Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS

Today’s show is all about the effective use of keywords to improve discoverability for your books. Dave Chesson, who many of you probably know as The Kindlepreneur is our guest.

Dave is a 9 year veteran of the US Navy, who developed a side hustle in online marketing while serving. Now that he’s out, he describes himself as a husband and a father, who when not playing dress up or chasing the Bogeyman out of the closet, is an online entrepreneur specializing in Kindle e-book marketing.

In this week’s 40 minute episode, we discuss several specific keyword examples that you can use as guidelines for your research, consider why narrow keywords are often better than broad keywords generating thousands of results, and even get into blogging for novelists.

Using Keyword Show Notes:

Dave Chesson, “Kindlepreneur”

• Personal Background
  • Side-hustle in online marketing
  • Specializes in Kindle e-book marketing
  • www.kindlepreneur.com
    • https://kindlepreneur.com/contact-me
  • Developed KDP Rocket
    • www.kdprocket.com
    • $97 for lifetime access
  • 9 years in U.S. Navy
  • Now an online entrepreneur

Keywords

• Do your keyword research first!
  • Three Questions:

1) Do people type “____” into Amazon?

2) Do people buy the books that a search for “___” returns?

3) Is competition too big for you to benefit by using the “___” keyword?

• When you know there’s a website you like that’s equal to yours, or brand new, www.semrush.com will tell you the top 10 keywords your competitor is using to bring people in

Amazon

• Keyword search
  • Better sales conversions
  • Happier customers
  • More exposure
  • Important for book-marketing plan
• Amazon Marketing Services (AMS)
  • Authors can pay to have their book rank for certain keywords for advertising purposes
• Rankings
  • Purchases
  • Positive reviews
  • It comes down to what makes them the most money

Marketing criteria

*These all make Amazon more money and will help rank your book higher

• Keywords
• Book cover image
•  Title
  • Title should reflect the story, not pander to marketing numbers
  • No “keyword stuffing”

• Description
  • Should be seen as a sales-copy converting “machine”

Genre Examples

• How to niche genre into keywords to improve conversions
• information collected by using KDP Rocket, www.kdprocket.com

• • “Sci-Fi”
    • 137,000 competitors for “Science Fiction”
    • Top 5 books are making an average $84,000 / month
    • Average of 18,000 people /month using “Science Fiction” keyword
    • Competition: 90%
  • -> “Sci-Fi Military”
    • 17,000 competitors
    • Top 5 books make an average of $3,800 / month
    • 7,0000 people / month search keyword
    • Competition: 62%
  • -> “Sci-Fi Military Space Marines”
    • 2,900 competitors
    • Top 5 books make average $847 / month
    • 765 people / month search keyword (higher conversion rate!)
    • Competition: 40%
  • “Wizard”
    • A lot of free books show up at top, and that’s hard to beat
    • 19,000 competitors
    • Top 5 books make average of $18 / month
    • High competition
  • -> “Warlock”
    • More than “science fiction”!
    • Popularity due to book titles including keyword in title
    • 1,800 competitors
    • Top 5 books make average $1,500 / month
    • 22,000 Amazon searches / month
    • Competition: 96%
  • -> “Mage”
    • Most opportunity for the statistics
    • 2,200 competitors
    • Top 5 books bring in average $3,200 / month
    • 1,800 searches / month
    • Competition: 67%
  • “Mysteries”
    • Top 5 books make average $947 / month
  • -> “Florida Mysteries” (multiple mystery stories)
    • Top 5 books make average $1,800 / month
    • 7,800 searches / month
    • Competition: 58%
  • -> “Florida Mystery” (single story)
    • Top 5 books make average $1,500 / month
    • 3,200 searches / month
    • Competition: 90%
  • -> “Key West Mysteries”
    • Top 5 books make average $369 / month
    • 390 searches / month
    • Competition: 40%

J.K.Rowling

• Wrote highest-grossing book
• Got rejected by a lot of publishing companies!
  • The publisher that finally took it on didn’t even read the book; he passed it on to his adolescent niece, who loved it, and her reaction convinced him to give it a chance

Book Sales

• • Amazon’s Current market
    • when starting out, try to use Amazon’s preexisting traffic, then choose a traffic skill and learn and grow that one thing over time
      • Long-term plan
  • Find people on the internet and “drag” them over
    • Facebook Ads
    • Pinterest
    • Email list
    • Blog

Links:

• Dave’s Kindlepreneur website:  www.kindlepreneur.com
• Dave’s KDP Rocket: www.kdprocket.com/
• How to choose keywords, non-fiction:https://kindlepreneur.com/how-to-choose-kindle-keywords/
• How to choose keywords, fiction:https://kindlepreneur.com/kindle-ke

Thanks for Listening!

Thanks so much for joining me again this week.

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see on the left of the post.

Also, please leave an honest review for The Author Biz Podcast on iTunes!

Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to me. They matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them. If you’re not sure how to leave an iTunes review, you can follow the step-by-step instructions here.

And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or Stitcher to get automatic updates.