Tips for Marketing on Amazon

This week, I enjoyed practicing new marketing techniques that I picked up from Shelley Hitz's new book Marketing Your Book on Amazon. Followers of my blog know I'm a Shelley Hitz fan. As expected, this new book did not disappoint.

The book alerted me to a nifty feature called Book Extras in Shelfari, Amazon's social network for readers. Book Extras allows your book to stand out from the pack by adding descriptive details that may appeal to additional interests of some readers. For example, under the Book Extra "Characters", I wrote short bios, starting with Julian, the anti-hero in my vampire thriller, Bloodroom. Under "Settings", I listed Charleston, which is the setting of the book. But I also listed Drayton Hall, an actual Charleston mansion on which I modeled Julian's home. I listed Bacchantes, Julian's posh European-style coffee house. Maybe I'll hook some new readers who are into coffee and historic architecture!

The book gave me a refresher on adding keywords and tags to my books' Amazon sales pages. This will make my book turn up in the targeted searches of readers most attuned to the stories I write.

I'm excited about pointers I'll be using when I launch The Bad Death, an antebellum vampire slayer novel. For instance, Marketing Your Book on Amazon has a section on how to announce my novel's publication as a Facebook Milestone. And since launches are huge affairs that overwhelm me, I am really looking forward to customizing the pre- and post-launch To Do Lists offered in the book. Oh, and I learned about a free plug-in for WordPress called Pretty Pink Lite that allows you to create custom affiliate links for your books. The Pretty Pink links also track clicks to evaluate the effectiveness of paid advertising. I can't wait to talk to my website guru about that!

Is it too Late to Clone Myself?

I'm obsessed with publishing and publicizing. If I could just take one day to insert end matter into my Demontorium short stories, I could devote all my energy to accepting Linda's line item copy edits to my novel, Bloodroom. And I could create my Facebook page and do all the things Shelley Hitz taught us in her webinars. The strategy she teaches is very thorough and implementing seems as full time an enterprise as my other tasks. It's not just the time, but the mental focus. I haven't written anything in my new novel, House of the Apparently Dead, for about two weeks now -- which I tell you, there's an eager little racehorse in me wanting to bust out the gate and write the next scene. I tell myself, this big publishing push is a temporary switch in focus. There's a lot to do at first because I'm establishing a platform. The stories I have already written deserve the best support I can give.