How to get Amazon to give you a push 💡

(without harming any goats)  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Hey, The conditions are perfect today for some monster waves, so I'm grabbing my camera and hitting the beach - and you're getting this email a couple of hours early. I could have just scheduled it, but it's much more fun to eat bread straight from the oven. If you were paying attention last week you would know that you can get a push from Amazon's impish algorithms if you generate strong, consistent sales. And if you weren't paying attention last week... you also now know that. Which is a solid argument for slacking, quite frankly, with Goth Christmas right around the corner. We did the Why last week, and you can read that here if you need more convincing on the burst marketing approach. Today we look at the How. Hey Amazon, You Still Up? Getting Amazon's attention is hard because everyone wants a piece of that action. It requires careful planning, and a multi-day plan. You can consider this a pain in the ass... or something that thins the madding crowd; it's up to you. Wow, that was passive aggressive. And a little snooty too. Our goal here is to earn more money from our launches and promotions, and the best way I know how to do that is to get Amazon to do the selling for me. Jeff has a bigger rocket ship than me so I'm going to assume he's quite good at it. The Kindle Store algorithms are uber trend-chasers and will jump on anything that gathers a little momentum. You just gotta bring the heat. As far as I can tell, around five days of solid, consistent sales does the trick - and that has been more or less true for around a decade now. Just remember that the next time someone says "Amazon has changed its algos again." (Note: Amazon for sure tests things all the time, tweaks things endlessly, glitches out constantly too, but makes big, fundamental changes to things like the recommendation algorithms or sales rank algorithms very rarely indeed.) Let's assume that you are with me on this point. How do we achieve five days of consistent sales? The Mechanics I always like to tell people to begin by examining their tools. And not (just) because I am six years old. How you approach this depends on what you have to work with. If you have 50,000 people on your mailing list, a five-figure launch budget for Facebook Ads, and a bunch of big authors ready to cross promo, that's a lot to work with - and the challenge is more logistical than anything. In other words, trying to carefully apportion all that lovely juice across five, six, or seven days to get the maximum benefit. An Amazon push is extremely valuable at any level, but this kind of launch might not live or die based on how much love Amazon bestows - and a launch with that much juice will get more than one opportunity anyway. It's a bit trickier when you have, say, 2,000 people on your mailing list, a modest budget for any ads, and perhaps some authors to help you out on your launch but with presumably much more limited impact on sales. But it's not impossible. In fact, if I felt like pushing the boat out, I might say that a smaller, well-organized launch might stand a better chance of getting some Amazon love over a larger but haphazard one. Organization is key - that's your flashy takeaway. Let's make sure the lines are even. Bring the Juice Your author platform will deliver a considerable number of sales during launch week, or any other kind of promotion you might run. One author's platform might deliver 500 sales during launch week. Another might be able to generate 5,000 or more. It's foolish to give a gross generalization about diverse authors and different audiences and varying platforms and opaque algorithms. But that never stopped me before! So let me gently suggest that I personally wouldn't bother moving everything around with my launch, to seduce Amazon, unless I was at the stage where I could deliver a few hundred sales during launch week. Instead, I would focus my efforts on building an author platform which could reliably do that. It's a little easier, in one sense, to divvy up the goods when you have less to work with. Let's assume my list will ring up 400 sales. My FB ads will drop another 250 or so into my KDP reports. And then all the various other things I do - social media posts, cross-promotion, list swaps, promo sites, dressing up as a giant bloody banana - will deliver another 100 sales. Let's assume that's my probable notional launch total, coming from my author platform: the bones of 750 sales. (Note: not the total amount of sales during launch week. I could sell 50 more, or 2,000 more, but this is the total that I can control.) 750 sales is 150 a day. So when planning my launch, I'm generally aiming to divvy up my author platform to deliver roughly that total every day. If your platform is bigger/smaller than this hypothetical then adjust accordingly; I've worked this approach with all sorts of sizes. For today's purposes, we are shooting for 150 sales a day so we have to look at our tools - wha? - and try to arrange things to hit that number each day. This can be... finicky. Let's say my mailing list in this hypothetical has, I dunno, 3,500 emails on it. If I dump that all on Day 1 and then try to maintain that pace with Facebook Ads (or social posts, or cross promo with other authors), I'm going to run out of steam pretty quickly. This is the worst way to run a launch - what some authors call The Witch's Hat. Where your rank peaks quickly... and falls quickly. Unlikely to be rescued by Amazon. But there's a better way - The Glorious Plateau. Split that list over four days instead and you have a baseline of around 130-ish sales a day in the bank already - and then your ads, running at a lower level, should be able to close the gap to the desired 150 sales a day, All while you are figuring out which images and text resonate most strongly with your audience. Then you can turn up the juice on Day 5, confident your ads will scale well. If you have a bigger platform and readership, this approach works beautifully. You have more readers and dollars to play with, so you can smooth out some of the bumps that can happen at lower levels, through the simple trick of spending money. For example, if I was working with a list of 20,000 readers, or more, I would still follow the same approach. I want 5 days of consistent sales. And I want them to be as consistent as possible - but generally trending upwards. So I will probably split that list over 5 days (and maybe do a resend, to all, over days six and seven). And I will probably trickle out my Facebook Ads on Day 1, and ramp them up slowly over the next few days, and then turn up the juice towards the end. But I will likely frontload social posts, and mentions from other authors, and have those do more heavy lifting while my ads warm up. Overall, the goal is the same and the resulting pattern should be the same: 5 plus days of strong, consistent sales. It doesn't always result in a meaningful push from Amazon, but it happens often enough to make this approach extremely lucrative over the calendar year. That's the big Amazon secret: Target the right readers Prime the pump Spread the love ...and Amazon can do the selling for you. While you busy yourself with writing the next book instead, saving your juice and ad dollars for your next launch. Let me close off with a super hard-sell of my own: The devil is in the details, as always. I think there's enough in these last two emails for super intrepid types to figure it all out, but if you want some shortcuts, more detail on the above, and a deep dive into every aspect of the Kindle Store, the different ways Amazon can push books, and exactly how you should tweak your marketing to make sure your books have the best chance of getting some Amazon love, then let me without any bias whatsoever recommend the book Amazon Decoded. Dave P.S. Soundtrack to this hard sell is Wilmoth Houdini with the gentlest protest song ever: Cooks in Trinidad. Broomfield Business Park, Malahide, Co. Dublin K36 AT04 ​Unsubscribe | Update your profile​