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Help Mike Essex Break Into Amazon’s Top 100 Bestsellers!

Help MikeToday (Friday 27 July), Mike Essex is trying to achieve something a little bit special. He wants to get his Kindle book, Free Stuff Everyday into the top 100 on Amazon. We grabbed a few mins with Mike to ask him about his latest challenge.

So we know that you’re trying to break into the Kindle top 100, but why are you doing it?

There’s two reasons. The first is pure curiosity. To see if through the collective powers of lots of people a new book by an unknown author can make it in to the chart. I think it’s a powerful experiment that could have repercussions for anyone who wants to get their creative work out there, whether it be on Amazon or any website.

The other key driving force is that I’ve hit the same wall that most new authors face. That without a big marketing budget and a lot of luck it’s very hard to break through in to the chart. As a lot of people trust the chart, or high ranking books for their next purchase, a book can live or die on how high it makes it in the rankings. So I wanted to see if I could crowd source the marketing of the book, and whether that would make it perform better.

What are you doing to try to get into the top 100?

The bulk of the experiment involves asking people to share a link to the book’s Amazon page. This helps improve the number of people looking at the book and overall awareness of it. So for the past month I’ve emailed every contact I’ve ever made (over 1,000 people) and tried to gain their help in advance. I’ve also written several guest posts that will go live today, to bring in extra support from outside of my own network.

How is it all going so far? Do you think you’ll make it?

It’s been a really crazy week. From out of nowhere the company who publishes the print version officially dropped it this week, meaning I’m entirely on my own for future marketing. As I’ve always owned the rights to the Kindle version it means I can put all of my energy in to that now.

So because of that it forced me to redouble my efforts, and gave me an extra push to see this project succeed. What’s also encouraged me is the support so far; 120 people have confirmed they will definitely help. I feel that’s a great base of people to kick off the experiment, and I hope more people will join in on the day. With everyone’s support I believe we can make it together.

What can other authors learn from your example?

Regardless of the success of the experiment, what I’ve already learnt is that people you already know are a huge marketing resource that everyone should use. It’s amazing how many people are happy to help if only you ask them. I’d advise every author to contact their entire address book and see how they can help.

I’m posting the results of the experiment, and more learning’s on Koozai.com on 10th August, and there will be live updates during the day (27th July) on Koozai.com so everything I learn will go there.

What can people do to help?

You can find complete details on how to help, and keep track of the experiment at https://www.koozai.com/blog/news/help-an-unknown-author-reach-the-amazon-top-100-top100challenge/. In short I’m asking people to share a link to the book’s Amazon page and visit the page as well.

If people want to buy the book, which will help rankings even more, then it’ll also be available on Kindle at 70% off the print price on 27th July, so it’s a great time to check it out too.

Good luck Mike!

Boom Online

Boom Online

Boom was founded in 2010 as an eCommerce specialist digital marketing agency. Our specialism is in the home retail sector, where we've managed SEO, PPC and Digital PR for both household brands and local businesses.View Author posts

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