Get your book before potential buyers’ eyes

One of the great challenges of marketing your book is getting is before potential buyers’ eyes. This can be done via the Kindle ebook bestsellers list on Amazon.com at a limited cost to you. Here’s how.

First, the very same day that your ebook is available for sale, peruse the top 20 bestselling ebooks in the category that your title would appear. Identify three or four that are very similar to your title; you may need to go through the top 40 or even top 60 to find those books. Next, purchase a copy of those three or four titles. Then buy a copy of your own book.

When others call up those three or four bestselling books’ pages at Amazon.com, the odds are good that your new title will show up in the section entitled “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought”. Your title also likely will appear below the reviews in a section entitled “What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?”

If you can get a few others (such as family members and close friends) to do this as well, you further increase the odds that your title will appear on these other books’ sales pages. This is especially true in categories where the number of books sold on an hourly basis is low or that have few titles for sale.

While that alone won’t guarantee book sales, it does improve the chances of them. After all, more people – especially those interested in titles just like yours – are apt to see your ebook. Further, people who compare books to make the best lone purchase hopefully will see that your title is less expensive yet just as informative and so select your ebook over the bestseller. Some potential readers may make multiple purchases or sample your book, the latter of which can lead to some sales. These ales in turn can push your title onto the bestseller list, which usually guarantees additional purchases.

Is this rigging the system? No more so than big publishing houses that buy shelf space in chain bookstores at entranceways and on endcaps to get people to see their authors’ books. In any case, the real determinant of how well your book sells will depend on its quality. If a couple of people buy your book (because they saw it on page for a bestselling book) but you fail to deliver content or have dozens of typos, they’ll probably write bad reviews and give it one or two stars – which ultimately hurts your sales.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 350 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day… writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

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