http://www.techdivamedia.com/getting-people-to-your-website/kindle/
In this presentation, we review reasons for publishing a Kindle book, the anatomy of a Kindle book, what to include in your book description and the options to select when uploading your book file to be published through Amazon.com.
For consulting on Kindle publishing, visit http://www.techdivamedia.com/getting-people-to-your-website/kindle/
2. “Why do you want to publish a
book?”
Here are 5 good reasons to publish a book:
1. Royalties
2. Personal Branding
3. List-Building
4. Product Gateway
3. 1. Royalities
The chances of making big bucks on Kindle books are slim, but if you do want to do
it for this reason, these are the books that make it big:
Big markets that sell well • Non-fiction: health, weight loss, relationships, time management, personal
development, beauty, religion, food/recipes (these in particular seem to sell like
crazy...but they need to be niched)
• Fiction: thrillers, horror, young adult, fantasy/sci-fi, erotica
• Seasonal/Holiday: Halloween, Christmas, political books, fantasy football season
If you’re going to make money, you need to serialize.
4. 2. Personal Branding/Credibility
You’re not concerned with number of books that sell - you just want your book to live
in the top 10 in your category...and you can claim the title of “best selling author”.
• Great for speakers and consultants
• The ultimate business card
• This is for credibility, not money (so no need to serialize)
5. 3. List Building
“If you like this book, find more resources on our website by visiting
www.mysite.com...”
• These are your highest value subscribers because they’ve already bought from you
• You’re leveraging the exposure from Amazon to reach a much broader audience
6. 4. Product Gateway
Publish a how-to book, then sell products used in the process
• If you currently sell products, it’s silly not to publish a book about the processes the
products are used with (e.g. “How to Make and Sell A Video Training Course In A
Weekend” >> sell flip cams, green screens and lighting on your website)
• You can sell your own products or affiliate products
• Create a Guidebook and sell training on your site (e.g. Mom’s Guide to Paleo Diet
For the Family >>> sell memberships for premium access to recipes, exercise videos,
etc.
7. Choose a topic for your book
Shorter stories work best on Kindle: think of 5 80-page books vs. one 400page book.
8. Set up your Kindle Direct Publishing Account
You can use your existing Amazon account, or set up one just for
publishing purposes.
http://kdp.amazon.com/
9. Kindle Anatomy
The basic outline of a Kindle ebook is as follows:
•Title page
1.Title of your book
2.Subtitle
3.Author Name
4.Copyright
5.Contact info (optional)
1.Table of Contents
2.Call-To-Action Page
3.Request for Review Page
4.Other Books (optional)
5.Preface
6.Chapters
7.Resources (optional)
8.Index (optional)
10. Kindle Anatomy
Table of Contents: Write chapter titles as questions (from your index cards). Much more compelling.
Call To Action Page: Immediately following your table of contents should be a page where you ask your
reader to take some action.
Ideally, use a video to capture attention - AND drive them to your website when they click to play! So, in the
book, you’d paste in an image of your video as a placeholder. This will actually be a linked image that will
direct people to your website page when they click to play it.
This video and the text on the CTA page can drive people to:
•Subscribe to your newsletter
•Watch a bonus video on your website
•Download a bonus report
•Download the bonus interview
11.
12. Format and Publish
Format your Kindle: On a Mac, use
Pages to create your book document. Make
sure your text and image (your video
thumbnail) are properly hyper-linked. Then go
to File > Export > ePub.
(I imagine Word has this, too, but I don’t use
Word to know how to guide you.)
Or, go to Fiverr.com and pay someone $5 to
format to Kindle (do a search for “kindle
format”).
Login to KDP account and click
“Add New Title”: Follow the instructions.
Select to “Enroll in KDP Select”.
13. Publish
Write a great description:
Use your primary keywords so that your description starts and ends with the keyword phrases
you most want to rank for.
Open with a question you know your readers would want answered.
Include a bulleted list of benefits (could also be your Table of Contents).
Close with reviews/testimonials (once you have them).
14. Confirm your “Content Rights”. Select “Do not enable digital rights management”. That
probably sounds strange, but if you have Amazon enable this option it will be significantly more
difficult for your readers…legitimate paying readers…to consume your books outside of
Kindle’s proprietary tools.
Upload your cover image and book file.
Select pricing.
Select to “allow lending”. Lending not only increases readership, you also get paid every
time an Amazon Prime member “borrows” your book for free.