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How I Sold 20 Books a Day for a Year

November 18, 2013 By guestpost 13 Comments Click here for a FREE book marketing training

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A Guest Post by Bryan Cohen

Bryan-Cohen

I don’t have all the facts. You simply can’t find out everything there is to know about your Amazon sales page. I have speculation about what worked and what didn’t work. Here are the hypothetical ways my books of creative writing prompts were able to sell over 20 copies a day, usually at $2.99 a pop, for an entire year straight.

How Did I Do It?

It all started with my blog, Build Creative Writing Ideas. My books started as posts on my website. If you looked up the term “creative writing prompts” on Google at most points in the last three years, a page on my site would have come up in the top 5. That was the first step to my success, though I didn’t know it yet. If you can be one of the first 5 to 10 sites to come up when people look up the subject matter of your book, you have a leg up on most of the competition.

SEO

For what it’s worth, my pages got on the first page of Google through following the tenets of good Search Engine Optimization. My pages used the main keyword in the title, in at least one text link and approximately once for each 150 words of content. It doesn’t always work, but following SEO can certainly help to boost the pages of your site.

Links

Links from my blog to my sales pages were a major part of my success. I held contests and used Amazon Mechanical Turk to get stories written on my website that used my creative writing prompts. I used those stories as outgoing links to my first book, “1,000 Creative Writing Prompts.” I didn’t know what I was doing at the time, but I think I was improving the SEO of my book’s Amazon sales page by linking as many pages as possible to it. I now have over 100 story pages linking to my book, and I’m almost certain these links had something to do with increased sales.

Backlinks and Blog Tours

1,000 Creative Writing Prompts Volume 2 Cover

Lastly, I obtained links from other websites to my book through blog tours. Personally, I think this can only go so far (says the guy on another blog tour for a new book), but I think it’s an important practice nonetheless. For me, a blog tour is about two major things: connecting with new readers and getting new blogs to link to my Amazon sales pages. Writing 30 posts in 30 days is as much about the month when I’m posting as it is about a year down the line when those links are improving my book’s search results. I’m hoping that these links can improve my Amazon SEO and boost my sales. Once again, I don’t have hard proof of this, but I’m always willing to try something twice if it seems to work the first time around.

In Conclusion…

I’m attempting to get better at promoting my books, because it’s an area in which I find myself to be lacking. In the meantime, I can be proud of the work I’ve done on my site and other sites to keep my book high in Google and Amazon’s eyes. If everyday or every-week promotion is not your strong suit, make sure your book is as search engine friendly as possible.

And now, feast your eyes upon links to my book and blog tour contest as evidence that I practice what I preach!

About the Author

In honor of his new book, Cohen is hosting the “1,000 Prompts, 1,000 Dollars” Writing Contest on his website. Click the link to find out how to enter! Click the next link to check out the rest of Cohen’s blog tour!

Bryan Cohen Author of 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts

Bryan Cohen is an author, a creativity coach and an actor. His new book, 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2: More Ideas for Blogs, Scripts, Stories and More is now available on Amazon in digital and paperback format. His other books include 1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, The Post-College Guide to Happiness, and Ted Saves the World. He has published over 30 books, which have sold more than 20,000 copies in total. Connect with him on his website, Build Creative Writing Ideas, on Facebook or on Twitter.

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Filed Under: Book Marketing, Marketing Tips Tagged With: authors, Book Marketing, book marketing tips, guest blogging, marketing, Search engine optimization, SEO

Comments

  1. Bryan Cohen says

    November 18, 2013 at 7:06 am

    Thanks Heather and Shelley for having me here today!

    Reply
    • Heather says

      November 18, 2013 at 7:56 am

      Thanks for stopping by, Bryan. We love the saying, “Success Leaves Clues” and are excited to see what has been working for you!

      Reply
      • Bryan Cohen says

        November 18, 2013 at 11:57 am

        Anytime :).

        Reply
  2. Markee Anderson says

    November 18, 2013 at 9:13 am

    Impressive, Bryan! I have over thirty titles out, too (under various pen names) and have sold over 20,000 books…but over a longer time than you have. I don’t sell 20 books a day, so I’m going to go over and over this and other postings (like Heather’s posting on boosting Christmas book sales) to figure out what I’m doing wrong and capitalize on what’s going right

    I, personally, don’t like blog tours. No one shows up, except for the next person in line or the person before me, and it’s depressing. However, I believe there’s a way to bring people to blog tours other than contests…but I haven’t figured it out yet. LOL!

    Anyway, congratulations and I’m looking forward to re-reading this posting for more insight, as well as seeing you on the blog tour circuit. LOL!

    Thanks, Shelley and Heather for having Bryan here today. And I’m glad I stopped by. πŸ™‚

    Reply
    • Bryan Cohen says

      November 18, 2013 at 11:59 am

      Thanks, Markee! Good luck in your efforts. Blog tours are definitely tough. I’m sure there’s a way to change them up to bring in more folks :).

      Haha, I’ll see you around in blog tour wonderland!

      Reply
    • Heather Hart says

      November 19, 2013 at 7:21 am

      We’re glad you stopped by, too, Markee! Getting people to show up for your blog tours is all about finding the right blogs to stop by. The trick is finding blogs that have a regular following. We like to check Alexa ranks to see where they are at or browse through their blog posts to see how many comments they get.

      Reply
      • Markee Anderson says

        November 19, 2013 at 7:24 am

        Great idea, Heather! I never thought of looking at ranks! πŸ™‚ Thank you!

        Reply
        • Shelley Hitz says

          November 20, 2013 at 8:57 pm

          Markee,
          Have you checked out our post that gives you places you can guest post? If not, here’s the link: https://www.trainingauthors.com/650-places-for-authors-to-get-exposure-for-their-books-through-guest-blogging/

          Reply
          • Markee Anderson says

            November 21, 2013 at 6:12 am

            Wow! No I hadn’t seen that. Fantastic! Thanks for sharing! πŸ™‚

  3. Lorieen Henry says

    November 19, 2013 at 5:31 am

    Great nuggets to put in my kit bag! Thanks Bryan for sharing.

    Reply
    • Bryan Cohen says

      November 20, 2013 at 8:51 pm

      Sure thing, Lorieen! πŸ™‚

      Reply
  4. Markee Anderson says

    November 19, 2013 at 5:42 am

    Thanks, Bryan! Good luck with all of it! πŸ™‚

    Reply
    • Bryan Cohen says

      November 20, 2013 at 8:51 pm

      You’re welcome. Thanks so much!

      Reply

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