These are the secrets to becoming a top 10, or even #1 bestselling author on Amazon. They rely on your having written a work of quality, which will be of interest to a lot of people.

1. Work your promotion hard in the days leading up to your launch. Have buyers ready and build genuine anticipation. Tell people what they are going to get. Be genuinely excited about your launch. This is your moment.

2. Don’t just dump any old description onto the book page on Amazon. Make your paragraphs short. Insert <br> to create line breaks between them. Make the first sentence sparkle. Pay as much attention to the first sentence as you did to the first sentence in your novel. Inspire curiosity. Show, don’t tell. Mention characters by name. Say “If you love …… book, you will love this. mention awards, great external reviews, by the author’s name like this: “Amazing,” James Grish.

3. Build an email list, a Facebook list and a another list on LinkedIn or Twitter or wherever you like to hang out. Send them an invitation to get a free copy of your book in exchange for a review, as soon as you can. Do this in advance of publishing your book. Send them a free ebook and remind everyone a week before the launch and on the day of the launch and after, that you are looking for a review. Be polite and persistent. We can’t force people to review, but we can remind people.

4. Make sure you have an ebook and a paperback available. It simply looks amateur not to have both available. You may get away with only one, if you have a series of other books and can explain in the book description when the other version will be available.

5. Do not get a family member or close friend to make your cover. Use a cover designer, not a graphic designer. You can get high quality covers for about $150 these days. An amateur cover is one of the biggest reasons readers don’t buy books. They assume that an amateur cover means amateur writing. Perception rules. Invest or don’t bother to do all the other things.

6. Make sure you book has been edited. Use beta readers (people who can spot mistakes) and at least one paid for edit before putting your book up. Not only will people stop reading your book, and authors often get paid now by the % read, but someone will give you a painful one star review that you will struggle to escape. Take time to find the right paid editor, one who can work to your budget and deliver a high quality service. Ask them to provide a test edit of a few pages.

7. Price your book competitively and take into account how well known you are. Pricing on Amazon is not about how many years you spend writing a book, it’s about increasing your total income as a writer. Ebooks sell far more copies at $2.99 and under, unless you are a well known author. Allow readers to impulse buy your book. Non fiction books can achieve higher prices, often above $5. Know what price the top 10 books in your category are selling for online.

We are in a highly competitive book selling market. Get these right and you have a chance of becoming an Amazon best seller.

If you’d like to know more about our book promotion services, which can turn a good, well presented book into a best seller, click here.