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Make A Killing On Kindle 2018 Edition: Book #1 In The Killing It On Kindle Series
Read the only book marketing guide willing to tell you the ugly truth about blogs, Facebook and Twitter. At 357 pages--100 images, 250 links, and 12 worksheets it's the bible of the industry.
Read case studies and industry numbers proving that social media gets you closer to sales the way jumping gets you closer to the sun. It’s a complete waste of time. The only way to put commas in your sales figures is to train the algorithm to put your book in front of the people likeliest to want it at the time they’re likeliest to buy it. This book shows you how.
NEW! My proprietary approach--the Kindle Category Selection Technique-- comes with a downloadable worksheet that guides you through the jungle of Amazon’s confusing categories. Bonus! It’ll get you approved by Amazon to appear in 9 or more categories while your competitors languish in two.
NEW! Tired of the grinding work of discovering keywords? Confused by all the options? My Amazon-compliant Kindle Keyword Optimization Technique cuts through the chaos with a systematic, ordered approach. You’ll discover keywords that land you on Page 1 of search engine results while quadrupling the number of searches you qualify for. Includes customizable worksheets guiding you through every step of the process.
NEW! With 200 discount promotion sites like Bookbub how do you tell the ripoffs from the home home runs? I’ve ranked all 200+ websites by effectiveness ---a first in the industry!
NEW! My Kindle Copywriting System shows you what conversion techniques professional copywriters use in your subcategory and how to apply them to your own book. Includes customizable worksheets guiding you through every step of the process.
NEW! I commissioned a research lab to track pupil movements of shoppers looking at Amazon book pages. See the shocking results and change your marketing approach to improve conversions.
NEW! I’ll show you how to give it the three things it needs to sell your books.
8 brainstorming techniques and 11 winning formulas will help you write titles that jump off the shelf. See over 100 of the best titled books in history.
NEW! Stop shoppers in their tracks by producing attention-grabbing covers--through clever ways of getting the best out of a designer or stellar tips for doing it yourself. Studded with dozens of “Before and After” cover redesigns to deepen your knowledge of what makes a great cover.
NEW! Make A Killing On Kindle includes 100 images, 250 links, and 12 downloadable worksheets to clarify important concepts, help you understand better and deepen your knowledge.
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• 500 Amazon Customer 4.5 Average Rating
• 282 Goodreads Customer 4.0 Average Rating
“Three hat tips to Make A Killing On Kindle!”
-- Guy Kawasaki, Mega-Entrepreneur
Read case studies and industry numbers proving that social media gets you closer to sales the way jumping gets you closer to the sun. It’s a complete waste of time. The only way to put commas in your sales figures is to train the algorithm to put your book in front of the people likeliest to want it at the time they’re likeliest to buy it. This book shows you how.
NEW! My proprietary approach--the Kindle Category Selection Technique-- comes with a downloadable worksheet that guides you through the jungle of Amazon’s confusing categories. Bonus! It’ll get you approved by Amazon to appear in 9 or more categories while your competitors languish in two.
NEW! Tired of the grinding work of discovering keywords? Confused by all the options? My Amazon-compliant Kindle Keyword Optimization Technique cuts through the chaos with a systematic, ordered approach. You’ll discover keywords that land you on Page 1 of search engine results while quadrupling the number of searches you qualify for. Includes customizable worksheets guiding you through every step of the process.
NEW! With 200 discount promotion sites like Bookbub how do you tell the ripoffs from the home home runs? I’ve ranked all 200+ websites by effectiveness ---a first in the industry!
NEW! My Kindle Copywriting System shows you what conversion techniques professional copywriters use in your subcategory and how to apply them to your own book. Includes customizable worksheets guiding you through every step of the process.
NEW! I commissioned a research lab to track pupil movements of shoppers looking at Amazon book pages. See the shocking results and change your marketing approach to improve conversions.
NEW! I’ll show you how to give it the three things it needs to sell your books.
8 brainstorming techniques and 11 winning formulas will help you write titles that jump off the shelf. See over 100 of the best titled books in history.
NEW! Stop shoppers in their tracks by producing attention-grabbing covers--through clever ways of getting the best out of a designer or stellar tips for doing it yourself. Studded with dozens of “Before and After” cover redesigns to deepen your knowledge of what makes a great cover.
NEW! Make A Killing On Kindle includes 100 images, 250 links, and 12 downloadable worksheets to clarify important concepts, help you understand better and deepen your knowledge.
---------------------------
• 500 Amazon Customer 4.5 Average Rating
• 282 Goodreads Customer 4.0 Average Rating
“Three hat tips to Make A Killing On Kindle!”
-- Guy Kawasaki, Mega-Entrepreneur
524 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 5, 2017
58 people are currently reading
22 people want to read
About the author
Michael Alvear
57 books24 followersHealth writer Michael Alvear has written for WebMD, Newsweek, salon.com, The Washington Post, Reader’s Digest, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times and The Huffington Post.
He’s been a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and co-hosted a health and fitness show on HBO and England’s Channel 4.
He’s been a frequent contributor to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and co-hosted a health and fitness show on HBO and England’s Channel 4.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
February 10, 2018
Honestly, this "Vastly expanded edition" could have been cut down about a hundred pages if it left out the numerous rants, making fun of other authors, and jokes that are bound to offend someone (I counted disabilities, religions, numerous sex jokes as things seen appropriate to make fun of in a non fiction book about marketing)
A lot of the book is legitimately helpful, like the sections on keywords, and making your blurb and other things pop when a reader lands on it. Other things were flat out bad advice or conflicting advice.
The author chose to rant for several pages about covers. Specifically, making fun of authors who make their own. The cover of this book looks self made and not in something like photoshop. Endless jokes ragging people who make their own covers to examples (I have no idea if these were test covers for marketing purposes or they were real book covers taken from Amazon specifically to point out they were bad). Yes, a well made cover is essential, but that could have been easily said in a few paragraphs without putting up a few covers and saying "This is bad" and the several other pages of ranting.
Also, formatting does not "always" have to be outsourced and this entire section seemed to be an ad for the formatter the author uses. Formatting is not some HTML magical unicorn you could never hope to understand. Word has all sorts of options to show formatting and remove all formatting. Then, you have Scrivener and other writing programs that almost do it for you. Converting a book to mobi, epub, or any other format is not magic. The author seems to be under the assumption people are writing their books on typewriters, then scanning them to PDF and trying to make an ebook out of it. I've read some books with formatting issues, but it was usually just a lack of page breaks.
The reason given for paying someone to format your book is because you want it to look like a big house published book, but the author advises to leave out a table of contents. In fact, he screen shotted the author of Gone Girl's latest book to make fun of the table of contents. Almost every single big house book I've read has a table of contents. If you hang out on goodreads and talk to reviewers, there was actually this long thread about table of contents. Yes, it takes up space in your preview, but a LOT of fiction readers prefer them if they need to go back and read something and if you pay a formatter to look like you were traditionally published, why would you leave out the table of contents all traditionally published books have?
The section on getting reviews is a good recipe for either getting revenge 1 star reviews, having your friends and family banned from leaving reviews, or worse, having your entire author account suspended and your books taken down. Everyone says troll amazon for the top 100 reviewers and email them to review your book if they have a public email. But have you actually seen a book with several one star reviews from those exact same reviewers complaining the author is a spammer? Also, when "your friend" leaves a review on your competitors book with a link to yours? If someone did that on my books, I'd look at that persons profile. If someone saw they were leaving links to your book on several competitors books, you'd either get a revenge one star or both of you would be reported for manipulating reviews
Same goes for asking your "friends and family" to put up 6 reviews the day your book goes live. Even if they don't live at the same residence or use the same CC, Amazon will eventually find out. Either those reviews will disappear or your friends and family will suddenly find they are unable to review anymore. Do it enough and you'll either get a warning from Amazon about manipulating reviews or you'll find your entire account taken down.
So, yes, while I found some of the book helpful, some of the advice would actually be harmful to an author just starting out if they tried some of these techniques
A lot of the book is legitimately helpful, like the sections on keywords, and making your blurb and other things pop when a reader lands on it. Other things were flat out bad advice or conflicting advice.
The author chose to rant for several pages about covers. Specifically, making fun of authors who make their own. The cover of this book looks self made and not in something like photoshop. Endless jokes ragging people who make their own covers to examples (I have no idea if these were test covers for marketing purposes or they were real book covers taken from Amazon specifically to point out they were bad). Yes, a well made cover is essential, but that could have been easily said in a few paragraphs without putting up a few covers and saying "This is bad" and the several other pages of ranting.
Also, formatting does not "always" have to be outsourced and this entire section seemed to be an ad for the formatter the author uses. Formatting is not some HTML magical unicorn you could never hope to understand. Word has all sorts of options to show formatting and remove all formatting. Then, you have Scrivener and other writing programs that almost do it for you. Converting a book to mobi, epub, or any other format is not magic. The author seems to be under the assumption people are writing their books on typewriters, then scanning them to PDF and trying to make an ebook out of it. I've read some books with formatting issues, but it was usually just a lack of page breaks.
The reason given for paying someone to format your book is because you want it to look like a big house published book, but the author advises to leave out a table of contents. In fact, he screen shotted the author of Gone Girl's latest book to make fun of the table of contents. Almost every single big house book I've read has a table of contents. If you hang out on goodreads and talk to reviewers, there was actually this long thread about table of contents. Yes, it takes up space in your preview, but a LOT of fiction readers prefer them if they need to go back and read something and if you pay a formatter to look like you were traditionally published, why would you leave out the table of contents all traditionally published books have?
The section on getting reviews is a good recipe for either getting revenge 1 star reviews, having your friends and family banned from leaving reviews, or worse, having your entire author account suspended and your books taken down. Everyone says troll amazon for the top 100 reviewers and email them to review your book if they have a public email. But have you actually seen a book with several one star reviews from those exact same reviewers complaining the author is a spammer? Also, when "your friend" leaves a review on your competitors book with a link to yours? If someone did that on my books, I'd look at that persons profile. If someone saw they were leaving links to your book on several competitors books, you'd either get a revenge one star or both of you would be reported for manipulating reviews
Same goes for asking your "friends and family" to put up 6 reviews the day your book goes live. Even if they don't live at the same residence or use the same CC, Amazon will eventually find out. Either those reviews will disappear or your friends and family will suddenly find they are unable to review anymore. Do it enough and you'll either get a warning from Amazon about manipulating reviews or you'll find your entire account taken down.
So, yes, while I found some of the book helpful, some of the advice would actually be harmful to an author just starting out if they tried some of these techniques
January 12, 2018
There is so much here; this book requires homework! I'm taking notes. The information on Amazon categories and keywords is quite extensive. The author interjects his offbeat humor in many places. Some of it is not my style and goes too far, but I do appreciate the appearance of humor and some of it I liked. It makes this book different than a lot of those other dry, do- this-get-results non-fiction books on writing and marketing. I also got a lot out of the chapters on optimizing your copy and blurb and choosing a great title, then changing what doesn't work. He even includes links to helpful spreadsheets that I plan to download and explore and a link to his list of the most helpful book promo websites. I am sure I will re-read sections of this book again and again!
November 26, 2017
Good but annoying
Be forewarned, this book is full of rude-and-crude twelve year old sex humor, f-bombs and other vulgarities, and “fun stuff” like jokes about disabilities. If that upsets you, you probably won’t enjoy the book. I’m no prude, but it was annoying to me. Why ruin a good book with so much of that garbage?
That said, there are a lot of great tips in the book. Some of it is already read on kboards or in other books, but enough that it’s worth the price. There are some typos and non-starters like using affiliate codes (amazon will shut your account down).
Be forewarned, this book is full of rude-and-crude twelve year old sex humor, f-bombs and other vulgarities, and “fun stuff” like jokes about disabilities. If that upsets you, you probably won’t enjoy the book. I’m no prude, but it was annoying to me. Why ruin a good book with so much of that garbage?
That said, there are a lot of great tips in the book. Some of it is already read on kboards or in other books, but enough that it’s worth the price. There are some typos and non-starters like using affiliate codes (amazon will shut your account down).
September 26, 2018
This book has lots of good information about marketing and selling books. Michael lays out a step-by-step plan and he offers templates and worksheets to help with some of the time consuming work needed. He also scared the pants off me and made me wonder if it’s worth even trying to publish a book. He ends on an optimistic note though, so that helped. I would recommend reading it and following the steps outlined. It can’t hurt.
December 24, 2019
Great information
This book confirmed a lot of beliefs I have that other marketing books contradict. Great logic. Can't wait to try all this stuff out. Only problem was a few typos, right after he said you need to make your reader's experience *perfect*. Otherwise, an excellent book.
This book confirmed a lot of beliefs I have that other marketing books contradict. Great logic. Can't wait to try all this stuff out. Only problem was a few typos, right after he said you need to make your reader's experience *perfect*. Otherwise, an excellent book.
January 2, 2021
Astounding
Packed with techniques and methods to successfully launch a new title, as well as resurrect a dying one, this is a keeper! I don't think I've ever highlighted a book this much before. Just the downloadable spreadsheets are worth getting.
Packed with techniques and methods to successfully launch a new title, as well as resurrect a dying one, this is a keeper! I don't think I've ever highlighted a book this much before. Just the downloadable spreadsheets are worth getting.
January 26, 2018
Don't bother. There was nothing I hadn't read in a number of other places and the author's random profanity-filled rants were off-putting for a professional book.
February 5, 2018
This book is fan-tastic. So fantastic. CRITICAL read for anyone selling on the Kindle store.
So critical, in fact, that it gets five stars from me despite being riddled with bawdy humor (which I hate), repeated instances of misspelling JK Rowling's name, and the use of the phrase "my point - and I have one - " at least sixteen times. The information in here is that important.
There are so many people in kindle-land repeating the same advice. Use the full space of the keyword fields, select the right categories, and pay for a book cover designer. Instead of just telling you what to do, Alvear lays down a very precise step-by-step instruction manual for exactly what to do. Within two weeks, I went from total Kindle n00b to having a short story on not one, not two, but THREE Hot New Releases bestseller lists. And it was truly all thanks to the process he laid out.
His process isn't a joke, either. Every chapter includes screenshots, instructions, and downloadable worksheets for you to work along with him. Anyone who self-publishes a book without reading this first is doing themselves a disservice.
So critical, in fact, that it gets five stars from me despite being riddled with bawdy humor (which I hate), repeated instances of misspelling JK Rowling's name, and the use of the phrase "my point - and I have one - " at least sixteen times. The information in here is that important.
There are so many people in kindle-land repeating the same advice. Use the full space of the keyword fields, select the right categories, and pay for a book cover designer. Instead of just telling you what to do, Alvear lays down a very precise step-by-step instruction manual for exactly what to do. Within two weeks, I went from total Kindle n00b to having a short story on not one, not two, but THREE Hot New Releases bestseller lists. And it was truly all thanks to the process he laid out.
His process isn't a joke, either. Every chapter includes screenshots, instructions, and downloadable worksheets for you to work along with him. Anyone who self-publishes a book without reading this first is doing themselves a disservice.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews