Use Amazon.com To Market Your Books

As an author, you probably know how important it is to get your books out to the buying public. Amazon.com is a great tool that should not be overlooked. Here are some of the key features you can use to help market your books.

Get Listed
First and foremost, get your book titles listed on the site. There are basically two methods for listing your books:

1) Amazon.com Advantage – for new titles
2) Pro-Merchant Program – for used, collectible, and remainder books

Add Content
Once your book is listed, you can add descriptive content. Add things like a short description, author bio, inside flap or back cover copy, reviews, or an excerpt of the first chapter.

Search Inside
This feature will allow customers to view actual pages inside your book, such as the table of contents and index. This will “tease” customers into wanting more, and ultimately will help you to sell more books.

Add Reviews
For increased sales and visibility, ask friends and others to review your book on Amazon.com. If you give away copies of your book, ask the person to post a review if they had a positive reading experience.

Amazon Advantage
For a $29.95 annual fee, you can receive additional services to help market your book. Advantages include:
Your book is listed as “ships in 24 hours”
CDs, DVDs and other products can be sold
Your book can be listed here before being released, and pre-orders can be taken
Book returns are zero to minimal
Amazon Connect
This is a new program that allows you to post messages directly to your readers. The posted messages will appear on your book detail page(s), profile page and blog. In addition, you can create your own profile page.

Amazon Upgrade
Anyone who purchases a hard copy of your book will be allowed to receive a digital copy of the book for an extra fee.

Amazon Shorts
Another promotional tool available to you as an author, this program sells access to short format stories for just $0.49. For less than a cup of coffee, a reader can download a story of 2,000-10,000 words. The downloads can be saved in HTML, PDF or plain text formats to be read over and over.

Kindle
You can make your book available in digital format, to be used with Kindle, a new wireless reading device.

As you can see, there are several ways you can use Amazon.com to your advantage to market your books. For the most part, you do not even have to pay a dime. What better deal is there than that for the exposure you’ll gain?

By: Cynthia Morse, CAP

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Cynthia Morse, CAP is a Virtual Assistant, and the owner of Virtually At Your Service, www.virtuallyatyourservice.biz. She offers top-notch administrative support to small business owners and other busy professionals from her home office, allowing them the time to focus on what they love and do best. Sign up at virtuallyatyourservice.typepad.com/virtualbizconnection/ to receive updates to her blog “Virtual Biz Connection.”