What we learned: The Beginning (after you write a great book!)

Philadelphia 2018

The cover, the title and the blurb are equally as important as a great story if you hope to make sales.

Let’s think about your Amazon book page-

The cover- needs to be eye-catching AND tell your story.

The title- needs to say something about your story

The blurb- needs to sell your book!

How to do that?  The best advice one of the speakers had was to spend hours looking and reading blurbs from other books in your genre that are selling well.  Of course, you don’t want to “copy”, but best sellers get attention for a reason.  If you have an agent, they are going to tell you to find comps and this means finding books that are similar to your book and see what they are doing.

• The blurb should be a bit dramatic.
• Many authors use over the top words because they get attention.  “Deadly”, “Terrifying”, “Race against time”.- are attention grabbers.
• Many mention the name of the main character and another successful trick is to end with a question:  “Can Meghan run and hide from the devil himself?”
• Sub-genre mentions also help. Consider a psychological thriller rather than just thriller. Again, check out the blurbs of best-selling books in your genre and get ideas that work.

Mention you award right up front!  Bookbub did a study that said that books that mention an award right up front have significantly more click throughs.

Award winning B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree

Key words are important!  Make sure your book comes up in targeted searches by using the best key words.  Again, be sure to check out what the best-selling books in your genre are using.  Continually use these words wherever possible.  Use them in your blurb and in your bio.  You want your book to pop up when these words are used and the more you use the same words, the better chance of fitting into the categories mentioned.

It is not wrong to copy successful authors.  If it works for them, it might work for you and, usually, they have had a lot more experience and success!

 indieBRAG

Next: Your fans and your target audience