Some simple changes I made turned my book sales on Kindle from a drip, drip, drip to big sales. I just clocked in at 935 books sold in my slowest month since sales have been going well for me—December 2010. Now in month one of 2011, I have sold 1,140 books – all at 2.99. I make almost $2 (70%) from each book or unit as they say. When first I placed my work onto Kindle, I was lucky to make 60 bucks a month.

How’d I do it? What changes did I make? First I went back to my book descriptions and made absolutely certain of no typos or errors of any kind as well as rewriting to make each the best damn short-short I could. This made a huge difference in sales, I kid you not. Secondly, I went on a TAG binge, tagging all my books below where they are found on Amazon to utilize genre-specific tags like Occult Horror, Generational Horror, suspense, mystery, police procedural, supernatural, paranormal female detective, etc. and I linked using my name along side other more successful authors in my field. This did two things – by placing my name on tags whenever anyone opens my book list, they also get my author’s page coming up. By ‘associating’ my work with the work of say William Miekle—as he did me—I am seen by his fans, and he by mine.

I had an amazing spike in numbers since taking these steps. Of course promoting online is of great import but so to is professional cover art and editing. When I am working on a novel, I put it out there what I am working on, and I invite early readers, and it is amazing how much readers will catch. One does not have to pay huge prices for good editing as I have found my best editors – amazing editors – who love to read a book BEFORE anyone else help me create the best book I possibly can. Most people believe they had to pay out big bucks for excellent editing but truth be told many people pay out big bucks and get punk editing for their money. I’d rather have a passionate edit with no exchange of money than a so-so one that cost me a couple thousand bucks, wouldn’t you? I edit myself heavily and do many rewrites, but I know I need more sets of eyes on the project, so as I am doing a work in progress, I ship it off to people I have come to trust absolutely. This has worked out fantastically well for Children of Salem –
Romance Amid the Witch Trials, and for Titanic 2012 – Curse of RMS Titanic.  My payment to these wonderful contributors has had to be in acknowledgement only, and guess what – they have been tremendous about this, and they so love being involved in a project and seeing their name in the book, that I have never been sued or held up or yelled at.

Notice how on my recent ebooks I have chosen to use subtitles? I believe subtitles help sell the book with a look, so to speak…a bit more detail right there in the title. Which brings us to titles. One’s title needs be unique and grab-ilicious. Early on, I put it out there that I am looking for the perfect title. For my last two I conducted searches. For Titanic 2012, I set it up as a contest – and I got two titles I loved – and so I used them BOTH as you see. Titles can either be seductive and alluring or boring and repellent!  Think it through before you lock down on a title and as with so much put it out there for a search or contest as I did on my blog Dirty Deeds.