Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com
More from the March 2007 issue of Wired - Annalee Newitz’s piece entitled Herding the Mob explores the influence of online crowds like Digg and eBay, and how the mobs themselves can be influenced, and in many cases gamed.
“On the Web, we let strangers tell us who to trust, what to read, and where to go. Which means your good name can be worth real money. And reputation hacking can be big business.”
In my world this is especially true of Amazon.com. Reader reviews can often make or break a book, so it’s important to pay attention to your book’s page and the activity there. I’m not suggesting that authors or publishers purposely try to game the Amazon.com reviewer system. However, there are several ways authors can participate to be sure that their voice is part of the conversation.
10 simple ways authors can help to increase sales at Amazon.com:
- Add a link to your book at Amazon.com or other online retailer as part of your email signature, forum signatures - anywhere you leave your name.
- Add a link to your book on your blog or website. Amazon.com offers an affiliate program which pays you when readers you refer purchase your book. Double dipping!
- Amazon.com allows readers to share their own images, so get the ball rolling by sharing yours. Look for the “Share your own customer images” link under the book’s cover image and start uploading. Wrote a book on building a PC? Upload photos of the build process. Wrote a
- There are 2 quick and simple ways you can help people find your book at Amazon.com. First look for the “Help others find this item” section near the bottom of the page and make valid suggestions for search terms or your book. Second, find the “Tag this product” section and add tags that are pertinent to your book.
- Get involved in the discussion - many titles now include a beta feature called “Customer Discussions.” Be sure to find that link on your book’s page and monitor it so that you can answer any questions readers or potential readers may have. If there is no discussion started on your book - start one!
- Be a part of Amazon Connect! Did you know that you can have a blog on your Amazon.com product page? It will list your last 3 posts on the page, with a “more” link over to all other posts. It requires your publisher to verify you as the author of your book via email, so be sure to discuss it with them first. You can learn more and sign up at the Amazon Connect website.
- Write a Listmania! list. Anyone can create a list of up to 40 related items at Amazon.com. Why not create a list that is focused on the topic of your book and includes your book as well as other items? For instance, if you wrote a book on building a PC, you might create a list simply called Building a PC. The list would, of course, contain your book as one of the items, as well as your favorite hard drive, RAM, video card, motherboard and other parts available through Amazon.com. When you mix product lists like this (i.e. not just a list of books) you are effectively cross merchandizing your book into other sections of Amazon.com. In this example, customers looking for the hard drive or video card you selected may encounter your list and be exposed to your book. In fact, with Listmania! you can get pretty granular. In our example you could also build just a list for video cards with advice for particular cards, and include your book as a guide to building PCs that includes more detailed advice.
- Write a short tutorial - the So You’d LikeTo…Guides. Similar to a Listmania!, these guides allow you to show off a little bit about what you know. They work very similarly to the Listmania! lists in that you can select a variety of products to include, and provide the same advantage of cross-merchandizing, but should be a bit more advice-driven and tutorial in nature. Check out this short example on getting started in digital photography for ideas on how you might be able to leverage this feature.
- Make sure you book is part of the Search Inside the Book program. This is controlled by your publisher and is a program they have to opt into. If they are not a part of the program, you might ask why they are not involved in such an important marketing vehicle at one of the world’s largest online retailers. If they are a part of the program then be sure your book will be included. As part of this program, Amazon.com indexes the books content and provides online customers a change to thumb through your book.
- Reviews - I saved the best for last. All the items above were really about helping readers find your book, and participating in the conversation with readers once they have. However nothing helps or hurts sales at Amazon.com more than the Reviewer Ranking and reader reviews. So you should just make up some accounts and start posting 5-Star reviews, right? Of course not - but there are some things you can do to help:
- Write a good book. Obvious, I know – but no amount of promotion will help a book that simply does not meet reader expectations.
- Make sure your colleagues and members of your network get a copy of the book. These readers are more likely to help with favorable but honest reviews, but it’s very important to ask for a review at Amazon.com. Otherwise you may get a “thank you” for the book and nothing more.
- Provide your publisher with a list of influencers in your topical space and be sure they get a review copy.
- If you receive an email or a comment on your blog from someone who enjoyed our book or see a review posted online elsewhere – ask them to post that on Amazon.com. I have also seen authors who have asked for permission to repost favorable online reviews (with attribution) at Amazon.com
- Help Amazon.com weed out the illegitimate reviews. If you get a review that is not appropriate – one where it’s obvious the reviewer did not read the book, provided no basis for the review, or left a simple “This sucks” sort of review, ask Amazon.com to take a look. Each review has a “Report this” link next to it that flags the post for review by Amazon. If they feel the review is not valid they may remove it. Use this option sparingly – it’s not for legitimate negative reviews.
I’d be interested to hear from other editors, authors, markets or publishers on the topic. What have you seen help books at Amazon.com?
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Comments
What I’ve noticed in my limited experience as the wife of an author:
Basically any TV appearance than mentions the book will increase sales.
Radio not so much. But radio spots are easier to get.
Online interviews on blogs are worthwhile, too. And those can be fairly easy to get if you pursue them.
The best thing is good, old fashioned niche marketing: get thee to the websites that cater to your readers and let them know about your book. But you can’t just talk about the book, you have to prove you’re an expert first. Help some people out by answering their tough questions accurately and you’re in.
As an author (“T’ai Chi for Seniors”) I can vouch for these points, although I don’t know that I’d personally use Ms. Newitz’ idioms of “herding the mob” and “gaming” - maybe it’s just an age thing. :>)
Anyway, your point #3 about using images is one that I hadn’t really considered before. Thanks for the great idea!
Also, as Elaine just mentioned, live appearances help immensely. Having had the use of radio and TV appearances, I agree that radio interviews, while easier to set up, are less effective than TV coverage. But the best method truly is becoming acknowledged as an “expert” in your field. Authors are often shocked when that title is thrust upon them, but the general public is trusting (sometimes to a fault) and will bestow that title upon anyone who has a book published. Might as well use that type of “link love” to your advantage while you can.
Elaine: You are right about reaching out to readers and finding them where they are online. Sounds like a topic for another post… 
Very good post.
Love the bit about asking for reviews.
In my experience, most people are happy to leave a review if they’re asked.
They simply don’t think to otherwise.
Thanks for great tips & suggestions! My book, The Rebel Housewife Rules: To Heck With Domestic Bliss! (Conari Press, 2004) was published two years ago, and Amazon has been a great help in boosting sales, keeping it ‘fresh’ (availability, when it’s not stocked in bookstores anymore) and driving traffic to my website & blogs.
Another thing that has really helped is networking with other authors and writing reviews on Amazon.com, always signing my reviews as “Co-Author, “The Rebel Housewife Rules…” Somehow, when I review books of similar nature (women’s humor), it usually turns out that the Amazon gods then link my book with that book on the “Better Together” offer, which is a nice little boost, too.
You can actually launch a grass-roots campaign, when your book is published, to encourage people (anyone & everyone you know) to purchase your book on Amazon.com, which can result in a higher ranking for your book in the Amazon.com lists. People have done it on the BN.com, too, but I’ve always preferred Amazon for book buying and interaction.
Live, Love & Laugh,
Sherri
To promote your book, especially a self-published book, I suggest promoting yourself through the media and getting the word out using email. If you are a writer in the US start with your city or state. The inexpensive downloadable media list service, Easy Media List and the contact directory site Mondo Times offers email addresses and data an author can use to do the PR leg work themselves. There is even a list designed specifically to contact the Top Newspapers Book Editors.
I was looking for the No. 6 link on Amazon.com’s site but was not able to find it in my limited research time. I’m grateful for it here.
As a multiple book author, I know that the best place to sell books is in locations outside of the traditional book store. You’ve provided great ideas to jumpstart or continue a book marketing campaign, and it is very much appreciated.
Promoting your book is important, but I’m not in the habit of jumping on everyone’s bandwagon to “quick success” and hope that it’s the same for me.
I know the importance of using the internet, but I like to keep things simple and clean. I have a lot of sites dedicated to myself, my books, and whatnot. But this thing behind Amazon.com is something I’m not sorely impressed with.
I’ve heard of it before, and quite frankly, it’s all hype and no substance.
There’s other sites I know that will promise the same thing that this article shouts out, but from my POV, it’s something I can easily do without.
[...] - Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com Leverage that bookseller, folks. There’s a lot of promotional tools on there. (tags: advice [...]
Although I’m not a book author - but I find that your tips do have their own merits. I personally agree with your point #3 share own images, so get the ball rolling and also point #4 “Help others find this item”. Both methods have been working really well for me not not only for selling books - but also other products. My site is still new but I’m already making some good income selling amazon products.
I have found that using Omakase ads and the aStores have sky rocketed my Amazon sales.
Before this I would use their regular product links and reviews and generate a few hundred dollars in sales.
In my reports from November 2006 onwards sales are in the thousands.
I’ll be looking into adding the new Amazon unbox video downloads.
It will be interesting to see how these perform on my web sites over time.
Only wish the commission levels were bumped up somewhat 
[...] Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com “In my world this is especially true of Amazon.com. Reader reviews can often make or break a book, so it’s important to pay attention to your book’s page and the activity there.” [...]
All good ideas. Related to point #10 above, I’ve had success as a publisher getting top-ranked reviewers to post reviews of our books.
I went down the list, looking at what types of books each person reviews (some only do fiction), and sent a few emails asking if they would consider reviewing our book. The top-ranked people get many requests like this, so the further you dive down, the better chance you’ll have of a reply (and hopefully a review).
This is a great list of tips for increasing your visibility on Amazon. I think the two best things to do from a effort/benefit ratio is:
1. Getting people to review your book on Amazon
2. Starting a blog on your book topic
I recently wrote a book that describes many of these tactics in detail, and anyone can read it free on my Web site under a Creative Commons license. Follow the link “Read it now”:
[...] he’s wrong, then 10 Simple Ways To Increase Sales at Amazon could come in handy: Get involved in the discussion - many titles now include a beta feature called [...]
Thank you for these “10 Simple Ways.” My first book, Mortgage Ripoffs and Money Savers, Wiley Publishing, is coming out in April, so I’ll definitely put your suggestions into practice.
I, too, have ignored the barrage of invitations to buy my way onto the amazon best-seller list. I believe I have unique information to share from inside closed doors of a dirty industry–information the public needs–and hopefully, good, honest marketing, along with reader recommendations will make this book a success.
[...] I’ll probably be experimenting with this a little bit on this site. For author and editors, here is another way to help promote sales at Amazon.com. [...]
[...] 31, 2007Great Tip Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com Filed under Blog [...]
[...] Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com | Chris Webb: Publishi… [...]
Hi Chris,
I have my book - From the Promised Land to the Lucky Country - selling on Amazon. I had the book paired and it was doing extremely well, so that Amazon has extended the pairing on their own account. I had the rating go up few times to 18,500 and at one time it went to 12,400. However, at the moment, it had dropped, for the first time since the pairing to 309,350.
I have just now succeeded to fix technorati, and I did FeedBurn.
I was verified a couple of days for AmazonConnect & have 4 reviews that average to 4.5 stars rating.
I have a lot of trouble understanding the RSS and the way to link my book as per your number 1 advice. Could you please help me and tell me how to go about it? I find it all very daunting.
Thanks
Renate
[...] Webb has put together a list of 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com which makes a lot of [...]
[...] Chris Webb 5 Ways To Get Me to Quickly Reject Your Book Proposal Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com [...]
[...] Chris Webb 5 Ways To Get Me to Quickly Reject Your Book Proposal Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com [...]
[...] Chris Webb 5 Ways To Get Me to Quickly Reject Your Book Proposal Crowdhacking: 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com [...]
Some very good points. As an author trying to get noticed on Amazon I know how tough it can be.
Paul
I think the Search Inside program is really important. It adds your book to so many more potential searches that the other options don’t cover. That has been my experience.
[...] Webb has put together a list of 10 Simple Ways Authors Can Help to Increase Sales at Amazon.com which makes a lot of [...]