Having books for sale on the Amazon Kindle can be both a source of income in itself and an effective promotion of your business.
But many otherwise good Kindle books are plagued with problems. The three biggest problems with Kindle books that prevent high sales are:
1. Having a poor book cover
2. Having a poor title
3. Having a poor format
Mistake #1: Having a poor book cover
“Do not judge a book by its cover”. But despite the old saying, people WILL JUDGE your book by its cover. If they haven’t read it yet, all your audience has to read is the title and subtitle of your book, your name as the author, and the cover.
Its cover is the most visible of these. Get your cover these wrong and your book will be overlooked, no matter how good the content. This is even more true with books on Amazon. Whereas in a bookstore people may be looking at the spines of the books, on Amazon, their cover is prominently displayed.
Transcendence
For your Kindle book to instantly grab attention, you should invest in a professional cover. But where should you start?
What to do instead
First, do some research. Check out all Amazon books in your category. Which cover style is more prevalent? A simple cover with just text? A photo overlaid with text? An illustration? What colors predominate? What fonts are the most used? How is the design?
You will probably see a pattern emerge, and this is what you want to emulate. Save the Amazon URLs (web address) of three books in your category that you want to be like. They will be sent to your graphic designer for guidance.
Mistake No.2: Having a poor title
If it’s not immediately clear from the title and subtitle of your book what it does, your book will be overlooked. Also, if your book title doesn’t match similar high-volume search terms on Google, your book won’t be found easily.
Transcendence
If your book can’t be found easily, people won’t buy it. If, from your title and subtitle, people don’t immediately understand what your book will do for them, they won’t consider buying it.
What to do instead
Use the Google Keyword Planning Tool to examine the global monthly search volumes for keywords related to your book. Consider naming your book to match the most searched keyword string.
Do your research using Amazon search and see which books in your field show up for common searches. Consider naming your book in such a way that it is likely to appear in Amazon searches.
Check to see if it’s now obvious what your book is about to your target market.
Mistake #3: Poorly Formatted
There are several formatting techniques that work well enough in Microsoft Word that they don’t work on Kindle.
The format Kindle uses is a simple variation of an HTML page. It does not cope well with complex formatting such as indentation, formatted tables, and extra line spaces. If you don’t check the formatting, chances are your book will look horrible if you include any of these formatting elements incorrectly.
Transcendence
If your book suffers from a bad format, your book will not read correctly and may receive bad reviews. And buyers are unlikely to buy any more of his books. In exceptional circumstances, Amazon may refuse to list it.
What to do instead
If your book contains any of the following elements, change the way you present them.
- Align text using tabs
- tables
- Using spaces (or tabs) to indent paragraphs.
Align text using tabs
This is almost guaranteed to look awful. Text that aligns with tabs in Word will be formatted differently in Kindle, causing an uneven layout. It is better to avoid aligning the text with tabs and instead convert the text to a paragraph.
tables
Anything but the simplest table will look bad. Sometimes you can get away with 2×2 tables, but if you can avoid them in the first place, it’s better to do so.
If your material absolutely needs a table, prepare a table in Word or PowerPoint and convert it to a jpeg image. SnagIt is a very useful tool for capturing formatted text and converting it to an image.
Using spaces (or tabs) to indent paragraphs
Just remove all these spaced or tab indents. Any extra spaces or tabs must be removed from your document before sending it to Kindle. Kindle provides its own indentations.
Remove extra line spaces
Just remove extra line spaces throughout the document.
Summary
It’s easy to avoid these three common Kindle book mistakes if you:
- Get a professional cover design.
- Choose an attention-grabbing headline, explanatory subheading, and make sure they are similar to the most searched terms on Google.
- Follow my formatting recommendations for tables, tabs, spaces, and line spaces.
By following these simple recommendations, you will maximize your chances of getting your book known, bought, and read. And if it’s easy to read because of its format, you’re more likely to get good reviews.