Amazon

Amazon and affiliates

Amazon recently announced that it is no longer going to compensate Colorado-based affiliates due to tax complications. An Amazon affiliate is an individual or business that refers book buyers to Amazon in exchange for a small percentage of the sale if that referred customer buys anything during that “session.”  

Unlike other affiliate programs that support longer term affiliate cookies, Amazon’s affiliate code is pretty stingy – last I checked it only rewards “same-session” purchases. In other words, if you send a customer to Amazon through your affiliate code on a Tuesday, and they buy a product from Amazon right then, you earn your commission. However, if the customer follows your affiliate link to Amazon on a Tuesday but decides instead to buy the book on Wednesday, and browses several other websites in the meantime, you do not receive that affiliate commission at all.

As if you needed another reason not to be an Amazon affiliate, Amazon is now starting to bow to the government’s taxation whims by abandoning certain state-based affiliates.

It seems that anything Amazon does nowadays causes undo concern for many authors, so I’d like to take this moment to clarify for all authors reading this who are thinking about self-publishing, or already have:  

This Affiliate situation has nothing whatsoever to do with the publication, distribution and availability of POD or self-published books on Amazon. 

Specifically, Outskirts Press books with ISBNs are distributed via Amazon.com and always have been, the majority featuring much more author-advantageous discounting than can be achieved with many other publishers. But those publishers are not being affected either, at least not as it relates to books being listed and sold from Amazon’s sites.  The only way a publisher or company might be affected by this would be if that publisher was directly referring readers (not writers) to Amazon for the purposes of buying something.  Affiliates advertise Amazon’s services  and in exchange for that advertising, Amazon pays affiliates a commission of session-based sales.    This is not related to the practice of distributing books at all, which for most self-publishing companies, including Outskirts Press, occurs through Ingram.

The fact that Amazon is having to adjust part of its affiliate business model just goes to show that taxes represent one of the largest complications of running a growing business. The larger you get, the more complicated the taxes become — just look at Amazon. Rather than dealing with the extra complication imposed by the new state law, Amazon decided to opt-out of that complication altogether. In fact, if one were to read between the lines of the letter Amazon sent to all its Colorado-based affiliates, they are clearly trying to ‘strong-arm’ Colorado legislature into repealing this.

branding, marketing, search engine optimization

Press Release Happy

Speaking of press releases, Outskirts Press was recently complimented when it was referred to as “press release happy.”  That’s true!  We are press release happy, and we are happy with the results of press releases.  In fact, we have a systemized “Press Release System” to try to make the process of creating and distributing press releases as effective and efficient for both us as a company and all our authors as possible.

We send out three different types of press releases:

1. Standard Publication Announcement Press Releases

These press releases follow a very standardized formula of composition to ensure they contain all the necessary elements to announce the publication of a book, be optimized with keywords, and contain enough content to serve the author’s purpose. When you release as many of these types of press releases as we do (between 50-100 each month), it becomes necessary to standardize them both for consistency and quality control. Each of our Diamond authors  receive one of these standard press releases included with the package; and therefore, the majority of the standard press releases we distribute are for our Diamond authors. Press releases help these authors draw attention to the publication of their book and also get their feet wet with the process of promotion by starting with a common initial tactic.

2. Custom Press Releases

These press releases are also exclusively for our authors and can be used either to announce the publication of the book itself, or any other special occurrence the author wishes to promote. They are custom drafted by one of our press release writers according to the wishes of the author.  Unlike our standard press releases, the sole purpose of which are to announce the publication of the book, the custom press release can be used multiple times by the same author, to highlight author events, the winning of an award, or any number of other accomplishments. 

I am always looking for ways we can improve our services for our authors and I feel one of those ways is in further educating authors that press releases are not ONLY for the publication of a book. Yes, the publication of a book is a good “excuse” to send out a custom press release, but the goal of any good press release should be to make the release news worthy; and in this day and age, the simple publication of a book is rarely news worthy on its own.  The responsibility lies with the author and press release writer to come up with something more news worthy. On the other hand, when a book wins an award, or multiple awards, that makes better content for a compelling release, particularly at the local level.  I am of the opinion that a Standard Press Release should be used to annouce the publication of a book and a Custom Press Release should be used multiple times to announce the accomplishments of the book.

The quantity of Custom Press Releases for authors that we send out every month varies, but is almost always less than the number of standard press releases we distribute (not surprising, really, since one is free with the Diamond package and the other has a cost to it).

3. Company Press Releases

The third type of press release Outskirts Press distributes are custom-drafted press releases focused on a new service or product or feature of Outskirts Press.  We try to distribute one of these every Tuesday.  Like all of our press releases, we have made efforts to systemize this PR schedule for the sake of efficiency, so there is a method to the madness. The first Tuesday of every month we will typically distribute a press release about our monthly promotion. The last Tuesday of every month we will typically distribute a press release about our bestselling books of the previous month. That leaves two or three remaining press releases that require a topic for each month. 

This requirement, in turn, compels us to meet website enhancement milestones or introduce a number of new products and/or services each month. In other words, our press release schedule prevents us from becoming complacent and motivates us to constantly improve and grow. Plus, as I’ve mentioned before, press releases that are distributed throughout the Internet are good for optimization purposes.  SEO and consistent service improvements? Who says you can’t kill two birds with one stone?

So, whether you’re an author or a business owner, if you’re not press release happy, maybe you should be….

marketing, publicity, search engine optimization

Distribute press releases

Once you have an award or some form of “recognition” to promote, either about your book or your service/product/company, you should distribute a press release electronically through the Internet.  Not only do distributed press releases that contain links back to your author or company website often appear high in organic search results in their own right, but they also help with optimizing your author or company website, too.

There are a number of ways to distribute press releases, ranging in cost from $0 -$800 or more. As with everything, you get what you pay for.  The free press release distribution services are appealing for self-published authors on a budget because they increase the exposure of your book, although not to the extent of a paid-for service like prweb.com.  

The free press release services may also be appealing for your company PR distribution needs, although you may find yourself shying away from the free services due to an extreme case of Adsensiphobia (TM).

Adsensiphobia is experienced by marketing people when they are faced with the dilemma of directing potential customers to a website on which some of their competitors may be advertising (either via banner ads or contextual  text ads in a Google AdSense box).  Free PR distribution services are notorious for this, as are MySpace, YouTube, and many other “Web 2.0” websites.   I fear a day will come when Twitter decides it needs to monetize its traffic via AdSense, as well.  

Ultimately, however, altering your marketing initiatives due to adsensiphobia is self-defeating and, in the long run, pointless. Thanks to XML, even distributing your press release through paid distribution services like PRWeb doesn’t protect you, since some AdSense-specific websites exist solely to pick-up the XML feed from PRWeb AND display contextual AdSense links (which probably include links to your competitors).  If your book or company has proven to be profitable for AdSense advertisers, there is no getting around it; and by refraining from distributing to every possible outlet solely because of adsensiphobia, you are really only shooting yourself in the foot.

If you are marketing a company and experiencing adsensiphobia, ask yourself this… is it realistic to believe that your potential customers have never heard of your competitors?   People don’t drink Perrier because they are unaware of tap water. They drink Perrier because Perrier has established its value to its customers.

self publishing

2010 Inc 500 Applications

Speaking of awards,  Outskirts Press has completed its application for the 2010 Inc. Magazine Fast 500 Awards. Last year we placed #268 on the list with a three-year revenue growth of 850.5%.  The Inc. Fast 500 recognizes the 500 fastest-growing private companies in America.

As you consider whether or not your company should apply, there are some eligibility requirements:  In order for companies to be eligible, your 2006 revenue needed to be at least $100,000 and your 2009 revenue needed to be at least $2 million.  There is a $100 application fee, and the application (including revenue verification) takes a little bit of time.  You can apply at the Inc. website.

It’s unclear whether your customers will truly consider your Inc. 500 standing very important because, like most things, importance is connected with awareness, and the Inc. 500 list is marketed to — in other words, “in front of” — other business owners and entrepreneurs more so than it is “in front of” your customers — unless your customers ARE entrepreneurs, of course.

I mentioned in a previous post that writing and publishing a book is a great way for business owners or entrepreneurs to establish expertise and market a company, so in that respect, our specific Inc. 500 ranking among other fast-growing companies might be important to some potential new writers.   But like all awards you might win, what becomes more important is what you do with the recognition once you achieve it  — how you market that success to your potential customers. And I will discuss that more as we continue the examination of how marketing a book is similar in many ways to marketing a company…

publicity, self publishing

Seek awards and/or recognition for your book or company

Another tactic both the book promoter and company marketer can do is seek awards. “Contests and Awards” are an industry onto itself, and there are awards and contests for just about everything under the sun, like “happiest employees,” “best places to work,” “best benefits,” “most profitable,” “minority-owned,” “largest headcount increase,” “best website design,” “CEO of the year,” “entrepreneur of the year,” “best invention,” “best product,” etc., etc… The list goes on and on.

The options are just as endless for published writers seeking book awards.  From widely recognized and established contests like the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards to local contests being held for members of small writing groups, published authors have a daunting list of contests and awards to consider pursuing.

Adding insult to injury, most of the contests have entry fees, so not only is it a matter of time, there is also a financial investment one is making when choosing to pursue these recognition programs.  For companies, the fee is often nominal, but for an author faced with thousands of contests each costing between $10 – $400 each, it becomes important to separate the wheat from the chaff.  

For example, in an effort to help our authors successfully and conveniently pursue valuable awards and contests, Outskirts Press offers an optional Book Award Submission Marketing package that includes all the details associated with submitting books to 6 widely recognized and established book awards, including the Writer’s Digest award mentioned above, the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year award, and 4 more.   As I often say, this isn’t something an author can’t do himself — double negative alert! — but it matters not whether published authors take advantage of marketing services offered by their respective publishers, or seek award entry independently; the important point is that authors do it, one way or the other.

For a convenient way to search for awards or contests to enter, visit www.awardsync.com

Winning an award gives you “something to say” and when it comes to marketing a book or a company, having “something to say” is worth its weight in gold, as we’ll discuss next time…

Amazon, marketing, self publishing

Give incentive for people to buy your product or service

Whether you are promoting a book or promoting a company, you need to give people incentive to buy.  Just making it easy isn’t quite enough (although it is an important component).  Not only must the purchase process be easy, it must be urgent.  You create urgency through the use of promotions, discounts, or other incentives.

One of our competitors does this very well. They inflate their prices to $13,000 so they can offer a $7000 discount.  Do authors fall for this? Of course.  It looks great on a Flash banner; and it is a savvy person who can look past the flash — pun intended — and identify the true value, or lack thereof.

Books sell better with incentive, too. The most typical incentive is a discount or a “sales price” and in the majority of the cases, this type of promotion is handled by the retailer rather than the author herself.  Amazon does discounting very well.  They discount books in a variety of ways.   Not only will they often discount a single book by eating into their own margin, but they also pair similar books together and then offer discounts if the customer orders BOTH books.   My book Sell Your Book on Amazon discusses how authors can use this functionality of Amazon to their advantage.

marketing, self publishing

Make it easy for people to buy your product or service

In continuing our current discussion about how book promotion is similar to company marketing we arrive upon a step that can oftentimes single-handedly mean the difference between success and failure.  It’s a proven fact. If something is too hard, most people won’t do it.

Amazon.com is a perfect example of this. They have “perfected” the process of online product sales. It is almost TOO easy to buy things on Amazon. How many of us have gone to Amazon to make a single purchase and by the time we’re “checking out” we’ve added one or two additional items?  Amazon is the ultimate product sales “person.”   This is actually the cornerstone to my book Sell Your Book on Amazon, but you can see examples of “good” selling processes and “bad” selling processes all over the Internet.

I recently saw an article in Entrepreneur discussing a new technology/service company. I recognized the potential it might hold for published authors and so, to experiment with it on our author’s behalf — I have said in the past that I often use myself as a guinea pig for tactics I feel our authors should pursue — I signed myself up to the tune of $29 each month.

Sure, giving them that initial $29 was relatively smooth, but the instant the “credit card cleared” their site seemed to break and I couldn’t log-in to their customer center.  A day later I received an email that I could log-in. Apparently they were handling payments manually.  Not ideal, but okay.  Once I logged-in, however, I was confronted with a non-intuitive “dashboard” that, I’m sorry to say, gave me WAY more credit than I deserved.  It made assumptions about my depth of knowledge and asked me questions that I didn’t know the answers to regarding the service they were offering. What’s more, there wasn’t a “help button” or instruction manual or “contact us” link to be found.  

In short, they were not making it easy to buy their product or service… Almost impossible, I’d say.

As a company that conducts 100% of our business through our website, we have considerations like this all the time at Outskirts Press. We spend “scads of dough” on website design, optimization, usability, etc., in an effort to make the process as enjoyable as possible for our authors. We’ve come a long way. And we have a long way to go. Our site has tons of information but here’s an interesting fact — people don’t “read” websites, per se. They skim. They browse.  The trick is communicating information visually.  

Amazon does this very well nowadays. I recently saw a “running example” of what Amazon.com looked like in the 90s.  As they say: “You’ve come a long way, baby.”   

It’s a fine line between improving the customer experience, and constantly changing the website to improve the website, which, ironically, customers don’t like, either.  Very few people “like” change.

So how does this consideration translate to book promotion and book sales? It’s a changing world, and people are “using” books in different ways, now.  It used to be that there were just “paperbacks” and “hardbacks.” Then, “ebooks” became another format to consider. Nowadays, simply calling something an “ebook” isn’t specific enough, as there are multiple formats and multiple platforms to consider — Kindle books, Sony Reader books, Nook books, iPad books, Stanza books, Espresso Book machine books… the list goes on and on.

“Make it easy for people to buy your product or service.” At Outskirts Press, one of the ways we do that as a company is by making it easy for readers to buy our authors’ books, in as many different platform choices as possible. To that end, we offer options for paperbacks, hardbacks, general ebooks, Kindle editions, and Espresso Book machine editions.  Thanks to the Kindle app, our Kindle books are also available on the iPhone, iTouch, and iPad; and we’re working on optional methods for our authors to get their books  in front of the Sony, Stanza, and Nook crowds, too.  

When an author’s book is available in whatever manner a customer wants it, that is the definition of “making it easy for people to buy your product.”

branding, marketing

What’s in a name?

In a previous post I discussed the importance of naming your book, product or company in such a way as to optimize it for search engines on the Internet. You do this by infusing the name or title with keywords.  Case in point: While I was in a grocery store the other day, I decided to test this hypothesis by examining the names of products.  The majority of packaging demonstrate this tendency.  I started to look a little ridiculous texting product names into my iPhone standing in the personal hygiene aisle, but here’s just one example of a product that has a keyword-infused name:

Right Guard Xtreme Fresh Blast Ultra Gel Anti-Perspirant Deodorant

That’s a mouth full, but I bet it comes up on an Internet search. Hey, if it works for Gillette, it can work for you…

branding, search engine optimization

Optimize your book or company for search

As we continue discussing how book marketing is similar in many ways to marketing a company, one consideration to always keep in mind is “search engine optimization.” This may seem a more appropriate topic when it comes to marketing a company, specifically as it relates to optimizing a company website, but the same considerations — and therefore the same tactics — hold true with regard to book promotion as well.

Optimizing your book for Internet sales starts with the title.  I discuss this subject in my book Sell Your Book on Amazon in regard to how Amazon’s search engine indexes books, but the same can be said for Internet search engines in general (Google, Yahoo, etc).  When “content” is indexed by computers, the “title” of that content is weighted quite heavily. For books, the title is… well, the title. For web pages, the title is the “title page” in the HTML.

This is so important for authors that Outskirts Press offers an optional service whereby we offer title suggestions to our authors.  This begins with seeing the author’s initial title and/or sub-title. We analyze that against the content of the book and against other books that may either share that title or be “too similar” to that title.   Next, we suggest 3 alternate titles and sub-titles that are geared toward maximizing the applicable “keywords” that define the book’s subject matter or content. 

Sub-titles for books are one of the most powerful, and one of the most overlooked, marketing opportunities for books in the Internet age.  One need look no further than five of the top 10 bestselling books published through Outskirts Press in 2009 for perfect examples. I’ll highlight the keywords that are helping these books get seen by more potential customers who conduct searches on the Internet.

  • The Complete Guide to Day Trading: A Practical Manual From a Professional Day Trading Coach, by Markus Heitkoetter
  • LEED AP Exam Guide: Study Materials, Sample Questions, Mock Exam, Building LEED Certification (LEED-NC) and Going Green, by Gang Chen
  • Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design, by Stanley Marianski, Adam Marianski, Robert Marianski
  • Sell Your Book on Amazon: Top-Secret Tips Guaranteed to Increase Sales for Print-on-Demand and Self-Publishing Writers, by Brent Sampson
  • What To Do When You Become The Boss: How New Managers Become Successful Managers, by Bob Selden

If sub-titles are so successful for books, ask yourself…. should your company have one?  Are the names/titles for the products or services you launch optimized for search? These are important things to consider.

branding, marketing

Establishing your expertise

Whether you are promoting a book or promoting a company, one integral step is establishing your expertise in your field.   If you are a novelist, your “field” is your genre. If you write non-fiction, your “field” is your topic or subject matter. If you own a clothing store, your “field” includes the clothing lines you carry. 

The question is not whether you are an expert in your field, since, presumably, you are if you have either written a book or started a business.   The question is, how do you establish that expertise publicly by sharing it with others, either your potential readers or your potential customers?

There are a number of ways to establish your expertise, and they are the same regardless of whether you have written a book or started a company.  One way is to write a blog. Another method is to write articles and distribute them through “article banks” on the Internet.  These are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, once you are doing one of these things, you can easily do the other. The writer’s maxim is the opposite of the old carpenter’s maxim: you should write it once, and use it twice — or even more!

Interestingly, if you own a business, one of the best ways to establish your expertise in your field is to write a book and publish it.