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 Every author I have ever spoken with wants to have their book listed on Amazon, and a few I know have already accomplished getting a listing. Of the very few who actually got their book listed on Amazon, I always ask, and how many books have they sold for you? I can tell you that their responses have been very disappointing.
So, you want to get your book listed on Amazon? Tell me, why do you want to do this? Ah, you think getting your book listed on Amazon will automatically get you noticed and of course you will start selling hundreds, maybe even thousands of books.
The truth is, getting your book listed on Amazon is of little use unless YOU are going to promote it;s sales, no matter where it is listed and sold. Think about this for a moment, Amazon currently has in excess of 250,000 books listed on their website. Unless someone is actually looking for your title or your name as the author, or possibly some kind of description, of what the book is about, what do you think the odds of them coming across your book actually are? I can tell you from experience, they are pretty slim.
One question I often get is “how do I get Amazon to promote my book?” Good question, even they are vague on that ever changing topic. But think of it this way, if you owned Amazon, what would be your first goal of running the business? Would it be making sales? Yes, of course it is, and what is the easiest and most sure-fire way of making sales? Answer – By promoting books by known or famous authors, and/or topics that are in the news and popular.
Promoting and trying to sell books by new and unknown authors is a long and tedious job. On the other hand, if the author is already famous or the topic is on that happens to be currently popular, the job is much easier and with quantifiable results. That is why having your book listed on Amazon in not necessarily the win-fall most authors think it is.
But their is hope. There are ways to put the words self publishing and Amazon in the same sentence. The best person to promote their own book is the author, and there are many, many ways to promote your book that are covered elsewhere. What new authors need to do in getting sales of their self published book that is listed at Amazon, is to leverage the two known features of Amazon which are:
- Books listed on Amazon are easy find if you know the title or authors name
- With some buyers there maybe a perceived “credibility” of a book that is listed on Amazon
- Amazon provides safe, secure way of selling and delivering books to clients
- These are the only three known factors for new authors and the only three advantages they have to work with. If by some miracle Amazon actually does promote your book and drive a few sales, that will be a bonus, but the bulk of the sales and promotion efforts need to be lead by the author.
- The truth is, getting your book listed on Amazon is not that hard if your follow their guidelines, actually getting sales will be harder, but now that you know that just getting a listing is not the panacea some think it is, and that you still have to do all the hard promotion and sales efforts, you can make your listing on Amazon successful.
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