How to Create a Popular Non-Fiction Amazon Bestseller

Who wants to be the next Steve Scott? You and I are still trying to routinely crack the bestseller ranks on Amazon. Steve has done this several times.

How he did it takes some sleuthing. How you could do it better takes even more sleuthing.

But that's why this blog is here. I do this work and write it up to save you time.

You deserve to get a 6-figure income from your books like Scott did. Providing you do the work you need to.

Today's breakthrough is how to improve the quality of your book - which is what Scott has been working on for some time. Better quality books sell more and better and longer. You want your book to sell well right off (which anyone with a list can accomplish) and then continue to sell after that.

What makes books sell more and better

As you've been following this blog, you'll note that I've published several dozen-dozen books. And by this (and being Scot-Irish frugal) I 've achieved financial freedom and fired my last boss.

These books were published as tests of the ebook publishing model. Those tests showed me what books would do on their own with the only marketing consisting a good title, good cover, good description, and decent price point. Nothing else.

Again, I was able to live off what I made just from these tests. This is how the system works just on volume publishing alone.

These books were mostly public domain (PD) and private-licensed rights (PLR) books. They ran the gamut, but typically fell down into the usual curve for sales:

• Most didn't sell.
• Many sold a few books a month.
• A small few sold several books a week.
• A couple became regular bestsellers on all platforms.

When I was dissecting Steve Scott's success recently, I started making a checklist of publishing that I use.

Then I ran across this quality point. While Steve somewhat regrets writing an ebook about cranking out a new ebook every 21 days, he never says what writing a quality book consists of - no matter how long it takes.

How to Write a Quality Book (and sell longer).  

My book-publishing tests prove a single point - the consistent best sellers are decent enough quality that readers buy them routinely.

Those with crappy titles or covers or indifferent descriptions (or priced too high) sell poorly. Look on Amazon at the bottom of their lists and you'll see this far too often. Or take "habit stacking" (which built Scott's empire) and you'll see the wannabes at the bottom which sell a fraction of a book each week - and you won't see the ones that never sell at all.

But what keeps them selling after that point is how well they were written. Quality.

Amazon pushes up the books that routinely sell and pushes down the ones that don't. This is why they are known as the "ebook graveyard." Just like any bookstore - they're in it to make profits (although somehow, Amazon continues to run at a loss each year - like the Hollywood movie industry. Taxes, probably.)

The books which sell routinely are well written. Many people say so, but more than that, my book sales say so. PD books generally do better than PLR books (depending on what distributor) - and PD Classic Fiction sells better than others. Why? Because they are evergreen bestsellers - they were well written even centuries ago and still appeal.

Scott's success was with non-fiction. And while he covers the points on how to get good titles, covers, and descriptions (in general terms) he doesn't say what a well-written book consists of - other than it needs to solve the problem area or answer the common questions in a quick, and precise method.

There is more to it than that.

Look up a book called "The Story Grid", written by a 20-year veteran of editing, Shawn Coyne. He lays out what makes a fiction work into a real page-turner. And he also does this for non-fiction as well (but not in such detail.)

He says there are four "silo's" of non-fiction out there:

Academic:

These are essays/books that are written for and read by a very focused readership.These groups of readers are clearly defined, but small in number. As Seth Godin would say, these are Tribal readers dedicated to very specific passions/professions. The narrative form of the writing is far more about “presenting the findings” than it is about entertaining the reader. The assumption of the writer of academic work is that her readership is absolutely engrossed by the subject matter itself and so really just wants to get the skinny on what it is the writer discovered or what the writer’s particular argument is. These readers don’t need to be spoon-fed the previous data or history of the art. They just want to know the innovative stuff.
...

How-To:
These are generally prescriptive books “for the trade audience.” What that means is that these books are written for the general Joe who wants to learn the best way to plant his garden, without having to enroll at Penn State’s Agricultural school. Or a general Jane who wants to learn how to change the oil in her old Volkswagen Beetle without going to a mechanic’s trade school.
...

Narrative Non-Fiction:
This category has exploded in the past half century...
It’s completely Story based. That is, ...the writer/journalist collects the usual data involved in reporting a story. But instead of just presenting the traditional Who, What, Where, When and How? out of the old-school reporter’s toolbox, New Journalists focused on the Why? something happened....
What Narrative Nonfiction allows is for that subjective point of view (the writer/journalist) to argue his case. But the journalist can’t just “make things up.” He has to present the “evidence,” the details of the reporting in support of his particular point of view. But more importantly, he can’t just make declarative statements like an academic.
He has to tell a Story…like a novelist or short story writer would.
....

The Big Idea Book:
The Big Idea Book draws from all three of the nonfiction categories above and when one succeeds, it’s capable of satisfying readers of all three too. Academics appreciate the research cited to support the Big Idea. How-To readers take away actionable steps that they believe can better their lives. And Narrative Nonfiction readers are captivated by the storytelling.
It is Academic in its rigor. There is a crystal clear argument being made in a Big Idea book that the author builds and supports in much the same manner that an academic writer/researcher would. That is, he is making a case for demystifying a particular natural phenomenon and will support his conclusions with the applicable data etc.
It is prescriptive for the layman like a How-To book. The writer of the Big Idea book writes for the non-expert, not the specialist. He also contends that there are real world applications of his Big Idea that can change the lives of his readers. So the implied promise is that after you’ve read the Big Idea book, you will have the tools to apply the knowledge imparted in much the same was as you would be able to apply the principles of square foot gardening.
With varying degrees of success, it uses narrative nonfiction storytelling to impart a deeper theme/controlling idea into the work than just “how to use this knowledge and get a great tomato harvest.”

Steve Scott only wrote the in the How-To style. He never broke into the far more popular narrative or the legendary Big Idea. 

Scott recommended the time-worn "index card" method for book writing:

• Research and compile the common questions or problems in a profitable niche.
• Research and compile the answers/solutions to these.
• Put the questions/problems onto index cards, along with any ideas for titles and chapter headings.
• Organize these cards into some sort of logical order in a stack.
• Make an outline for these.
• Fill in between the lines with the data you know.
• Add an introduction and front-matter, along with back-matter.
• Come up with a catchy title, an attractive cover, plus a benefit-bulleted description.
• Publish.

Of course, there's a little more than that, but those are the broad strokes. This system works for this How-To type of non-fiction book.

Making even more money by writing better

But if we want to get even more income, we need to raise the bar.

What is makes narrative non-fiction sell well?

Basically, you need to tell a story - yours, the reader's, or someone else's. Coyne says that it has the same breakdown as fiction. Every part, from the story outline down to the smallest piece all have these in common:

1) Inciting Incident

• Caual
• Coincidence 

2) Progressive Complication

• Active Turning Point
• Relevatory Turning Point 

3) Crisis

• The Best Bad Choice
• Irreconcilable Goods

4) Climax
5) Resolution

And a bigger bunch of editor-speak I've never heard.

Here's what all this means (with apologies to the classics):

• Problem: Something bad happened
• Worsens: And it got worse - something the hero/ine did or discovers
• Choice: What do the hero/ine chooses – between two bads or two goods
• Action: Here's what the hero/ine did
• Results: Here's what they got out of it

And there's more to this (see Coyne's book, and go read your favorite fiction again with this in mind.)

That's the simplicity to any story ever told. You can go further with this, like Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, or just KISS for now.

The How-to actions to take can come in on the last two points - or you tell an anecdote about how someone solved it, and then come out with your recipe of steps to take.

Using emotion in your text

This is the next one to master. Any copywriter knows that people decide emotionally and justify rationally. If you're going to carry people along with your story, you're going to have to involve them.

One of the all-time great copywriters was a guy named Eugene Schwartz. His single book sells for hundreds in hardback where you can find a copy. He recommends a book by Walter S. Campbell called "Writing Non-Fiction". Here are my highlighted notes from the relevant first two chapters of that book:

Fiction must have some facts and ideas to justify the emotion it offers. Non-fiction must induce some emotion in order to maintain interest in the facts and ideas which it offers.

The non-fiction writer has another, more difficult but more profitable method, which consists in arousing emotions about things not hitherto considered exciting by his reader. Here lies the true opportunity of the writer of non-fiction.

He must present fact with passion.

If you propose to write upon a subject in a factual, coldblooded manner, without permitting your own enthusiasm for your material to saturate it and so interest your reader, you will be obliged, if you publish, to write on subjects about which the reader is already excited.

But once you have acquired a platform and a reputation, you will find that, if you believe in your ideas and in the value of your facts, you will wish for a larger audience. Indeed, if what you have to say is important, it will be your duty to reach a larger audience.

[The non-fiction writer] has for his public practically all literate mankind. He has for his subject practically everything that is known and everything that can be guessed about the universe in which his readers live. His success will depend upon his ability to choose his subject wisely and to find a reader who can be brought to take an interest in it.

Writing non-fiction is essentially the problem of rousing and maintaining the reader’s interest in something outside himself.
This general subject-matter may be anything, provided the author loves it, feels at home in it, is interested enough in it to learn all he can about it, and to take the pains to make his reader enjoy it too.

The author who commands such a field of human interest and uses it consistently also has the advantage of a steady market for readers who like that sort of thing. They will remember him as the purveyor of stories about that subject-matter, and will look out for his work, knowing that they can always depend upon him to please them. 

This subject may be compared to the grain of sand which gets into an oyster and forms the irritating nucleus of a pearl. It is seldom that the author chooses it; rather, it chooses him, inhabits him, and may remain with him throughout life. Every piece of work he turns out has or lacks quality according to the degree in which this intimate subject appears in it.

It appears that the intimate subject is, as it were, the soul of the author’s work, while the subject-matter is only the flesh and blood. Both should belong and work together, if the work is to be a masterpiece.

In non-fiction, the emotion is that of the writer. That is why it is so necessary that you write about something that interests and excites you. For where your task is to serve your materials hot, you will not and cannot succeed, if there is no fire in you. You must always write of what is cooking. Your reader will not accept anything served cold.

Probably, it will be best not to worry too much about your intimate subject, particularly after you have discovered what it is. Rather, let your mind dwell upon the general subject-matter, dream about that, and you may find the intimate subject taking hold of those raw materials, shaping them to its own purpose, and making them go along without trouble.

Between Coyne and Campbell's books, we have the core of how to write narrative stories that will be popular (meaning: sell well) and then result in continuing passive income from here on out.

You also see in this the key idea that Scott followed - finding an "intimate subject" which remains with you and helps you find many outlets through several titles. There's your "catalog" and that rising tide lifts all your boats.

That, then brings you right back around to using - and improving - on Scott's methods to create your own catalog of bestselling books.

How to mix and match to get the title your audience wants. 

Of course, you don't have to change anything you're doing.

But let's just say that you're using that index card method for writing How-To books.

First step would be to start using more emotion in your copy. Search for Power Words, particularly on CoSchedule's site (and don't forget to test your ebook title on their Headline Analyzer.)

After that, start keeping track of anecdotes and stories as you search for problem-solutions and question-answers. This will help you personalize your copy and incorporate these Problem|Worsens|Choice|Action|Result steps.

Once you get in habit of getting all these points in - down to even the subsections of your blog post, then it will become a regular habit in your writing and you'll be able to move onto writing Big Idea titles.

(Approach: just as I recommend blogging your books, the Big Idea could be taking your books and editing them against the theme - Campbell's "intimate subject" - and putting them all together in your own "Tipping Point" or "Future Shock" book.)

Where to from here?

There are still a few technical details to iron out - but the above is the key research I did to ramp up my next books to be regular sellers on Amazon. (And if they sell well there, they should sell well everywhere.)

I'm in the middle of a checklist for publishing, taking my tips from Scott and refining these to be even more effective.

When it's ready, I'll let you know (should be available as early as this afternoon.)

Then you can get started on your own - or revise it as you see fit.

After all, this isn't a Gospel, it's only what works for me - your mileage will definitely vary.

Back to the grind for me.

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Your Audience, Your Responsibility, Your Advice

Any Writer Starts By Listening

This comes up over and over again. People who listen can have conversations. People who "soapbox" often end up standing there alone.

The key to successful books is writing for the audience. Sure, you may be scratching your own itch - but when you write that how-to book, or that fiction masterpiece, you are exchanging value with your audience.

Authors who start making a living at their craft - and those who go beyond this to crafting their fortune with bestsellers - all know this to be an evergreen truth: your audience is always right.

Your audience may be small, but in this day and age, they don't have to be physically living in the same area in order to find one another. You can and will grow your audience by continuing to produce content that they need, want, and love.

I was updating "Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors" right along this line recently - and again today discovered that I had hit on a nerve there.

Because when you use an ebook launch to develop your next book, you are surveying (listening) to what your audience wants - and then crafting your product to that, so they get what they are yearning for.

It doesn't matter what genre you write in, or whether it's fiction or non-fiction (or a "memoir" somewhere in between.) The point is that you actually listen to your own audience and deliver the goods they want.

The point of this is to help them improve their lives.

After that, the basic marketing techniques of coming out with tons of well-crafted books at affordable prices takes over. Each and everyone of these well-crafted masterpieces are determined by the public they are written for.

A bottom line is that more you improve their lives openhandedly, the better your book and your series will sell and keep selling.

Of course, you are encouraged to leave a comment below so we can have a conversation about this idea. Who knows - you may wind up in the dedication section of my next book as being the genius who inspired it...

3 Views on Publishing - To Hell with Authorities

There are 3 views on (self-)publishing - leaving out those who don't publish at all.

1. Traditional publishing, which is top-heavy and expensive and almost impossible to get a contract with - and has agents to take a percentage of your already low royalties.

2. Guru's and perfectionists who hand out advice which can't be followed by more than a few. They advise to spend money you don't have to achieve standards which are so high to also be nearly impossible to meet (again, without a huge social following, lots of money to hire outside help, and a suck-up attitude.)

3. People who just honestly want to tell their story.

The first two don't really want the competition of everyone and their brother producing their story.

And so they arrange all manner of blocks in their way. Most of these have to do with the age old traps of  Approval, Control, Security, and The Club.

What self-publishing has done is to make it possible for everyone to have their book, or several, or as many as they want.

And there is room for as many as want to do this. For the long tail stretches to infinity, but there are only a few who can stand on the short head and stay there.

This is what the first two categories are based on. And they are each incredibly defensive of their positions, because they know that they are trying to balance on a narrow ledge which is crumbling.

What I have objected to all this time is pretending to give help, but instead simply raise artificial barriers to anyone else actually succeeding in this. There's a "bestseller" out there right now where the authors have spent a great deal of money to get PR and all sorts of interviews in order to spread their view of how to self-publish.

Unfortunately, few others can follow their footsteps simply.

That's the rub.

I've been trying to follow their advice and at every single turn, I've found that it doesn't work.

Sure, I've been able to publish over 4 dozen books on Lulu which never really earned me much more than some pin money. But they were honest works. Now that I've moved over into ebooks, the sales of these same books have increased tremendously and look to soon be able to cover all my expenses in these area - meaning I'll start showing a profit.

There is a point where you simply have to let go of things which don't work. Especially where a person (or several) just keep giving bad advice.

Instead, a person has to listen to themselves and do what they know is right. Right for them, not someone else.

Look all the interviews in the world don't mean a thing. Being on the NYT bestseller list doesn't mean a thing either. Neither, as it's proving out, does being a "bestseller" on Amazon - as that system is rigged as well.

The key point a person has to live with is how many people they 've helped, whether they feel good about all they've done for others, how they sleep at night.

I could care less about celebrities, whether they are social media moguls or elected politicians. Please just keep them off my lines. They don't help me get or keep a job, they don't help me raise my beef cattle, or fix fences, or bring rain for our drought, or help my grass grow.

In short - they're worthless to me.

Much like what passes for "news" these days. You can turn them off and live simpler, more peaceful lives.

So I am.

- - - -

The bottom line was writing a book the way it was "supposed" to be done instead of how I was needed to write it. So I quit that online community which was just a suck-up to that celebrity, and "uncircled" that guy so I never had to hear from him again.

There are people who are interested in hearing my viewpoint on things. And those are the people I'll deal with.

That is the actual way you write your own story - in a series of essays. It doesn't matter if your language is good, or your style is good, or your headings and hyphens and periods are in the right places.

It matters that you get your story out so others can benefit from the lessons you've learned.

And that is all there is to writing a book.

Sales Page for "Just Publish!" (as it's now known...)

(Thought you'd want to see the blurb which is previewing on my site right now, but won't show up on Amazon until the book wraps up.)

"Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors"

Learn how to write, design, format, upload, and sell your own book for low cost or free. 

(And that includes non-fiction and fiction self-publishers.)

New Release!

You probably have a story inside you that's just busting to get out. Most people do.

And the premise for here is that you don't have to buy or pay for anything in order to get your story written, published, and selling online.

Learn the 3 Parts to eBook Publishing

1. How to write a book - painlessly, effortlessly, earning the satisfaction and pride you deserve.
2. How to publish your book - without the costs and delays recommended by the current "experts".
3. How to sell a book online - make your book discoverable and sell, not only on Amazon, but on iBookstore, B&N, Kobo, and everywhere else.

And all for no more than you already have at hand.

Solve the key factors which have tried to keep you from publishing your story.

• You want to get Control over your own book and your own life - while others only want to control you for their own purposes.
• You want to get Approval for your own efforts - not pay money for someone else to approve your work "through channels", which can add years you can't afford to lose.
• You want to have the Security of running your own writing-publishing-selling business, and knowing how it will turn out at every step.
• And you want to Join the group of successful Independent Authors who control their own higher royalties and income.
  

Tools you will find inside this guide:

• Develop writing habits you can use for life
  
• Learn precise, proved tips and shortcuts to save time and money
  
• Get real certainty how the real "million-book-sellers" have made their own success - and how you can duplicate this starting today!
  
• Discover secrets to formatting your Amazon descriptions to rocket sales and pass competitors in their tracks.
  
• Get access to the entire Publishing Success Blueprint from start to finish
  
• Find how to open additional distribution lines for even more income!

A Personal Word from the Author

I've been publishing books successfully for years before ebooks became popular. But I was never satisfied with the sales I was getting. So I buckled down and started learning how online book marketing really worked. This took me through half a hundred "expert" ebooks, thousands of web-pages, and countless real-world tests.

I figured out how to do this for little or nothing more than what I already had. I found out you don't have to have fancy equipment or programs to create your books. And that time-consuming Social Media and expensive advertising doesn't sell your books - but applying these discoveries will.

In my tests, I started routinely getting sales from books which had sat dormant for years,You don't have to spend the months I did to work this all out. Or buy all the books I have just to compile their hidden methods. Now this one book tells you all these secrets, so you can get your booksales rocketing, too.

Closing Chapter just arrived...

Chapter 5 – Your Book

As I mentioned in the beginning, there is probably a book in you, working to get out.
Most of us have a story there. One report has this at 70% - which would include you.
What I haven't covered up to this point is why you need to let that book out, why you need to give it life.
And this all goes into a ton of studies that you probably don't have time for.
The bottom line is that people appear to improve their own lives by comparing their story with others. And that is how we learn, how we improve, how we define who we are and what our progress has been.
It's not really in these things we have around us, all these cars and clothes and buildings and – stuff.
It's who we really are right there inside of us all. In our heart.
For all our differences, we have that one live spark within. And that spark has no height, weight, color, or shape.
But it has a life.
It's an idea. The one which motivates us to do great things, or just suffer through all of life's indignities in order that our children or their children could have a better life than we have.
It's the sum of all man's highest and deepest adventures exploring this planet.
It's in the eyes of every mother or father who sees their newborn – or any newborn brought into this world.
For that that spark is in them, too. They each are born with an idea, a story.
And their story is formed by watching the stories which go on around them, for their whole life.
Some of us are lucky enough to be able to hear stories around us and re-tell them with our own “improvements” as to plot, character, setting. This is called “gifted” by some, and personally it may seem a curse at times.
But that is the writer's story. The storyteller's story.
Your story may be singular instead of plural. There might only be one.
And it might not be a long one. It could be a single word.
But more than likely, it's not a blank sheet.
Imagine, for just a bit, that you were able to sit and talk with an old, best friend. Nothing to do that day. Just sit and talk about whatever came up.
And this friend was really interested in just what you had to say that day. He or she was just there to listen.
So you began talking. And in those words, you told all of your hopes and dreams and aspirations. You told of your pains, your sorrows, your darkest times that had been endured.
And as you talked, the weight of this world came off your shoulders. Your heart began to lighten. The day began to take on a rosy glow – because you told your story and someone listened.
- - - -
In these days, with all this electronic tomfoolery we have around us, we have a chance now – maybe for the first and last time – to just simply tell our story and send it out for someone to hear, someone who cares enough to simply listen. And learn.
We all aren't here to make tons of money by writing alone. We all aren't here to just pay money through our nose for all the gim-cracks and frilly excesses which others want us to buy so they can get rich.
There are as many reasons for “being here” as there are individuals on this planet.
And those reasons – each and individually – are stories.
None of these are more interesting than any other, none duller.
Each is a masterwork on it's own. Even if it's only a few thousand words, a few hundred, or just a short sentence – even a single word.
I'm just asking you at this point, like a friend, to go ahead and write that story. Publish it. Send it out to the world so someone else could read it or hear it or see it for themselves.
Because someone out there needs to read or hear or see that story and learn from it.
And that is why I wrote this particular story for you.