This post is about how to write a book and launch it to number 1 bestseller list on Amazon.
So the past month I have been really busy launching my book ‘VFX and CG for Producers and Filmmakers’ on Amazon.
Paperback
US and International -> http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
UK -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Austria and Germany -> http://www.amazon.de/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
France -> http://www.amazon.fr/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Italy -> http://www.amazon.it/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Spain -> http://www.amazon.es/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Kindle
US and International -> http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
UK -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
Canada -> http://www.amazon.ca/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
Austria and Germany -> http://www.amazon.de/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
France -> http://www.amazon.fr/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Italy -> http://www.amazon.it/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Japan -> http://www.amazon.co.jp/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Spain (and Latin America) -> http://www.amazon.es/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
I started writing the book in July 2012 and launched it in February 2013, again much like my film making this has all been part time after work and getting two kids to bed – whatever energy I could summon I put into the book.
I launched the book in the middle of February and managed to get it to number one on Amazon under the following categories within 48 hours of launch – it was a massive undertaking which I’ll detail for you below.
Fig 1. Putting the book up on Amazon and getting it to number 1 on the 16th Feb 2013 in its relevant categories |
Fig 2. VFX and CG for Producers and Filmmakers number 1 bestseller in ‘Computers and Film’ category on Amazon, 16th Feb 2013 |
Fig 3. VFX and CG for Producers and Filmmakers number 1 bestseller in ‘Graphic Design’ category on Amazon, 16th Feb 2013 |
Fig 4. VFX and CG for Producers and Filmmakers number 1 bestseller in ‘Web Graphics’ category on Amazon, 16th Feb 2013 |
Launching a book to Amazon has several different stages.
i. Writing the best book you can
ii. Converting it into an ebook
iii. Selecting a place to sell it – Amazon vs the rest
iv. Finding your target audience – twitter vs the rest
v. Marketing to that audience
I’ll deal with each of these stages in turn
i. Writing the best book you can
So this is fairly obvious but actually there are few points to take into consideration before you start this step. Firstly writing the best book you can means you have to write an ‘excellent’ book. Note I said ‘excellent’ not ‘perfect’. Once you understand that perfection is an abstract concept you will know when to stop writing and move onto the next steps.
Which leads onto the next point. Writing the book is stage one. There are other stages to follow. When you start writing your book make sure you know this so a) you don’t burn out in the writing process and b) that you have enough energy to go through the next steps.
Stage i is where you are going to be most excited and pumped up to do this. But writing an excellent book in itself will not get you to number one best sellers list.
Before you start writing I recommmend you do some research about how to get your book to number one on Amazon. This blog is a good starting point, I won’t go into too much detail as there are whole books written on this subject. I read two books on this subject both of which are excellent.
Kindle Self Publishing on Amazon: How to Become an Amazon #1 Bestselling Author – and Make Money! – A Guide to Self Publishing on Kindle by Oli Hillie
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kindle-Self-Publishing-Amazon-ebook/dp/B007DJ9G92/
and
How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months! by John Locke
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sold-Million-eBooks-Months-ebook/dp/B0056BMK6K/
They can explain it better than I can, also I don’t want to disrespect their work by giving away the formulas in their books.
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Fig 5. These two books helped me set the the plan to launch my book |
After you’ve done a few drafts, I did six drafts on my own, send it out to people to read and give feedback on. Make sure you select the people wisely, i.e. do not give it to a family member or your best friend who will say it’s excellent. My book was on VFX so I gave it to a VFX producer who I respect greatly, and he gave me really excellent feedback which I then incorporated into draft 7.
Going to draft 8 was one more session of proofreading and re-evaluating.
Okay a note here on burning out. Inspiration is a perishable commodity, yes you read that right. The initial inspiration that you had at the start will be diminishing rapidly by the time you are on draft 7 or 8 and remember you are still on stage i of the process.
Give yourself a break between drafts and take some time out to relax. The argument that I heard most often is that you will burn out if you don’t break, the response I gave was ‘well no one else is going to do the work for me’. The truth is both of these are right. No one else will do the next stages for you – unless you pay them, even if you do you will probably spend at least half the effort in managing them than you would if you did it yourself. You have to do it, but without taking a break you will tire and as well as making mistakes you will make bad choices which you’ll ultimately have to come back and fix, i.e. have to do even more work.
Here’s a tip while you are waiting for feedback, allow two weeks or so, take a break and then at at more comfortable pace start investigating the next stages, how to format your book, where are you going to sell it etc.
I used a gant chart from google docs to plan out all the upcoming stages.
Fig 6. Schedule your tasks so you know what you are supposed to be doing on any given day |
This is really important to do as
a) you won’t waste time when you have the opportunity to work (especially important when you have kids to look after and a day job to do)
b) you’ll have a clear target to work towards and not meander and
c) you’ll know how many more tasks are still to be done so you can plan your time and energy accordingly.
ii. Converting it into an ebook
It may seem daunting, how do you convert your text document into an e-book, how will the text fit onto a tablet screen or a mobile phone screen how do I go about putting in page breaks etc? There are a plethora of softwares that will convert your text document into an e-book for you.
E-books use their own markup, much like HTML will resize your webpage to fit any window size so the e-book markup language will do the same for any reading device.
There are two main markup langauges to use, so depending upon which e-reading device you are planning to launch your book on, you will need to convert your book into either a .mobi for Kindle readers or .epub for other e-readers (e.g. Nook, Kobo, Google Books, iBooks etc.).
The software will convert the book for you into whatever format you choose to export to (for the record I chose Scrivener http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php but there are plenty others out there too). You can typically download a 30 day free trial and find which works best for you.
Fig 7. Scrivener home page, |
iii. Selecting a place to sell it – Amazon versus the rest
Fig 8. This is what the search results for ‘computer animation’ returned from the Kobo book store |
Fig 9. a search for ‘VFX’ only returned four books on Kobo |
iv. Finding your target audience – Twitter versus the rest
Fig 10. I used my book cover to help point people to my book |
v. Marketing to that audience
Fig 11. Bit.ly analytics allowed me to track the effectiveness of my twitter strategy |
Conclusion
Paperback
US and International -> http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
UK -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Austria and Germany -> http://www.amazon.de/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
France -> http://www.amazon.fr/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Italy -> http://www.amazon.it/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Spain -> http://www.amazon.es/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-Volume/dp/1484021541/
Kindle
US and International -> http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
UK -> http://www.amazon.co.uk/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
Canada -> http://www.amazon.ca/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2
Austria and Germany -> http://www.amazon.de/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
France -> http://www.amazon.fr/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Italy -> http://www.amazon.it/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Japan -> http://www.amazon.co.jp/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/
Spain (and Latin America) -> http://www.amazon.es/Survival-Producers-Filmmakers-Guides-ebook/dp/B00BDV8GY2/

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