"How A Good Book Description Helps Your Kindle Book Get Noticed Online"
By Steve Johnson
The ultimate goal of any book promotion by an Amazon Kindle author is to get the their's noticed by the reader. These days, readers browse through pages and pages and pages of online book results. Getting them to find yours and to buy yours is what you want to accomplish, and a good description is the first step toward selling more Kindle books.
And, in my experience, the best way to set the stage for more sales is to invest the time to create a better description. It simply cannot be left to chance.
A book description is simply a sales presentation in print. It must be filled with keywords and keyword phrases matched up to what readers are searching for, assembled in a way that leads the "Browser" all the way to the Buy Button, to become a "Buyer."
Today, readers shopping online are at a distinct disadvantage: he or she has no way to hold your Kindle title, to hoist it up in their hands to feel how heavy it is, to skim quickly through the pages except for the brief snippets in the opening pages that Amazon allows via its "Look Inside" feature. Readers have to trust that the publisher's description is accurate.
These are the specific things that influence a Kindle buyer. They will most often pay attention to any particular title and buy it based on:
- The book cover
- The book reviews
- The book cost
- The book description
- The Look Inside extract
- Author Central extras
- Sales Ranking
Each element has its own importance in closing the sale and keeping the book sold (alas, some Amazon Kindle book buyers quickly return the books they buy, and Kindle book authors don't get paid on any refunded copies!)
As I wrote in "Sell More Kindle Books!" the reason an author's selling description is so vital is because it is front and center one of the first things that a potential buyer will see when he or she stumbles across the tome. The description pops up beneath the thumbnail photo of the cover, title, author name and pricing information.
Reviews and sales ranking comes later, and the Author Central extras -- the place where the smart author will add in extra details, additional blurbs and specific reviews and comments from other readers -- are buried way down at the very end.
Amazon isn't stupid. They know that readers want to quickly get a grip on what your written work is all about. Tell them quick. Or else they'll be on their way to preview another title.
The description can be the "make or break" element in an author's entire sales page, so it needs to be a central part of a sales strategy.
Being the first introduction to your Kindle title, one's book description requires you to answer these questions:
- What is this about?
- How does it help me (The Reader)?
- What is it... and what is in not?
- How long will it take for the average reader to get the payoff rewards from reading this non-fiction 'how-to' title after the reading has been finished?
- What happens if it isn't as good as the author says it is?
- Who else likes it?
Authors need to show excitement about describing their book. Failure to do so will cause most readers to wonder to themselves, "This must not be very good if the author even sounds bored with it!"
The solution? Write your title description with keywords planted throughout the sentences. Highlight in bold type the most important points. Use action words. Ask for them to take the next step -- read the reviews, read a free sample, or buy right now -- it really doesn't matter. Just don't leave them to figure out what to do next. Tell them.
There is an old saying in the advertising game: "The more you tell, the more you sell." This applies to writing -- or re-writing -- good book descriptions as well.
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