Understanding the Amazon Sales Cycle

If you’ve been following my recent blog posts, I’ve been spending time educating myself on selling books on Amazon. I figured I’d document my process to help other self-publishers like me.

Earlier, I’ve talked about the importance of understanding the long tail. Amazon’s book catalog is 32.8 million entries deep, with thousands of new books uploaded daily to the platform. Visibility is an enormous problem. Knowing your audience is paramount: how will they look for your product? How does your book scratch their itch?

One way to overcome the problem is to ensure your descriptions and keywords match what people are searching for. That’s an organic technique where you research keywords and phrases people will use to find your book; you might even use those keywords in the book's title and subtitle to improve its search relevance.

However, optimizing Amazon and web search is just a small slice of the marketing problem. The challenge we face next concerns converting a potential customer into a buyer, and to understand that, we need to explore the Amazon sales cycle.

Your job is to write a product that scratches an itch: it must meet a need. If you think about how your product meets your niche's needs, the easier it’ll be to prepare search terms and descriptions for your book.

When they land on your book, the cover attracts or repulses the customer. It’s the first element of the buying funnel, and it has to meet their expectations.

Next would be the title, subtitle, price, and description. If these elements fail to convince customers that your book fits their needs in approximately seven seconds, they’ll click away.

Okay, if you convince them to stay, that’s a win. The next step a prudent customer might take is to read the first 10% of the book and examine the reviews. Good reviews are exceedingly important in sealing the deal.

The customer exits the funnel when they add your product to a cart. Now, it’s a buy decision. They’ve selected the work because they consider it worthy and must commit to the buy. That commitment is a conversion.

A conversion is a sale. It’s how you get royalties as a writer. Further, every sale triggers an algorithm in Amazon that addresses the fulfillment of customers' needs, and understanding that referral engine is critical to understanding the sales cycle:

• Amazon will now identify you as a preferred author and send emails to customers alerting them to new releases or updates in your catalog.

• Amazon will market Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads similar to your book to the customer.

• Amazon will note the demand for your book and — if there are increasing levels of conversions / more sales surrounding your book — your Sales Rank is increased and it starts pushing your book harder to others who share similar interests, putting your book higher in the relevance scores for searches.

• That means potentially wider audiences and more sales. Even if your book is being offered for free, it’s still increasing Sales Rank and kicking off the referral engine.

Unfortunately, Amazon doesn’t show us how many people land on our page and engage in our funnels or how long they languish in a cart before conversion, but any of these obstacles may prevent a sale. They’re probably on your page because the Title and Subtitle were sufficient to draw them in. However:

• If the cover is bad, they’ll click away.

• If the price is too high, they’ll click away.

• If the description doesn’t scratch their itch, they’ll click away.

• They'll likely click away if they can’t look inside the book, or, if they look inside, they can’t easily find the contents or a writing sample.

• If there is an insufficient number of good reviews (and that number may vary for people — I’ve seen estimates of 3+ reviews are just as good as 100+ reviews, and I’m more inclined to believe that as numbers become nebulous to ordinary people beyond 10) — they’ll click away.

Studying user activities with these elements, doing your market research, and getting feedback from your reader and writing communities is fundamental to walking the customer down the funnel to conversion.

How to Manually Select Amazon Keywords

I’ve spoken about the long tail when marketing your Amazon book. I talked about the importance of discovering your niche, mapping out your keywords, and building keywords into your title and subtitle.

Here’s how you can manually select useful Amazon keywords for your book.

1. Use Incognito Mode on your browser. This is so previous information doesn't affect what Amazon shows you.
   

2. Select “Kindle Store” or “Books” as the Amazon category to focus on the area of Amazon you’re interested in.
   

3. Start by typing in a word. Amazon immediately pre-populates in the search box. Think like a reader. Imagine how you’d search if you were a customer.
   

4. Once you've found a phrase that interests you, add each letter of the alphabet at the end of your word/phrase, and see what comes up. “High fantasy a”…, “High fantasy b”…, “High fantasy c”…

Make a list of phrases a reader will most likely look up. Mix and match the phrases in different combinations.

Amazon is showing you what it thinks to be the highest-ranking term in descending order, so it’s already showing you the demand for the full keyword.

Choose up to seven keywords or phrases, up to 2500 characters per keyword or phrase.

These will be the keywords you’d use to set up the ebook.

You can refine the keywords later by editing the book.

In fact, editing an ebook re-indexes the book, making it more relevant to A9 (Amazon’s search algorithm). The more up-to-date a book and its metadata is, the better.

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Selecting the Right Keywords in Amazon as a Self-Published Author

Hey there, aspiring author!

Have you ever wondered why your brilliantly crafted articles or books aren't getting the attention they deserve?

The secret might lie in something seemingly mundane yet incredibly powerful: keywords. Let's explore keywords and why choosing the right ones is important for being seen in the long tail.

What Are Keywords?

Imagine the Internet as a giant library, and search engines like Amazon, Google, or Bing are the librarians.

When someone looks for information, they type in keywords to find the most relevant books or ideas. They're the signposts that guide search engines to your digital doorstep.

Keywords are directly related to your chosen niche—the audience you’re trying to reach who might be interested in your writing.

Drilling Into the Long Tail

Keywords are often more than just one word (they’re more often a phrase) and can be broad or narrow. A broad keyword would look like an overall reaching subject:

• Travel Books

• Fantasy Novels

• Military Science Fiction

These broad, highly competitive terms are generally meaningless as a tool for finding your book. It’s like browsing Fantasy Books in a bookshop, except that section is 40 city blocks alone. Your book’s in there somewhere, but nobody will find it.

Instead, relevant keywords drill into the long tail. They get more specific.

• Dark Fantasy Novels

• Dark Fantasy Short Stories

• Novels Featuring Female Protagonists

Notice the influence of understanding your niche here. Your readers use special terms and vocabulary related to their interests to help drill into the long tail.

For me, much of my fantasy writing is connected to role-playing games. Fantasy readers and Gamers of all stripes are my niche, so I might drill deeper into my niche using their vocabulary.

• Dark Fantasy Novels Cleric

• Fantasy Novels Paladin

• Books About Red Dragons

These are more relevant keywords that draw my audience to my work. They’re less in demand as a keyword, and fewer people search off of them, but they’re also less competitive. Fewer people are willing to bid (pay money) on those terms.

Make a List of Relevant Keywords

Start by considering keywords and phrases most relevant to your writing and work. For me, my keywords might look something like:

• fantasy short story

• dark fantasy short story

• fantasy series

• strong female lead fantasy

• dark fantasy book series

• free short stories fantasy collections

• fantasy books about witches

• fantasy witch books

When brainstorming keywords, think like a book consumer. How will people find you in the long tail? What will they be searching for? The more granular the phrase, the deeper it gets into the long tail.

Not all keywords are created equal. Some keywords are worth more than others. In the world of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you must understand two metrics about words: the demand (frequency) of the phrase and its competitive rank.

• The demand for a keyword represents the frequency of use; how often it gets typed into Amazon.
  

• The competition for a keyword represents what people will pay for that valuable real estate. Competition reflects how many people want to be featured first in the search results for a high-demand keyword.

For example, if you take the keyword “fantasy novel,” you’d find it has high demand and competition. It’s frequently entered into Amazon.

The price for that keyword is very high (this concept is related to Pay-Per-Click advertising, but conceptually, look at the problem as real estate — everyone wants that space, and there are people with big budgets willing to pay for the position.

But how do I know if a keyword/phrase works? How many searches per month are there for “fantasy witch books” anyway?

Using Keyword Analyzers

How do I know this? I must use a keyword analyzer. Here’s “fantasy novel” using Google’s Keyword Analyzer.

Look at the Average Monthly Searches (Demand). Although competition is high for both, there’s fewer searches for the “dark fantasy short stories” than “fantasy novel", and the bid price for the “fantasy novel” is notably higher. This is the effect where “dark fantasy short stories” is more niched. It’s going deeper in the long tail.

If there’s a lot of competition, you’re likely to be drowned out in the noise of other search engine results or from parties willing to pay to be in front of you. Because of that, you have to get closer to your niche. Just look at an Amazon Keyword Tool’s result on “fantasy novel”. This is Publisher Rocket, by the way. Dave Chesson has a great novice-level program for SEO work on Amazon.

Almost 28,000 people search for that phrase on Amazon in a given month, it returns 500+ pages of books, and it’s highly competitive, scoring 67/100 on a competitive score. Yikes.

From a PPC point of view, I’m paying less for “dark fantasy short stories” than “fantasy novels” because there are fewer monthly searches; it’s less expensive real estate. But it digs deeper into the long tail and speaks to my niche, the audience I’m after.

Finding the Sweet Spot

But here’s the catch: if you use generic or incredibly obscure keywords, you'll be in a queue behind thousands of others or in a dark, dusty corner where no one thinks to look.

The art, then, is in finding that sweet spot—keywords that are specific enough to stand out but common enough that people search for them. Something with medium demand. Ah, take a look at this.

So here we go. Closer to my niche (short stories rather than novels), more demand (100-1k searches/mo) at negligible costs. This is basic keyword research, telling me:

• “Fantasy Novels” are at the head of the tail. It’s the most searched term and the most expensive piece of real estate to rent. The competition drowns me out, and my PPC budget will quickly be eroded.

• “Dark Fantasy Short Stories” is more obscure and maybe more attractive in terms of cost, but there is little demand. Few people search for this phrase on Google in a given month. My PPC budget is more cost-effective, but I will wait a while for people to come around.

• “Fantasy Short Stories,” however, is the sweet spot. It gets more traffic, so there is medium demand, but the cost is negligible (tiny in this case). My PPC budget is more cost-effective, whereas my website or book is being seen in search results more often at a lower cost.

Therefore, according to Google, “Fantasy Short Stories” should be one of my keywords!

Well, maybe.

This is an Amazon Keyword Tool result.

Now, my Amazon tool isn’t so sure.

On Amazon, less than 100 people type it into their search engine, and the value of a 7/100 as a competitive score suggests few are trying to hone in on it. Still, that’s good for me! No competition!

But let’s go back to one of my previous ideas, Dark Fantasy Stories.

Okay, look at that! A relatively low 23/100 competitive score with a reasonable level of searches per month - 950 people typed that into Amazon in one month. To recap:

• Fantasy Short Stories - Good with Google Search.

• Dark Fantasy Stories - Good with Amazon.

So where should I use them?

• In product descriptions and keywords in the Amazon listing? Yes. Maybe I’ll try “Fantasy Short Stories” for a while before replacing it with something else.

• On my website? Yes.

• As meta descriptions for books? Like, in the subtitle of a book? Yes.

• On blog posts like … er, this one? Yes.

Tools like Google's Keyword Planner, third-party Amazon A9 keyword tools, or other SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tools can help you find similar terms people are searching for, their popularity, and their competitiveness. Sometimes you have to pay for these things.

You should be prepared to pay for information that makes you more competitive, but good news: Google Keywords can be used for free.

R

Finding Your Niche as a Self-Published Author

Self-published authors face a daunting challenge: not only must they create unique and compelling content, but they must find a market for it that exists somewhere in the long tail.

Niches

It’s incumbent upon you as a self-published writer to find your niche. Knowing who you’re writing for can transform your writing journey to make it both rewarding and successful.

Firstly, understanding yourself is crucial. Who are you? What do you want to write about? What are your interests? How do your interests influence your writing?

Sun Tzu, guys: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you don’t understand why you’re writing and what you’ll consistently write about, stop. Go back and stare in a mirror until you figure it out.

Second, find your niche. These people share your interests and want to read your writing. Understanding your niche is crucial. This involves recognizing who your ideal readers are, what they crave, and where they spend their time online. What do they want from a story?

Whether you're penning sci-fi novels, self-help books, or historical fiction, there's a community for you. The key is to engage with these communities authentically.

Social media platforms like X, Instagram, and Goodreads offer fertile ground for connecting with niche readers.

On X, hashtags related to your genre can lead you to conversations with potential readers. Instagram allows for a more visual connection, showcasing your writing process, book covers, and themes through engaging posts.

To effectively use these platforms, be consistent and genuine in your interactions. Share your journey (writer-slang for how you go about writing), ask questions, and participate in discussions.

It's not just about promoting your book but building relationships with your readers.

Third, engage. You can be a lurker; you have to participate in these communities.

Over time, you'll find your niche audience and cultivate a community of readers who are genuinely interested in your work.

Strategy:

1. Figure out who you are and what you’re writing about.

2. Find your people.

3. Engage with them.

Remember, connecting with your niche is about quality, not quantity. A dedicated group of engaged readers can be more valuable than a vast but indifferent audience.

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Navigating the Longtail in Internet Marketing

If you are marketing your self-published book, understanding the long tail concept is like discovering how gears in a clock track time.

Imagine walking through a market that stretches beyond the horizon, where every stall offers something unique. The first stalls you see are the largest and loudest, manned by the most popular authors. Your stall, on the other hand, is way out in the distance, further than you can see, where you eagerly await a customer to come walking by. Will they ever?

This is the digital marketplace, and the long tail is its most intriguing secret. The more you understand the long tail, the greater your appreciation for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) will become.

What is the Long Tail?

Originally a term from the business world, the long tail in self-publishing refers to the plethora of niche genres and topics that, when combined, can equal or surpass the market share of bestsellers. This means authors no longer need to chase mainstream success to find their audience; there's a space for every unique voice.

Amazon maintains a catalog of 32.8 million titles. That’s a lot of books! What is seen and what sells represents an absolutely tiny fraction of their total catalog. What sells is at the head of the curve; what languishes in obscurity is in the tail of the curve.

As a new or self-published author, your book lives in the tail of the curve.

Why it Matters

The long tail strategy empowers authors by highlighting the importance of niche markets. Those catering to specific interests can stand out in a sea of millions of books. This approach benefits both authors, who can write about what they truly love, and readers, who can find books that resonate on a personal level.

Your job is to move your products up to the head of the curve through SEO, marketing, likes, recommendations, shares, good product reviews, and promotions.

Sounds expensive. It is. So how do you do this?

Leveraging the Long Tail

The long tail strategy for self-publishing authors involves identifying and targeting readers in specific niches. You must find an audience that traditional publishers have difficulty reaching.

The right niche aligns with your interests and expertise while having strong market demand. This builds authority and attracts your ideal readers from knowing your audience.

That might mean writing for a narrowly defined genre.

Authors can connect with their ideal readership by utilizing targeted marketing strategies like SEO and social media engagement.

Embracing the long tail in self-publishing opens up a world of possibilities for authors and enriches the literary landscape with diverse voices and stories. It's a testament to the power of the internet to connect writers with readers, no matter how specialized their interests may be.

The Internet makes this process easier than ever.

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