This may seem like a daunting task; however, it can be done with a little bit of time and marketing know-how.

When it comes to figuring out how to self-publish a book, marketing is often the most dreaded part. But no need to worry. By focusing on certain areas, you can see your book start to rank higher, which can lead to more sales.

Here are three ways to get more exposure and sell books on Amazon.

1. Get more free traffic from smarter Amazon Keywords  

The first step to getting noticed on Amazon is choosing the right Kindle Keywords. Your keyword selection can fuel your book’s success or leave it floundering in obscurity.

When an Amazon user searches for a new book, they normally don’t start digging through each and every category. Instead, they utilize Amazon’s search function at the top of the page. Readers will type in words or phrases pertaining to what they want to read, and your goal is to choose relevant keywords that reflect what readers are actually searching for. 

One of the most reliable ways to find the right keywords is through Amazon’s autofill search bar function. 

In order to use this method, you first need to come up with a list of keywords you would associate with your book. Once that’s done, you’ll go ahead and enter your first keyword into the Amazon search bar. The search bar will then autofill with extended search options.

For example, let’s say you wrote a spicy Mexican cookbook. Here are some of the searches you could discover using the Amazon autofill trick. 

Some of these are searches you might want to target in your kindle keywords. 

And if you’re really looking to get your hands dirty, you can manually search the autofill options when a letter is added to begin a second word.

For example, if you were to originally type “pirate”, you’ll get a list of autofill options. Next, type “pirate a”. The autofill will populate a new list. This list may contain “pirate allegory”, “pirate army”, etc.

Remember, these phrases that appear are actual searches that are being performed by Amazon users. By testing many times over for different letter combinations, you can create a huge list of keywords that you can use to market your book.

Now, it should be said that simply choosing smart keywords won’t guarantee success. To turn exposure into sales, you’ll need an eye-catching book cover, an intriguing book title, and a compelling description to seal the deal. 

2. Chase bestseller status by choosing the right niche category

As you probably know, Amazon’s massive book database is divided into categories. These are not necessarily genres (they tend to be much more specific). And while choosing the right category might seem unimportant since many readers shop using keywords, category selection is still a big deal.

Here’s why. 

First of all, readers who are fans of certain genres will occasionally spend time looking through the new releases or top sellers in a given category. For this reason, you don’t want your travel memoir showing up with the CrockPot cookbooks. 

Also, have you ever wanted to be a bestselling author? On Amazon, bestseller awards are category-specific, and reaching bestseller status starts with choosing the right category. 

For example, let’s say you’re a sci fi writer, and your book has a strong military focus.

If you were to pick a general sci fi category, your book would likely get buried in the thousands of other options. But if you were to choose a more niche category, like “Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Military > Space Marine,” you would have a better chance of getting exposure and reaching that coveted bestseller status. 

Although most authors think you can only pick three categories per book, you can actually place your books in up to 10 categories if you know a special method I teach.

3. Accelerate sales with AMS ads

If you’re looking to skyrocket your sales, AMS ads could be the way to go. But as with every other type of advertising, AMS can be tricky. 

The main objective of AMS ads is to get your books seen at the most opportune times. To do that, you once again need to think about keywords. 

However, AMS Keywords are a whole new breed of keyword. Rather than focusing only on the content of your book, they often try to pull in new readers by targeting competing book titles, the names of famous authors in your genre, and other unexpected phrases. You wouldn’t rank highly for these organically, but you can appear in one of the sponsored spots. 

When it comes to choosing AMS keywords vs Kindle keywords, AMS keywords are by far the more elaborate and difficult to target. A properly run ad campaign can actually require days of market research, just to find the right words to use. But there is an easier way to do all of this…

Consider a tool to help you find success faster

Each one of these steps alone can take days, potentially delaying your release timeline, or worse…making your book less successful due to human error. 

Publisher Rocket is a software I created to help authors rank higher on Amazon. 

Publisher Rocket will provide you with a full list of actually searched Kindle keywords, the right categories for your book, and even the best AMS Keywords to target for your ad campaigns. Plus, it will give you real data about search volume and competitiveness, so you can find keywords and categories that are getting strong traffic with low competition — that’s the sweet spot. 

Now, Publisher Rocket is not a magic bullet — those don’t exist. But it is a tool authors can use to make their self-published books more visible and accessible to buyers. And if you’ve got a well-written book, you’ll start to see your rankings rise with more books sold.

Photo via Kaspars Grinvalds / Shutterstock 

After all, how would you feel if you went to a restaurant and noticed the food was being cooked in cheap microwaves by chefs using low-quality equipment? You would probably rightly assume the output from substandard tools would be a substandard meal.

Writers are no different.

To produce the best work possible, it’s vital to find the right tools for the job.

How many writers do you know who still use a standard word processor app like Microsoft Word? Perhaps you even do yourself. Why? It’s often due to a lack of knowledge about what else is out there.

I still remember the day I found something better and tried it out for the first time.

That something better was a writing tool named Scrivener.

Here’s how this tool has made a major difference to my writing process.

1. Better research and planning

The self-publishing marketplace is more crowded and competitive than ever before.

In the past, it was possible to release a hastily written book containing the minimum of research, and still experience success. Those days are gone. Success in the current climate requires careful and conscious research.

Research isn’t easy. We live in an era of unprecedented information and ideas.

Curating the best and most suitable concepts for your book is no easy task. Yet so many writers make it even tougher than it needs to be by taking a scattergun approach to the collection and storage of information.

Before I discovered Scrivener, my research process typically involved a mess of folders, files and illogically named documents. Even worse, leaving my writing software and accessing my research disrupted my creative flow and led to procrastination and distraction.

Scrivener helped me to collect, organize and access my research in a way I never even knew was possible. Within Scrivener, you have all of your research directly available, next to the actual writing environment itself, as seen below.

Being able to see all of your research without having to leave your writing software is an incredible time-saver and productivity-booster. You never have to run the risk of forgetting about a useful piece of research while in the throes of creation.

Scrivener painlessly integrates text, visual and online research. It also syncs up with Evernote, making Scrivener a superb choice for Evernote fans.

Some of the best research and planning features of Scrivener for fiction writers include the ability to create, store and access detailed character notes, create a detailed and useful outline of your story, and to store images and ideas related to setting and location.

2. Writing well

Any specialist writing software worth your time and money needs to offer functionality and benefit when it comes to the actual activity of writing itself.

While research and planning are important, the core activity for writers will always be, unsurprisingly, writing itself. Thankfully, Scrivener does not disappoint in this area.

Some of my favorite aspects of writing while using Scrivener include –

• The ability to write in a distraction-free fullscreen mode
• The option to use a template created by another writer to structure my work in a tried and tested way
• Setting quantified writing targets and visually monitoring my progress towards them in real time
• Being able to quickly and easily rearrange chapters and scenes as I write

Write without distraction

If you’ve ever struggled with the problem of being able to zone in on your writing and get things done, you will appreciate the full-screen composition mode offered by Scrivener. It’s a way of digitally tuning out the distractions of the world and zoning in on the vital process of stringing sentences together.

As you can see from the above image, Scrivener blocks out everything but the words you are writing. If you combine this with a time period where you turn off your internet and cellphone, you will truly be able to focus on your writing. The full screen mode shown above displays a plain background, but you can also customize the image seen. Views of nature are a popular choice.

Use templates for successful structures

One of the toughest challenges for me was knowing the proper structure to use when setting out to write a book. This is another area where Scrivener excels.

You can easily download, import and modify Scrivener templates. This gives you a predefined structure for your manuscript and research which allows you to focus on the act of actually creating.

Using templates in Scrivener can also give you the confidence to try out a style or method of writing you may not have experience with. For example, if you’ve wanted to write a screenplay, but haven’t known exactly how, a template can be your best friend.

The above image shows the template selection available when loading up Scrivener. You can always add and modify templates depending on your personal requirements.

Set targets and monitor progress

Almost every writer has a unique approach to measuring progress and monitoring projects. If you like to set targets for your writing, and ensure you stay on track, Scrivener makes it easy. You can easily set writing targets for an individual writing session, or an entire project, and quickly monitor your progress towards them, as seen below.

You can see that the progress box floats over your writing and shows both your overall and session targets.

Scrivener also allows you to quickly combine, separate and rearrange the individual pieces of a writing project. If you are rewriting nonfiction, and aren’t exactly sure of the order you want your chapters to be in, it’s easy to switch up the sequence, as seen below.

3. Formatting and sharing

Have you ever experienced the joy of seemingly finishing a writing project, only to experience unexpected frustration when finding the right format for your work, and exporting it, becomes a nightmare?

This is especially true when writing in software like Microsoft Word. It can be tricky to impossible to find a way of easily converting your work into the right file format. Even if you do manage to export to the file type you need, there’s often no guarantee that your work will look the way you wanted in its final form.

In Scrivener, you can ensure that your writing project will look exactly as you intended after you export it. Some of the options for doing this can be seen below.

Scrivener also supports a wealth of export file formats, which are suited to different types of writing.

Some of the file format supported by Scrivener include –

* .epub (used for Google, iBookstore, Nook and Kobo)

* .mobi (used for the Kindle store)

* .html (used for webpages)

* .PDF (used for Adobe Reader)

* .doc (compatible with MS Word and Google Docs)

This powerful export capability can save both time and money. Exporting with Scrivener can save on the need to hire a freelance worker to carry out the format process for your book. It also can help you to avoid having to invest in a separate piece of software to get the file format you want.

As well as being great for full ebooks, this file format versatility is well-suited to blogging. Bestselling author Michael Hyatt decided to switch to Scrivener for all his writing projects, not just his books. While you may not decide to go this far yourself, it’s good to know that Scrivener is suitable for whatever type of writing project you decide to engage in.

Better Books With Scrivener

Writing a book is a demanding endeavour requiring software that is up to scratch. Scrivener not only produces a better final product, but also makes each and every stage of the writing process easier along the way.

If you have any questions about Scrivener, feel free to comment and I’ll be happy to respond. I’d also love to know about any awesome Scrivener benefits you’ve discovered that I haven’t mentioned here.

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