Training has made a drastic difference for me in building my author platform. I have experienced great results in a short span of time, just by doing some essential author training.
Amazon Marketing Services
Within just a month, one of my books rose from an overall Amazon books rank of 1.8 million all the way down (or up depending on how you interpret it) to 34,000 on May 5, showing at #3 and #5 in two categories, and at #137 in a third category where I previously ranked at over #2,600. What made this difference was running sponsored ads through Amazon Marketing Services.
Initially, I wasn’t using this marketing service because I didn’t know how to go about it, and was afraid of losing money.
Through a bit of training however, I set up my first campaign at the start of April, and was able to quickly move up the ranks and generated over a dozen book sales.
Email Marketing
Another area I was afraid to touch for years is email marketing. I thought it may be complicated and that I just couldn’t understand it well enough to do it. Now, after doing some training in recent weeks, I am pleased to now have a sign up form and my first email list. Finally, I have now started learning all the fancy things I never thought I would be able to do.
Ongoing Learning
Some of the actions I need to take as an author to grow my career, feels very hard, but with ongoing learning I will know how to do things in the right way.
Many of us spent years in university studying for degrees before we could pursue a suitable job and career. It is the same thing when pursuing a career as an author. The main difference is that author training does not have to be anywhere as expensive as a university education. There are affordable courses on Udemy. There are also courses on Lynda.com and through Author Marketing Club, all very affordable. Moreover, ongoing learning helps clarify the things that are difficult and unclear.
So, I would encourage any writer looking to build their author platform, to invest in valuable training. It will make the difference to your long term success.
Best regards
Karlene