Your Guide to Marketing Self-Published Books on Amazon

In the self-publishing world, Amazon reigns supreme for marketing and selling books. The more indie authors know about leveraging Amazon as a publishing platform, the more successful they’ll be. Here’s what indie authors should know about marketing self-published books on Amazon to earn genuine book reviews, build reader trust, increase visibility, and ring up more book sales.

Why Amazon is still a top book platform

Amazon was founded in 1994 as an online bookstore, and over the past 30-plus years, it’s clearly grown—but in a way, it’s also stayed true to its roots. The online retail megacorporation is one of the leading platforms for authors to self-publish and market their books.

There are multiple reasons for Amazon’s continued success, including:

• Brand recognition: Over 300 million people shop on Amazon. Although they’re not all buying books, the online retailer is a household name across the world, and indie authors can leverage that recognition to market and sell their publications.
• Ease and accessibility: Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is available 24-7 and offers tools for formatting, pricing, and marketing self-published books.
• Rights and royalties: Self-publishing a book on Amazon means you’ll keep the rights to your book, which isn’t always possible with a traditional publisher. Additionally, this platform allows you to keep more royalties from your book sales than you would from publishing houses and some other online platforms.
• Publishing flexibility: Amazon KDP lets you publish a variety of formats, including printed copies, e-books, and audiobooks.

Because of these advantages, many indie authors choose Amazon as their preferred publishing and marketing method. This means that there’s a seemingly infinite amount of titles, and more are being published every day. In order to stand out from this crowd, you’ll need to become well-versed in marketing self-published books on Amazon.

Marketing tactics for self-published indie authors

Every indie author needs effective book marketing tactics so their audience can easily find them. Promoting your book could be the difference between your title making the bestseller list or going completely unnoticed, so it’s crucial to understand how to market your self-published book on Amazon and across other platforms.

Set up an Amazon Author Central page

Once you’ve created a KDP account to self-publish your book, you’ll have the option of creating an Amazon Author Central page. This is helpful to you because it allows you to track your sales, review your royalties, and manage your book listings—but it’s also a great tool that helps readers find you and your work.

An Amazon Author Central page builds credibility for readers and lets them know you’re serious about being an author. It also makes it easy for your audience to connect with you on social media and get to know you through your author bio. You can link all of your self-published titles to your page so readers who enjoyed one of your books have your entire catalog at their fingertips.

Here’s a bonus: setting up your page is entirely free. It’ll take a little time to perfect the content you want to publish on your page, but since there’s no monetary cost associated, it’s a win-win opportunity for marketing your book.

Optimize your book listing

There are several steps to creating and optimizing your book listing on Amazon so your title rises to the top of readers’ searches. The listing includes multiple components that are vital to marketing self-published books, such as:

• A compelling and well-crafted book description that entices readers to buy your book
• Keywords that align with what your audience is searching for in their next purchase
• Metadata to enhance your search results

Because there’s an intensive strategy to this marketing tactic, many indie authors choose to partner with experts to optimize their Amazon book listing. These professionals have a thorough understanding of the retailer’s algorithm and a huge range of genres, so they’ll be able to lift your title in the search rankings and help you ring up book sales.

Promote your book on other platforms

Once your book is available for sale on Amazon, you can widen your visibility by promoting it on a variety of other platforms. Here are a few ideas and examples:

• Social media: Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn are fantastic (and, unless you embark on a paid campaign, completely free) venues to market your book. Post images of your cover design, enticing quotes or tidbits from your book, and a link to your Amazon listing.
• Author website: Build an author website that includes some pictures of you, a bio for people to help get to know you as a person as well as an author, and, of course, links to purchase your title(s).
• Company website: If you’re a self-published business author, consider cross-marketing with your company. Add a landing page or a pop-up about your book so customers learn about your publication any time they log onto the business’s website.

Of course, there’s one more crucial tactic to marketing self-published books on Amazon: the all-important book reviews.

How to earn reviews on your Amazon book listing

As many as 97 percent of people check book reviews before making a purchase, so the importance of genuine book reviews for indie authors cannot be overstated. Even with an Amazon Author Central page and an optimized book listing, many readers will click away from your title if it’s not supported by helpful and positive reviews.

There are a few ways to get reviews. The easiest is to ask your family and friends to write 150 to 200 words about your book, why they loved it, and why other readers will enjoy it. Another method is to ask your social media network for positive reviews. However, this tactic is a little dangerous, since you won’t know if your readers are writing their own ideas or copying and pasting AI-generated feedback about your book.

For these reasons, many indie authors rely on professional book marketing services for their book reviews. These services ensure that all feedback published on your Amazon book listing is high-quality, positive, and entirely human-generated. These genuine reviews can guide more people to find and purchase your book, solidifying your position as a professional—and successful—author.

Turn to the experts in marketing self-published books on Amazon

Marketing your self-published book isn’t easy. It takes time, hard work, and, for the best results, a partnership with book marketing veterans who understand the industry and your genre. Elite Authors thrives on maximizing indie authors’ marketing dollars so they grow their visibility, increase their book sales, and earn as much return on their investment as possible.

We can help your book reach the right readers. We’ll offer proven strategies tailored to your goals, starting with a short email from our team. To share your story and elevate your book marketing strategy, get started with Elite today!