Getting in the "Top 100"

[Anthony Deeney]

Hi All,

(I am still lurking around here. I have been quiet because I'm busy, on a personal family issue.)

The big problem that we self published indie authors face is lack of publicity for our masterpieces.

Our books are simply not known, and so have to be 'found.'

There are 400 000 books on Amazon. What are the odds that a search will throw up your book?

Sure, there are millions of books being sold every day(week?). Few of them are mine. If your book title or search term is obscure, it may never be searched. If common then it competes with hundreds of other books.

You want your book to be found by "browsers." You want it in the "top 100."

Here is what worked for me... a little.

As some of the reviewers have said my book is philosophical in nature. So I moved it in into a small catagory "/philosophy/free will and determinism"

Now it is often in the top 100 and can be found by casual browsing.

Sales are up! (From a drip to a steady trickle)

So try finding a small sub category for a month and see. Don't all pile into "free will and determinism" I've bagged that one - find your own.

Good luck
Tony

I should acknowledge that I have benefited from a few great reviews, and they might be part of the reason sales are up.
(Thanks GG, Hakun and Christina. I will acknowledge your support in my sequel.)

[Hákon]

Thanks Tony, that is good advice.

[Charles]

I went to do this today, and look through the categories, but unfortunately there was nothing really specific to what I've written.

I want to put my book in Technothrillers for this reason, but I don't get heavy handed about the explanations for the technology, which saved me about 50 pages of useless information.

Guess I'd rather be buried in the pile than disappoint readers and receive bad reviews by shoehorning it into a specific genre that it doesn't quite belong in.

[Anthony Deeney]

Hákon wrote: "Thanks Tony, that is good advice."
Sorry Hákon, I should be more careful about spelling.

Just dropped out of the top 100, but a couple of sales pops me in there again.

I am not sure if sales are coming from that source. Amazon doesn't tell us. They could really give us bags more info e.g. Page hits, Sample downloads, "Wishlist" additions.

Charles wrote "Guess I'd rather be buried in the pile than disappoint readers and receive bad reviews by shoehorning it into a specific genre that it doesn't quite belong in.
"

Yes, if you feel that you've "sneaked" it in to the category. Of course your descriptor is important in this case. I have written a fiction book "exploring" free will. So I don't consider it cheeky. I could also post it in "/philosophy/free will/good and evil," but I would have to pull it out of "sci-fi" altogether to try both. That would feel wrong! It is sci-fi no question.


Rob wrote "And it won't have me compromising creative integrity by forcing myself to please the bulk of the buyers of specific genres that would prefer formula over orginality. "



Absolutely. I believe we write (most of us) because we have "something to say" or an idea that will not go away, until it is expressed. It is good if we can find a narrow niche, but I couldn't write a book about something that doesn't interest me.

[Christina]

I have one short book that rarely sells, but when it does, it jumps onto the top 100 for one oddly specific category that I doubt anyone is searching (science fiction>genetic engineering>short reads 1-2hrs). While this can be an ego boost,keep in mind that you are not likely getting a lot of exposure. The top 100 books in science fiction may not even have a single book from your subgenre.
If you feel your book is a good fit, by all means, narrow it down. But if you can't, you are going to end up with more exposure by picking the "crowded" genre that people might be browsing.

[Christina]

Like I said, the stats don't actually matter. I have books that sell regularly and never crack the top 100 of their genres. But if you aren't selling on Amazon, you are missing a very large market share.

[Anthony Deeney]

Christina wrote: "Like I said, the stats don't actually matter. I have books that sell regularly and never crack the top 100 of their genres. But if you aren't selling on Amazon, you are missing a very large market ..."

Hi Christina,
I think that if you have a few books out there you start to "gain traction." One book "sells" the other. I imagine that your short story is selling because people read your work, like it (Well done!) and search for more of your work. As long as one or two of your books is being read, you are being "found."


However for an author with a single book (at present). It is more important. Fall out of the top 100 and then continue falling.

This has happened to me! I was generating a steady "trickle" as I said. Now that I've dropped out of the top 100, sales have stopped.

Amazon doesn't give us any stats with which to judge the process(GRRR!).

So, I am only guessing.

The real solution is to write more!!

:)

[Owen]

Anthony wrote: "I think that if you have a few books out there you start to "gain traction." One book "sells" the other..."

I agree with this, though I recently read an author/promoter who disagreed (he was flogging the concept of "reader magnets" to build an email list). I think his analysis was flawed (as far as it went), but I imagine people have success doing different things, depending on the genre/market.

The value of a Top 100 placement is hard to pin down, since Amazon does not provide meaningful stats. I do believe a Top 100 list is one way that books are found, but well-thought-out keywords might be more effective. The "also bought" lists appear to drive a lot of traffic well.

Of course, these things reinforce each other, but it's hard to know what is cause and what is effect. Our books sometimes get pretty high up in Top 100 lists in other Amazon markets, but that seems to be an effect. A few sales pop us into the list, and then we fall out of it just as fast. So our position on those lists isn’t sustaining sales in those markets. (And I tend to believe if you aren't on pg.1 of the list, what value is much less.)

Sales do tend to peak and then roll off. When we've released a new book in the past, it has enjoyed good sales for about 6 weeks, and then starts to fall off. After about 3 months, sales bottom out until we release the next book. (Each new book does sell the previous books as well. Now that we at 3 books, the roll-off might be slower -- or it may not.)

I have seen books get steadily stronger for a month or even two, but those are genuine bestsellers.

[Richard]

'Reader magnets'? I want one of those (horseshoe-shaped, painted bright red and about four feet across like the ones in cartoons), something that can pull in a whole crowd of readers from half a mile away!

[Owen]

Richard wrote: "'Reader magnets'? I want one of those (horseshoe-shaped, painted bright red and about four feet across like the ones in cartoons), something that can pull in a whole crowd of readers from half a mi..."

"If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!" ;-)

[R.F.G.]

Can I get the one with "ACME" printed on it?

[Jeffrey]

Owen wrote: "Anthony wrote: "I think that if you have a few books out there you start to "gain traction." One book "sells" the other..."

I agree with this, though I recently read an author/promoter who disagre..."

From everything I've read it seems like no-one really understands what marketing strategies are going to be most effective. Some will appear to work for some authors, while the same ones will achieve very little for another. Do what you can, hope for the best, but don't expect a lot is the mantra I'm following.

[[deleted user]]

R.F.G. wrote: "Can I get the one with "ACME" printed on it?"

ACME makes some fine products. I especially like the rocket-powered roller skates.

[Owen]

Jeff wrote: "From everything I've read it seems like no-one really understands what marketing strategies are going to be most effective..."

Personally, I tend to believe no one understands marketing much at all. There is a school of thought that says every book has an audience and the job of marketing is to find it. There may be some truth to that, but I've seen no evidence that marketing experts can predict how large said market is (which is what matters) better than anyone else. Some books strike a nerve and take off, most don't.

Where marketing can come into play is maintaining success once it happens. The strategy for that depends strongly in the market/genre, and some people in a given market may have a bit of a handle on that. But even there, the results seem spotty.

The biggest flaw I see with the marketing advice I have encountered is that it comes from people who don't actually understand why they succeeded in the first place. Therefore, they can't properly apply what they think they know to other situations, and they propound causal relationships they in fact have little or no evidence for.

Thus I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence.

[Owen]

Rob wrote: "@Owen, lucky undies marketing ;-)"

Maybe I'll leave that in other hands. : )

[Micah]

Christina wrote: "I have one short book that rarely sells, but when it does, it jumps onto the top 100 for one oddly specific category that I doubt anyone is searching (science fiction>genetic engineering>short read..."

Exactly. My two free short stories are regularly in the top 100 of a couple obscure categories. Like right now, one is:

#47 in Kindle Store > (FREE) Kindle Short Reads > 30 minutes (12-21 pages) > Teen & Young Adult*

And the other is:
#60 in Kindle Store > (FREE) Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Space Exploration
#65 in Kindle Store > (FREE) Kindle Short Reads > 45 minutes (22-32 pages) > Teen & Young Adult*

But this is just based on one or two downloads every 2-3 days. I think I average about 1.5 downloads a day between the pair.

My non-free books...not so much.

Basically, being a big(ish) fish in a small pond doesn't seem to help much. Small ponds are almost as hard to find as unknown authors/books.

*Teen & Young Adult: These were not written or supposedly marketed as Teen & Young Adult. They only got that because when I saw the Reading Level age drop down lists when uploading to amazon, I guessed at the reading difficulty, not thinking that I was approving these for younger audiences. Fortunately one of them has no offensive stuff in it. The other one, though, does have some off language. Nothing kids don't hear in movies on TV or on youtube, but some people might object...if they actually read the story, which they obiviously don't 'cause it's too obscure a publication. Sometimes I wish dirty magazines would publish SF again as filler materieal (reference Kilgore Trout).

[Christina]

Anthony wrote: "However for an author with a single book (at present). It is more important. Fall out of the top 100 and then continue falling.

This has happened to me! I was generating a steady "trickle" as I said. Now that I've dropped out of the top 100, sales have stopped"

That's how ranking works though. You were in the top 100 because you had made a sale, not the other way around. When your sales stop, your rank drops.
Yesterday I made a sale in the Netherlands, which put me at #95 overall and at #9 in both scifi and romance. Technically, that makes me a bestseller, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Last time I hit the bestseller list was when Canada was a brand new market and one sale put me at #8, which is Harry Potter and 50 Shades territory. That was two years ago. I've had maybe ten sales and less than 100 free downloads in Canada since.

[Christina]

Well thank you for making me a top seller! :)
I am beginning to think that I'm the last person on earth who appreciates the simplicity of the mobi format.

[[deleted user]]

That kind of reinforces the fact that it's not good to put all of your eggs in the Amazon basket. You need to get into as many markets as possible, even though they may not give you sales comparable to Amazon. Markets can, and usually do, change over time.

[Micah]

Christina wrote: "Well thank you for making me a top seller! :)
I am beginning to think that I'm the last person on earth who appreciates the simplicity of the mobi format."

The mobi format at its heart is actually just a slightly altered version of ePub.

[Christina]

Eh, to be honeat, my reasons for not leaving Amazon's exclusivity are similar to the reason people in the Netherlands won't embrace Amazon. I don't want my bank account and social security information scattered to the four winds.

[[deleted user]]

Do you have a paypal account? If so, you can go with Smashwords and Lulu. Also, for Amazon and others, I opened up a special account requiring only a small balance; I keep barely over $100 in it. If one of my contacts steals any of it, it's a cheap way to find out who not to trust.

[Owen]

Rob wrote: "Amazon has virtually zero market share over here. The online (e)book market is basically dominated by a local player Bol, with iBooks, Google Play and Kobo starting..."

I suppose we'll find out in a year or two. Personally, I think a local company dominating the market is no bad thing.

[R.F.G.]

Christina, Lulu also sends out hard-checks on royalty payments, though I think the baseline before they'll cut a check is $25 after taxes.

I've got $26 and change waiting on another sale or two at Lulu, but the good news is no impact on end-of-year taxes until a check is disbursed.

[[deleted user]]

Lulu will send you a check (only in the US) for amounts of $20 or more, paid quarterly, or via Paypal at $5 or more, paid monthly. Smashwords limits are $10 for Paypal, $75 for check, paid quarterly.

[Christina]

Ken wrote: "Do you have a paypal account? If so, you can go with Smashwords and Lulu. Also, for Amazon and others, I opened up a special account requiring only a small balance; I keep barely over $100 in it...."

Paypal would be part of the four winds I don't want anything to do with. I haven't found a bank here that allows a low balance without fees. My own account requires an obscene balance since I no longer have qualifying direct deposit.
But doesn't Smashwords, Lulu, and others still require your ssn or tax ID for income reporting?

[[deleted user]]

Christina wrote: "Ken wrote: "Do you have a paypal account? If so, you can go with Smashwords and Lulu. Also, for Amazon and others, I opened up a special account requiring only a small balance; I keep barely over..."

Ah, the benefits of a "senior citizen's" banking account. But it doesn't pay interest, so I have only one use for it.
Any entity that pays you income will need your SSN or tax ID. With Lulu you also have to file a form to avoid backup withholding, but that can be done online. I get around ID theft by having my credit frozen with all three credit bureaus. All of life these days seems to be a bunch of bad compromises.

[Charles]

I broke into the top 10 free books on some obscure list yesterday with my LGBT/Fantasy/Horror short story. :D

I got a good review from it too!

[R.F.G.]

Christina wrote: "Paypal would be part of the four winds I don't want anything to do with. I haven't found a bank here that allows a low balance without fees. My own account requires an obscene balance since I no longer have qualifying direct deposit.
But doesn't Smashwords, Lulu, and others still require your ssn or tax ID for income reporting? "

Lulu does the SSN or TIN for tax purposes, which in many ways isn't much different from Amazon's requirements for direct deposit. It's all about the taxman's ability to know when you owe taxes.

As for the exact amount Lulu will cut a check on, I've got a $26 and change royalty balance because they will deduct the nominal 30% tax on royalties before they send a check out, which means I have about $1.50 in royalties to go to get my first check. Then again, I haven't been promoting for the last two years so...

The good news is Lulu is based in North Carolina.

If you can open an account at a credit union they usually don't require high balances. If a direct member of your family served or is currently serving in the US military, odds are they could sponsor you for an account at Navy Federal or one of the other service credit unions, if there's a base in your general vicinity.

[Christina]

Eh, it's not worth it for me at the moment. Amazon will always have a special place in my heart even if they did steal my nickname.

[[deleted user]]

Yeah, I do have to give Amazon the credit, or the blame, for pulling me back into this game. They made it sound so easy, and so thrilling, that I couldn't pass it up. So, for better or for worse, I now have four books out there that would have never seen the light of day without Amazon.com.

[Christina]

Hey, from everything you've been saying about the latest, it sounds like for the better. :)

[Owen]

I do like that Amazon got rid of their minimums for payouts (KDP and Createspace). Practically speaking, I suppose it doesn't matter much to me if I don't get a $2 payout for awhile, but it does bug me when companies put a limit on something like PayPal.

I understand a payout limit with a physical check (although $75 seems unreasonable), but not otherwise in this day and age. I have to wonder how much money Smashwords and Lulu are sitting on, waiting for people to accrue $5 or $10 in royalties (or $20 or $75 for people without PayPal). Doesn’t seem quite right to me.

I guess I'm even happier now that we decided not to do business with either Lulu or Smashwords. (Aside from the fact it would cost considerable amounts of money if we did.)

[Owen]

Ken wrote: "So, for better or for worse, I now have four books out there that would have never seen the light of day without Amazon.com."

I have to agree. Amazon made it very painless for us to put 3 books out there, and overall it has been a rewarding experience.

Happy to hear that you've been having some success.

[[deleted user]]

Owen wrote: "Happy to hear that you've been having some success. ..."

It's all with the new book. Smashwords has owed me just under $5 since last July, and I had to write another book, and get it to sell on Smashwords, just so I could get paid. Now they owe me big time. (unfortunately, not Stephen King big time, just unknown writer big time)

[Owen]

Ken wrote: "It's all with the new book. Smashwords has owed me just under $5 since last July, and I had to write another book, and get it..."

Glad to hear it! :-)

Didn't Stephen King once write under a pen name to make the point it was his writing and not his fame that sold books? I heard he didn't sell all that well, so maybe it wasn't so much his writing after all? Or is that an "urban legend"?

[R.F.G.]

Owen wrote: "I guess I'm even happier now that we decided not to do business with either Lulu or Smashwords. (Aside from the fact it would cost considerable amounts of money if we did.) "

Going through Lulu doesn't really cost anything, if you DIY. They quit charging for global distribution roughly a year and a half back, there is no charge on ISBNs, and they hit a lot of venues Amazon doesn't.

True, you have to make the sales to get paid, but that's the case with any self-publishing facilitator.

[[deleted user]]

Owen wrote: "Ken wrote: "It's all with the new book. Smashwords has owed me just under $5 since last July, and I had to write another book, and get it..."

Glad to hear it! :-)

Didn't Stephen King once write ..."

I'm not a big Stephen King fan, although I once saw the movie "Christine" on TV, and watched only because I liked the car--a '57 Plymouth Sports Fury, I think. I use King's name only because he's probably the most famous author out there right now.

[Owen]

R.F.G. wrote: "Going through Lulu doesn't really cost anything, if you DIY. They quit charging for global distribution roughly a year and a half back, there is no charge on ISBNs, and they hit a lot of venues Amazon doesn't."

They would cost us because being exclusive to Amazon makes us a lot of money, which we would lose. Given the market share of the other venues, we have to sell unreasonable numbers just to break even.

And given that we will not deal with Apple on principle, and they have (or so I've heard) the next biggest share of the eBook market after Amazon, the issue is pretty much moot.

[Owen]

Rob,

For us the numbers just don't add up. The breakdown is something like this: Amazon market share ~65%, everyone else ~35%. Now for us, KDP Select boosts our revenue ~45%. That's large. 35% of the market is not likely to boost our sales that much.

Now subtract Apple, since we will not allow Apple to sell our work (our choice). Now we're down to Kobo, B&N and Bol (and whoever else). Estimates I've seen vary, but these outlets aggregate to maybe 10-15% of the market. For 15% of the market to make up that 45% we'd lose is unreasonable.

If this changes, we'll change. But right now, those other markets don't have any added value for us. Obviously, other people have different experiences, but for us, those are the numbers.

[Christina]

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who won't deal with Apple.

[[deleted user]]

Owen wrote: "They would cost us because being exclusive to Amazon makes us a lot of money, which we would lose. Given the market share of the other venues, we have to sell unreasonable numbers just to break even..."

If that's the case, I would certainly stay exclusive with Amazon. For me, I think distribution to Smashwords has been a small (very small) plus, and it may benefit me more later on. I do distribute to Apple (through Smashwords), but I've made no sales. Why are people down on Apple?

[Angel]

Owen wrote: "Ken wrote: "It's all with the new book. Smashwords has owed me just under $5 since last July, and I had to write another book, and get it..."

Glad to hear it! :-)

Didn't Stephen King once write ..."

No, that's partially true. I forgot the pen name he went under though but, he did it because he was trying to write under another genre, since he was wholly know for the horror genre. It's true he didn't sell much at all. But, since he is such a big name it wouldn't hurt him as much as it would hurt us not so big named authors.

[Christina]

Toxic corporate culture. It's the same reason I don't shop at Walmart.

[Owen]

Ken,

I'm down on Apple for a number of reasons, some stemming from my days as working stiff. The company I worked for had fairly close ties with Apple, and I did not like the way they did business.

As an author, I don't like aspects of their TOC (my feeling is they look on authors basically as chattel), but it was their colluding with the Big 5 to jack up eBook prices into the $15 range, for with they were convicted, that is my main problem with them. (They are of course appealing their conviction.)

The thing that really got me about that trial was the sheer gall of the Apple exec's testimony, with drew very strong rebukes from the presiding judge. (These are noted in the verdict.) They had essentially no compunction about telling blatant untruths and generally acting as they had were not accountable to anyone, and were entitled to do whatever they pleased. (At times, they appeared to me to be treating the whole thing like it was a joke.)

I saw that sense of entitlement when my company dealt with them, but this just sealed it for me. As Christina says, toxic corporate culture (and I don’t shop at Wal-Mart either). We choose not to allow them to make money off our work, although our circumstances make that an easy choose, so I claim no nobility of sacrifice on our part.

On your other comment: I suspect genre has quite a bit to do with things as well. When we were preparing to publish our first book and examining all the options, I got the impression that romance sold quite well on iBooks, but sci-fi, not so much. This was based on a very small sample though, so I don’t deem it to be especially reliable. But I’m sure that people find certain markets better than others for their particular genre and style. (When I was investigating Smashwords, which was our initial choice, it did seem to me to have a rather different reader “culture” than Amazon does.)

[Owen]

Angel wrote: "No, that's partially true. I forgot the pen name he went under though but, he did it because he was trying to write under another genre ..."

Thanks for the clarification. Odd what happens sometimes when a well-known author steps outside of his/her genre and becomes "just another writer".

[[deleted user]]

Christina wrote: "Toxic corporate culture. It's the same reason I don't shop at Walmart."

I have no problem with Walmart, but I haven't heard anything about Apple. On the other hand, I've heard that some people have issues with Amazon. For me, I take it all with a grain of salt--competitors envious of their success and trying to take them down a peg or two. There used to be a lot of bad stuff going on between Coke and Pepsi, and a lot of evil stories going around.

[R.F.G.]

Well, not trying to sidetrack, but if you dislike toxic corporate culture you'd better hope the TPP doesn't make it, as that appears to pull out all the stops.

As for the main track, I had to do a Plain Brown Wrapper version of one of my covers due to the imagery -- it's not that risque, but some Apple / Kobo / Nook buyers who can't lock down the parental controls before handing e-reader over...

I'll worry more about venues once I have a paid sales rank to worry about as I'm at 2,598,613 for paid sales of Sci-Fi Romance in the Kindle store. I wonder if they pull in sales from Canada, Germany, and the UK for that ranking, if not it might be 2,498,613.

[Christina]

I will not encourage the discussion to meander too much into the realm of socio-political debate, since I should at least *try* to make an effort to steer us back on track.
So, pulling us back... to RFG above, no, each Kindle market has its own ranking, but as far as I can tell, the algorithm used to calculate ranking is not tailored to the size of each market. This is why a single sale might jump you from the million plus mark into the top 100k here in the states, but that same sale might get you an obscenely high ranking in a smaller market.

[R.F.G.]

Christina wrote: "I will not encourage the discussion to meander too much into the realm of socio-political debate, since I should at least *try* to make an effort to steer us back on track.
So, pulling us back... ..."

*cough cough wheeze* I understand on the, hey look, a squirrel chasing a cat.

I don't tend to worry too much about the rankings, as one author on lulu noted he made one sale in Lithuania and was ranked at number one there for his genre, though he was the only one who'd made a sale in that genre in Lithuania for a long while.