There are a lot of steps involved in self-publishing. And I mean a lot. From searching the internet for good keywords to making pretty pictures of your book to post on social media, there’s a lot to do.
But there are also a lot of awesome resources at our disposal.
The trouble is, they’re hidden in all the garbage floating around online.
So, today, I wanted to give you a list of resources I’ve discovered in the past year that have really simplified things for me.
Some of these things are free. Some are not. But now that I have them, I can’t imagine not having them and having to do all this stuff by hand.
Category Finder
Figuring out what categories to put your book into can be an absolute nightmare. But there’s an awesome tool that finds all the categories a comparable bestseller in your genre is in so that you can use those categories.
Just go here.
Then, in a new tab or window, go to Amazon and get the ASIN or ISBN-10 of a book similar to yours that ranks in the top 100 in your genre.
Paste that number into the site above and let it work its magic.
And by the way, if you didn’t know (because I didn’t until this year), if your book is published through KDP, you can contact their support team and have them add your book to more categories. They allow two in the setup phase, but you can add an additional eight!
KDP Rocket/Publisher Rocket
This one’s useful for a lot of reasons, though the primary thing I use it for is finding keywords for my books. If you type in a keyword you think might be good, it does some tech magic and finds a bunch of stats for that keyword, as well as any similar keyword that’s been entered into Amazon.
It tells you: how many times that keyword is entered into Amazon and Google per month, how much the books with that keyword average in sales per month, how many books use that keyword, how competitive it is, and a few other things.
A recent update even color codes those stats to show you at a glance whether or not those stats are in a good range.
This one is not free, but it makes keywords so easy that I think it’s worth the $97 (USD) price tag.
Instant Data Scraper Plug-In
This little tool put Goodreads to work for you. You just find a list on Goodreads that has books similar to yours, give this plug-in the requisite link, and let it extract the information. With a little work in Excel to clean them up, you’ll end up with a bunch of book titles to target in ads.
Mock Up Shots
This site charges $198 for lifetime access, but gives you tons of professional mockups for your book. Just upload the cover and download as many of them as you want for as many books as you want mockups for.
Book Report Plug-In
KDP has a decent sales reporting system, at least compared to Ingramspark. But this plug-in shows you a more comprehensive view of your royalties, even breaking it down by individual books. Which is pretty helpful if you’re running a sale or an ad and want to know if a specific book or series is selling.
It’s easy to set up and use. Somehow, it reports sales that might not show up in KDP’s sales reports.
It only works for KDP books though. If it was published through any other publisher, the sales won’t show up on Book Report.
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