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How Australian book self-publishers can market their book on Amazon

How Australian book self-publishers can market their book on Amazon

Contents

1. Amazon Author Central
2. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
3. Kindle Unlimited
4. Amazon Advertising
5. Book Reviews and Ratings
6. Book Launch
7. Book Covers
8. Retail Book Pricing

There are over 200,000 books listed on Amazon.com.au. It is a great opportunity to self-publish your book on online. Marketing an Australian, self-published book on Amazon can be straightforward. Self-published authors can market their books on Amazon by utilizing several key features provided by the platform.

1. Amazon Author Central

This is a free tool that allows authors to create a profile, list their books, and provide information about themselves and their works. Amazon Author Central is a free platform for authors to manage their presence on Amazon.com. It allows authors to create a profile, list their books, and share information about themselves and their work with readers. Through Author Central, authors can also access sales data for their books, track their rankings, and receive notifications about customer reviews. The platform is available to any author with a book listed on Amazon.com.

2. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a self-publishing platform created by Amazon that allows authors and publishers to publish their books in digital format and make them available for sale on Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and other devices. KDP offers a range of tools and resources to help authors format their books, set prices, and promote their work, as well as access to a global audience of readers. KDP is a free service, and authors can choose to make their books available for free or for a price, and will receive a percentage of the sale.

3. Kindle Unlimited

This is a subscription service that allows readers to read as many e-books as they want for a monthly fee. Self-published authors can opt-in to have their books included in this program, which can help increase visibility and sales.

4. Amazon Advertising

Self-published authors can use Amazon Advertising to promote their books on Amazon.com and other websites across the internet.

There are several ways to advertise your book on Amazon:

  1. Amazon Advertising: Amazon offers various advertising options, including sponsored product ads, sponsored brand ads, and sponsored display ads. These ads are targeted to specific audiences and appear on various Amazon pages, such as search results and product detail pages.
  2. KDP Select: This program allows authors to offer their book for free for a limited time and also participate in the Kindle Countdown Deals program, where authors can offer their book at a discounted price for a limited time.
  3. Giveaways: Amazon allows authors to run giveaways for their book. This is a great way to generate buzz and increase visibility for your book.
  4. Product Listing Ads: These ads are targeted to specific audiences and appear on various Amazon pages, such as search results and product detail pages.
  5. Amazon Author Central: This is a free service that allows authors to claim their author page on Amazon and customise it with information about their books, author bio, and photos. This is a great way to increase visibility for your book and establish yourself as an author on Amazon.
  6. Amazon Influencer Program: This program allows authors to work with Amazon Influencers to promote their books. Influencers have a large following on social media and can help to increase visibility for your book.
  7. BookBub: This is a platform that allows authors to promote their books to a large audience of readers. BookBub sends out daily emails to its subscribers with a list of discounted and free books in various genres.

5. Book Reviews and Ratings

Reviews and ratings help to build credibility for your book and can encourage potential buyers to purchase, to leave reviews, and to respond to the reviews that you receive. Positive reviews and high ratings can greatly impact sales.

Amazon allows customers to rate books on a five-star scale, with five stars being the highest rating and one star being the lowest. Customers can also leave a written review to accompany their rating. These ratings and reviews can be found on the book’s page on Amazon and can be a helpful tool for potential buyers to determine if a book is worth purchasing.

6. Book Launch

Planning a book launch event or a virtual event is a great way to generate buzz around your book.

When you conduct a book launch—while those attending will be eager to purchase your book in-person—you can also announce that the book will be available online (on Amazon) for ongoing referral purchases.

A book launch can be a simple format:

  • Master of Ceremonies (MC) welcomes guests and outlines what will happen, including an invite for guests to partake of refreshments, etc.
  • MC welcomes author to the stage.
  • Author thanks guests for attending and says a few words about  the book and why they wrote it.
  • Author reads a portion of  the book.
  • MC thanks author and invites guests to purchase a copy of the book.

7. Book Covers

To say that book cover design is very important is an understatement. Self-published authors might find it easy to establish a presence on Amazon, but the laws of book marketing are immutable.

Book covers, when they present on Amazon, can be the difference between a purchase and the reader moving on to something that looks more attractive to them.

Your book cover needs to be professionally designed. Even an average cover design can be fatal. Poor cover designs are usually dictated by the author—the author’s requirements are so specific that the publisher’s book designer cannot deploy their expertise. Green Hill’s lead designer has designed almost 1,000 books. She understands the requirements for a book cover that will help in marketing.

With online book retailers such as Amazon, cover design is critical because a potential reader may only be on your Amazon page for as little as 5 seconds. That 5 seconds is critical. A poor cover design might be dismissed by a potential reader in that time.

8. Retail Book Pricing

The price of your book on Amazon is critical to its success. Book retail prices are often dependant on the cost of print. As a rough rule of thumb, you should price your book on Amazon at about 300% of the printing price.

The difference between what your book will cost to print and what the retail price might be will be integral to your success if profit is one of your goals.

Amazon has a retail shop and also a print arrangement. This is a common source of confusion for self-published authors.

Amazon’s book print pricing varies depending on the book, its format, and the quantity ordered. On average, Amazon’s prices for print books are competitive with other retailers and online bookstores. They also offer discounted bulk ordering for businesses and organisations. Additionally, Amazon offers a self-publishing platform for authors to print and sell their own books at a lower cost. Overall, Amazon’s book print pricing compares favorably with other retailers and online bookstores.

Print pricing on Amazon will not always be the best option—always check with Green Hill to see if there is a lower cost option for book printing.

To set the price of your book on Amazon, you will first need to create an account with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and upload your book. Once your book is live on the Amazon store, you can log into your KDP account and navigate to the “Bookshelf” section. From there, you will see an option to “Edit Pricing.” You can then set your book’s price and choose the territories in which it will be available for purchase. Keep in mind that Amazon will take a percentage of the sale as commission, sometimes as high as 55% of the retail price, so you should factor that into your pricing strategy.

5 keys to a successful book cover design

5 keys to a successful book cover design

Contents

1. Trust your book designer
2. Don’t try to tell the whole story with your book cover
3. Design for book’s audience, not yourself
4. Fit your book cover within a genre
5. Be a big picture thinker

As a self-published author, book cover designs can be daunting, and there are a lot of factors to consider before committing to your final concept and design. When starting to design a book cover, you need to think about:

  • Aesthetics
  • Functionality
  • Branding
  • Audience Appeal
  • Technical Requirements
  • Professionalism

But how can you ensure that your book cover has everything that it needs to succeed? What do you need to focus on for your book to attract readers and distributors in a world of traditionally published books? Firstly, we recommend hiring a book cover designer and following the 5 key points discussed below to make sure that you are getting the most from your book cover and your book designer.

1. Trust your book designer

If nothing else, the most important thing you can do to make your book cover a success is to listen to your designer. They will make your book cover look the best it can. Your designer wants the best for your book as much as you do, and will no doubt have amazing book cover ideas that you hadn’t considered before. They are also experience professionals who have worked on a number of books in the past, so they understand the book market and know what is more likely to sell and what is more likely to not.

It is important to communicate your preferences and vision for the book in a way that can be well understood when you have the design brief with the designer. Your book designer will take cues from your brief and design a book cover that is marketable to help your book shine on the shelves and meet your expectations.

2. Don’t try to tell the whole story with your book cover

It’s important to intrigue potential readers and leave them wanting more—not leave them confused and overwhelmed. The cover should be a teaser that makes the readers want to know more and entice them to pick up your book and take it home with them. It is not necessary to try to tell the whole story of a book on its cover as it is simply a visual representation of the book meant to grab attention. If you try to include every detail that’s in your book on your cover, it will be a cluttered mess of references that are lost on potential readers.

A good cover should be visually appealing, give a sense of what genre or style the book belongs to, and accurately represent the book. Pick one to three things that best convey what your story is about and your designer will use what they can to bring your cover to life.

3. Design for your book’s audience, not yourself

When thinking about book cover design, it is important to keep the target audience in mind, rather than designing solely on your own preferences. As discussed earlier, the cover should be visually appealing and reflective of the content and genre of the book, but also designed to appeal directly to the specific audience who are most likely to read it. This may involve considering factors such as age, gender, interests, and reading habits of the target audience.

Let the book designer create the cover from the eyes of a buyer. Often what an author believes they must have on their book cover doesn’t translate well to readers and they miss what the author wanted to achieve.

Though you may read a lot in the genre you wrote your book in, remember: you are the author, not your audience.

4. Fit your book cover design within a genre

When designing a book cover, it is important to consider the genre of the book and design a cover that fits within the conventions of that genre. The buyer—whether a distributor or a reader—should be able to immediately recognise the genre of the book by the cover design. For example, a mystery novel may feature a dark and dramatic cover with a silhouette or crime scene, while a romance novel may feature a romantic image of a couple. A science fiction book cover may feature images of futuristic technology, space, or aliens. A fantasy book cover may feature images of dragons, wizards, or other mythical creatures.

This doesn’t mean that your book should be a carbon copy of another, but if the genre is not clear then the buyer will have to work harder to decipher what your book is and will be more likely to disregard it in favour for another. Gather some inspiration from within your genre and similar and pick them apart. Try to figure out which elements on those covers would work for your book and tell your designer. This will give your book designer a good starting point for your cover and let them know what you like.

5. Be a big picture thinker

When considering your book cover design, be careful not to focus on particulars, such as the exact shade of a colour, the precise positioning of an image, and the perfect font size/weight to use. While attention to detail is important in many aspects of book cover design, it is also important to keep the big picture in mind. If you give your designer a list of overly detailed instructions of what the cover must include, you’ll restrict their creative license and may end up with an unattractive book cover that just does not work.

Think about what is necessary for your book cover and what will make it attractive and successful in retail, but more importantly what is not. The goal is to create a cover that is visually appealing and accurately represents the book, rather than focusing on small details that may not have a significant impact on the overall design.

Overall, a successfully designed book cover is one that looks professional and like it belongs in the market, effectively and concisely communicates the book’s content and style, appeals to the intended audience, is visually appealing and on-par with other books in its genre, and is harmonious.

To see some of our favourite covers, check out our Instagram.

The cost of self-publishing a book in Australia in a turbulent world.

The cost of self-publishing a book in Australia in a turbulent world.

CONTENTS

Cost of self-publishing a book – how are self-published authors affected?
How is the Australian self-publishing industry faring?
Paper and book printing costs – what does this mean for Australian self-publishing?
Book printing in Asia – does this affect self-publishers in Australia?

Cost of self-publishing a book – how are self-published authors affected?

The COVID pandemic has started to ease. But now it’s war in the Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East and Asia. You might think that as a self-published author in Australia you’ll be unaffected. But that’s not the case. Our present world has impacted on the cost of self-publishing a book.

For example some of our authors that we quoted on book printing 18 months ago, have been surprised that we can’t meet those prices any longer.

Here’s a quick update on where things are at.

How is the Australian self-publishing industry faring?

Self-publishing companies have been hit hard financially. We’ve seen quite a few Australian suppliers leave the industry. A  host of international publishers have disappeared as well.

This might seem tragic, but it has weeded out international book publishing scams and local small operators. Many of these operators – often one-, two- or three-person operations, simply couldn’t provide a full service or quality anyway.

Unfortunately, we’ve been contacted by a few Australian authors who have had their suppliers disappear. This was after they had made some payments. One author had their book design completed but because the publisher had ‘shut up shop’ was left stranded with no print and distribution. Ouch! The lesson is: stick with companies that are here for the long term.

Paper and book printing costs – what does this mean for Australian self-publishing?

Costs of self-publishing a book have been impacted by:

  • Paper – It’s what books are made of. Unfortunately, the price of pulp (and paper) has increased by 20% per annum over the last two years. Whether it is using digital or offset printing  Australian printers have had issues getting Australian made paper.  Papermills in Asia, Europe and the US also reduced their production at the start of the pandemic. Most of Australia’s imported paper comes from Europe. Russia and Ukraine are big exporters of paper products, and the war has upset supplies.
  • Energy prices in Europe have gone up due to the higher cost renewable energy and the disruption of Russian gas supplies to European mills. They’ve started placing a energy surcharge on orders.

Book printing in Asia – does this affect self-publishers in Australia??

Green Hill has a great Asia based book printing solution. This gives authors opportunity to get quality books at a great price. But authors printing a book in Asia, while cheaper, have been impacted by the cost of getting the book to Australia. Freight has added to costs of self-publishing a book.

  • International freight costs increased 350% in the past 12 months. This meant a book order for one of our authors cost Green Hill $2,000 more than our quoted price! That author got a real bargain. In future, we will not be quoting fixed prices on freight, rather the market price at dispatch from the Asian port. As freight prices stabilise and normalise (even reduce) this should not be an issue for our authors who print off-shore.
  • Another factor has been on-time delivery from Asia. Generally this has fallen to just 35% on-time. We’ve worked very hard on this, and our on-time delivery is approximately 90%. We think this is a real win for our authors considering the international situation.
  • The good news is we’ve recently completed negotiations with new Australian and Asian printers and expect to be able to offer some outstanding book printing deals before Christmas. Stay tuned!