The Nimble Books Blog

I thought I would share with you the results of an analysis I did of my (historically low) efficiency at monetizing my web site via Amazon Associates.

• Google Analytics page views 1/1/2008 - date: 26032
• Associates clicks 1303
• Associates unit sales 14
• conversion rate 0.0107
• Associates referral revenue $10.04
• revenue/month $2.26
• NB after royalties revenue for referred titles 40
• Total imputed revenue (referrals + publisher comp)= 50.04
• Imputed revenue/month $11.29
• imputed $/page view $0.0019
• imputed $/1000 page views $1.9222
• imputed $/click $0.0384
• imputed $/conversion $3.5743
• bandwidth used (GB) 56.259
• GB/month 12.69
• max GB/month 200
• days covered 133
• months 4.433
• Imputed revenue/GB $0.89
• overage charge per GB $1.99
• Cost of High Volume Plans per GB $0.19
• possible ^ in usage w/o incurring additional bandwidth charge 15.76044129
• possible ^ imputed revenue by ^ usage x15 w/o additional BW charge =15 x imputed rev /month = $177.89 /month
• possible ^ imputed revenue by ^ conversion rate x 5 = $889.46

what all this tells me:

* I could increase the usage of my website by a factor of 15.7 before I hit the bandwidth threshold for my account at Pair
* assuming that revenue increased in linear proportion, and that I could improve the conversion rate, I could increase my Associates & Associates-driven revenue into the several hundreds of dollars per month
* increasing usage by x 15 would be hard work, there are other things I could do that would increase revenue more (i.e. publish more or better books)

My website has always been a bit of a mess because I use it as a combined blog and bookstore. It would be better to have a single purpose store. Right now the website is under construction as I experiment with new Amazon Associates widgets.

Tags: About Nimble Books, Amazon Associates, Amazon Stuff, clicks, conversion rates, google, Store, YA by admin
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We focus on a set of marketing activities that have proven to be cost-effective in our online context.

• Product. Only products available for purchase make money. Planned, delayed, conditional, and hypothetical products generate no revenue.
  
• Positioning is always key in any type of publishing, and even more so online, where Amazon’s publicly released statistics show that “category browsing” is extremely important. As a rule of thumb, a book needs to be in the top five of Amazon search results on its topic to sell well online.
  
• The author should have a platform that can drive readers to the book: remember the 3 “Bs” — byline, blog, broadcast..
  
• Editorial quality is almost as important as positioning, and equally indispensable.
  
• Keyword and title surfing — we use Amazon search traffic data and search optimization techniques to make sure that title and subtitle have the most commonly used keywords and title phrases for the topic.
  
• Generating positive, “real name” customer reviews for your book at Amazon. These are far and away the most cost-effective online marketing since they are free, at the point of sale, and affect all subsequent transactions. Authors: every time a reader gives you a compliment, ask them to write a review!
  
  • We’ve observed that when a book reaches the milestones of 1, 5, 10, and 20 or more reviews, each step seems to increase its sales performance. This can be measured by watching the percentage of “customers who purchased this item.”
    
  • Interestingly, negative reviews don’t seem to hurt that much, especially if the book is on a controversial subject. Some of our books that were not especially well reviewed nevertheless have sold quite well!
    
  • But there’s no reason for authors to put up with unfair or ad hominem reviews; Amazon will promptly remove negative reviews unless they are actually focused exclusively on the content of the book, which is unusual, since there’s usually some spite involved.
    
• Review copies are still the most cost-effective method of generating demand for a book. We do try to be cost-efficient and only send them out to reviewers who have expressed a specific interest in the particular book. We also require authors to use our online system for entering contact information for review copies. This greatly expedites what can otherwise be a time-consuming process.
  
• Targeted e-mail to reviewers and opinion shapers. We normally include a text attachment with the description of the book, early reviews, and a sample chapter.
  
• Author blogging. We can show you how to pipe one feed of your articles to your Amazon Connect page, the Nimble Books website, and your own website. We highly recommend that authors participate in Amazon Connect, as it offers the only way to update a book’s detail page in near-real-time.
  
• We provide the author with the PDF full text of the book for email distribution at the author’s discretion.
  
• Excerpts of one or two chapters length are available to relevant online publications: deep content for free!
  
• Wiki. We encourage authors to use the Nimble Books Wiki to create a “living edition” of some or all of their manuscript.
  
• Foreign rights availability is announced at Publishers Marketplace and pursued through our agent and direct contact with publishers.
  
• Our Pay-Per-Conversion Marketing Program: pays participating websites (including the author’s) a substantial bonus over and above the Amazon Associates program. Call it a “kickback,” if you will: easy money!
  
• Keyword advertising via Amazon’s ClickRiver system. This is most cost-effective when cost per click is low and click-through rate is high. Since ClickRiver customers are already on Amazon shopping for something else, we think of these clicks as “saves” that get qualified customers to the book’s detail page.
  
• Amazon Search Suggestions and Listmania
  also “save” active book-shopping customers who would otherwise be elsewhere in Amazon, and put them on the book’s detail page.
  
• Direct discounted sales from the Nimble Books website powered by Google AdWords Website Optimizer. In the past, we’ve spent a lot of money on Google AdWords campaigns, but this is the only way that has proven to be cost-effective.
  
• Direct discounted sales by the author. We will sell to the author at a favorable discounted rate so that authors who wish to do so can “hand-sell” to their heart’s content.
  

Things we don’t usually do, because they are not cost-effective for us:

• Place our books in traditional bookstores, where the terms of trade require as much as a 55% discount and nearly unlimited returns.
  
• Buy newspaper, magazine, or online banner advertising.
  
• Buy spaces in PMA mailings.
  
• Pay author promotional or travel expenses. Occasionally we may be willing to chip in with a nominal payment to help with a worthy project.
  
• Print or PDF brochures, flyers, and posters.
  

Things we’d like to try:

• Podcasts
  
• Youtube-compatible book trailers
  

We are open-mind but data-driven in our approach. Any and all ideas are welcome.

Tags: Amazon Associates, clicks, google, Store, Uncategorized by admin
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Dear webmasters,

The following memorandum describes the Nimble Books Pay-Per-Conversion Marketing program. I think it’s a win-win for everyone. If you are interested in participating, write me!

Sincerely,

Fred Zimmerman

Publisher

1. {Website} will set up a new Amazon.com Associate account and tracking id to track sales in this joint venture. {Website} will be payee and account owner and wfz@nimblebooks.com will be added to the account with view privileges.

2. {Website} will be entitled to all Amazon.com referral and other fees generated using this tracking id.

3. Nimble Books LLC will pay {Website} an additional fee (defined below) corresponding to each conversion credited to the “Earnings” report for this tracking id for {Specified Nimble Books Titles and ISBNs}. The purpose of this fee is to give {Website} a strong incentive to make its users aware of the book by making the conversions even more valuable than the default Amazon Associates rate.

4. The total monthly fee will be calculated at the end of each month. Any returned copies of the books mentioned above will be deducted from the fee. Only sales converted using the tracked id and visible to Nimble Books in the shared account will be considered.

5. Nimble Books LLC will not be responsible for any fees for any other Amazon.com books or products purchased by {Website} customers using this Amazon.com tracking id.

6. Nimble Books receives monthly payments for book sales from its distributor, Lightning Source Inc., by the 5th of the month 120 days after the books were shipped to Amazon to fulfill customer order.

7. Accordingly, Nimble Books will be responsible for paying {Website} its additional fee by the 15th of the month 120 days after the monthly fee is calculated. E.g., since Nimble Books will receive its payment for January sales from LSI by May 5, 2005, it will pay {Website} by May 15, 2005 for conversions carried out during the month of January 2005.

8. In the unlikely event that LSI (a large, reputable company owned by Ingram, the market leader in book distribution) is late on its payments, Nimble Books will not be responsible to pay until LSI pays. Nimble Books will provide {Website} with appropriate documentation of the late payments.

9. In the unlikely event that LSI defaults on its payments, Nimble Books will not be responsible to pay its additional fees. Nimble Books will provide {Website} with appropriate documentation of the default.

10. This document creates no other rights or responsibilities on the part of {Website} or Nimble Books.

Website:

Nimble Books LLC:

Per-book additional fee: $1.00
Term of this agreement: expires three months after publication of {book}
Effective date: on signature.
Signatures:

W. F. Zimmerman, Publisher, Nimble Books LLC

Webmaster

Tags: Amazon Associates, conversions, Uncategorized by admin
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After losing my job ats a product consultant at LexisNexis in December 2002, I switched gears to writing and publishing books. Nimble Books LLC has been in operation since June 2004. It’s been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot about being a publisher. But enough time has gone by for certain trends to become apparent, and it is now time for a strategy refresh.

• A strategy is a coherent series of choices that leads to victory.
• Victory, in this case, is financial independence. I’m lucky enough to have a real job that I thoroughly enjoy, but the weight of my financial responsibilities to my family is something that never leaves my shoulders. I want to have “no worries.”

Here are the macro facts of the Nimble Books situation.

• As currently configured, Nimble Books is approximately a $15K/year business.
• About 75% of the revenue comes from our series of Harry Potter books.
• The lifecyle of the Harry Potter books is finite, but we can probably maintain revenue at more or less the same level by doing incremental products and addressing less lucrative enthusiast markets.
• The Nimble Books website covers its hosting costs via Google AdSense, Google Book Search, and Amazon Associates, but doesn’t do much more. After 20 months of detailed daily monitoring, there is no reason to believe that these revenue streams will ever do anything more than show linear growth.
• $15K/year is enough to help pay off debts and to help with Kelsey’s college, but it’s nowhere near enough to live on.

The Nimble Books strategy going forward:

• Maintain the franchise by keeping products up to date.
• Devote no resources to product development on the website; its primary function is personal expression.
• Focus energies on developing a portfolio of new products; specifically, novels. Follow the Charlie Stross strategy of starting several series in different genres so that once one sells, they all sell.
• Realistically, I can hope to write about one novel every six months.

Schedule:

• Finish up current obligations (AFFC book, website) by June 30.
• 4Q2006: complete PROLIFERATED.
• 2Q2007: complete NOVEL IN FLAMES.
• 4Q2007: complete comic mystery.

Stretch goal: complete and sell ten novels by the time I am 50 (five years from March 18, 2006). (I would be perfectly happy with one!)

Tags: About Nimble Books, Amazon Associates, google, Proliferated, Writing by admin
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November 2005 was a busy month. Net book revenue was down due to product life-cycle issues, but ancillary revenue from Google Book Search and Google AdSense increased appreciably.

THE SOLOMON KEY AND BEYOND and UNAUTHORIZED HARRY POTTER BOOK 7 NEWS were the two leading topical revenue earners across all media (books, e-books, AdSense, Book Search, and Amazon Associates).

After quite a bit of waiting I got Google Analytics working on my website, together with the terrific asclick utility. Now I can see exactly which pages generate the most AdSense clicks (which turns out to be less thrilling than it sounds, because my consumer-oriented content only averages about 16 cents a click).

Tags: About Nimble Books, Amazon Associates, clicks, google, The Solomon Key and Beyond by wfzimmerman
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You know, I spend a lot of time writing about Google and Amazon in this space. But there’s a reason for that. They continue to drive a feverish pitch of innovation in bookselling and publishing. Today, for example, I received a message inviting me to participate in a beta test by setting up a new type of preview link. Hover over this link or the following link to my forthcoming UNAUTHORIZED A FEAST FOR CROWS ANALYSIS (Dec. 15).

(Note: The link works 50% of the time so Amazon can measure its effectiveness. If you don’t see it the first time you come here, clear out your amazon_vf cookie and refresh.)

Tags: A Feast for Crows, Amazon Associates, google, What's New for Book-Lovers, Writing by wfzimmerman
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