Selling your nonfiction book starts with planning before it’s even published. By keeping SEO in mind with the title and in your book description, and using keywords and metadata related to your book, you can set it up for success. Below we explain what you need to do to make sure your book is ready when the time comes.
Selling Your Nonfiction Book Starts with Keyword Research
Keywords are the words related to your book’s subject, genre, and content that help readers find it when they do a search online. Ideally, you’ll have your keywords ready in the pre-publishing phase, because these keywords can be used to help sell your nonfiction book in more than just your book description. They can be used in your title and subtitle, and even your bio in a nonfiction book.
How to Find Your Book’s Keywords
You’ll want anywhere from 5 to 15 keywords for your book, including key phrases and related keywords, so keep that in mind. Okay, you may ask, how do I know what my keywords will be?
It’s actually pretty simple! You start by thinking of what you’d search for if you were trying to find your book.
Make a list and type a few that you’ve come up with into your search bar. How relevant are your results? What are the related searches that come up? If you need to, rephrase your search query until you do get relevant results. Knowing your comparable titles is helpful here, by the way. Some tips on researching:
- Don’t choose overly broad search terms
- Be as specific as possible
- Remember that search engines filter out insignificant words (like conjunctions, for instance)
- Make good use of the “People Also Search For” feature when using Google
- Remember that users often search by asking a question! Does your book answer a specific question?
Once the Research is Complete
After you’ve come up with a solid list of keywords, related words, phrases and synonyms, etc. you can start thinking of ways to integrate these keywords into your book description. You don’t want the whole thing to be a list of keywords, but they should be peppered throughout. And of course, they should go with the flow of the description and sound natural. Oh, and you should save this keyword list for future use. You’ll likely be referencing it or using it again, and it will be handy to have on file.
Using Keywords in Your Book Description/s
Before you start writing your book description and adding your keywords, ask yourself:
- WHO is this book for? What audience does this appeal to?
- WHAT problem does my book solve, or information does it give?
- WHY is this the book my reader needs?
The answers to these questions will help you write a compelling book description, and allow you to use your keywords naturally. Knowing your audience and their needs is a big part of selling your nonfiction book!
If you want to learn more about writing a compelling and accurate book description, read our article on it!
A Meta Description Also Plays a Key Part in Selling Your Nonfiction Book
We’ve talked about Metadata before in relation to your author website and other marketing efforts, and your book description will also benefit from you understanding meta descriptions.
In this case, we’re referring to the metadata for your book’s homepage on your website. This is the text readers see in their search results that describe what a book, article, or other piece of media contains.
It should be short (no more than 155 characters) but effective. It should also contain keywords, and you can absolutely use your book’s title in this description—especially if you used keywords in your title!
Here’s an example of a meta description using an example title:
Organize Your Home!: A Guide to Decluttering and Simplifying Your Space offers tips and simple solutions to organize your home and keep it that way.
Notice how the meta description is very succinct? No need for unnecessary words! It fits in a limited space so the whole meta description is visible. You can use simple online tools like THIS to keep track of your character count, which makes it easier.
Consider Crafting Your Author Bio for SEO
Your book description will be used on your back cover, your website, and on your chosen online selling platforms (sometimes with some minor tweaks) so it’s really important to get it right! But, did you know even seemingly insignificant things like your author bio can be created with SEO in mind?
But remember, when writing your author bio for the back of your book, you’ll want to only add the essentials pretty much. For instance:
- Make it clear why you’re an expert
- Refer to your other books, if relevant
- Present yourself as accessible
- Use your book title within your bio if it fits and makes sense
- Do all this while considering your keywords, related words, and phrases
A longer, more detailed author bio (that can also be crafted for SEO) can be added to your website and online platforms. Remember, you can also use more keywords and phrases in your longer bio. We recommend having several versions of your bio for this exact reason. If you’re not sure about your bio, our founder wrote a book on the topic. It also offers branding tips and a formula to guide you through your process.
Selling your nonfiction book means using these opportunities to make keywords work for you. If you build a solid list of keywords and use them effectively, they will play a huge part in your book being discovered by your audience when it IS published. Because if your audience can’t find your book, they can’t buy it!
We hope this was a good guide for your first steps. If you feel a bit lost in the process, you can always reach out and see what we can do for you. We’d love to hear from you!
Recent Comments