How to Fall in Love with Your Amazon Book Promotion

by | Feb 12, 2020 | Amazon Updates & Marketing Tips, Getting More Media Coverage

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Amazon book promotion isn’t easy, it requires not only writing a great book – but essentially learning a new skill.

I am a professional book promoter who puts a lot of focus on Amazon book promotion, I run a book promotion firm and I find book marketing requires constant learning.

Granted, I love learning, but I realize not everyone does. With Valentine’s Day coming up, it felt like a good time to encourage you to renew your relationship with your Amazon book promotion – or learn how to fall in love with it again.

If you’d rather be writing your next book, than promoting your current one  – this post is for you.

If you’ve fallen out of love with book promotion (or if you were never quite “in love” with it to begin with) then this post is for you.

Is there a way to fall in love with Amazon book promotion? Absolutely.

But instead of trying to force yourself to become something you’re not, like a full-time book marketer, why not reevaluate your relationship with book promotion into something that works for you instead of against you.

Small Things Matter More than Big Ones

As authors we often focus on big things: running ads, doing big eBook promotions, doing author events.

And while all of these are good, they sometimes cause us to overlook the small things. Small things incrementally add up and small things matter. Both in relationships and in book marketing.

Paying even a small daily compliment to your partner or spouse really makes a difference in the long-term. The same is true for your book!

For example, small tweaks to your Amazon book page could help increase sales, small changes to your website might enhance the user experience and encourage more newsletter sign ups.

If you’re facing another week of Amazon book promotion tasks and aren’t sure where to begin, take a look at making some small changes that could really enhance your overall promotion. Another example is a video for the Amazon video shorts on your book page.

Why not do a video thanking readers for visiting your page or buying your book?

Or you could do a short video on why you wrote the book.

Give your book a little love, in small doses, and it will reward you, I promise.

Create Incremental Successes You Can Really Track

People often ask me what success means to me, meaning what’s my definition of success.

Honestly, I don’t have a big, broad view of success. Although I must admit, I have practiced my Oscar’s acceptance speech a time or two. You know, a girl’s gotta have a dream.

But dreams or big broad goals aren’t one single leap, they are a million tiny steps.

When was the last time you celebrated a small success? Getting another book review, even just one?

Celebrating small successes is crucial to keeping your own personal momentum going. We celebrate a partner taking a small step towards a new career – even if it’s just dusting off their old resume.

So why do we expect so many grand leaps when it comes to book success?

Celebrating small wins isn’t just smart, psychologically but it helps really identify what’s working and what isn’t because there’s often a direct correlation between your wins and some Amazon book promotion you did.

Not only does celebrating incremental success feel better, but it’ll also help you pave a better path to overall success because you’ll quickly be able to assess what’s really working and what isn’t.

 

Reduce Your Social Media to Something Manageable

Would you rather have an overabundance of something lower quality, or just one of something that has greater value?

An example of this is getting a piece of jewelry.

What if someone gave you a lovely piece of jewelry or a watch, something you could value and treasure forever?

Or would you rather have a box full of costume jewelry?

There’s nothing bad about the fake stuff, but if we’re measuring worth and the significance of the gift, a lot more time and thought (and yes, money) goes into a piece you’ll keep forever.

Why this analogy? Well, your social media is a gift to your followers – and if it’s not it should be.

If you’re on a bunch of platforms, doing little to nothing on each of them – just “showing up” every now and again, it’s akin to giving your readers a box full of worthless stuff.

Yes, it’s great to be everywhere – but instead why not be everywhere that matters?

If your readers aren’t on LinkedIn, why are you spending your time there?

Time, like money, has value so spend it wisely. Take some time to evaluate where you’re getting the most bang for your buck (time) and invest your effort there. You’re better off on one site, spending your energy and investing time to push your Amazon book promotion – making it shine, showing up, engaging with your reader and sending them to buy your book.

Stop Focusing on Sales to Improve Your Amazon Book Promotion

This is where I tend to lose readers – and when I’m teaching a class, I see authors frown.

“What do you mean not focusing on sales, isn’t that what matters?”

Well, yes and no.

Sales is why we’re all doing this, I get it – but it’s really focusing on the wrong thing. Because, like any relationship, it’s an accumulation of many things.

You would never sit down on a first date and propose marriage, right? You work up to it, doing fun stuff, and getting to know each other. The same is true for book sales.

I encourage you (like I mentioned earlier) to focus on maximizing other things – like that great review you just got (go get more of those), or the interview in your local paper (make sure everyone sees it). Because all of it adds up.

Focusing on sales, and I mean assuming that each review or interview will net you a boatload of sales, is a dream-killer.

Marketing is cumulative, good stuff adds up – and over time, as one great thing builds on another, sales start to move.

Focus on the things you need to do with your Amazon book promotion that tells the reader: you matter.

Focus on who you are serving, give them what they want: a great book. Engage with them, thank a reader for a review, find new and creative ways to speak to your audience and I promise you, if you wrote a good book, sales will happen, and you’ll get your own version of “happily ever after.”

Book promotion doesn’t have to be hard, we make it hard – we add lots of unrealistic tasks and goals to our long list of to-dos. “I’d like Netflix to turn this into a movie or TV series.” It’s great to dream, but don’t make that a goal.

Narrowing your focus and zeroing in on things that matter will make all the difference and yes, help you fall in love with your Amazon book promotion again.

 

Resources and Free Downloads

It’s time for a smarter book launch plan

It’s time for smarter book discovery

Amazon Book Promotion is Not About Sales

 

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