Review: KDP Select Report by Rosa Suen

In this post last week I reviewed Rosa Suen's report on publishing to the Amazon Kindle.

Today I'm reviewing her companion KDP Select Report - also available as a Warrior Special Offer - about the benefits to authors of opting into the KDP Select program.

For those who don’t know, KDP Select is a new program allowing authors of Kindle e-books to earn money by allowing their titles to be lent out to US Amazon Prime customers (though authors don’t have to be US-based themselves). Such customers are allowed to borrow one Kindle e-book free of charge per month under the program.

Obviously, authors don’t get any royalties from this program - as their books are loaned out free - but Amazon has set aside a substantial fund (an estimated $6 million during 2012), which is shared out every month according to how many times each e-book has been borrowed. With low-cost e-books - as Rosa's report indicates - your earnings per loan are almost certain to be higher than your royalties per sale.

The KDP Select program has been the cause of much discussion among Kindle authors, with some contending it offers a poor deal for authors. This is largely because, if you want to take part, you are barred from selling your e-book digitally through any other outlet (e.g. Smashwords) during the (minimum) 90-day period your title is available through the program. Rosa is the author of around 200 (non-fiction) e-books, however, and she shows clearly through her own sales figures and earnings that the program can be very effective if you use it in the right way.

One key aspect of the advice in the KDP Select Report concerns how to use the opportunity KDP Select authors are given to list their e-books free of charge on Amazon for up to five days per month (consecutive or otherwise). With stats from ten different e-books, Rosa clearly shows the effectiveness of this strategy for generating interest in an e-book and getting it into the Amazon best-seller lists.

She compares the number and value of sales generated (on non-free-promotion days, obviously) with loans per month, and shows the total earnings in each case. She discusses how she intends to refine her sales and pricing strategy to maximize her earnings from each title, and also sets out what she has discovered about the best price points for Kindle e-books.

I found Rosa’s systematic approach to marketing using the KDP Select program impressive, and the specific case studies quite enlightening. The guide doesn’t actually tell you anything about devising or writing Kindle e-books, though as previously mentioned Rosa does have another report, also available as a WSO, which covers this subject. And, of course, my own Kindle Kash guide sets out step-by-step advice on publishing an e-book to the Kindle Store using only free resources.

If you’re a Kindle author and have been wondering whether to take the plunge with KDP Select, I recommend this modestly priced guide. It may not have all the answers, but I guarantee it will give you food for thought. It also demonstrates a systematic, mathematically-based way of analysing the returns you are getting from applying Rosa’s strategy and fine-tuning it to boost your profits further. Incidentally, along with the report you also receive 10 charts (plus one already filled in as an example) to help you apply the strategy to your own titles.

With this report, as with Rosa's original one, there is a 30-day unconditional refund guarantee.

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Rosa Suen's KDP Select Report. In addition, the links in this review include my affiliate code, so if you click through and make a purchase, a proportion of the fee will go to me. This has not influenced my review in any way, but you should of course complete your own due diligence and read the sales page (and this review) carefully to determine whether this product will be relevant to your needs.

Word cloud by courtesy of Wordle.

Author 2.0 Blueprint - Great Resource for Indie Authors from Joanna Penn

Just wanted to let you know today about a free, 52-page e-book from prolific author and blogger Joanna Penn.

Joanna describes Author 2.0 Blueprint as 'Your Blueprint for Writing, Publishing and Marketing Your Book'. It's a beautifully written and produced introduction to self-publishing, covering both fiction and non-fiction.

The e-book is a fully updated, 2012 version of Joanna's original Author 2.0 report. It’s based on articles from her blog The Creative Penn, as well as information from other blogs. There are links to many sites and blogs Joanna says she has found useful herself. The book also recommends further resources, some free and some paid-for, for additional advice and assistance.

Author 2.0 Blueprint is published under a Creative Commons licence, so it can be freely shared as long as you don’t use it commercially and you cite TheCreativePenn.com as the source. I've therefore taken the opportunity to embed it below, or you can visit the announcement page on Joanna's blog and download it from there if you prefer...
Author 2.0 Blueprint: Writing, Publishing and Book Marketing using online tools (2012 version)

If you are receiving this post by email or RSS, you may need to visit my blog to see the embedded version of the e-book. Also, if you can't read the embedded version clearly - and I can't control how exactly it will display on different browsers - click on the 'View in Fullscreen' icon at the bottom. You can return to this blog post afterwards by using your browser's 'Back' button.

Thank you very much to Joanna for making this valuable resource available to the world-wide writing community.

Finally, while we're talking about freebies, you might also like to sign up for The Writer's Giveaway by my blog sponsors, The WCCL Network. This features a wide range of free, writing-related reports and software. All you have to do in exchange is sign up for their Smart Writers e-newsletter (to which you can, of course, unsubscribe at any time). Just click on the banner below for more information!

How to Use Incentives to Get Extra Sales

Today's guest post is by Jimmy D. Brown of the website iBusiness Owner.

Jimmy is talking about a subject that I'm sure will resonate with many self-publishers, and especially with buyers of my 10-Day E-Book course (which discusses writing and publishing a money-making e-book on ClickBank).

Take it away, Jimmy...

* * *

The vast majority of your prospects aren’t all that passionate about your offer.

Truth is, they’re kind of lukewarm. They’re interested, but they’re not taking their credit card out. Instead of making a buying decision, they decide to “think about it.”

Of course you know what happens: They forget about your offer. They don’t return to your store or sales page. Some of them may even make the conscious decision to NOT buy your product.

So what can you do to get your prospects to get excited and take action NOW?

Simple: Offer them an incentive if they order now. Do it right, and you’re virtually guaranteed to make more sales!

Generally, an incentive can take two forms:

1. You offer a discount. One idea is the straightforward discount, such as offering a percent-off. Another ideas is to offer a discount on the overall package, such as by offering free shipping.

Tip: You can even make it a limited-time discount so that your prospects feel a sense of urgency.

1. You offer one or more bonus products. Again, you can even make the bonus offer limited to increase the sense of urgency.

Offering a discount is a pretty straightforward incentive. So let’s talk about how to offer a bonus as a buying incentive.

Here then are the seven keys to offering bonuses that generate extra sales:

• Make sure the bonus is desirable. Point is, if your prospects don’t care about the bonus product, then it won’t help you generate any sales. So make sure it’s something that your prospects already want. Something that gets them excited!

• Create a valuable bonus. Just because you’re giving the product away for free with a purchase doesn’t mean this bonus should be worth little to no money. Quite the contrary – it should have a high perceived value in the prospect’s mind.

• Choose bonuses that are easy to deliver. This is particularly true if you’re selling downloadable products online, such as software or information. Point is, you want to be able to deliver the bonus instantly – right alongside the main product – without you having to manually deliver the bonus.

• Supply an exclusive bonus, whenever possible. If the prospect can get the bonus somewhere else, he might just do that. So try to offer exclusive bonuses to help make the buying decision easy.

• Offer a bonus that compliments the main product. For example, let’s say you’re selling a book about retirement planning. Offering retirement-planning worksheets and software as a bonus would be a great incentive.

• Sell the bonus. If you’re selling via a sales page, don’t just list the bonus. Instead, sell it just the way you’re selling the main product, meaning you should list the benefits of this bonus product or service.

• Remember that you can offer products OR services. Let’s say you’re selling exterior landscaping supplies and information. As a bonus you can offer a free consultation where you provide specific landscaping ideas for buyers. Or if you’re selling a copywriting product, you can offer a sales letter critique.

Conclusion

Offering an incentive is a simple, yet highly effective way to generate more sales and grow your business. To discover still more ways to grow your business, visit http://tinyurl.com/6rtt8sl – you may just learn strategies you never even knew existed!

* * *

Thank you to Jimmy for an interesting article.

I do agree that offering extra bonuses is a powerful selling technique. My publishers, WCCL, always include a few extra bonuses with the products and courses they offer. In addition - as with my Kindle Kash course - I quite often add a few extra bonuses myself when people order from me personally!

If you have any comments or questions about this post, as ever, feel free to leave them below.

Photo Credit: Scared Candy by Enokson on Flickr. Licensed under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic Licence.

Cover Story: Should Writers Create Their Own E-Book Covers?

Today I'm pleased to bring you another guest post by MWB regular David Robinson.

David is a successful self-publishing author. In this post he addresses the question of whether writers can - or should - create their own e-book covers.

* * *

Never judge a book by its cover. How old is that advice? How valid is it? The first point of contact we all have with many books is the cover, and getting it right can be a struggle.

As usual there is plenty of advice out there, and it usually runs like this:

• Ensure your cover reflects a scene from the book.
• Have your cover professionally prepared.
• Don't use cheap and tacky images manipulated on Photoshop.

I checked the Kindle bestsellers. With a few exceptions, the covers do NOT reflect a scene from the book. They may reflect the THEME, even the TITLE, but they do not indicate a single scene. In many instances, the covers are abstract.

This problem is perhaps less critical when it comes to selling non-fiction. Nick's book Start Your Own Home-based Business has a large question mark in the centre of the cover which, on closer inspection, looks like the interior of a house. It's attractive without being specific, and for me, that's what a cover should aim for. My own non-fiction title, E-book Formatting & Publishing on the Kindle, shows a screen shot of a Word document.

Can you apply this kind of abstract simplicity to novels? You can, and most authors/publishers do.

The cover of the first title in my Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) Investigates series, A Death at the Seaside, shows a seaside scene. It suggests a traditional British seaside summer holiday. The title does the rest. It does not relate to any particular scene from the novel, and it doesn't even relate to murder.

This image (along with all my covers) also broke the first two "rules". It was not professionally prepared, and it was done on Photoshop.

The background image from A Death at the Seaside was taken from a rooftop cafeteria in Bridlington using a Sony a200 DSLR camera and a 200mm lens. The original was manipulated on Photoshop to enrich the colours, and the shadow edges were added as a trademark of the Sanford Third Age Club Investigates series. Does it work? A Death at the Seaside is my bestseller.

Here's another example, from a series of sci-fi novels I'm planning for next year.

This, too, was prepared on Photoshop and it spells out exactly what the novel is: a sci-fi adventure. But how was it put together?

The background is a starfield which I downloaded from the web. I installed a lens flare on it, which I then altered to appear as the distant, yellow sun. The planet is an image of Uranus which I also downloaded from the web, and then manipulated to turn it emerald green and darken most of the disc. The asteroid landscape, which doesn't show up too well in such this small example, is a photograph I took when visiting the Mt Teide National Park, on Tenerife in the Canary Islands (below). The area is known for its almost lunar appearance.

I clipped this landscape from this picture, eliminating the sky, pasted it into place, and adjusted the lighting.

Even without titles, a potential reader looking at this thinks "sci-fi", and acts accordingly. Sci-fi lovers will look closer, sci-fi non-lovers will move on.

Cover artists will shout, "I could have done better," and they're probably right, but as an independent writer/publisher, I have economic considerations to take into account.

I checked out a number of artists, and their prices ranged from $100 to $1000. I'm not criticising those figures. Artists place a value on their time and skill and I would not question them, but I make, on average, $1 per title sold (as little 30ȼ on the cheaper titles, as much as $2 on the more expensive ones). Even at the lower end of the price list I would have to sell 100 copies just to break even. And that doesn't take account of editing costs, which I'm already paying out.

Realistically, to break even, I'd need to sell 200-300 copies if I used a bottom-end artist. At the top end, I'll have to sell 2000+ copies, simply to break even.

I sell books. My titles do fairly well, but nothing mega. Would I sell more with a professionally designed cover? Perhaps, but I don't see that increase catapulting me into the major league, and it just does not make economic sense.

Apologies to all you advisors. I believe you have a point, but for now I'll stick with my own imagination and Photoshop.

This will be my last guest appearance on this blog for 2011, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish Nick and all his readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy, successful New Year.

Byline: David Robinson is an independent freelance writer and novelist with 15 titles available through the Kindle and Smashwords. Visit his website at http://www.dwrob.com.

* * *

Thank you to David for another excellent and inspiring guest post.

So have you created your own e-book cover, or do you think it's better to hire a professional? Please leave any comments or questions for David (or me) below.

Cover Story: Should Writers Create Their Own E-Book Covers?

Today I'm pleased to bring you another guest post by MWB regular David Robinson.

David is a successful self-publishing author. In this post he addresses the question of whether writers can - or should - create their own e-book covers.

* * *

Never judge a book by its cover. How old is that advice? How valid is it? The first point of contact we all have with many books is the cover, and getting it right can be a struggle.

As usual there is plenty of advice out there, and it usually runs like this:

• Ensure your cover reflects a scene from the book.
• Have your cover professionally prepared.
• Don't use cheap and tacky images manipulated on Photoshop.

I checked the Kindle bestsellers. With a few exceptions, the covers do NOT reflect a scene from the book. They may reflect the THEME, even the TITLE, but they do not indicate a single scene. In many instances, the covers are abstract.

This problem is perhaps less critical when it comes to selling non-fiction. Nick's book Start Your Own Home-based Business has a large question mark in the centre of the cover which, on closer inspection, looks like the interior of a house. It's attractive without being specific, and for me, that's what a cover should aim for. My own non-fiction title, E-book Formatting & Publishing on the Kindle, shows a screen shot of a Word document.

Can you apply this kind of abstract simplicity to novels? You can, and most authors/publishers do.

The cover of the first title in my Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) Investigates series, A Death at the Seaside, shows a seaside scene. It suggests a traditional British seaside summer holiday. The title does the rest. It does not relate to any particular scene from the novel, and it doesn't even relate to murder.

This image (along with all my covers) also broke the first two "rules". It was not professionally prepared, and it was done on Photoshop.

The background image from A Death at the Seaside was taken from a rooftop cafeteria in Bridlington using a Sony a200 DSLR camera and a 200mm lens. The original was manipulated on Photoshop to enrich the colours, and the shadow edges were added as a trademark of the Sanford Third Age Club Investigates series. Does it work? A Death at the Seaside is my bestseller.

Here's another example, from a series of sci-fi novels I'm planning for next year.

This, too, was prepared on Photoshop and it spells out exactly what the novel is: a sci-fi adventure. But how was it put together?

The background is a starfield which I downloaded from the web. I installed a lens flare on it, which I then altered to appear as the distant, yellow sun. The planet is an image of Uranus which I also downloaded from the web, and then manipulated to turn it emerald green and darken most of the disc. The asteroid landscape, which doesn't show up too well in such this small example, is a photograph I took when visiting the Mt Teide National Park, on Tenerife in the Canary Islands (below). The area is known for its almost lunar appearance.

I clipped this landscape from this picture, eliminating the sky, pasted it into place, and adjusted the lighting.

Even without titles, a potential reader looking at this thinks "sci-fi", and acts accordingly. Sci-fi lovers will look closer, sci-fi non-lovers will move on.

Cover artists will shout, "I could have done better," and they're probably right, but as an independent writer/publisher, I have economic considerations to take into account.

I checked out a number of artists, and their prices ranged from $100 to $1000. I'm not criticising those figures. Artists place a value on their time and skill and I would not question them, but I make, on average, $1 per title sold (as little 30ȼ on the cheaper titles, as much as $2 on the more expensive ones). Even at the lower end of the price list I would have to sell 100 copies just to break even. And that doesn't take account of editing costs, which I'm already paying out.

Realistically, to break even, I'd need to sell 200-300 copies if I used a bottom-end artist. At the top end, I'll have to sell 2000+ copies, simply to break even.

I sell books. My titles do fairly well, but nothing mega. Would I sell more with a professionally designed cover? Perhaps, but I don't see that increase catapulting me into the major league, and it just does not make economic sense.

Apologies to all you advisors. I believe you have a point, but for now I'll stick with my own imagination and Photoshop.

This will be my last guest appearance on this blog for 2011, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish Nick and all his readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy, successful New Year.

Byline: David Robinson is an independent freelance writer and novelist with 15 titles available through the Kindle and Smashwords. Visit his website at http://www.dwrob.com.

* * *

Thank you to David for another excellent and inspiring guest post.

So have you created your own e-book cover, or do you think it's better to hire a professional? Please leave any comments or questions for David (or me) below.