Too good not to share

[E.M.]

Hi, all - saw this thread in another group and thought it was too good not to share here. The original point is as good as the well-stated thoughts that follow. Enjoy:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Tara Woods Turner]

What a coincidence - I watched one of Adam Houge's webinars today. He is quite brilliant when it comes to the complexities of Amazon's algorithms, marketing, promotions etc. What I like best about him is he never endorses shady or prohibited tactics to climb the rankings or make money. He emphasizes the only things that will truly yield success in the lonf run - writing what people want to read, great covers, careful editing, good reviews and effective marketing. However, he's a lot more knowledgeable about how to go about it than your average indie self-publishing guru. His training course is too expensive for me at a discounted $49/mo for six months but I have no doubt that his attendees will be getting their money's worth.

[E.M.]

Yeah, his webinar that someone links to on YouTube in that thread is fascinating, though I'm always weary as to whether it's transferable. Like so much advice in these forums, it's very contextual, be it the book, the genre, the person, etc., on top of the fact that Amazon readily states that its algorithm is constantly in flux. Although Adam's been having success at this for several years now, it must be a question at some point whether his latest success is reflective of his method or the fact that he's become so well-known?

Either way, I intend to poke around his webinars. :) I'm especially intrigued about the keywords and categories advice, which I confess to being lost about. So long as I'm tied to Amazon, which from a market share standpoint still makes the most sense IMO, I may as well learn the ins and outs from an expert.

[Tara Woods Turner]

E.M. wrote: "Yeah, his webinar that someone links to on YouTube in that thread is fascinating, though I'm always weary as to whether it's transferable. Like so much advice in these forums, it's very contextual,..."

I think in Adam's case his current level of success is the result of the hard work he put in during the early days when he was struggling to understand what he was doing. I tend to trust him because his success was no accident and he lays out his approach and strategies clearly. He's made a study of it in a way that would bore me to tears lol so I'm glad I can potentially benefit from the years he has spent analyzing sales, ranking stats and data. I also appreciate the fact that he has written in both fiction and non-fiction, stand alones and series. He's also upfront about the things he has tried that didn't work for him. Of course now he's coasting on his empire and raking in the dough but at its core what he says is sound. Whether or not it is replicable will be interesting to see but at least he pulls no tricks. I actually read a book once where the author encouraged indie authors to study the Amazon categories and find topics that were under represented. His advice was to come up with a catchy angle for the topic, commission a $5 cover from fiverr and pay a college or Craigslist freelancer $150 to gather information from google and compile it into a quick book. Grammar and accuracy were not as important as immediacy, he reasoned, because people would be so happy to grab the book at a cheap price that they wouldn't hold the editing to the same standards as trad pub books. And I won't even go into how he recommended getting reviews or choosing keywords etc. He promised that if you did that two or three times a week for a few months eventually you would end up with a back catalog that would provide you with an endless revenue stream. I was speechless. That was the last indie pub book I ever bought.