From the description:
Chris Fox is the bestselling author of science fiction and dark fantasy, as well as non-fiction books for authors including Write to Market, 5000 words per hour and today we’re talking about his next book, Six Figure Author: Using data to sell books.
Show Notes What Amazon data science, and machine learning, are and how authors can use them. How Amazon differs from the other online book retailers and how authors can train Amazon to sell more books. What to look for to find a voracious readership. Strategically writing to market and how to know what readers are looking for. On Amazon ads and when they are useful. Tips on writing faster. The future of writing, including virtual reality and AI help with story.
Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn interviews Chris Fox
Some of the highlights:
Training Amazon To Work For You
…What you want to do is figure out, with as much accuracy as possible, who your target audience is.
And when you start selling your book, the number of sales is not nearly as important as who you sell your book to, because each of those sales to Amazon represents a customer profile.
If you can convince them that people who voraciously read in your genre are going to love this book and you sell a couple of hundred copies to people like that, Amazon’s going to take it and run with it. You’ve now successfully trained them about who your audience is because you used good data and now they’re able to easily sell your book.
If, on the other hand, you and your mom buys a copy and your friend at the coffee shop buys a copy, and people who aren’t necessarily into that genre are all buying it, Amazon gets really lost and confused.
…
Easier said than done but how’s that for taking advantage of someone else’s machine learning?
Chris also has tips for not “polluting” your Amazon sales data.
Discovering and Writing to a Market
…
How do you find a sub-category or a smaller niche within the Amazon ecosystem? What are the things to look for in order to find a voracious readership?
Chris: What I do is I start looking at the rankings of the number 1, the number 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 books. You can tell based on where those books are ranked, how many books in the genre are selling. If the number one book is ranked in the top 100 in the store and so is the 20th book, then you’ve found one of the hottest genres on Amazon.
If you find that by the time you get down to number 40, the rank is dropping off sharply, that suggests that not enough books are being produced in that genre and it might be a great place for you to jump in and make a name for yourself. (emphasis in original)
…
I know, I know, this is a tough one. Especially for me.
As I have pointed out here on multiple occasions, “terrorism” is largely a fiction of both government and media.
However, if you look at the top 100 paid sellers on terrorism at Amazon, the top fifty (50) don’t have a single title that looks like it denies terrorism is a problem.
🙁
Which I take to mean, in terms of selling books, services, or data, the terrorism is coming for us all gravy train is the profitable line.
Or at least to indulge in analysis on the basis of “…if the threat of terrorism is real…” and let readers supply their own answers to that question.
There are other valuable tips and asides, so watch the video or read the transcript: How To Use Data Science To Write And Sell More Books With Chris Fox.
PS: As of today, there are 292 podcasts by Jonna Penn.