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How to Become a Bestselling Author On Amazon? [The Beginner’s Guide]

Abhinav Girdhar
By Abhinav Girdhar | Last Updated on October 18th, 2023 12:48 pm | 5-min read
How to become a bestselling author Amazon - Appy Pie

Speaking at the world’s most coveted lit-fests. Getting featured in a Ted talk. A cult audience that can’t wait for you to write or say the next word. Ah. the life of bestselling authors. That’s after they’ve bled their brains dry creating a bestseller, mind you.

Perhaps you have always nurtured the hope that millions would read your work and be inspired, but the thought of approaching publishers has given you cold feet. Considering that best selling authors such as J K Rowling and Stephen King were rejected several times – your fears are not unfounded.

Here’s a crafty little video that tells you how you can become a bestseller even if you are a bad writer.

(Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

But there is a way out. Get published on Amazon. Self-publishing on Amazon is the biggest thing that has happened to the publishing world since Gutenberg and the printing press five centuries ago.

How to become a bestselling author Amazon - Appy Pie

What is Kindle Self Publishing?

At one time, self-publishing or vanity publishing as it was more usually known was considered a lowly act. But Amazon changed that with its self-publishing platform.

The big question – what’s different here? How to write a book for Kindle self-publishing? Well, just write as you’d write for traditional publishing.

All that you have to do is write a book and upload the Docx, Mobi, EPub versions to its bookstore. Of course, you need an Amazon KDP account, which takes ten minutes to create.

If the price of the book is between $2.99 and $9.99, you receive 70% royalty. For books priced above and below that the fee is 35%.

How to become a bestselling author Amazon - Appy Pie

Note: There are some guidelines, such as restrictions on pornography and incitement to violent acts, but that is natural. Of course, you cannot publish plagiarized material, but beyond these very few restrictions, you could publish anything you want.

How To Become A Bestselling Kindle Author?

Now, being a Kindle author means that you need to conduct market research (pre-writing) and promotions (post-writing). In fact, being a Kindle writer is as much about ‘writing’ as it is about ‘marketing’. That’s the secret of the best selling authors, really – lean to choose your category such that becoming a bestselling author becomes an achievable goal.

Here are the key tips:

  • Find the right category

    • Now let’s get one thing straight. Getting on Amazon Best Seller List does not mean a million copies have to be sold. Of course, your sales need to be right up there with the benchmark figures for the category you write in.

    Consider digital marketing books. There is so much competition that you will need to literally beat the best to be able to make it into the bestselling authors’ list.

    It is hard to get ranked as a best seller if you choose Science Fiction > Space Opera. You would need to sell 100 books daily to get the best seller rank there. But if it is Science Fiction > Dystopian, about 55 copies would be able to do the trick.

    If you choose an arcane enough subject like Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Appliances, you could become a bestseller with as little as 12 copies sold daily.

    Choosing the right category may prove to be tough when starting out. Here’s a video that can help you choose a book category that will help you easily become a bestseller.

    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

  • Work back to the idea

    • After selecting the category, work on your idea. Of course, it would also depend on your competency as a writer. No one can be expected to write a book on Japanese Religion without being an academic. But if you look hard enough (there are hundreds of subcategories), you would be able to narrow down to 4-5 relevant categories.

    Even if you choose a mainstream category such as Fiction or Romance, there is scope to discover the less competitive subcategories to list inside them. The KDP dashboard gives you a complete list with the number of books listed in each, median income, number of copies sold per day.

    Thus you have to match your idea to the market to get an instant bestseller. This is definitely counter-intuitive, but you are looking to be a bestselling author, not the next Tom Clancy or Stephen King.

  • Book designing and pricing

    • Amazon uses a search engine to find relevant titles from the millions. Therefore you must choose the title and subtitle carefully. Please make sure that there are enough keywords without making them too visible.

    There’s a controversial and tricky technique where you can use negative keywords and how you can find the right ones.

    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

    In addition, have a professional editor take a look at your work. If you are strapped for cash, there are hundreds of editors on Upwork, Fiverr, and similar sites who would take a look for a very little fee. Usually, there is plenty of scope for improvement unless you are a postgrad in literature.

    The cover design is also crucial. Read internet resources about designing book covers and create one yourself. If you find that you are unable to handle image software, use a meme generator online to do the job. They are meant to put together text and words in a variety of fonts.

    Most importantly, make it cheap. Customers are not going to pay $10 to buy a Kindle edition from an unknown author.

  • Amazon Kindle Book Marketing

    • This is an all-important part, and you should not be squeamish about it. You have to get on social media and shout really loud. Everyone knows how to write a book, but few can market it well, and that is where you have to beat the crowd.

    First, get on board Facebook. Using your Facebook ads manager login, you can accurately direct your Facebook advertisements to the exact demographic.

    Next, proceed to Amazon ads. These are more expensive, and you have to plan their placement more carefully. Correctly placed display ads in Amazon are, however, seen by hundreds, and they are literally only a click away from downloading your masterpiece.

    We have an interesting video that introduces you to Amazon ads. Watch the entire video as you are starting out.

    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

    The last step is to work with an influencer. What is an influencer, you ask? Well, anyone who is well regarded in any niche is an influencer. Instagram influencer marketing drives much of e-commerce trends.

    At this stage you can benefit from understanding the role of influencer marketing and social media tracking. Check out this great video and find out more.

    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

    Use an influencer marketing platform like Tapinfluence to get introduced to an influencer. You could expect it to be the most extravagant form of digital marketing. However, it also gets you the most credibility as an author. Looking at it long term, spending on an influencer for your first book or two is not a really bad investment.

  • Giving it away for free

    • You could enroll your book on Kindle Select for three months. This allows Prime members to borrow their books for free during that time. Also, for five days in those three months, you can give the book away for free to anyone.

    Is it a good tactic? If you want to receive tons of genuine reviews, give it away for free. If you are scared that it might garner negative reviews, then do not make this bold move. Good reviews would lead to more downloads and give you a toehold.

    Let’s try and understand how you can get reviews for your book from inside the book with this informative video!

    (Above video is a part of a more elaborate course on Academy by Appy Pie. To access the complete course, please Click Here, or continue reading below.)

    It is a gamble, so weigh it carefully. To take this step, you have to be confident about what you have written.

Concluding Thoughts

Of course, you have to understand this was about becoming an Amazon Bestseller and not a writer. You still need to have your writing smarts in place.

If you find it hard to compose a 1,000-word blog post, then no amount of marketing would help get your book off the ground. But if you are a reasonable writer with the idea that you believe many would pay to read, go right ahead and share it on Amazon.

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Abhinav Girdhar

Founder and CEO of Appy Pie

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