Taking Stock of Stock Photos
By: Nate | Posted on August 21, 2020
As a prelude to an upcoming cover design series that Nate will be posting soon, he first wanted to touch on the basics of using stock photos. Unless you’re doing original artwork you’ll be using stock photos, which means you need to understand the rules around them. Issues like photo licenses, model releases and usage agreements can all be a bit confusing, so the goal today is to shed a bit of light on how it all works. Taking Stock Stock photos are our main source of cover art, and the vast majority of us are buying stock from a reputable source. The best site to use is totally subjective and beyond the scope of this post, but any reputable site will work. Using a reputable stock site is important for a couple of reasons. First, they’re doing their diligence when it comes to photo ownership and model releases. For… Read More >
Increase Book Sales with In-house Promotions
By: Erin Wright | Posted on August 14, 2020
One of the things that sets wide storefronts apart from Amazon is the hand-curated element to their sales. Unlike Amazon, where your placement in the store depends on how much you’re willing to spend on AMS ads, the promotion of books on all the other online storefronts is handled in a completely different way. Author and going-wide expert Erin Wright explains how to increase your book sales by getting featured in these in-house promotions. Here’s a run down of what you need to know for each of the major wide storefronts. GooglePlay GooglePlay is the easiest storefront to cover: They don’t do in-house promos, period. The books that are shown to a customer are 100% driven by algorithms. If I pull up https://play.google.com, I’ll see a very different storefront than when you pull up the same URL. This means that more than any other wide storefront, it’s very important that… Read More >
Mailing Lists: Covering Your Caboose and Protecting Your Privacy
By: Nate | Posted on July 17, 2020
For an independent author, there is nothing more important than building your fanbase. There are lots of reasons for this, but the most important is that there is no one more likely to buy your next book than someone that already read and loved your last one. That’s why you want to make sure you have a list of as many of those fans as possible so that you can contact them to let them know about your upcoming releases – something you should be doing as part of a regular marketing strategy via your newsletter. But setting up a newsletter means first setting up a list that your readers can join, and while there are plenty of companies that provide mailing list services, there are some important things you need to consider first before you get started. Not only are there legal rules around what you can send and… Read More >
Helping You Decide – Go Wide or Go KU?
By: Tracy Cooper-Posey | Posted on July 10, 2020
The debate about whether or not to self-publish exclusively to Amazon or go wide to other online distributors is a lively one, but the fact that the question is so controversial in the first place tells us one thing for sure: That there is no right answer that works for everyone. Unfortunately, this leaves many independent authors wondering how to make that very important decision. That’s why we turned to author Tracy Cooper-Posey for advice. Not only is she a successful author and blogger, but she has experience on both sides of the debate. She’s not here to tell you which way is better, but rather to provide you with the criteria you need to consider in order to make the best decision for you and your career. Wide V Kindle Unlimited: Is there a more contentious issue out there these days? We’ve resolved, more or less, that advertising is… Read More >
True or False? 3 New Updates about Advertising on Amazon YOU Need to Consider
By: Ginger | Posted on July 3, 2020
Amazon is alive! Not in a literal sense, unless you’re a proponent of science fiction scenarios, but in the sense that the algorithms, interfaces, and strategies that help authors perform best on the world’s largest bookstore are constantly evolving, changing, and pivoting. In this article, we’ll ask “true or false” about the effectiveness of three previously tried-and-tested advertising strategies – and look into whether you might want to rethink your approach to them. A couple of weeks ago, we posted a blog entitled 3 Ways to Turn Your Advertising on Amazon into a High Performing Machine – and received a comment from a reader named Lee Gabel that read: Tip #2 is no longer accepted practice for Amazon Ads. Instead they recommend no more than 100 keywords per ad and advocate using ad groups instead of copying campaigns. In addition, Amazon Ads now frowns upon more than three ads per… Read More >
Is Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors worth the price?
By: Ginger | Posted on June 19, 2020
Recently, the famous Ads for Authors class from Self Publishing Formula opened up. With access available until June 24, this course promises to teach aspiring authors what they need to know to amplify the impact of their books on Facebook, Advertising for Amazon, Instagram, and more. But is it worth the money? With less than a week left to sign up before it disappears again for months, we wanted to give you the answers you need ASAP. Mark Dawson’s course is generally regarded as the essential advertising resource – but it’s not cheap. With $849 to lay out for lifetime access, one question I get from many authors considering the program is – is it worth the money? Well, based on my experience – my answer is a “qualified” yes. That’s probably not exactly the straight-forward answer you were looking for, but at Hidden Gems we’re all about transparency, and… Read More >
“Why can’t I make money advertising?” – A Common Question from our Mailbox
By: Ginger | Posted on June 12, 2020
Each Friday, we try to post blogs aimed at helping authors get their heads around self-publishing, marketing, and advertising their books. Often, these posts will spark a lot of discussion and debate, and we’ll often receive questions from writers needing a bit of clarification. Here’s a question we’ve received recently – and we hope you find the answer helpful! Dear, Hidden Gems, Whatever happens, I can’t seem to make my advertising profitable. What am I doing wrong? It’s so frustrating to spend more money on advertising than I get in book sales, but otherwise I don’t seem to be getting any traction at all. I’m using Facebook and Advertising on Amazon, but I can’t keep throwing money at it like this. Help! Okay, so if you’re in this boat – you’re not alone! Making any form of advertising profitable is tough, and when you’re marketing ebooks it’s even… Read More >
3 Ways to Turn Your Advertising on Amazon into a High Performing Machine
By: Ginger | Posted on June 5, 2020
With all the recent changes Amazon has been making, more and more authors are having to rely on Advertising on Amazon to get their book seen by potential readers. However, getting profitable ad campaigns from Advertising on Amazon isn’t easy, and not everyone wants or needs something as in-depth as Mark Dawson’s recently re-opened Ads for Authors course (although we do recommend it, for anyone interested). For those that are looking for some simpler advice on what to really focus on, here are three tips that might help. Tip #1: Work out the true value of each book sale. Advertising on Amazon provides an at-a-glance answer to whether or not your advertising campaigns are profitable in the form of the ACOS – Average Cost Of Sale. However, there are a lot of nuances to the ACOS that make it a less-than-reliable indicator of whether or not you’re making money with… Read More >
The Dirty Secret About Keywords – Part 2
By: Nate | Posted on May 29, 2020
In the first part of this series, Nate laid the foundation for keyword mastery which authors need to understand in order to make sure that casual customers will find their book when using the Amazon search bar. In this conclusion, he plays the part of mad data scientist as he demonstrates how to formulate the keywords for a specific book, while also explaining some best practices on how to organize those keywords effectively, and thoughts on keyword upkeep. The Promise of the Premise The first thing to do when you keyword any book is to consider the story at its most basic level, because the premise will tell you the most important thing about your book: who the audience is. So let’s say we have a shifter story about a research scientist who meets her fated mate at an Arctic research base run by polar bear shifters. It’s never too… Read More >
The Dirty Secret About Keywords – Part 1
By: Nate | Posted on May 22, 2020
Today’s guest blogger isn’t so much a guest as a regular fixture around here. Nate has been with Hidden Gems almost as long as I have, and has helped me build it into what it is today because of his combination of technical know-how, industry knowledge and solid understanding of design. This article is slightly more technical than most of the ones we post, but really explains some of the often overlooked details of how Amazon’s search really works and the role that your keywords play. This understanding is essential to anyone looking to really make the system work for their books, and future installments of this series will build upon this to really give you an edge over the sea of competition your book is swimming against. For authors old and new, keyword selection remains one of the most mystifying and frustrating parts of book marketing. The dirty secret… Read More >
