Posted on 2013-May-15
Absorption of Information
How do you feel when time-constraint absorption of information can hold your writing down at any day? Generally speaking, your daily writing schedule is compulsory and satisfactory to keep your income steady. Somehow, keeping naturally focused merely on writing will not simply be enough to boost your book discoverability these days when the competition is visibly fierce. For established authors, if you have nearly finished writing your latest book, sitting comfortably still in your creative den and wirelessly submitting the book to the retailer might not help you crack the bestseller list.
Genres & Subgenres
Thanks to David Gaughran’s tips, messing around with genres and subgenres can help you journey to the territory less traveled. As a matter of fact, if you happen to release your book today, your book will not be alone in the universe. You are most likely clashing with 750,000 titles of fiction books even before your book reaches the shelf. Thus, according to David, climbing to the Top 100 of Fiction is not likely to be achieved. Nevertheless, do not be discouraged and give up your dream. There are several ways you can tweak the genre selection.
Walk the Less Traveled Road
Simple logic: the less populated it is within a genre, the higher chance your book can be seen by readers. For example, instead of restricting yourself to the general genre like Fiction or Mystery, you can “drill” down into the subgenres to increase the visibility for your book. After all, all of the main genre and subgenres will be shown to your reader in full glorious details (Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers >Political). David further elaborates on how the sales within subgenres are a bit more flexible. Given the circumstance that you are a romance author, to remain perfectly fit for Top 100 in your Romance > Contemporary requires approximately 300 sales a day whereas Romance > Inspiration requires much less. To be qualified for the Best Seller list, 20 sales a day seem adequate to do the magic. If your sales statistics are equal to 30 books a day, you can hit the Top 100 to attract curious and potential readers.
Entering Virgin Territory
If you are not satisfied with your genre, maybe switching to the “virgin territory” can expose you to a successful giveaway plan. There are several possible genres Monique Martin’s Out of Time series can fit in: Historical Romance, Historical Fantasy, Mystery, or even Romantic Suspense. She experimented in genre switching for giveaways and advertisements. After all, she can garner new type of readership and benefit from this particular greater visibility for all of her works. Even though genre switching is feasible, make sure you do not go too far outside your native genre because you might lose credibility when directly clashing with other bestsellers or your loyal fans confused to see your change.
Stay True to Your Genre
Switching genres is not the only tool to boost your visibility. Learning to match your BISAC subject heading with a Kindle Store category can be used with your caution. The warning against subject heading choices goes against a category that does not exist in Kindle Store. Choosing such a category will waste your category choice. However, embarking on a new genre can improve your visibility. Instead of following the mainstream Mystery & Thrillers where your sales might now match the bestsellers, you can be more specific about your genre selection. For instance, Technothriller and Series are ones to watch. These cannot be selected in KDP interface but there is a workaround to make that happen. Hitting the Best Seller list only requires 5 sales a day. Again, David warns against straying away from your genre without relevance. Fear the fearful wrath of your audience that might punish by voicing negative feedback on forum board.
Alternative Lists
For the genres that do not have subgenres like Historical/Literary Fiction, chances are you still need to compete aggressively within your genre. This situation may sound like a deadlock that you cannot do anything much but there are other lists you can try harder such as Top Rated, Hot New Releases, Movers & Shakers, Popularity, Also Boughts, etc. To read further how you can tweak your genres, Let’s Get Visible is definitely worth your read as positive comments flow in David’s website.
Label: Marketing
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