When you first upload your blog or book to Amazon, it may appear within a couple of days, but the description of it always takes a few days more - an idiosyncrasy that I find annoying.
But eventually that description will show up, but it's not going to do you any good if its not a good description.
I've found this problem mostly with books in the public domain, but I've seen it with a few others - those self-published.
In your description, you need to throw in everything, and the kitchen sink. A table of contents, a list of characters perhaps, at the very least a synopsis of the plot!
And like everything else you write, after you've written your description, let it "set" for a day or so, then come back to it, and if it still sounds good, then use it.
Whenever you write something that's going to go for sale to someone else, or is going to advertise something you have for sale, you need to ensure that there are no spelling or grammar errors, and that it says exactly what you want it to say.
Showing posts with label publishing skills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label publishing skills. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
"This blog not available for sale"
I was very annoyed today, when I signed on at about 4 pm, to see that all my blogs were unavailable. I would have been very frightened as well, thinking Amazon had decided to end the Kindle blog program without bothering to tell anyone, except this had happened on June 8 at well.
(I know precisely when this happens because I'm a bit obsessive compulsive and I check the rankings of my blogs throughout the day. So if the system is down, I know about it, and this hadn't happened since June 8.)
No one at Amazon Blog Help ever answered my question, posted on June 8, as to why this had happened. I can only assume they are doing system wide maintainence and have to shut down the system for several hours.
Nevertheless it is extremely annoying, because of course that's 8 hours or so when no one is subscribing to my blogs!
Anyway, if you ever try to check the ranking of your blogs, and get a similar response, no need to panic.
Ranking of blogs
If you check your blog on an hourly basis, you'll find that its ranking changes, either up or down. It's hard to know how many blog subscriptions have been purchased, however my best estimate is that if someone subscribes to your blog, it will go down about 1,000 points.
Well...it really depends. If your ranking is 80,000 and 1 person subscribes, it will go down to 40,000. If another person subscribes, 20,000 or so, and if another does, 10,000. After that, when someone subscribes, it will drop on average only about a thousand points.
My post popular blog has been steady at varying between 3,000-6,000 for the last several months. So I think I must get 3 subscriptions a day. Another of my blogs goes from about 12,000 - 28,000. This one therefore, I think averages one subscription every couple of days.
How does this correlate with the number on your Blogs Report?
Well, when I first signed up and started creating blogs 3 months ago, I know - I know - that this report updated on a daily basis. But now, it only seens to update every two weeks. Very frustrating, especially when Amazon Affiliate updates daily. If they can do it (book sales) why can't blog sales also be daily? But for whatever reason, they're not.
However, I tell myself to not get too angry. I'm making money, and if Amazon didn't have this feature - I wouldn't be making any!
(I know precisely when this happens because I'm a bit obsessive compulsive and I check the rankings of my blogs throughout the day. So if the system is down, I know about it, and this hadn't happened since June 8.)
No one at Amazon Blog Help ever answered my question, posted on June 8, as to why this had happened. I can only assume they are doing system wide maintainence and have to shut down the system for several hours.
Nevertheless it is extremely annoying, because of course that's 8 hours or so when no one is subscribing to my blogs!
Anyway, if you ever try to check the ranking of your blogs, and get a similar response, no need to panic.
Ranking of blogs
If you check your blog on an hourly basis, you'll find that its ranking changes, either up or down. It's hard to know how many blog subscriptions have been purchased, however my best estimate is that if someone subscribes to your blog, it will go down about 1,000 points.
Well...it really depends. If your ranking is 80,000 and 1 person subscribes, it will go down to 40,000. If another person subscribes, 20,000 or so, and if another does, 10,000. After that, when someone subscribes, it will drop on average only about a thousand points.
My post popular blog has been steady at varying between 3,000-6,000 for the last several months. So I think I must get 3 subscriptions a day. Another of my blogs goes from about 12,000 - 28,000. This one therefore, I think averages one subscription every couple of days.
How does this correlate with the number on your Blogs Report?
Well, when I first signed up and started creating blogs 3 months ago, I know - I know - that this report updated on a daily basis. But now, it only seens to update every two weeks. Very frustrating, especially when Amazon Affiliate updates daily. If they can do it (book sales) why can't blog sales also be daily? But for whatever reason, they're not.
However, I tell myself to not get too angry. I'm making money, and if Amazon didn't have this feature - I wouldn't be making any!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Importance of Titles on Amazon
Titles are all important.
The title itself
If you're not a well-established author, titles that are in-jokes are no good. For example, I could entitle a mystery blog, Le Cafe Singe Bleu, and that would make total sense to me, because I grew up in the decades when Charlie Chan movies were ubiquitous on TV, and lots of people would have seen Charlie Chan in Paris and known that Le Cafe Single Bleu was the name of the restaurant in the movie where we got to see a rather cool Apache dance, and then the murder of the female dancer.
But now that Charlie Chan movies can't be shown on TV anymore (thanks to a misplaced view of racism on the part of Asian activists, but that's a rant for another time), not enough people would get the reference.
How You Type it in Amazon
One of my other blogs is The Kindle Report, which is an example of a poor name, for a start. But then, I'd originally intended to review both books and blogs, and it was only after a week or so that I decided to focus only on blogs, and by then it was too late to change it.
But I just had to find a blog called BiblePlaces, and I typed in Bible Places in the search box on Amazon, and nothing came up. It was only when I actually typed BiblePlaces, without the space, that the blog appeared.
Most people I think separate the words when searching for a blog. So even though in your URL you have no spaces, when giving the title on Amazon - always provide spaces. In the keywords is the place to put the title all run together without spaces.
Tomorrow I'll discuss the importance of keywords.
The title itself
If you're not a well-established author, titles that are in-jokes are no good. For example, I could entitle a mystery blog, Le Cafe Singe Bleu, and that would make total sense to me, because I grew up in the decades when Charlie Chan movies were ubiquitous on TV, and lots of people would have seen Charlie Chan in Paris and known that Le Cafe Single Bleu was the name of the restaurant in the movie where we got to see a rather cool Apache dance, and then the murder of the female dancer.
But now that Charlie Chan movies can't be shown on TV anymore (thanks to a misplaced view of racism on the part of Asian activists, but that's a rant for another time), not enough people would get the reference.
How You Type it in Amazon
One of my other blogs is The Kindle Report, which is an example of a poor name, for a start. But then, I'd originally intended to review both books and blogs, and it was only after a week or so that I decided to focus only on blogs, and by then it was too late to change it.
But I just had to find a blog called BiblePlaces, and I typed in Bible Places in the search box on Amazon, and nothing came up. It was only when I actually typed BiblePlaces, without the space, that the blog appeared.
Most people I think separate the words when searching for a blog. So even though in your URL you have no spaces, when giving the title on Amazon - always provide spaces. In the keywords is the place to put the title all run together without spaces.
Tomorrow I'll discuss the importance of keywords.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
You must proofread your books, and edit them too
I read the blog of a man who writes and self-publishes his books through Authorhouse. His blog is actually about other stuff - his main employment is as a soundtrack producer - but when he's working on a book project he blogs about it.
And one thing he says is that he has three proofreaders who read each of his books. And yet, once the book is published, he always finds a typo or two that they - and he, in his own reviews, missed.
One reason for this may be that too many cooks spoil the broth. If you've got three different sets of corrections to make (he gives them print copies to read rather than electronic copies) whose to say that the person inputting the corrections doesn't miss one or two?
But the point is, he goes to the expense of having his book proofread not by one person, not by two, but by three of them. That may seem overkill, but really i's the professional way to do it. If you're going to self-publish your book, you have to do all the work that any publisher would do - what any professional publisher would do.
One thing this gentleman doesn't say is whether or not he uses an editor too. But he does have someone he calls a "muse" who reads his books and to whose suggestions he listens, so I suppose we can call her an editor.
Proofreaders and editors. If you don't employ them, then what you've got to do is set your book aside for at least a couple of weeks. Then, re-read it as if it were a new book, something you don't even remember. That allows you to look at it more dispassionately, to see any flaws, and be able to correct them.
And one thing he says is that he has three proofreaders who read each of his books. And yet, once the book is published, he always finds a typo or two that they - and he, in his own reviews, missed.
One reason for this may be that too many cooks spoil the broth. If you've got three different sets of corrections to make (he gives them print copies to read rather than electronic copies) whose to say that the person inputting the corrections doesn't miss one or two?
But the point is, he goes to the expense of having his book proofread not by one person, not by two, but by three of them. That may seem overkill, but really i's the professional way to do it. If you're going to self-publish your book, you have to do all the work that any publisher would do - what any professional publisher would do.
One thing this gentleman doesn't say is whether or not he uses an editor too. But he does have someone he calls a "muse" who reads his books and to whose suggestions he listens, so I suppose we can call her an editor.
Proofreaders and editors. If you don't employ them, then what you've got to do is set your book aside for at least a couple of weeks. Then, re-read it as if it were a new book, something you don't even remember. That allows you to look at it more dispassionately, to see any flaws, and be able to correct them.
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