By Adam Steele

This is a guest post, courtesy of Adam Steele, the founder of Loganix, a popular SEO fulfillment company located in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

If you are an author who’s opting to self-publish instead of going through a publisher, the one big thing you lack is the marketing power that you’d get from a publishing company. That puts all of the marketing efforts to generate awareness and sales for your book on you. Thankfully, you can get a lot of attention through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and your internet presence.

In short, SEO involves optimizing your website to make it easier for people to find it when they search for something on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and so on. Here’s why you should consider SEO when you self-publish a book.

read more http://www.digitalpubbing.com/guest-post-why-you-should-consider-seo-when-self-publishing-a-book/

by Alinka Rutkowska

We’ve been concentrating on learning how search engine optimization—although it sounds intimidating—can be crucial in helping you sell more books. Today, we have for you a different perspective on how this applies to Amazon specifically, by bestselling author and publishing consultant Alinka Rutkowska. Here’s her article.

What if you could significantly increase your chances of becoming a best-selling author by mastering the Amazon algorithm?

You can and in this article I’ll show you how.

Amazon is not a bookstore – it’s a search engine

Before we get started it’s important to realize that Amazon is not a traditional bookstore, rather it’s a search engine, in many ways similar to Google.

To be more precise, the Amazon algorithm is a product search engine created by a company called A9 (https://www.a9.com) located in Palo Alto.

Next, it’s important to understand what Amazon’s number one priority is, and that’s to make Amazon the most money.

Now that we know that we need to figure out how we can align with Amazon’s objectives to reach our own.

How you can get on top of Amazon’s search results

read more https://www.thebookdesigner.com/2018/07/use-amazon-algorithm-sell-books/

Yrsa Daley-Ward, a traditionally published poet, attracts quite a crowd to her poetry readings at bookstores.

How did she gain this popularity? One word. Instagram.

She’s one of a growing breed of poets who uses Instagram and has been referred to as Instapoets.

Most Instapoets are self-published, such as Lang Laev (1 million+ followers on Tumblr), Robert Drake (1.3 million Instagram followers as of three years ago), and Tyler Knott Gregson (335,000 followers on Instagram).

In the New York Times last weekend, journalist Lovia Gyarkye reported that Daley-Ward:

“is part of a new generation of writers using social media to share their work, build their brand and find an audience.”

read more https://socialmediajustforwriters.com/instagram-poets/

A number of months back, I wrote an article on how to promo preorder books for Bookbub. The original piece was pared back a little, but today’s post is the whole enchilada. Enjoy!

For a traditionally published author, a hefty number of preorders can increase a print run and create a sense of excitement around a new release. Early buzz may convince the publisher’s marketing team to take a book more seriously, and invest more time, creative brain-power, and marketing dollars into nurturing a potential bestseller.

For a self-published author, a swell of preorders can trigger algorithms that wake retail sites like Amazon to your book’s presence. This makes it more likely that a book will appear in “hot new release” lists, which can increase not only preorders, but post-publication sales and even name recognition.

Finally, because many retailers count preorders on release day, a large number of preorders can land an author on a bestseller list, whether traditionally or self-published.

However, preorder marketing efforts don’t always guarantee preorder sales. When promoting a book, there are so many factors at play: the uniqueness of a book, whether it’s a series or standalone, the dynamic of the author’s platform, the promotional budget, the author’s marketing prowess, and more.

Regardless, the months before a book releases are golden for creating awareness. First, let’s cover how to set up a preorder for success.

read more http://writerunboxed.com/2018/07/03/13-ways-to-promote-before-publication/