[00:00:00] Do you ever feel like you're playing hide and seek with your target audience? You know, they exist. but, where in the world are they hiding? Well today, I'm going to go over and share a five step process with you to find your target audience using Amazon.
[00:00:16] I'm Zach Kristensen, and this is Beyond the book presented by Juxta book.
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[00:00:30] Now whether or not you're a fan or not one thing that we can't deny is that. Amazon is a fantastic research tool. It gives us insights into different genres, trending authors, popular books, and even our competition, if we're aiming for that coveted bestseller status.
[00:00:47] So let's get started.
[00:00:48] Your first order of business is knowing what type of book you're writing and I mean, you need to really know what it is. I know your genre, the more specific you can be, the better and the [00:01:00] easier this process is going to be.
[00:01:02] So your first assignment, before you even get on Amazon, it says, find out what type of book you want to write and what genre it's going to fit into. Step two is identifying your book category on Amazon. This is where the bestseller lists on Amazon comes in to play.
[00:01:20] You get on Amazon and you look under the categories and subcategories of the books and there's going to be anything there from economics and self-help books to business books, to fantasy and history. Your task is to go through all the potential categories that your book could be on and narrow it down to the top three categories or subcategories that your book can potentially fit into. Write these down and keep them handy.
[00:01:45] After that comes step three, where you're looking to look for similar books and authors within your genre. Within each category and subcategory of Amazon, you'll be, you'll be presented with the top 100 bestselling books [00:02:00] that are within that category. From there. Your job is to find the books that are the most likely to share an audience with yours. Right down the author and the associated books. I recommend. Just going at it, getting a list of 50, but then really narrowing it down to the top 10 books.
[00:02:21] Once you've narrowed it down. Be sure to check the overall Amazon ranking for each of those books to make sure it's below the 50,000 mark so that, you know, At least selling decently.
[00:02:33] Step four is researching the authors in the book, social media activity. So now that you have your lists of books and the authors it's time to do some detective work and go onto the websites and associated social media platforms for each of the authors and their books. What kind of followers do they have? Is there a lot of engagement? Is there a little bit of engagement? This type of research is going to give you insights into whether your audience may be hanging [00:03:00] out on Facebook, Instagram, Tik, TOK, LinkedIn or another social media platform that's out there.
[00:03:07] If the numbers don't appear to be strong, it could be that the author has a strong email list and that's where they're pushing people to go and so their engagement on social media platforms may not be as strong as it appears.
[00:03:25] And then the final step is to choose your platform to focus on. As you've done your research, you will have a better idea of where your audience is hanging out. There may be multiple platforms that you've identified but I want you to start with just one for building your audience.
[00:03:41] Learn that platform learn the ins and outs learned how to learn, how to optimize your content. And then you're going to want to take whatever strategy you're using for that platform and funnel it all towards your website to build your email list through a capture form or some type of free offer.
[00:03:58] And there you have it, five set [00:04:00] process to help you identify your audience and where they're going to hang out using Amazon. It can be a bit of a time commitment, but the insights you're going to gain are worth their weight in gold. Go out there, do the research and you'll be able to learn and understand your audience and even a better and deeper level.
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[00:04:23] To get further help in coaching to find your audience by using Amazon
[00:04:28] visit juxta book.com to set up your author coaching session today.
[00:04:35] If you have any questions about a recent episode, I'd love to hear from you. Visit juxtabook.com/beyondthebook and click the appropriate button to leave your question and we will include it in our weekly Q&A episode.
[00:04:51] Your book is just one chapter in your author journey. Think beyond the book as you craft your path. Thank you for your questions and [00:05:00] thank you for listening.
