keywords – Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

SFFMP 152: Pricing, Category Stuffing, Launching with Three Books, and Marketing Cross-Genre Novels

October 3, 2017 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

This week, we answered some listener questions that had been piling up. We touched on a variety of topics, such as…

Should you try to put your books in as many categories as possible, and what can we do about books that shouldn’t be there knocking us out of our Top 100s on Amazon?
Amazon’s page of keywords for getting into unlisted categories: Selecting Browse Categories.
How many downloads a day can you expect from permafree titles?
Is it worth trying to sell English novels in countries where English isn’t the primary language?
How can trad publishers get away with charging 9.99 or more for ebooks, and can indies do this if their books are well edited and professionally done?
How do you market cross-genre books that fall into more than one category?
How do you guys feel about killing characters, and does it ever get easier?
How does your plotting process work?
Has anyone tried Kobo Plus yet and gotten results?
Where you can advertise as a newer author with less than twenty reviews on your book? Here are the links to the spreadsheets Lindsay mentioned (that C. Gockel maintains). We’re not sure if they’re up to date though, so let us know if you know of a good and recent resource. Where to Advertise Free Ebooks | Where to Advertise 99 Cent Ebooks.
How did Lindsay relaunch her pen name successfully after a long gap between releases?
If you want to write three books before launching any of them, can you use novellas as part of the plan?

Jeff and Lindsay are working on new projects, but Jo has some links if you want to check out what he’s up to right now. Here’s his serial-in-progress: The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy. Also, he’s recently done a series of “How I Write” blog posts, which cover his plotting process, among other things.

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amazon categories, book launches, book marketing, cross-genre fiction, keywords, pen names, pricing ebooks

SFFMP 65: Optimizing Your Amazon Sales Page + Listener Questions Answered

January 26, 2016 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

Today Jeff, Jo, and Lindsay discussed how to improve your Amazon sales page so that people are less likely to click away, especially now that there are sponsored results and other distractions everywhere. They also answered some listener questions and shared some of their recent news and helpful tips.

Here are some of the highlights and the links mentioned during the show:

Selling to male readers or getting more readers overall as a female author of science fiction
How many words do you have to write for your work to be considered a novel, and at what length is it OK to charge novel prices for your ebook?
How can you gauge if a series is selling well enough to continue or if it’s better to move on to something else?
Using Bookfunnel to make it easier to give out free ebooks (they handle helping your readers with side-loading)
The Kevin Kelly 1000 True Fans idea that you don’t need to be a best seller to make a living as an author, just to gradually accumulate enough true fans
Whether entering keywords in your KDP dashboard can actually help
Using keywords to get into bonus categories on Amazon (here’s the Amazon help page that tells you the words to use for the various categories)
Making sure not to get in trouble with the titles and subtitles you use if adding keywords
Using Author Central to claim your book, link editions (ebooks, paperbacks, audiobooks), and fill out the extras such as the “critical reviews” and “about the author” fields
The need for book reviews to provide social proof and also help you compete against the ads for other books that appear on your own sales page
Using taglines and hooks to catch people’s interest before they have to “click more” with the new Amazon page layouts