Key takeaways from Amazon KDP's seminar on self-publishing in Dublin, November 2016.

1. By Dave Lynch
Expert Self Publishing Advice from KDP Dublin
epubscene.com/kdp-dublin/
#KDPDublin, as it was dubbed on Twitter this weekend, was a great live event hosted by Amazon's KDP team. In
attendance were a number of successful self-published authors - among whom was Mark Dawson, who I particularly
wanted to meet. Of course, I gushed like a schoolboy when I met him, then disappeared towards the bar.
What's a book event if you don't at least have a pint of Guinness to celebrate it!
Sadly, I was unaware of the talent of those Irish authors who lectured at the Davenport Hotel on Saturday, but I
made one friend on Twitter: Hazel Gaynor, author of The Girl From The Savoy. I make allowances for Hazel's use of
"The Girl" amidst a sea of "Girl" books that seem to have a bandwagon firmly in their sights, simply because she's a
self-confessed gin quaffer. Cue a comparison of favourite gins on Twitter later that evening. Hazel was very helpful
with a couple of my questions on the day and since her book is based in the '20s I may actually read it since I am
quite a fan of the '20s - as my online dating profile will attest.
The event covered many aspects of self-publishing from the nuts and bolts to marketing, and the inevitable opinions
on social media. You'll be glad to know that everything I am going to share here fits on one page (download it here if
you like).
Formatting Tip: Embedding a specific font in your Kindle book.
Don't bother. I'm glad this came up because it's a topic that's caused me no end of confusion in the past. You will
probably read that it can be done (I was hired by a woman who insisted that it could be done and wouldn't accept
my answer that it couldn't). I was wrong. The answer is a hybrid one: yes, it can be done but no, don't do it.
The Amazon KDP team categorically stated that they advise against embedding your own font - and also said that
it's pointless, since people choose their own font and font size when reading, so all that work would be for nothing.
In case you weren't aware (I wasn't so don't feel bad), Amazon have their own community support forum where you
can get help from others on the techie aspects of self-publishing: Amazon Self-Publishing Community.
Marketing Tips: Advertising
Mark Dawson mentioned that he's a big fan of paid advertising and makes use of Amazon's AMS advertising
platform, which seems to work well.
Marketing Tips: Your Amazon Profile
Amazon has a few in house marketing tools you should use because they drive discoverability and social proof. If
you're not using these already, look for
Author Central
Adding events to your author central profile
The new Follow button
Kindle instant preview
Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) has a new feature.
When you publish a new Kindle e-book, in a couple of weeks (or so) Amazon sends you an email (to whatever email
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2. you have linked to your KDP publishing account).
The email subject is: A Question about Your Book (followed by the title of your book).
It’s not an advertisement. It’s not a problem. (Unless you get a different email!)
It’s an opportunity.
When you publish a new Kindle e-book, you can send a personal message to your Amazon followers.
Amazon will approve your message and send it out to your Amazon followers, letting them know about your new
release.
This message may go out a few days after you submit it.
Chris McMullen
https://chrismcmullen.wordpress.com
Marketing Tips: Social Media vs Blog
I know from chatting with others in our Facebook group at http://community.epubscene.com that many authors hate
the idea of blogging and are confused about what to share on social media. Here are some tips from the expert
authors:
Your blog is vital because it's where you build your list. You need a blog to get people to sign up to your list
and this should be your number one tool for marketing. Mark Dawson mentioned that the first thing he does
on release of a new book is to mail his 65,000 subscribers! How did he get so many? By giving away some of
his books.
Social Media is where you will be active and send people to your blog. This is different to how you may have
understood blogs vs. social media to work, in that your blog is not where you engage in content marketing -
you do that socially.
What content to share is what flumoxes the majority of us. The overriding opinions of all the authors at the
event was to just be yourself on social media. You can do the "buy my book" if you only do it every 10 or 20
tweets or posts. Otherwise, just chat as you would normally. LJ Ross shared a story of how she guiltily
shared a picture of an empty Flake wrapper, only to find that she got a lot of responses pointing out that it was
part of a multi-pack. You can just tweet ordinary day-to-day fun stuff without having to include keywords and
hashtags (though obviously I advise using hashtags strategically - I did write the book on it!)
Authors - social media is for building awareness, blogs are for building subscriber lists #AmWriting #BookMarketing
The point was also made that there is a difference between tools and tactics. Learn some long term tactics and don't
confuse the tool (Twitter or Facebook) with the tactic (what you share - which you should use your imagination
about).
Marketing Tips: Book Reviews
Book reviews - we all know how vital they are, so that's not exactly news. But here are a couple of tips for how to
effectively use the ones you get.
You are allowed use up to 70 words from a review under "fair use" policy, wherever you wish - on your book
cover, blog, etc. But unless you've asked permission, don't quote the reviewer's name. Instead, cite "Amazon
reviewer".
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3. You can use a quote where you have been compared favorably with a famous author, but not if that author
has been cast in a negative light. Think "in the style of David Lynch", not "better than any of that James
Patterson crap". (Not my own opinion; just a demonstration of ludicrosity - a word I just made up.)
Marketing Tips: Book Covers
A professional looking book cover is absolutely vital. It should give an emotional idea of what the book is about,
giving as much info on the cover as possible but in as subtle a way as possible. Don't cram everything into the cover
- hint at the theme or characters.
Think in terms of atmosphere, tone and expectations.
The cover must work in gray scale! You don't know every place your book will be displayed and it may be without
color. Speaking of where your book cover will be displayed - be aware of what might get cut off when shared on
social media - use Twitter Cards when tweeting your book. I use Canva to get my social media image sizes right. It's
free and easy to use.
If you can afford to, pay an expert to design your cover, or choose a premade book cover from a reliable source.
Marketing Tips: Keywords
My personal favorite - so yes, I'm leaving the best till last!
We can only choose 2 categories when uploading our book, however we can use 7 keywords (tags) in our book's
meta data. Using Amazon's Browse Categories as keywords means we can get into additional categories if we are
smart. Mark Dawson said he found that adding the word "vigilante" helped move a book into whole new areas of
discovery.
Read more here:
Selecting Browse Categories
Categories and Search Terms
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