
How many dollars are you leaving on the table, if you aren’t making your books available in print?
The truth is anything but that. Yes, a lot of people have moved on to the new technology and wouldn’t dream of serving all of their new books up on anything but an e-reader. The thing is there are still a lot of people out there who like to read their books old style. They enjoy the feel of a book in their hands. They want to highlight their favorite passages; they want to make notes in the margins; and they just love to fold the corners to mark their favorite pages. Some people like it both ways. They like the feel of a good book in their hands for those lazy days around the house, but they load up their Kindles for when they’re on the go. Amazon recognized this with their Kindle Match-Book program. It lets readers pick up free or discounted eBooks when they purchase the print version.
What authors need to understand is readers appreciate a choice. How'd that old candy bar jingle put it, "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't." Camille Picott in her recent book, Indie Publishing Essentials, touches on this same subject. She tries to make all of her books available in print, eBook, and audio format, because she never knows how readers are going to want her book served up. She writes that many months her audio books outsell the Kindle and print editions.
How about you? If you’re books are only available on Kindle, how many dollars are you missing out on in lost royalties? How many readers are you losing out on because you’re not offering them a choice?
In my own case, the majority of my books are available in eBook and print.
While my Kindle books outsell print copies by a margin of two or three to one, my paperback royalties from Create Space consistently exceed my kindle royalties by hundreds, sometimes close to a thousand dollars each and every month.
Kindle authors, here is my question for you…
How many dollars are you leaving on the table, if you aren’t making your books available in print?
KDP Free Days - Do They Really Matter Anymore?
KDP Free Days are the old stand by for launching your Kindle book, and for reinvigorating a book with sluggish sales.
There’s a lot of talk among authors that free has lost its allure, and books are no longer enjoying the sales bump they used to enjoy after a great free run. Part of that is true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that running a free promo can’t help your book.
It just means you need to better understand what results you can expect to receive from your free run.If you’re launching a new book free is still one of the best ways to get the word out there and to get people reading and talking about your book.
If you’ve already run through two or three KPD Free Promos free may no longer be the best option for you. One, because with so many new books being added to the Amazon catalog every day it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed; and two, with recent changes to how free books are counted towards sales numbers a free promo (even a wildly successful one) isn’t going to give your book the sales bump you were hoping for.
So what’s an author to do?
Remember that KDP is only one option you have available in your toolbox.
Steve Scott published a great book about six months ago, Is 99 Cents the New Free? For several months after it was published just about every kindle author was knocking the idea around and sampling their catalog at 99 cents.
Jordan Malik made a hell of a run using 99 cent promos in the eBay category twice in the last six months. Each time he brought his books up to number one, two, and three in the eBay category, and held the top position for nearly a week. When he ended the promo he returned his books to $6.99 and still ranked high in his category.
A lot of other authors have done the same thing.
There’s a lot of talk among authors that free has lost its allure, and books are no longer enjoying the sales bump they used to enjoy after a great free run. Part of that is true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that running a free promo can’t help your book.
It just means you need to better understand what results you can expect to receive from your free run.If you’re launching a new book free is still one of the best ways to get the word out there and to get people reading and talking about your book.
If you’ve already run through two or three KPD Free Promos free may no longer be the best option for you. One, because with so many new books being added to the Amazon catalog every day it’s getting harder and harder to get noticed; and two, with recent changes to how free books are counted towards sales numbers a free promo (even a wildly successful one) isn’t going to give your book the sales bump you were hoping for.
So what’s an author to do?
Remember that KDP is only one option you have available in your toolbox.
Steve Scott published a great book about six months ago, Is 99 Cents the New Free? For several months after it was published just about every kindle author was knocking the idea around and sampling their catalog at 99 cents.
Jordan Malik made a hell of a run using 99 cent promos in the eBay category twice in the last six months. Each time he brought his books up to number one, two, and three in the eBay category, and held the top position for nearly a week. When he ended the promo he returned his books to $6.99 and still ranked high in his category.
A lot of other authors have done the same thing.
KDP Free Days or Kindle Count Down Deal - What's all the fuss about?
There seems to be a lot of confusion about how to best use the Kindle Countdown Deal.
Some authors don’t understand how to use it; some worry about it not being available in all areas; others look at it as a watered down work around for KDP Free Days.
First we need to take a look at exactly what the Countdown Deal is. In Amazon’s own words it’s a “new KDP Select benefit that lets authors provide readers with limited time discount promotions on their books available on Amazon.com and Amazon.UK. It’s a great opportunity to earn more royalties and increase discoverability of your book. Customers will see the regular price and the promotional price on the book’s detail page, as well as a countdown clock showing how much time is left at the promotional price. You’ll also continue to earn your selected royalty rate on each sale during the promotion.”
A quick read through of Amazon’s description will answer many of the concerns authors have about using Kindle Countdown Deals.
First off, it’s a limited time promotion. You can set the time period you want it to run – anywhere from one hour to seven days. You can also set the discount levels. If your book is $3.99 you can split the promotion over three levels. Your book would start out at 99 cents and increase in price by one dollar increments evenly split across the time period for the promo. The timer resets for every price level, showing how long buyers have to purchase your book at the discounted price.
Some of the complaints I’ve heard are it’s too confusing; or there should be just one price point – 99 cents for the entire promo; or the counter is too cheesy, or pushy. I think this ignores the whole point of the Countdown Deal. It’s the urgency of the timer ticking away that makes readers rush in to buy now, before the price moves to the next level. If you take away the timer, sales are going to nosedive. If you only want one discounted price for the entire promo, you have total control over that. When you are offered a choice of sale increments you would choose one.
Another area authors are concerned about is the deal is not available to everyone; just to readers in limited areas. Martin Crosbie talked about this in an Indies Unlimited blog post saying he had problems changing prices worldwide so no one would feel left out. The point is Amazon has chosen to make the Countdown Deal available exclusively to book buyers in the United States and United Kingdom. It’s an Amazon thing. Authors shouldn’t feel obligated to figure out how to make the deal available to readers in areas where Amazon didn’t intend to extend it. If you’re running an ad to promote your Countdown Deal and are concerned that international readers will want the discounted price you can state something about Amazon only making the deal available in the United States and United Kingdom.
A number of authors have said they don’t intend to use it because they’ve heard from others that it didn’t work for them.
KDP Free days don’t work for every author. It all comes down to the book you are promoting; the days you are promoting it on; whether other authors in your genre are running deals at the same time; and a good dose of luck.
Let me give you an example. I ran my first Countdown Deals two months ago. I tried it with ten of my books. One of them moved seventy-five books in the seven day period, and another sold sixty-five copies. That was two to three times the number of books I sold the week before without running the Countdown Deal. Not too shabby. Five of my other books sold from five to fifteen copies during their seven day run, and three of my books didn’t sell a single copy during their promotional run.
Overall, I was happy with the results. The two books with the best sales sustained their initial bump in sales for almost a month, and stayed in the top five sellers in their category.
The best indicator the countdown deal helped came from my Kindle sales and commission reports. Total Kindle sales were up 250 copies for the month and my royalties shot up by nearly $300 from the previous month. Create Space sales shot up over $700 for the month, but I have no way of tying that to the Count Down Deal.
Would I run the Countdown Deal again?
It’s a no brainer. Yes I would, and I am doing it right now. The two best books from my last run eBay 2014 and eBay Unleashed are having a good run again. One surprise seller is Abraham Lincoln: The Baltimore Plot. Both of my KDP Free Day promos for it failed to give away over a few hundred copies, and sales never took off. Before this promo I probably never sold over five copies in seven months of trying to promote it. In the first three days of the Countdown Deal it’s sold twenty-one copies. This may be the breakout it needs to start selling.
Sales for the two eBay books would have been much higher this time around, but one of the heavy hitters in the eBay category, Steve Weber, ran the Countdown Deal on his two bestselling books for the same period I chose to run mine. Luck wasn’t on my side this time, but its ok - I still had a great promo. Sales of eBay 2014 are still going strong two days after the Countdown Deal for it ended.
One point Weber’s Kindle Count Down Deals emphasized was the promo works amazingly well for bestselling books. His book Barcode Booty jumped from a 12,000 to 15,000 ranking in the Kindle Paid Store to around 1800. Three days later it’s still hanging in there at around a 7800 ranking. For one day three of his books ranked one, two, and three in the eBay category. All of them were propelled there using the Count Down Deal.
Another Kindle author Steve Scott, talked about the Kindle Countdown Deal in one of his blog posts. A few of his books sold several hundred copies during the promo, and kept going strong afterwards. Some of his books didn’t do as well. He shared the same info about using Kindle Free Days, sometimes they work sometimes they don’t.
If you don’t try it for yourself, you’ll never know what works best for your books.
The final complaint I saw concerned royalties paid to authors during the Countdown Deal. Under the rules of the program you’re supposed to be paid at the current royalty level for your book, either 35 or 70 percent. Some authors mentioned their royalties were paid at the lower level, and I did see some of this in my sales reports too. That may be a temporary reporting glitch or it may be one of the kinks Amazon is going to have to work out.
Whatever else you can say the Kindle Countdown Deals is a great promotional tool for authors. Unlike KDP Free Days it helps you get extra sales and make money too.
Authors need to keep close tabs each time they run a promo, and decide for each book which promo is going to do a better job – Free or discounted pricing.
Some authors don’t understand how to use it; some worry about it not being available in all areas; others look at it as a watered down work around for KDP Free Days.
First we need to take a look at exactly what the Countdown Deal is. In Amazon’s own words it’s a “new KDP Select benefit that lets authors provide readers with limited time discount promotions on their books available on Amazon.com and Amazon.UK. It’s a great opportunity to earn more royalties and increase discoverability of your book. Customers will see the regular price and the promotional price on the book’s detail page, as well as a countdown clock showing how much time is left at the promotional price. You’ll also continue to earn your selected royalty rate on each sale during the promotion.”
A quick read through of Amazon’s description will answer many of the concerns authors have about using Kindle Countdown Deals.
First off, it’s a limited time promotion. You can set the time period you want it to run – anywhere from one hour to seven days. You can also set the discount levels. If your book is $3.99 you can split the promotion over three levels. Your book would start out at 99 cents and increase in price by one dollar increments evenly split across the time period for the promo. The timer resets for every price level, showing how long buyers have to purchase your book at the discounted price.
Some of the complaints I’ve heard are it’s too confusing; or there should be just one price point – 99 cents for the entire promo; or the counter is too cheesy, or pushy. I think this ignores the whole point of the Countdown Deal. It’s the urgency of the timer ticking away that makes readers rush in to buy now, before the price moves to the next level. If you take away the timer, sales are going to nosedive. If you only want one discounted price for the entire promo, you have total control over that. When you are offered a choice of sale increments you would choose one.
Another area authors are concerned about is the deal is not available to everyone; just to readers in limited areas. Martin Crosbie talked about this in an Indies Unlimited blog post saying he had problems changing prices worldwide so no one would feel left out. The point is Amazon has chosen to make the Countdown Deal available exclusively to book buyers in the United States and United Kingdom. It’s an Amazon thing. Authors shouldn’t feel obligated to figure out how to make the deal available to readers in areas where Amazon didn’t intend to extend it. If you’re running an ad to promote your Countdown Deal and are concerned that international readers will want the discounted price you can state something about Amazon only making the deal available in the United States and United Kingdom.
A number of authors have said they don’t intend to use it because they’ve heard from others that it didn’t work for them.
KDP Free days don’t work for every author. It all comes down to the book you are promoting; the days you are promoting it on; whether other authors in your genre are running deals at the same time; and a good dose of luck.
Let me give you an example. I ran my first Countdown Deals two months ago. I tried it with ten of my books. One of them moved seventy-five books in the seven day period, and another sold sixty-five copies. That was two to three times the number of books I sold the week before without running the Countdown Deal. Not too shabby. Five of my other books sold from five to fifteen copies during their seven day run, and three of my books didn’t sell a single copy during their promotional run.
Overall, I was happy with the results. The two books with the best sales sustained their initial bump in sales for almost a month, and stayed in the top five sellers in their category.
The best indicator the countdown deal helped came from my Kindle sales and commission reports. Total Kindle sales were up 250 copies for the month and my royalties shot up by nearly $300 from the previous month. Create Space sales shot up over $700 for the month, but I have no way of tying that to the Count Down Deal.
Would I run the Countdown Deal again?
It’s a no brainer. Yes I would, and I am doing it right now. The two best books from my last run eBay 2014 and eBay Unleashed are having a good run again. One surprise seller is Abraham Lincoln: The Baltimore Plot. Both of my KDP Free Day promos for it failed to give away over a few hundred copies, and sales never took off. Before this promo I probably never sold over five copies in seven months of trying to promote it. In the first three days of the Countdown Deal it’s sold twenty-one copies. This may be the breakout it needs to start selling.
Sales for the two eBay books would have been much higher this time around, but one of the heavy hitters in the eBay category, Steve Weber, ran the Countdown Deal on his two bestselling books for the same period I chose to run mine. Luck wasn’t on my side this time, but its ok - I still had a great promo. Sales of eBay 2014 are still going strong two days after the Countdown Deal for it ended.
One point Weber’s Kindle Count Down Deals emphasized was the promo works amazingly well for bestselling books. His book Barcode Booty jumped from a 12,000 to 15,000 ranking in the Kindle Paid Store to around 1800. Three days later it’s still hanging in there at around a 7800 ranking. For one day three of his books ranked one, two, and three in the eBay category. All of them were propelled there using the Count Down Deal.
Another Kindle author Steve Scott, talked about the Kindle Countdown Deal in one of his blog posts. A few of his books sold several hundred copies during the promo, and kept going strong afterwards. Some of his books didn’t do as well. He shared the same info about using Kindle Free Days, sometimes they work sometimes they don’t.
If you don’t try it for yourself, you’ll never know what works best for your books.
The final complaint I saw concerned royalties paid to authors during the Countdown Deal. Under the rules of the program you’re supposed to be paid at the current royalty level for your book, either 35 or 70 percent. Some authors mentioned their royalties were paid at the lower level, and I did see some of this in my sales reports too. That may be a temporary reporting glitch or it may be one of the kinks Amazon is going to have to work out.
Whatever else you can say the Kindle Countdown Deals is a great promotional tool for authors. Unlike KDP Free Days it helps you get extra sales and make money too.
Authors need to keep close tabs each time they run a promo, and decide for each book which promo is going to do a better job – Free or discounted pricing.
