That’s my alternative title to Chris Fox’s Six Figure Author: Using Data to Sell Books: Write Faster, Write Smarter
Premise: this book is largely about using Amazon’s algorithms because iBooks isn’t doing anything like this (yet). What I really like about this book is the exercises. (The featured robot image is from the word cloud I generated in response to Exercise #2. )
The book is short, and in typical Chris Fox style, not filled with anecdotes. Basically he directs you on his strategy of why he decided to go deep on Amazon (as opposed to wide through Kobo, iBooks, etc).
The point of exercise #1, is that Amazon learns what YOU the reader wants to look at. Every time you look at something, Amazon learns something about you and then serves you up something it hopes you will buy.
Then, the point of exercise #2 is to understand word frequency. This is exercise that can improve your own writing style, and at the same time, illustrate the point that data science has some simple principles that yields interesting results.
Most of the exercises are about how to really get into the mind of your audience. Read the books in the category your book(s) fall into, do the work. Read them, review them, find where the readers live, see what the authors are doing. Reach out, learn, become part of this community.
This is what populates the “also boughts” so that when you reach a fan and make a sale to someone who reads in the same genre that you write in, others who also read in the category will see your book. Straightforward and practical, Chris Fox demystifies the Amazon sales approach to its customers so you can reach them too.
Well worth the read.
