How to Get Your Book Noticed on Amazon

So you self-published a book. But in a sea of competition, how to get your book noticed on Amazon? Below are seven tips you don’t want to miss.

But first, make sure you’ve handled the basics. Y’know, develop a strategy, set up a website, and do the social media thing. If ya don’t know, check out this guide on how to market your first book.

7 tips on how to get your book noticed on Amazon

Your work as an indie author requires marketing as much as writing. This can feel daunting if you know little about marketing. No worries. The resources are out there, like this list of tips on how to market your book on Amazon –

#1: Set up your Author Central account

How do new authors get noticed on Amazon? First things first: start a free Author Central account. Doing so allows you to claim your book(s) and build up your author profile. Your author profile gets featured on your book’s sales page, giving people an option to learn more about you.

Here’s a great example of Brandon Sanderson’s author profile:

Include your bio, photo, blog feed, social media feed, announcements, and more.

#2: Enhance your sales page

Here’s what a book’s sales page looks like on Amazon:

The sales page is important because it’s where you convert visitors to buy your book. To maximize this process, organize your page in a way that flows seamlessly. Authors tend to scrunch up their book description. This is where your Author Central account comes in handy. From your account, you can format the description, such as adding bold texts or bullet points. You can add more content too, such as reader reviews.

Author Stephanie Chandler shared this insight:

“For my latest book, I chose to publish the entire Table of Contents in the “From the Author” section, adding more keywords to my book page to improve search and giving page visitors a clear view of the contents. Whatever you do here, take full advantage of the opportunity to expand the details on your book page to better capture the interest of potential readers.”

#3: Ensure your best book description

Your book description is one of the first things visitors come across when landing on your book page. I’d say it’s the most important element (along with the cover design) for convincing people to read your book. So take some time to refine your description. For example, your most emotional hooks should be in the first two sentences. Check out these book description hacks:

#4: Ensure your best book cover design

Your cover design should look just as good, if not better, than a traditionally published book. Just like the book description, the cover is another element people first come across when browsing for books on Amazon. I highly recommend hiring a professional designer to work on your cover. You can find one on Upwork or Fiverr for around $300 to $500 a cover.

If you’re under a tight budget, use a free design tool like Canva. Do your research on industry standards, though. Check this guide on how to make a book cover design for free. 

#5: Collect more book reviews

This is a must. People won’t buy when there are zero reviews. I repeat: people won’t buy when there are zero reviews. That’s why you want to assure at least a handful of reviews before running any ads or serious marketing campaigns. Don’t waste your efforts and let’s do this the right way.

“In technical terms, a book review is a form of literary criticism that describes or analyzes the book’s content, style, and merit. It can be a primary source, opinion piece, summary review, or scholarly review. In today’s highly profitable landscape of global digital publishing, book reviews drive sales.”

Read these tips on collecting book reviews.

#6: Try “Search Inside This Book”

Amazon books expert and author Stephanie Chandler shared:

“Amazon allows shoppers to preview the contents of a book by serving up pages within the book, which recreates the experience of browsers in a bookstore thumbing through the pages of a book. This feature can make or break a purchase decision and if your book is done well, it should enhance sales.

Also, legend has it that participation in this program improves the chances of your book being found based on keyword searches from the text. To participate, create a Seller Central account and follow the instructions to submit your book. It should take just a few days for approval.”

#7: Run price promotions

Price promotions involve listing your book’s pricing as discounted or free for a limited time only – these work. PublishDrive analyzed over 800 price promotions on stores like Amazon. Turns out authors who ran price promos made 10x more book sales.

Amazon has a five free promo days option where your book gets suggested to other readers. Most authors report experiencing a sales spike after running one for at least two days. You can also use a tool like PublishDrive to schedule and run price promotions for multiple stores, not just Amazon:

Bonus: Distribute in every book format, everywhere

Beyond getting noticed, here’s a solid tactic on how to increase book sales on Amazon. Try distributing in every book format including ebook, audiobook, and print. These formats have different audiences; you want to reach all audiences you can.

With Amazon, you can alert them to link your print and ebook editions together so that people can that multiple formats are available:

• Log in to your kdp.amazon.com account
• Click “Contact Us” at the footer of the page
• Click “Product Page” > “Linking Print” > “Kindle Editions”
• Submit the request information

Got that?

Last but not least, distribute in every book store too. That means selling books beyond Amazon and going to other major spaces like Apple Books plus niche channels like Dreame. This tactic is popularly known as “publishing wide”, something you should strongly consider as a self-publishing indie.

You got this!