Six Figure Author

by Chis Fox
Why am I reviewing a favorite book, authors already love? Well, I’m doing it, on the off-chance, someone out there hasn’t heard of it. To be honest, the tile put me off for some time. It sounded too “hard-sell” to me. But it’s not that kind of book. Trust me.
Chris Fox presents a fact-based discussion of how a six-figure author uses data to sell books, a must read if you’re in the business of selling books. Fox begins by explaining how Amazon, a “data-driven company,” sells books, ” Amazon is effectively, building an artificial intelligence capable of determining what you will buy.” It’s been doing this for years. Since it knows what each customer wants, all you have to do is provide it with the information about who wants your book. Basically, “…teach Amazon to identify your target audience.” You do this by nurturing a group of dedicated readers who love your stories. The rest of Fox’s book is a discussion of how to do this.

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Strangers to Superfans

by David Gaughran
You’ve heard of “the hero’s journey,” a term coined by Joseph Campbell, describing the epic tale of the heroes in stories. Gaughran uses the journey metaphor to describe “the reader’s journey,” from the moment she discovers your book until she becomes a superfan. He details a six-stage process (i.e., discovery, visibility, consideration, purchase, and advocacy). While most writers, particularly new ones, focus on the first stage–getting noticed–he advises paying attention to each stage so that we keep readers interested in our books and so they tell other readers how great they are. Each stage, he claims, gets trickier.
Gaughran advises writing to market, knowing your genre, targeting your readers and nurturing your relationship with them and using the correct metadata to make your book stand out.
I highly recommend this book for all authors.