A Chat with Charles
“The Challenge Of Marketing” Part 5
Navigating Amazon – The Publishing Behemoth
“I Have My Book Up On Amazon….Now What?”
I still remember how excited I was when I got that first contract from my first publisher and the thought that raced through my mind, “Now I can write, they will sell, and my life as a writer has begun.” I was obviously quite excited but also quite naïve as well. I learned very quickly that there was a whole lot more to the writing experience than just writing. Marketing became the single biggest part of the writing experience in both time and in the end money, often dwarfing the time I was getting to spend writing, and even greater than the cost of the editing, formatting, cover creation, and the cost for the books I would need for book signings and my sales.
My first publisher got my first book up on Amazon as well, and they did the same for the second book, but when they “printed” my third book, that one never made it up on Amazon from them, and then they went bankrupt. I never really understood what role the Amazon listing was playing in the marketing of my book.
Of course, when my first book came out, Amazon was distributing something like 30% of the books being sold in the US. Today that number is closing in at 70%.
When my first publisher went out of business, I learned the painful lesson that all of the books that were being sold on Amazon, those royalties were going to a company that I would never see anything further from. I also knew that people were reading my books, as I would hear from some, but I would not know for certain where they had bought my book from.
I spent a year finding another publisher to pick up my first three books and it was more than two years from when I first received notice that the original publisher had gone under and that my first three books were back up on Amazon under the new Publisher. I also was surprised to see more than one version of the book on Amazon, one from each of the publishers. That has been five years ago since the first publisher went bankrupt and over four years ago since the second publisher took over, and you can still go on to Amazon and find the listings from each of the publishers still listed there. But that is also when I realized that each listing had its own stars and ratings.
When I did my fourth book, truly as self-published and went through the rigorous process of trying to get the book into Amazon, only to figure out that the only way to ever make any profit with them was to put it into their “on-demand” printing structure, and not to try and ship books to them for them to distribute, that I also started to pay attention to the stars and reviews on Amazon.
I finally called Amazon inquiring whether I could get the list of people who had bought my book(s) so that I could tell them about other books I had written, and the message I got back was
surprising. “No! They are our customers, not yours.” That took me a bit to understand. They bought my book but they were not “my customer” but were Amazon’s. In the end, I had to come to terms with their logic, I understand it, even if I do not like it.
It was also then that I learned that Amazon actually does report to the “Publisher of Record- aka owner of the ISBN number” how many books are sold, but they do not tell anyone about who actually purchased them. How was I supposed to build a fan base that I could communicate with if I would never learn “who” had actually purchased the book?
I also discovered that the number of stars and ratings had little connection to how many people had bought the title. Instead, it was totally dependent on purchasers who had come back and left a review. So, with my first book now in the multiple thousands of sales I only have 25 reviews on Amazon, split 21 for my first publisher and 4 for my second.
I started reading all of the reviews and looking at any identification for the person leaving the review. I took lessons offered on understanding Amazon and its marketing algorithm. Suddenly some lights went on, and I started seeing “confirmed purchaser” attached to the reviews. I learned from the classes that this meant Amazon was confirming that the person leaving the review had bought the book on Amazon. I learned that you could hover your cursor over the stars and see the number of reviews done with the number of stars given by the reviewer.
If you spend any time on Amazon buying anything, you have seen their site suddenly saying, if you bought this, you may like this as well. What the classes taught me, is that the Amazon algorithm picks other products that have 50 confirmed reviews or more, with an average star count above three, and the higher the better.
I had also experienced a one-time attempt by Amazon to get me to leave a review on products I had purchased through their site. I saw in my own response what we as authors are up against. I very seldom leave a review for a product unless it is to warn someone else not to buy the product, because of a poor experience. I saw in my own response why it was possible to have so many books sold but have so few stars and so few reviews. I actually count myself as fortunate because almost all of the reviews were either 4 or five-star reviews.
And now, my books are out as e-books, and audiobooks and each of the versions has its own stars and reviews. How are we supposed to get to 50 reviews for one of our books?
That is where belonging to a group like Scribblers comes in. Your sphere of influence grows, and with all the other members in Scribblers helping that sphere of influence to understand the importance of leaving reviews on Amazon. If you are reading this newsletter you can help the authors by finding their book on Amazon, buying it, and leaving a review. If you are an author, consider buying a fellow author’s book and leave a review after you have read their book.
We have two authors closing in on that threshold of 50 reviews with Lynn Hesse’s Wells of Rage at 42 reviews and an average of 4.8 stars. And Marlene Buchanan’s Life is Hard Soften It with Laughter is also at 42 stars and an average just a smidge below a perfect 5 stars. Once we have a number of our authors over the magic 50 reviews we will see how the Amazon algorithm begins to increase the marketing of their books.
It was understanding how Amazon worked that also encourage the formation of the Scribblers Christian Writers Book Store. When an author’s book is in our store and someone buys the book, not only does the author get 90% of the collected value of the book (compared to 30% from Amazon) and Scribblers Authors get the contact information for the purchaser of their book. That way they are able to begin building a list of the people who have bought their books.
Also, if you are an author working with Scribblers Press, you get a report every month letting you know how many of your books were sold on Amazon in the last month, and you receive your portion of the royalties in the first week after the close of the prior month. As a comparison, I get my royalties from my current publisher every three months, but only if the royalties are over $25.00, otherwise it is annual.
There are many other nuances to being on the Amazon platform. Some folks have experienced Amazon indicating they have not “bought” enough to leave a review. (You need to have bought at least $50 from Amazon over the past year.) Others had been told their review is not permitted because they are considered to be professional reviewers…(.belonging to some groups might disqualify your review from being counted. ) And the usual experience is that these rules don’t seem to be applied consistently.
And then there are different rules related to earning royalty from different forms of Kindle. With Kindle Select, you don’t receive stars or reviews, and you earn royalty as a % of the number of pages being read. against the royalty being set aside for all of the books in the Select program.
So, I am still learning more about Amazon, and how to leverage the best results for us as authors.
I will continue to keep everyone informed of what is being learned. But two things are for sure. Amazon is the behemoth in the publishing marketing world, and working together with the Scribblers authors and friends can make a significant impact on the effectiveness of our authors in becoming known, both through Amazon and other venues.
As we approach the holiday season, consider giving gifts of books. You can support the authors and give your family and friends some truly unique gifts! Just go to www.scribblersweb.com and click on the bookstore. Use Coupon Code News10 and get 10% off your order. (If you order more than $100 use News20 and save 20% off your order.) You will find 33 authors and 85 books available, and we are adding one or two new authors and two to four new books every month.
Or go to Amazon and look up an author there, and if you buy their book on Amazon please remember to go back and leave a review as well. Together you really can help the authors succeed in getting their voices heard.
Until next month...and next year.
Grace to you all,
Charles de Andrade
Scribblers Christian Writers Group
"We All Have A Story To Tell, To The Glory of God" on www.scribblersweb.com (http://www.scribblersweb.com)
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