Prasenjeet Kumar's Blog, page 6

Author Marketing Club Premium Membership—To Be or Not to Be

Let me be frank. As an author operating on quite a shoe string budget, I have been quite sceptical of smart-aleck sites promising you the moon, if only you could buy their blessed membership.

Fortunately, with Author Marketing Club, there was a difference. There was absolutely no pressure to immediately plonk for its Premium Membership. So if you so wished, you could become a FREE member first, use the site’s tool and training videos and see for yourself whether you would like to graduate to the next level.

Free Membership

I did exactly that. I used Author Marketing Club as a FREE member for a couple of months and got to experiment with the following:

AMC’s Free submission tool:  If you are running a KDP Select Free Promotion, you would know that you can’t just tick a box on Amazon and relax. You actually need to inform websites such as Pixel of Ink, Free Booksy, e-Reader Café and others (who have thousands of subscribers) days in advance of your FREE offer days, to ensure that  your FREE download mission is successful. Googling all such sites and then filling up their forms can be quite a cumbersome process. But with AMC’s Free submission tool, you find all the forms in one place and can get done with them in just a few minutes.

AMC’s training videos: These FREE videos teach you all the basics of being a self-published author. I went through the ones that taught me how to pre-sell your books even before you write them, introduced Goodreads for Authors 101, discussed Amazon reviews and why they matter and various other book marketing tips and strategies.

So, if you are not a FREE member, I strongly recommend that you become one. You will not regret it.

Premium Membership

AMC offers additional promotional tools to its Premium Members at a price. As a new author, I thought it prudent to wait till I earned $105 in royalties out of the sale of my Kindle and Print books to purchase the Premium Membership. That done, I dived headlong into the intricate tools on offer and found the following really useful:

Author Secret Mastermind: Most reviews, that I have read so far, say that the best part of Premium Membership was the reviewer grabber tool. However, I feel that the greatest benefit of Premium Membership is the Author Secret Mastermind videos. I believe that as self-published authors, our biggest weakness lies in marketing our books. These videos have personally helped me a lot to hone my marketing skills. Jim Kukral talks about marketing strategies that you will not find anywhere else on the internet (and definitely not on Amazon where you will otherwise find hundreds of books on how to market your book). Most of Jim’s strategies are eminently implementable by any Author, including those who do not have an Author Platform and have a zero fan base.

Amazon Enhanced Description Maker: This tool makes your Amazon book description pop out by using HTML coding. It is very easy to use and makes your book description look very attractive using orange headlines, pointers and bold sub-heading.

You can compare the two book descriptions of my Amazon Sales page, the first I wrote without using the AMC tool and the other with the tool:

Description before using AMC tool

Description after using AMC tool

Reviewer Grabber Tool: Most Authors find the reviewer grabber tool to be the highlight of Premium Membership but, to be frank, I was a little disappointed. I used the tool with the intention to capture a good chunk of a bestselling book’s 2000 reviewers e-mail addresses but it could capture just 11 and that too after trying four times. I manually managed to grab the e-mail addresses of over 60 reviewers, but it took me days to do so. I hope Jim works on to refine this tool further. Till then, do continue to use this tool to grab reviewers in your genre’s competing books if you are short of time. But bear in mind, contacting “professional” reviewers is a double edged sword. Some may not like your book and when they leave reviews, they bash you hard (when I say hard I mean it!).

Author Success interviews: You simply fill up a form to tell your Author story and AMC makes it available to all its premium members.

Book Promotional Tools:  These include the Book Discovery Sundays where every Sunday AMC features books of its members (but you need at least 10 Amazon reviews to feature in this programme), promote your $.99 book every Friday, AMC Holiday Bonanza (where it promotes your books during holiday season usually Christmas), etc.

Book Marketing and training workshops: If you are unsure whether your book’s sales page looks professional enough to buyers, you can submit your book listings to experts and they give you the necessary advice. So far I have not used these workshops. Similarly, if you are struggling with your writing, there are various training videos to help you improve that.

Pre-made book covers: AMC has got an entire catalogue of really beautiful book cover templates ranging from fiction to non-fiction including cookbooks. As a Premium Member, you get one cover free, rest come for a price. When you select a cover template, AMC introduces you to the cover designer, where from you work directly with the cover designer. This is one $30 value offer that shouldn’t be missed.

I could go on and on, but the short point is that it is definitely a good deal becoming AMC’s Premium Member. But if you cannot afford it, or are cautious by nature, then at least start with its Free Membership and upgrade whenever you think you are ready.

The AMC has been evolving a lot and it keeps adding new tools for its Premium Membership. This makes AMC a very vibrant community on the internet.

Prasenjeet Kumar

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How to discover Best Selling e-Book Ideas

Image Courtesy of Master isolated images, FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So you have decided to be a writer. Congratulations!

You, of course, know what inspired and motivated you to do so.

You are now all primed and raring to go, to writing something with all the passion you can muster.

You have so many ideas that you don’t know which one to pick up first.

Then dear Reader, brace yourself for the first challenge that you need to face, even before that dreaded writer’s block hits you like a ton of bricks.

And that is: How (and where) do you find and rank bestselling ideas or even categories for your upcoming e-book?

Sounds daunting?

Let me then, in this post, share what compelled me to write my book ‘Quiet Phoenix’. I will try to discuss where the inspiration came from and what you can learn from my experience.

But let me begin first by identifying the problem:

Books about best-selling ideas can be quite confusing: Lots of books float in the Amazon stratosphere telling you how to identify best-selling book ideas. The strange part is that the more you read these kinds of books, the more confused you become.

Some ask you to write in a particular genre namely Health, Wealth, Fitness and Relationships. Others tell you to write books for pets and children. Some ask you to do a best-seller rank research.

Some books are so well-written that they scare you as no horror fiction can!

Don’t even dare to think that you can write a book without doing any market research or otherwise you will shoot yourself in the foot, warn some!

Scary, indeed!

Tools are being sold to find you best-selling ideas: Some are nowadays even selling tools that can help you do market research, in hours rather than months. These guys know what we Authors really fear and how to make money out of it. They are harping on an idea that unless you pay them, you can NEVER become a best-seller.

My two bit: Don’t listen to them!

You have to find your passion: There is another problem with identifying best-selling ideas. You have to find something that you love writing about.

As Guy Kawasaki says, you should be able to write a book without expecting anything in return!

So if your best-selling research tells you that Vampire books are very popular and that people just love to read stories about these blood sucking creatures, are you going to dive straight into this genre?

What if you don’t read Vampire novels yourself? What if you think you are happier writing historical fiction, for example, because that is what you love to read and write? Won’t you then like to do justice to yourself and to your readers by NOT writing another Vampire book?

Ghost-writing: I cannot tell you how many people advise (on the net) that you should just find a best-selling idea (of course, by buying their book or “software”!) and then outsource your work to a ghost writer who can churn the kind of books people actually love.

So if you don’t like Vampire novels yourself, you can hire a ghost writing agency who would know how to write a vampire novel better, and voila, you become a best-selling author. They tell you that this way you can keep producing self-published books without making much effort.

My question: Why then become an author if you are only going to outsource all your work? Supposing you do hit the jackpot this way (which I doubt you would), would you sleep well reflecting that you were never the author of your work?

Now, I have nothing against Ghost-writers, many of who are simply budding hard working authors who need to “come out of the closet” to announce their talents to the world. Through publishwithprasen, I shall keep on trying to encourage them to do that.

My point is that, in my limited experience, I don’t think any get-rich-quick scheme works. Be it business, stock exchange or writing, everything demands your blood, sweat and tears.

Let me tell you that there is no escaping a lot of heartbreaks and struggle being a self-published author. Unless you are already a celebrity, and have in addition a traditional publisher to hold your hands, because then ghost-writing will work for you.

Otherwise, believe me, it requires a lot of hard work and dogged determination to succeed. If someone tells you that it is so easy to become rich by simply publishing a book on Amazon, he is obviously lying. Authors struggle to make a living even with multiple books. That is why many of them have a day job!

My message: you should first, be passionate about what you do.

My take on best-selling ideas: What you can learn from my latest book ‘Quiet Phoenix’

Honestly, I really don’t care about best-selling ideas. My first instinct is to find and follow my passion. Once I have identified that, then I do some market research to find out whether people are interested in that genre.

In some cases, my passions don’t translate into writing of books because my market research proves the opposite. For example, I am a great fan of Microsoft’s Age of Empires (which is a computer strategy game first released a decade ago) but I didn’t write a guide about the topic. Why?

Because when I researched Amazon, I found that there are very few priced guides available on the subject. But lots of people had written guides which were free on the internet. Some had even uploaded YouTube tutorials of campaign walkthroughs.

Why would people then want to buy a priced guide (that too of an outdated game) when there is so much information on the internet for free? So I didn’t waste my time and energy writing about something that cannot sell at all.

Inspiration for Quiet Phoenix: Recently I read Susan Cain’s book Quiet: the power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. Being an introvert myself, I could deeply connect with the book.

Next, I searched Amazon for a couple of other books on the subject including Jennifer Kahnweiler’s Quiet Influence, Sophia Dembling’s The Introvert’s Way, and the Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney. I found all these books fascinating.

So I found a niche which I was interested in. These books made me realise my own strengths and weaknesses about being an introvert. Now I understood myself better. I definitely wanted to write a book in this genre based on my own life experiences.

Now comes the market research bit.

Is there a market for such types of books?

Susan Cain’s book was published a couple of years ago and continues to remain a best seller even till this day. This means that people are still interested in the subject.

I had a look at some other books too on the subject. All of them seemed to pass the Amazon Best seller rank test.

What is the Amazon Best seller rank test?

This is a common test employed by many writers to test the popularity of a genre. If a book has a best seller rank below 20,000 (which means that it is almost selling 5 copies a day) then it can be said that the book is selling well. If you find at least 2 or 3 books having a sales rank below 20,000 then that means that people are interested and actually buying books belonging to that genre.

Most of the books that I have mentioned above, had a sales rank way below 20,000 (somewhere between 1000-3000 in fact). So I found a genre which people were still interested in. This little research then enthused me to start writing my book ‘Quiet Phoenix: An Introvert’s Guide to Rising in Career & Life’.

Where to find the Amazon Best seller rank of a book?

You will find the Best seller rank in the Product details section of any book available on Amazon. The Product details contain information like file size, ASIN, Publisher, Language, etc. In the end, you will find the book’s best seller rank.

Other ways to do market research

I think most of the time the above mentioned research should be enough to help select a genre. However, if you have the time, you could look up other places at well.

You can, for example, do a keyword search on Google Adwords to find out the popularity of a genre or check Goodreads to see whether people are still discussing a book belonging to that genre.

Can you notice how many reviews and ratings this book has got?

I hope I am able to clear out a few doubts using my example. However, I would love to hear from you your views on this subject.

What is your favourite way of doing market research? How much time do you spend picking up a genre? Do you follow your passion or simply write because a genre is popular? Have you tried the ghost writing idea?

I look forward to learning from your experiences.

Regards,

Prasenjeet

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“61 ways to Sell More Non-Fiction Kindle Books”: My Take

This is indeed a very helpful book for anyone looking for ways to sell more kindle books on Amazon.

How about 61 ways? No problems, because Author Steve Scott does talk of a total of 61 ways to market your books.

The best thing is that his strategies are all implementable, as I have experienced personally.

Simple yet doable.

In that context, this 108-page Amazon 5-star e-book (sorry, there is no paperback) can be a good foundation for acquiring the basic skills of marketing and a great way forward for your career as a self-published author.

Steve starts with some very basic marketing techniques such as designing a good book cover, finding a niche, writing multiple books in a single genre, etc and then moves on to advanced techniques such as building an Author Platform, creating an email list, strategies for using KDP Select and so on.

I like Steve’s honesty. He does not promise that you will become a best seller overnight by just buying his book. However, if you are serious about a career as a Kindle author then you must put all or most of his strategies to work.

Here is a list of strategies that he uses:

Write good books

Focus on a single niche

Find best-selling book ideas

Look for specialised topics

Always be creative

Design a Killer cover

Enrol in KDP Select

Build an email list

Cross promote your books

Track daily sales number

Rules of Internal book marketing includes cross referencing your other books and providing an excerpt.

Target keywords

Provide a good preview information

Add html code to the description

Choose 2 broad categories

Create an Author Central Page

Increase book sales with KDP Select Free Promo days

Pricing your books

Create an Author Platform

Create a YouTube video

And the list goes on….

The book deals with all these topics in considerable detail.

And yes, they are all worth a try as I am already using 95% of the strategies contained in this book.

One caveat I need to add.

This book pre-dates Kindle Countdown deals.

So I hope Steve Scott will soon update the book to take care of the strategies for dealing with this new animal of Kindle Countdown deals.

Then a helpful comparison of a free book promo vs a Kindle countdown deal and what to use when would be really helpful.

You can view this here:

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Ready for a Tell-all Memoir on the Inside Working of a Top Indian Law Firm? Quiet Phoenix Now Available on all Amazon Platforms

Dear Friends,

You may be happy to learn that my latest book Quiet Phoenix: An Introvert’s Guide to Rising in Career & Life is available on Amazon worldwide.

Did I tell you that this is my some kind of a tell-all memoir on the inside working of a top Indian law firm?

At one level, backed with extensive research, the book focuses on the “problems” of introverts:

Who feel that their extroverted colleagues are better at marketing themselves and in getting ahead in career;  

Who feel sick and tired of long working hours;

Who don’t know how to deal with office bullies;

Who are aghast at Co-workers stealing their ideas;

Who can’t believe that their bosses can practice blatant favouritism;

Or that they can have a Colleague just round the corner who is willing to backstab them without any provocation.

At another level, “Quiet Phoenix” is a 243-page book:

First, for all law students who have starry eyed notions of working in a corporate law firm;

Second, for those Junior Associates who have just entered the portals of their dream firm and are bewildered, for example, at the senselessly long hours they are required to clock in;

And third, for the Managing Partners who need to see in the mirror how horrible they look and what they need to do to become human again.

Using everyday office incidents, experiences and politics that anyone (and not just lawyers) can immediately relate to, this book, I  hope, not only inspires but makes you come with your own uniquely actionable plan.

The characters used in the book are so life-like that they will immediately remind you of someone in your workplace.

You have the Senior Associate one Mr. Late Nightaholic who loves to let his juniors twiddle their thumbs the whole day and then at 6.30 pm dumps a lot of work to keep them busy the whole night.

Then you have Ms. Senior Partner, who despite being a junior associate acts as if she is the senior partner for all junior associates.

Next is Ms. Goof-up Queen, who is trying to be a senior associate by proving that she is the only one NOT goofing up while everyone around her is churning out sheer garbage.

And at the very top is the partner Mr. Blood Sucker who is where he is because he is a childhood chum of the owner of the firm.

I would love to hear your views on Quiet Phoenix.

If you like the book, then I shall be grateful if you could leave a review on Goodreads or Amazon.

The post Ready for a Tell-all Memoir on the Inside Working of a Top Indian Law Firm? Quiet Phoenix Now Available on all Amazon Platforms appeared first on Publish With Prasen.

How to Format Your Ebook Without Spending a Dime

It’s time now to format and finish your book.

This should be split into Final proof reading and then formatting to make your book suitable for various formats like Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple etc.

Final Proof Reading: Once your book has been finally edited, it is time to proof read your book again.

I proof read my book from beginning to end and this includes the title of the book. You never know where you might find embarrassing typos.

After I’m done, I request one of my friends or family members to also give the manuscript a thorough once over.

If I find my father in a good mood, I request him to proof read.

For my Cookbooks, I have requested my mother, who has in any case contributed the recipes, to lend me a helping hand.

So feel free to choose someone really reliable.

I have seen so many negative reviews of books with readers saying that the book is full of typos and grammatical errors and that the author has not proof read the document carefully.

That can really bring down your ratings with disastrous results on your sales rank.

So, please don’t let that happen to you.

Some Authors also use Beta readers (and pay for them) for proof reading.

Do that if you can spare some cash and if you feel comfortable using total strangers for your magnum opus.

Formatting: Once the book has been proof read, I start to format the book.

There are separate formatting rules for publishing on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Apple, Create Space etc, which you need to study and follow very carefully.

I found a very helpful video tutorial that shows how to format your ebook for Kindle.

Once the book is properly formatted, you can upload it on Kindle, Create Space or your chosen platform.

Here is another video tutorial that talks about preparing and formatting your book for Print Version.

If you want to upload your book on other platforms, then you can upload your book to Smashwords. Smashwords distributes your ebook to Apple, Barnes & Nobles, Kobo, Sony, Diesel, Versent and other smaller platforms. Their formatting is similar to Kindle but different in certain respects. Since Smashwords prepares your book for other e-reader devices, their formatting guidelines may be a little stringent than Kindle. The difference in formatting that I found was that Smashwords doesn’t like that you use the copyright symbol in your book and they strongly encourage you to use single spacing, left alignment and not create an active Table of Contents. You can have a look at their guide which is Free on Amazon to download. You  may click on the image to download their Style Guide.

You can only then send up a silent prayer and hit the publish button.

1 book can take up to 2 months to finish (at least for me): 1 month writing + 1 month for editing, cover designing, proof reading, formatting, choosing categories after doing keyword research, etc.

That’s how my maths looks like:

3 books= 6 months

If you have any questions about ebook formatting and proof reading, feel free to leave a comment below.

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Dangers Of Protein Shakes And A High Protein Diet: My Take

Image Courtesy of imagerymajestic/FreeDigitalPhotos.net Young gym going active men are often “advised” to incorporate protein shakes, steroids and other artificial supplements in their diet to either help bulk up or to attain a lean muscle mass. But are there any dangers of taking these supplements? Yes, there are. One might say that protein shakes are […]

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How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn

How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn is probably the best and the most comprehensive book I have read so far on book marketing by self-publishers.

This book has really helped me clear my thoughts about short term marketing, long term marketing, creating an author platform (and why do you need one), using social media, making audio podcasts and videos, and finally going beyond the Author Platform towards becoming an “Author Entrepreneur,” as she proclaims.

I was also really touched by her personal story. How she worked as an IT Consultant for years before becoming an Author, especially the fact that she had to wake up at 5 am in the morning to write her books and then go to work.

The most inspiring thing is that Joanna has no hesitation in sharing her past mistakes so that others don’t make the same.

I really admire her guts for doing so.

Some of the salient features of the book are:

Myth about Marketing: Joanna busts the marketing myth which is very much prevalent amongst self-published Authors.

Most of us think that our job as an Author is to write books: marketing is the job of some other lowly creature like a salesman.

Most of us are even intimidated at the thought of marketing our books.

Joanna reassures that there are techniques (some indeed quite simple) which can be mastered by anyone who wants to market his or her books.

Social Karma and Co-opetition: Joanna also discusses ways in which you can collaborate with competitors (in this case other Authors who possibly write in the same genre).

She has even coined the word “co-opetition”, a hybrid of cooperation with your competition.

This I wholeheartedly endorse as a strategy that helps all parties in the long run.

Short Term Marketing: How can you do keyword research using the Google Adwords tool and Amazon search engine, choose relevant categories, use KDP Select, etc. ?

Joanna covers all this with authority, and comes up with a marketing plan that can be implemented by anyone.

And you really don’t need to have an Author website or Social Media accounts (Author Platform) for doing all this, she assures.

Long Term Marketing: If you really want your books to sell in the long run, then Joanna urges you to create an Author Platform.

What is an Author Platform?

An Author Platform is a way by which you reach your audience or plan to do so.

Joanna advises that it is important to create one whether you are a self-published or a traditionally published Author.

Nowadays even traditional publishers want to know how big your Author Platform is before accepting your book.

This is because the traditional publishers too count on you to do your bit for selling your books.

This is contrary to the popular belief that they do all the marketing.

So that’s another point in favour of self-publishing!

Going Beyond the Author Platform: You can use your Author Platform to go beyond selling your books.

Joanna claims that she has got many international speaking, consulting and collaboration opportunities simply because of her platform. She is also able to sell her multi-media courses from her blog, which I too need to emulate.

Other features include:

Building an e-mail list

Use of Social Media

Launching your books and why it is best not to focus on launching at all

Use of audio and video content marketing

In the end, I must say that Joanna writes in a very simple, easy to understand way and her suggestions are very practical and not at all intimidating.

On the cons, I find Joanna NOT sharing her experiences of using KDP Select vis-à-vis other platforms like Kobo, Apple, Sony, Nook etc. and when and why should one prefer one over the other.

I’d also love to have her reactions on the “Kindle Countdown” deal specifically.

You may want to have a look at her book on Amazon.

 

Prasenjeet Kumar

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Chicken Teriyaki Recipe: Our Home Made Variation

If you want to have a low fat dinner involving chicken and also want to have a Japanese flavour, then try this Chicken Teriyaki recipe tonight. A word of warning though. We are Indians and not Japanese, so you may find our home-made Chicken Teriyaki variation to be a little different from the authentic version. […]

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3 ways to design your free book cover

Do not underestimate the power of your book cover. In the digital world, this is the only thing (along with your title) buyers are going to look at when deciding to even click to your sales page. Your book description comes much later, after the buyer-reader reaches your sales page.

Treat Cover designing, therefore, as a part of your book writing. When I start writing the first few chapters of my book, I also start thinking about what my book cover is going to look on Amazon.

Although it is possible to design a book cover, without using any pictures or drawings, I find these become much more eye-catching if you use one. For pictures, you can research a number of stock photography sites like Shutterstock and Dreamstime to get an idea but bear in mind that images from stock photography sites cost money. Or if the theme is very clear, you can use one of your own photographs.

Either way, you need a photograph or a drawing to start with. For the cover for my book on “Healthy Cooking”, I just arranged some fresh fruits and vegetables in a tray and used my point-and-shoot camera to click a picture. I used natural light to avoid the glare that the flash gun imparts and shot at the highest resolution possible. Look at the unedited result here:

 

Next, I used the free picture editing software paint.NET to add the twist effect to emphasize my series theme of “cooking in a jiffy”. The picture now looked like this:

 

Now I could go on to the cover design part. You can use Microsoft’s PowerPoint or even Word (you can view the word version on Joanna Penn’s website) to design a good looking free book cover. I used the tips given by William King to design the book cover of my first book using a free image from the MS-Power Point image stock. It looked like this.

 

However, when I stumbled onto the free book cover templates provided by Create Space, an Amazon associate, I found the results to be much more professional. Look at the results below using the  Aspen theme. Create Space has got lots of professional looking free book cover themes to choose from. I chose Aspen because it was going well with my cooking theme.

The Create Space experience is almost idiot-proof. You choose a template, import your image, write your title and sub-title, put your book description for the back cover, insert your photograph and you are done. You can also adjust the font size, colour and background colour. 99% of the time your free book cover looks pretty professional and the bonus is that it also converts well in a thumbnail when you put it out on Amazon.

However, if you can afford it, you can choose a professional cover designer and pay $100 upwards for your book cover. Even Create Space allows you access to such services if you pay extra. I have heard that you can get your cover designed for as low as $5 at sites like Fiverr.com, but I have not really used the service.

What is your favourite way of cover designing without paying anything for it? I do look forward to hearing from you.

Prasenjeet Kumar

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7 Astonishing Benefits of Green Tea That You May Not Know

Image courtesy of Zirconicusso/FreeDigitalPhotos.net The Chinese have been using tea leaves for medicinal purpose for three millenniums. However, consumption of green tea is becoming popular in other parts of the world. It is now being considered as the “healthiest beverage on the planet”. Here are the benefits of Green Tea: Increases metabolism and burns fat […]

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