Breaking Orbit: How to Write, Publish and Launch Your First Bestseller on Amazon Without a Mailing List, Blog or Social Media Following (Serve No Master Book 4)

by Jonathan Green

  Spending money does not always lead to a great cover. I get all of my covers designed on Fiverr. That’s a great website where people work for five dollars a task. I have a list of the cover designers that I use for my books at ServeNoMaster.com/orbit. If you use one of the designers from my list, you will end up with a good cover.

  You should choose your main cover image before you send the design concept off. There are loads of stock photo sites with pictures that cost less than three dollars. Sometimes I find a great design, but the colors are all wrong. I will hire an artist to change the colors for me. Once the image is perfect, and the colors pop on my computer and my Kindle, I send that image to the cover designer.

  For Serve No Master, I hired an artist to change the colors of the main image, but for this book, after loads of research, I found the amazing rocket ship that you see today. The colors were so perfect that I didn’t change a thing. For my books about writing fast and reading fast, I may use the same design but change the colors to show that they are part of a series. When I write those, I might make this book three in the series, even though it’s the first one I wrote.

  When placing an order, you want to send your designer the cover art you want to use, links to similar book covers that you like, and the cover text. Your cover should contain your name, the title, and the subtitle.

  On some occasions, a pure text cover is a great decision. Several of my covers have no image to allow for a larger title, and they sell quite well. No image on the cover is far and away better than a bad image.

  If you hang around forums and social media group with other struggling authors, you will start to notice common themes amongst the covers of books that fail. One of them is a title written in cursive. I have never seen a book with cursive on the cover do well. A successful book with cursive on the cover might exist, but I’ve never seen it. Any text that's harder to read when small will cause you problems.

  Be careful with combining multiple stock images. If you are not a master graphic artist, your merged design will be flawed. There is nothing worse than the bad green screen look you get with a poorly Photoshopped cover. With a vector image you can adjust components, but with a photograph you should always leave it to a professional.

  The most egregious covers I see contain multiple unrelated images layered on top of each other by the author. When layering images, there are many rules and techniques as far as placement, lighting, and color agreement. All of my covers have a single image because I know that I have no talent in the image-layering department.

  It’s much better to have a simple, elegant cover with a clear message.

  With most of the designers on Fiverr, you can request revisions until you are happy. If you have the budget, I suggest you hire multiple designers at once. I usually hire three designers at the same time to see what they create. With three covers to choose from, I am now looking for the best of the bunch. With only one design you are deciding if the cover is acceptable or not. This is a binary decision, and very limiting. You will end up with a better cover whenever you order several.

  When I was first starting out as a writer, I barely had the budget for one cover design. I have books that have been in the top three for their categories for over a year with a single designer. But if you can afford it, getting a few choices from different artists is worth the effort.

  If you need any help with your cover design, please feel free to upload to my Facebook page and you will get some honest feedback.

  Stock Photos

  Most of the books currently selling well on Amazon are using images from stock photo sites.

  Yesterday I was doing some research and came upon a luxury concierge service. These services are very expensive and target people with trust funds, or billionaires flying around the world in private jets. At the top of the screen, there was a stock photo that I recognized because I used it in a presentation a few weeks ago. Nobody else has probably ever noticed that it was a stock photo.

  I use stock photos from several different sites. Some of the designers on Fiverr include a stock photo in their design price. If you have a limited budget, hire one of these designers first. That is exactly how I started. Otherwise, there are loads of beautiful stock photo sites, and I will post links to the ones I use the most on my site.

  Upgrading Stock Photos

  If you are worried about other people coming out with the same cover or artistic integrity, you can hire a designer on Fiverr to use a stock image as a baseline and create something unique. You can have an original image that isn’t too expensive. This is the best of both worlds.

  Today I was working on the cover for my book, 2K in a Day. Since I mention the book in this book, I wanted to get the title dialed in. Speaking with my intern, I began to brainstorm a little bit. We went through ideas and images for about twenty minutes, and during that time we found some fascinating superhero stock photos.

  None of these designs will make it onto the final cover of my book. I will probably alter the color schemes to match my next idea and put something like a book on the superhero’s chest for their logo. This is a rough idea. I may go with a variation of the cover of the rocket ship on this book. In either case, I will hire an artist to modify the image to match the color and ideas that I have.

  Sometimes you can’t find that perfect stock image, and taking one that is almost good enough and improving it is often the best solution.

  Kindle, CreateSpace and Audiobook

  It’s important to know the rules for Kindle, CreateSpace and audiobook covers. The most important thing is to use images that are 300 dpi. It’s very hard to check the dpi of images. There are loads of tutorials online, but they are all very annoying. Stock images show the dpi before you download them. The sources I use always provide images that are high enough resolution.

  DPI stands for dots per inch, and is a measurement of how the image will look when printed out. If your image resolution is too low, your paperback cover will look terrible. Images inside the book need to be high-resolution as well, or they start to look like old newspaper photographs.

  The rules for book covers are always changing, so I’ll post links to the appropriate Amazon pages for you.

  For your paperback version, you will need a back cover and spine. For your audiobook version, you will need a square design instead of a rectangle. I go into more detail about audiobooks in your free gift, but trying to turn a rectangle into a square with black bars on the side doesn’t work.

  Authors try it all the time to save a few bucks, and it screams amateur hour. I tend to hire a professional to create the front cover of my book and then use a template to create the spine and back cover. I change the back cover of my books as more reviews come in. I like to put the best reviews on the back cover when they arrive. Depending on your skills with Photoshop, you might be able to do this as well. If not, all of the designers I recommend will offer a paperback version of your cover design.

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  Start on the Right Foot

  We spend more of our time on research than anything else when preparing a book for launch. We base our covers on the way Amazon displays them to potential customers. We base our titles on the way Amazon generates search results. The rest of our book preparation process will follow the same theme; don’t try to reinvent the wheel.

  Off the top of your head, you can probably name some of the contents at the front of a book, but you probably can’t name all those pages or the correct order. I know that I can’t. You need your title page, copyright page and then a few more pieces depending on your genre.

  The front of your book is crucial on Amazon. Once someone is on your book listing page, Amazon displays a big button that says “Look Inside.” Many potential customers will click this to get a feel for your writing style and a sneak peak at your table of contents. Later on, I will discuss where to place a free gift in your book, and how it can turn a book into a business.

  For many of my books, I put the free gift at the
very start, and people can see the “secret link” without actually buying the book. That’s fine. When someone gives you their email address, you get to communicate with them multiple times and open a real dialog. Contact details are very powerful, so don’t worry about people “stealing” from you. If someone gets your free gift without buying your book, you will make back your money tenfold.

  Everything about the first ten percent of your book needs to be correctly formatted and look as professional as possible. People go through a series of steps before they make the purchasing decision, and we want to do our best to manage each phase.

  If people see a cover they like, they will read your title and then click on your listing. Once on the listing, people will do a quick peek at the description to be sure the book is on the right topic; then they will scroll down to the reviews to see what the top reviewer has to say. Then they might scroll back up for a deeper read of your description, they might go read your worst review, or they might go up to the Look Inside area. Each of these is important, and we want to do our best to convert this visitor into a buyer at each off these waypoints.

  Sell Your Book

  When you go to a bookstore, you can pick up the book and hold it in your hands. Hardcover books have the inside and back flap to tell you about the author and a little about the story. We flip the book over to see the back cover and get a look at the author. Does the author look like other writers you enjoy?

  Some people go beyond this and read the first few pages of a book before taking it to the register. The first chapter should be as enticing as possible. Do you remember how this book started? Rather than loading up the front of the book with prologues, free gifts and acknowledgments we dove right into my rejection in New York. This is an engaging story, and most people want to see how that story ends.

  It’s a true story, and one I usually don’t tell people because it’s painful. That agent hurt my feelings. The first page is designed to pull you into the story and also to catch people doing that test read before they make a buying decision.

  There are sure signs that a movie will be bad, and one of them is a long scroll of title cards explaining the universe of the film. How many great movies can you think of that started with a lengthy exposition? This content is informative but not engaging.

  One of the science-fiction authors that I like starts his books with a huge list of characters, their affiliations and their ranks. As a reader, I skip over these sections. This material might be valuable, but it’s far better the back of your book. No potential reader will decide they like this list of characters and then buy.

  If you are creating a series of books, the challenge lies with new versus old customers. How do you get people up to speed if they haven’t read the first four books in your series? Some people will read the books in your series months or years apart as you write them. When I read a series in a row, I hate that explanation of the previous book, but when have forgotten the last book, I want that explanation.

  With me as a reader, it seems like you just can’t win.

  With Kindle, you can place clickable links inside your book that lead to other sections and your reference pages. Instead of opening your book with a dry retelling of the previous books that will bore potential readers and annoy your most ardent fans, simply place a link on the first page to your background section.

  Write that story breakdown and place it in the back of your book. People that need it will click the link for a quick refresher, and people that don’t can get into the meat of your book. Potential readers will be grabbed by the start of your adventure rather than get stuck reading about a different book.

  Capture the Lead

  No matter what genre you write in, you want to develop a relationship with your readers. Whether you are writing romance, children’s books or non-fiction, a free gift will entice readers to share their email address with you. When someone reads your book, you have their attention just once.

  After they finish the book, they forget you exist until Amazon shows them your next book. With an email address, you can build on the relationship and expand into something wonderful. You may have noticed that I offered a great free gift at the start of this book and have offered a few extra reasons to grab it, including access to my personal email address and the ability to ask me questions directly.

  I generate a lot of content on my website. I record five podcast episodes a week, write multiple blog posts, and several informative newsletters. If I can get you to engage me through my website, I can deepen and expand our relationship. I don’t want you to read this book, try to publish a book on your own, and then suffer from frustration. I want you to succeed with your book launch. A big part of that comes from feedback and having a resource you can communicate with.

  Most people reading this section assume that if they send me an email, I won’t ever reply to them. That they aren’t unique enough, or their question isn’t valuable enough to merit my attention. For this reason, a very small percentage of the people who want to ask me questions actually do. If you write me, I will respond and support you and help you to succeed.

  When you have the ability to contact your readers you can turn your book into a business. You can ask them to review your next book before you release it. You can get reviews and testimonials. You can encourage them to engage with you on your blog and social media profiles. You can announce your next book when it launches to hit the ground running when it goes live. You can recommend products, services or advanced training that will fit their needs.

  You can’t put every single thing into one book. This book is going to end up twice my original target size. But it’s still just the tip of the iceberg. My advanced bestseller coaching program contains more than one hundred hours of training and walkthrough videos. That entire course is delivered via video training so that I can go much further in-depth.

  When you have a stronger connection with your audience, you can take them along the path from your book all the way to your more expensive courses, training and products. The relationship allows you to expand your offerings. You don’t need my top course to launch your first book and make a nice profit, so don’t worry about the hard sell. That’s only for people that want to talk to me on the phone once a week and get much deeper coaching. This book has everything you need to launch your first book without needing anything else.

  Your free gift should be enticing and offer real value. Adding an entire audiobook section to this book would increase the length by around thirty percent. I prefer to teach how to set up audiobooks with video or a PDF with a lot of screenshots, so delivering that content in another medium makes sense. If you grab that document, you will boost your book profits by around thirty percent every month. I think that’s a pretty good value.

  Do not give away garbage with your book. It’s insulting to the reader. Don’t buy material from somewhere else. If possible, the free gift should be worth more than the book. One of my books comes with soothing music as the free gift. The soothing music cost me more that $50 for permission to give away. With a three-dollar book, you get music that cost more than fifty bucks. That’s a pretty good value.

  Resist the temptation to be stingy with your gift. This is the first step in your new relationship where you turn your reader into a fan. The more value that you give away, the better. My goal with my business is to build a tribe, not to score a quick buck. I’m looking to form relationships that last for years. I want to create as much goodwill between us as possible.

  I don’t care if you never buy anything else from me. You bought this book, or at least grabbed it on Kindle Unlimited. That makes you a customer. If I can turn you into a fan who listens to my podcast, reads my blog and leaves the occasional comment or review, then I have succeeded. Having a long-term relationship with people who succeed following my teaching will bring more and more people into the fold.

  I realize this was a long section, but that’s intentional. If you capture the lead, your income wil
l increase at least tenfold. You can turn one dollar into ten every single time. The way I create my free gift forms allows you to request your free gift without having to walk over to your laptop or pull your phone out of your pocket. You can use HTML to create a form that works inside of a Kindle. If you clicked my button earlier, you might have noticed this magic.

  That’s impossible to teach without some screenshots and a demo video. If you take my free gift, I’ll throw in my PDF walkthrough for creating the free gift code inside your book. It will double or triple the number of people who join your mailing list over forcing them to open up a second device.

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  The Ending is the Most Important Part

  Many people treat the end of their book like a dirty toilet. They throw some disorganized junk in there and don’t care how it ends.

  Your readers will never love you more than in the first few seconds after they finish your book. This is the moment when you can guide them on the course you desire.

  The end of the book is vital. There is a straightforward and powerful structure to follow.

  Get that Email

  You can start by offering a free gift or another reward at this point. If your book is fiction, then grabbing that lead at the end of the book will work better. Right after the reader hits the cliffhanger, offer them a free short story in the continuing adventures of your main character.

  Create a story that occurs before the first book or in between books one and two in your series. You can engage with your readers and let them know each time a new book in the series comes out.