“Aaron Shepard has been more successful selling through Amazon than any other self publisher I know. If you want to self publish and get the most from it, this book is for you.”—Morris Rosenthal, author, Print-on-Demand Book Publishing
“Solid gold advice. . . . Aiming At Amazon will dramatically increase your odds of success. A few hours with this book will give you the benefit of years worth of hard-earned experience.”—Steve Weber, author, The Home-Based Bookstore
“Shepard is considered one of the pioneers of marketing print-on-demand (POD) books through Amazon. . . . I highly recommend Aiming At Amazon to self-publishers and authors who want to publish a book at little cost. The model pioneered by Shepard, Rosenthal, and others is probably the best way for a newcomer to enter the world of self-publishing.”—Peter Hupalo, Midwest Book Review
“An essential read for anyone having to market a self-published or POD-published book—and has a wealth of information for small press publishers, novice freelance book publicists, and mid-list authors of the larger publishing houses.”—Jim Cox, Jim Cox Reports, March 2007
“A must read for any progressive self-publishing author.”—Dehanna Bailee, author, The ABC’s of POD
“A truly great book that all of us should own (and actually read!). . . . If your efforts are focused on Amazon, this is the book.”—Thomas Nixon, Degree Press and SmallPress Blog
“Packed with practical techniques for today’s savvy small publisher.”—Susan Daffron, Logical Expressions, Inc.
“A must-have book: pertinent, unduplicated, current, authoritative, and well-written. Has a maximum of useful information and a minimum of fluff, all written in an easy, understandable style. [Shepard] spells out in detail strategies he has used successfully to manipulate the sometimes unfriendly and always greedy Amazon 800-pound gorilla. . . . The best advice available.”—John Culleton, WexfordPress, and list co-moderator, Self-Publishing
“Experience-laden recommendations.”—Kyra Hicks, author, Black Threads
“The perfect guide for the first time publisher, [with] just enough information to inform but not overwhelm. . . . You won't find ‘fad tricks’ in this book, just solid advice.”—Cheryl Kirk, Expanding Books
“The information about subtitles and affiliate links was worth the price of the book!”—Lisa Ripperton, Yesterday’s Classics
“Worthy of the confident air with which it’s written. Whether you’re small press or self-published, if you utilize POD and want to amp up your Amazon sales, you need this book! . . . Even if you want to work within more traditional methods of bookselling, there’s still plenty of valuable material here.”—Lupa, Immanion Press
“A well-thought-out and well-researched system that provides a viable alternative . . . . With low upfront costs, and simple procedures that don’t require specialized software, it’s a method that almost anyone can use.”—Sheila Ruth, Imaginator Press
“Revolutionary . . . . A must read for anybody who is considering self publishing without [wanting] too much hassle or expense.”—Mayra Calvani, TCM Reviews
“I sometimes wake up cold in the middle of the night, wondering where on earth I would be, career-wise, had Aiming at Amazon not been written. . . . By an author, for authors, in a style that even head-in-the-cloud dreamers with ink in their veins can understand and act upon.”—Barry Tighe, Can Write Will Write
“An amazing book and one of the most practical I’ve read. . . . If you’ve self-published a book or are thinking about self-publishing, Aiming at Amazon is a must-read.”—Tim Bete, director, Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop, University of Dayton
“If you fall within [its] target readership, then there is no doubt that this book is worth its money. In fact, it’s probably worth ten times its money. . . . Absolutely brimful of technical, hands-on advice.”—Michael Allen, Grumpy Old Bookman (blog) • Read the whole review •
“Truly, if you’re interested in selling via Amazon, you need to look at Aaron Shepard’s book.”—Marion Gropen, Gropen Associates, and list co-moderator, Self-Publishing and Pub-Forum
“Without Aiming at Amazon, I simply would not be where I am now. This month, I made what I would have made in six to eight months with the company I used previously for self publishing.”—William Linney, Armfield Academic Press
“Absorbing. . . . Aaron Shepard is a savvy marketer. . . . Shepard writes simply but skips the chirpiness that mars many self-help books.”—Marie Shear, The Freelancer (Editorial Freelancers Association newsletter), Sept.–Nov. 2007
“I’ve published ten other books through regular publishers, and this route is much more fun and rewarding!”—Ellen Hodgson Brown, Third Millenium Press
“[Aiming at Amazon] dramatically changed my direction in terms of publishing, and has turned a money-losing hobby into a growing, profitable business doing what I love the most.”—Charles Sheehan-Miles, Cincinnatus Press
“Here’s what [it] did for me: It gave me a business plan that was feasible, simple, low-cost and potentially VERY lucrative.”—Darcy Pattison, Mims House
“What Aaron has done is to identify, analyze, and tweak the key factors that contribute to profitable sales at Amazon.com. . . . It’s a great value for all authors.”—Roger C. Parker, author, Looking Good in Print, and Webmaster, Published and Profitable
“The New Testament for the novice publisher. . . . Aaron Shepard shows how to exploit the new paradigm to the full.”—Hedley Finger, Hand Holding Press
Forget Bookstores
Yes, I said it: Forget bookstores.
The first principle of a system that aims at Amazon is probably the hardest for aspiring authors and publishers to accept. If you’re like me, you love to visit your local bookstore—chain or independent—and wander the aisles, delighting in the sheer presence of so many enticing volumes. That love probably sprang up in your childhood, and will likely last the rest of your life.
But guess what? The feeling is not mutual.
In general, bookstores do not love self publishers. It’s nothing personal. If the staff at that store sat down and read your book, they might like it very much. They might even make an effort to promote it. Perhaps you can convince two or three local stores to do just that.
But for most bookstores, your book simply isn’t worth the effort. The book business is a well-oiled machine that runs in broad and well-worn channels. Bookstores deal with sales reps and suppliers that can deliver dozens of titles at a time to their doorstep. Unless you already have a runaway bestseller, it’s simply not efficient for them to deal with someone hawking one or two books. And to tell the truth, it’s usually not worth your time to try to get them to.
Luckily, you no longer need to. With only minor effort and cost, you can get your book carried by one bookseller that handles maybe 20% of the trade book business in the U.S., the U.K., and Canada. You can get your book on Amazon.com.
What’s more, on Amazon the playing field is much closer to level between you and any other publisher of whatever size. By aiming at Amazon and exploiting its capabilities to the fullest, you can outmaneuver large publishers that may know less about its workings than you do and that have their main attention elsewhere.
Take the example of my own lead seller, The Business of Writing for Children. For many years of its publishing life, this book has been the biggest selling children’s writing guide on Amazon. It’s currently competing against guides from both the For Dummies and the Complete Idiot’s series—and it has been outselling each of them by an average of 2 to 1.
Is it a better book than those others? I wouldn’t make that claim. But by a combination of persistence, dedication, savvy, ingenuity, and skill, I’ve been able to outmaneuver all comers and stay on top in Amazon sales.
In fact, by aiming at Amazon, I’ve been able to sell close to 30% the number of copies sold by one of these nationally-distributed competitors including its bookstore sales. And because the profit from my publishing system is so high—about 50% of the list price—I’ve been earning about twice as much in total as that author would make with a normal royalty.
Once you accept the premise “Forget bookstores,” it’s amazing how much murkiness is instantly cleared out of the business of self publishing. Consider these:
• You don’t have to persuade anyone to stock your book.
• You don’t have to design or commission a slick cover that will look good on a bookstore shelf.
• You don’t have to accept returns.
• You don’t have to provide the discounts that retailers or middlemen try to dictate. (I’ll tell you how to avoid that for Amazon sales.)
• And best of all, you don’t have to sit alone behind a stack of books at a tiny table in a busy bookstore and try to look like you want to be there.
Now, this doesn’t mean that your book will never be sold in a bookstore. It will. When you aim at Amazon, some sales trickle down to bookstores as customers go there to request your book. What’s more, if you follow my system, it will be easy for those bookstores to get it. But when they do buy your book, it will be on your terms, not theirs.
Sound good? Keep reading, and I’ll show you how to do it.
Create a Real Bestseller
Before I tell you what’s important to do on Amazon, I want to mention one thing you won’t find here—though some of you no doubt expect it. I will not tell you how to create an “instant Amazon bestseller.”
In case you haven’t heard of this scheme, it’s based on a campaign to get a good number of people to buy your book on the same day, pushing the book briefly into Amazon’s top 100. Book marketing experts write about it, laud it, and even charge thousands of dollars to help you do it.
Wake me when it’s over.
It’s certainly possible to make this happen, but what exactly is the point? Will vaguely calling your book an “Amazon bestseller” really lead to greater sales? Perhaps it would when Amazon was new and anything “Internet” had a golden aura. But those days are past.
The attempt to create an instant bestseller is generally the desperate effort of a self publisher who has no real idea how to build sales on Amazon. For example, one of the biggest proponents of this method practiced it on one of his own books with great hoopla and, yes, did reach Amazon’s top 100—but three years later, that book is not even in Amazon’s top 500,000. (To his credit, he told me he’s no longer so enamored of the idea.)
Creating an “instant Amazon bestseller” is an almost complete waste of time—and if you pay someone to manage the campaign, a very expensive one. Instead, aim to build steady, sustainable, and significant sales, year in and year out—not a flash in the pan.
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