Top 10 Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

This is part of the WriteZero Top 10 Book Promotion Sites Guide for Authors & Publishers

This Top 10 List covers the best book promotion sites for promoting Action & Adventure books

The Top 10 – Top 10 Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

  1. Bookbub
    1. The largest book promotion site for Action & Adventure book promotions
    2. Bookbub gets the best results by far, out of all book promotion sites and marketing methods
    3. Bookbub has millions of readers for Adventure novels
    4. Bookbub is strong for all Adventure sub categories (because of the sheer number of readers)
    5. Bookbub only takes 10% to 20% of submissions, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t get approved the first few times you apply
      1. Just keep polishing your book and re-applying every month
  2. eReader News Today
    1. A very good and well trusted book promotion site that has been helping authors since 2010
      1. Has between half a million and a million readers
    2. Very Strong for Adventure
    3. Very reasonably priced
  3. Books Butterfly
    1. The 2nd largest book promotion site for Action & Adventure
      1. Over 750,000 of its 4 million readers are interested in Action & Adventure novels
    2. Strong in lots of different Action & Adventure categories
      1. Very Strong: Action & Adventure, Old West Adventure, Adventure Thrillers, Spy Adventure, War Action & Adventure
      2. Strong: Fantasy Adventure, Sea Adventure, Dystopian Adventure, Survival Adventure, Romance Adventure
      3. Decently Strong: Adventure overlapping with Mystery or Thriller or Historical Fiction, Space Adventure, Science Fiction Adventure
      4. Not Strong: Adventure with young adult protagonists or child protagonists, Women’s Adventure
    3. Books Butterfly has a dedicated Adventure email list, dedicated app, dedicated Adventure blog, and dedicated Adventure websites
    4. Disclosure: Books Butterfly is our Sister Company which has successfully run $1.9 million of book promotion packages
  4. Robin Reads
    1. Robin Reads is a very strong and effective book promotion site
    2. Delivers very good results for Action & Adventure
    3. Accepts only 10% of books submitted. Please make sure your book is very polished before you submit
  5. Book Sends
    1. A large and effective book promotion site
    2. Book Sends has been helping author since 2012. It has over a quarter of a million readers
    3. Delivers good results for Action & Adventure
  6. Free Booksy & Bargain Booksy
    1. Free Booksy promotes free books and is a Top 5 book promotion site for promoting Action & Adventure
    2. Bargain Booksy promotes paid books and is a Top 10 book promotion site for promoting Action & Adventure
    3. Reasonably strong in most Adventure categories
    4. Their combined size is between 750,000 and one million readers
  7. Fussy Librarian
    1. A very reasonably priced and effective book promotion site
    2. Works for some authors and doesn’t work for some. However, the price is very low so you can quickly test out whether or not it works for your novel
    3. Perhaps the easiest book promotion site to start with as it is very reasonably priced and is not overbearing in its acceptance criteria
  8. To Be Finalized
    1. We are evaluating additional Action & Adventure book promotion sites and will update spots #8, #9, and #10 in the near future
  9. To Be Finalized
  10. To Be Finalized

These are all very effective and trusted Action & Adventure book promotion sites. Your adventure novel should do well with 70% or more of these (which sites your book does well with, might vary from book to book)

Honorable Mentions – Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites that just missed the Top 10

  1. FKBT – Free Kindle Books & Tips
  2. OHFB – One Hundred Free Books
  3. Genre Pulse
  4. Book Gorilla
  5. Kindle Nation Daily

Action & Adventure, because of the large number of Adventure sub categories, is not something very many book promotion sites focus very much on. Hopefully, over time book promotion sites start focusing more on Action and Adventure

More importantly, they need to start creating separate lists for different Adventure sub categories. That would be much more efficient than having one giant list for all Adventure sub categories

Detailed Insights on the Top 10 Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

To Be Updated

We will, later on, add detailed insights for the Top 10 Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

Increasing Your Chances of Getting Accepted for an Action & Adventure Book Promotion with the Top Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

There are 8 things you can do to increase your chances of getting accepted at a top Action & Adventure book promotion site

  1. Write a very good, well written book which flows well and reads well
    1. It’s not enough to have a good story or a good idea
    2. The book must be very well written
    3. It must have been re-written 3 to 5 times to ensure the story flows smoothly and reads well
  2. Have Good Reviews and a Review Rating over 4 stars out of 5 stars
    1. Most of the top book promotion sites won’t accept books that don’t have reviews
    2. Even the ones that accept books without reviews are gradually switching to not accepting books without reviews
      1. Because authors with zero reviews have higher expectations than authors with 1,000 reviews
      2. There is not a single reader on the planet willing to vouch for your book and you think if the book doesn’t sell well it is someone else’s fault?
    3. In addition, you should have a review rating over 4 stars
      1. Books with ratings below 4 stars don’t do very well
  3. Have a very good Book Cover which matches the Action & Adventure genre
    1. Firstly, the book cover MUST be professionally designed
    2. Secondly, it must match genre conventions for the Action & Adventure genre
      1. Please note that Adventure sub genres each have their own sub genre conventions
      2. For Example: Sea Adventure novels MUST show the Sea and a Boat (or a Boat in a Dock; or a seascape)
  4. Get Professional Editing and Professional Proof reading
    1. This is absolutely not negotiable
    2. You must get professional editing
    3. You must get professional proof reading
  5. Ensure you know what your book’s categories are and place the book in those book categories
    1. Roughly 50% of authors don’t know what their book’s correct categories are
    2. Roughly 80% of the remaining 50% put their book into the wrong book categories
      1. Some due to carelessness
      2. Some because they are using some ‘strategy’
      3. Some because they don’t know you can pick book categories
    3. So you have 90% of authors putting their books into the wrong book categories
      1. It’s like placing your Biography in the Cookbooks section of a physical book store
        1. Are you expecting a reader looking for a cookbook to stumble, fall, grab your book by mistake, have it save him from hitting his head (somehow), and out of gratitude buy your Biography even though he intended to buy a cookbook?
      2. This is one of the reason most authors struggle to sell their books. Perhaps the main reason
  6. Ensure you have a full length, complete book which is a standalone book
    1. Indie Authors have burned readers and made them reluctant to buy any self published book
      1. Books in the wrong categories
      2. Half finished books with the 2nd half for $10 or $15
      3. One book split into 10 parts, for a total price of $25
      4. Books with no editing
      5. Books that are short stories pretending to be full length books
    2. You have to work around all that trauma readers have faced
    3. Make sure you have a full length book
    4. Make sure you clearly tell readers it is a full length book
    5. Make sure the book is a standalone
      1. If it is not a standalone, please make this clear to readers
  7. Price the book at a reasonable price (according to what readers think, not according to what you think)
    1. The Author thinks – I gave 2 years of my life to this book. Let’s price it between $10 and $20
    2. The Reader thinks – There are 1 million other authors pricing their book between $0.99 and $4.99. Is there a reason to pay $10 for this author’s book?
    3. Who do you think wins?
      1. The Reader ALWAYS wins
      2. The Market dictates the price to creators
      3. Creators cannot dictate the price to the Market
    4. Your best option is to see what prices work in your book genres
    5. Then go with those prices
  8. Pick the right book category to promote your book in
    1. If you have an Action Adventure novel you don’t have much choices
    2. At most book promotion sites there is an Action & Adventure category and that’s where you should promote it
    3. A few book promotion sites only have Thriller and you can promote Action & Adventure there if they don’t have a dedicated Adventure category
    4. When doing CPC Ads (such as Facebook Ads) you have to focus on Action, Adventure related keywords
    5. When doing Amazon Marketing Services Ads you have to focus on the book pages of popular Adventure Novels and the book pages of books from big name Action & Adventure authors

These are some additional things that help, thought they might not always be easy to do –

  1. Win a Big Award
    1. Only BIG awards that are nationally and internationally known count
    2. Example: RITA, Golden Heart, Golden Quill, Shamus, Edgar, Hugo, Nebula, etc
  2. Become a Bestseller
    1. Only New York Times Bestsellers List, USA Today Bestsellers List, and WSJ Bestsellers List count
    2. This counts for a lot. If you can become a bestseller in one of these 3 lists, your book sales go up for all books (provided you CLEARLY tell readers you’re a bestselling author and put it on the Book Cover)
    3. You can make yourself happy with Amazon Top 100 or Category Top 100
      1. However readers only care about the above three lists
  3. Have an exceptionally well written book
    1. In all the other criteria it sometimes gets overlooked. Having a beautifully written book is one of the most compelling things to get sales
      1. It is also one of the best ways to get approved at all the top Action & Adventure book promotion sites
  4. Write in a hot, emerging market which has low competition and high demand from readers
    1. The top book promotion sites are always looking to get more readers and to retain existing readers
    2. One of the best ways to do that is to get books in categories that have very high demand from readers
    3. So if you write in a hot, emerging market your chances of getting accepted are very high
  5. Have a very good Author Profile
    1. People are buying you as much as they are buying your book
    2. If you come across as a genuine person, who loves books and/or writing books, and seem like someone they would like to have a drink with, they will buy your book
    3. It’s not a requirement to be likable
      1. But it sure as heck helps
  6. Having a super Book Cover
    1. Use a world class book cover designer like www.GoOnWrite.com or www.Damonza.com and it helps sales and it helps getting accepted by the top Action & Adventure book promotion sites
  7. Have excellent Attention to Detail
    1. If you have very good attention to detail in the book cover, in your book title and book description, on your Author Profile, then it signals quality and polish and attention to detail in the book
  8. Have Zero mistakes and typographical errors in your book sample
    1. Bad editing and/or bad proof reading = a significant number of errors and typos
    2. Good Editing and good proof reading = only a few errors and typos
    3. Excellent Editing and Proof reading = zero errors in the book sample

Doing all of the above (or most of the above) leads to good book sales and ensures readers buying the book are happy. That is basically what the top Action & Adventure book promotion sites are looking for

  1. For your book to sell well, so you become a repeat customer
  2. For their readers to be happy with your book, so they (readers) remain customers (keep coming back)

It’s really that simple

Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites – Biggest Mistakes to Avoid

There are certain things that can kill your book promotion and marketing efforts. These are the top mistakes to avoid making –

  1. Writing a Book for a Market that does not exist
    1. Please do some market research and make sure a market exists for the book you are writing
    2. Even better, first do market research and find a good market
      1. Then write a book for that market
    3. Adventure and sub genres of Action & Adventure are growing markets
      1. There are lots of opportunities
      2. It will take a bit of effort to do the due diligence to find a good market
      3. It will be well worth it
  2. Writing the Wrong Book for the Right Market
    1. You’ve done the hard work to find a good market
    2. Now you have to finish the job and figure out what is the right product for this right market
    3. Writing the Right Book for the good market you have found is necessary
      1. Just finding a good market isn’t enough
  3. Making your Book Cover yourself or trying to save money on the Book Cover
    1. The fastest way to kill your book is to design the cover for it yourself
    2. The 2nd fastest way to kill your book is to get a cheap cover for $5 or $10 from a random book cover designer
    3. Your book cover is your biggest marketing and sales tool
    4. Your book cover is going to signal the quality and finish of your book
    5. Do you really want to save money on the single biggest determinant of whether or not your book sells well?
  4. Not getting a Professional Editor
    1. There is no solution other than get an experienced professional editor for your book who has experience in your book’s categories
    2. No other solution
    3. You can’t just be the King of Wishful Thinking and have your friend’s cousin’s retired English teacher aunt edit your book for you
  5. Not getting a Professional Proof Reader
    1. Again, your only viable option is to get an experienced professional proof reader and have him go through your book and find every single error
      1. Then you fix them all
  6. Spending a bunch of money on marketing while the book is still half baked
    1. If you have more money than you know what to do with, then disregard this point and spend as much as you want
      1. We do strongly recommend measuring results so you can figure out what works and what doesn’t
    2. If you have a non-infinite amount of money, then you should
      1. First, make sure your book is very well polished and ready for the market
      2. Only then should you start promoting and marketing your book
    3. Your marketing dollars will go 5 to 10 times further if you first make sure your book is well polished
      1. 90% of authors make the mistake of promoting a half baked book
      2. Please don’t be in that 90%
  7. Putting your Adventure Novel into a non Adventure category
    1. If three Adventure Novel authors went into a physical book store and
      1. The first told the book store owner – Just put it anywhere. I want to see if I get lucky and people looking for adventure novels find it randomly
      2. The second told the book store owner – I’ve heard Romance is very popular these days. Put my Adventure novel there. Perhaps a few romance novel readers will buy it. Surely, out of so many romance readers, at least a few also read Adventure
      3. The third told the book store owner – Put it into a category where it is easy to become a bestseller. I’ve heard Job Interview books is a small category. Put it there so that even a few sales will make it top of the Job Interview category
    2. The store owner would tell them – People who walk into my book store looking for Adventure novels, walk to the Adventure section. The ONLY way you are going to get book sales for your adventure novel is by putting it into the right category for your book, Adventure
    3. The EXACT same principles apply to online ebook stores
      1. Unfortunately, there is no one to stop authors from committing harakiri by putting their book in the wrong book categories
      2. Please don’t be the author who thinks Adventure novels go everywhere except in Adventure, and then wonders why the book is not selling
  8. Pricing the book wrong, or forgetting to change the price
    1. One of the biggest reasons a book promotion fails is that the author has forgotten to discount the book, or the book store has messed up the discount settings
      1. On the author side – Make sure to set the discount as soon as you purchase a book promotion package
        1. Even better – set the discount as soon as you can confirm dates
      2. On the store side – Set the discount to start 1 or 2 days BEFORE your book promotion starts
        1. The book stores mess up pricing 5% of the time
        2. If you are unlucky, you will still have a day to go in and fix the pricing
    2. Forgetting to change the price is another unbelievable and yet common mistake
      1. Most book stores take 1 to 5 days to reflect price changes
      2. If you are working through a digital distributor, it can be 3 to 10 days
      3. Set the pricing discount as soon as you set up the book promotions
  9. Not Asking for Reviews
    1. A Review is a reader vouching for the quality of your book
      1. Them telling other readers that your book is worth their time and money
    2. It is the Biggest thing to drive sales
    3. Why? Because readers trust other readers more than they trust anyone else
    4. You should ALWAYS ask readers for reviews
    5. Your aim should be to get 50% or more of the readers that like your book to leave a review
      1. We’ve discussed getting reviews in a separate section, further down in the post
    6. Please remember that reviews will be one of the main determinants of how well your book does
    7. Perhaps second only to writing The Right Book for The Right Market
  10. Being Impatient
    1. Take a look at the most successful authors
      1. None of them are young
      2. All of them have DECADES of experience of writing and publishing books
      3. None of them are ‘doing books on the side’ as a casual hobby
    2. You might be sold a dream
      1. That you can waltz into this market which has been around for CENTURIES (far longer than other markets like computers and mobile phones)
      2. That you can give 1 or 2 hours a day for a few weeks
      3. That it’s enough to become the next Stephen King
    3. That is literally a dream. It sells well because it is a dream
      1. The Truth is that very few authors become very successful
      2. The Truth is that most of the time it takes DECADES
    4. You have to be very patient
    5. You have to keep improving your skills

A very big part of succeeding as an author is not making critical mistakes that slow down your career progression. The above 10 mistakes are mistakes that you can and should avoid. Avoiding them will give you a big competitive advantage over everyone else because the vast majority of authors are going to get stuck for 1 to 5 years due to one of these mistakes

Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites – Improving the Results of Your Action & Adventure Book Promotion with the Top Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites

There are some key things you can do (and should do) to improve the results of your book promotion with the top Action & Adventure book promotion sites

  1. Coordinate everything well and set it up well in advance
    1. It takes a lot of work to schedule and set up a book promotion and marketing campaign
      1. You have to set up the discount
      2. You have to purchase all the book promotions
      3. You have to arrange them and schedule them
      4. You have to track and measure them
      5. You have to react to changes as and when they happen
    2. Ideally, you want to set everything up 1 to 3 months in advance
      1. If you delay things, it will turn into a real horror show
  2. Make sure your book is in the right Adventure categories and sub categories
    1. The biggest determinant of success will be
      1. Readers you are sending to your book page see the right book categories on your book page
        1. The book categories they read and expect to see
      2. As the book starts selling and starts rising in the Bestseller Charts for various categories and sub categories
        1. Those are the right categories
        2. If it isn’t in the right categories, the readers who see it in the Bestseller Charts will be readers who don’t buy books like yours
    2. Your book being in the right categories and sub categories affects BOTH
      1. Readers you send to the book page
      2. Readers in the store who see your book in the lists
    3. So, getting your book categories and sub categories PERFECT is absolutely imperative
  3. Have Reviews ready to go
    1. Ideally, you want to have 10 to 20 reviews from your most loyal readers come in within a few days of book launch
    2. At the minimum, you should have a few reviews from loyal readers come in within a few days of book launch
    3. Reviews are absolutely critical, and it is on you to ensure readers (ideally your most loyal readers) add reviews soon after the book is launched
  4. Get a world class book cover
    1. No other element affects the results of a book promotion as much as the book cover
    2. You could argue book reviews are just as important
    3. However, no one is going to look at book reviews if the book cover scares them off
    4. Get a very good, professionally designed book cover
    5. Get the best book cover you can afford
  5. Make sure your book is well polished, professionally edited, and professionally proof read
    1. All the marketing and promotion is not going to work if the product itself isn’t very high quality
    2. It’s on you to ensure your book is a very high quality product
      1. Professionally Edited
      2. Well Written
      3. Flows smoothly (requires rewriting the book)
      4. Reads Well
      5. Professionally proof read
    3. High Quality is also critical for long term success
      1. A good quality book will get good reviews, which will help future sales
      2. A good quality book will get word of mouth, which is perhaps the most effective natural book marketing
  6. Ensure that all the elements on your book page CLEARLY convey what the book categories are
    1. Each of – Book Cover, Book Title, Book Description, Categories on the Book Page, Author Profile – should clearly, and without any ambiguity whatsoever, convey what Adventure categories and subcategories your book falls into
    2. Make it crystal clear by including similar books and similar authors
    3. Readers should have a Perfect Image in their minds of what book categories your book falls into
      1. Most authors don’t have a Perfect Image even in their own minds
      2. So your first challenge would be figuring out EXACTLY what categories and sub categories your book falls into
      3. Your second challenge would be conveying that to readers
      4. Your third challenge would be to make sure you place your book in those exact categories and sub categories in the ebook store
      5. All three of these are critically, important, can be quite difficult to figure out, and should be taken seriously
  7. Be prepared for surprises
    1. Bad Reviews? Do you have enough good reviews that a few bad reviews don’t sink your book?
      1. You absolutely have to make sure that you have enough good reviews that a few unruly readers, or unhappy readers, can’t sink your book
    2. Pricing mistakes?
      1. Drop the price 1 or 2 days early
      2. Make sure the store doesn’t mess up pricing
      3. React quickly and ask for a correction ASAP if the store messes up something
    3. 1 or 2 book promotion sites falling through?
      1. Check and make sure you have some backup you can use, such as Facebook Ads
      2. Check and ensure it is not something on your end (a pricing error)
    4. Store making an error?
      1. Get in touch with them ASAP
      2. All store issues are 100% on the author to fix. The book promotion sites can’t help you if the store has the wrong price
    5. Book not selling as well as expected?
      1. Measure and Adjust
      2. Gather as much data as you can
      3. Study and analyze the data
      4. Listen to the Market
      5. What is the market telling you?
  8. Collect as much data as possible on what is working and what is not working
    1. In the short term – doing well and selling books is the most important thing
    2. In the long term – getting data and feedback on what works and what doesn’t is far more important
    3. What readers are buying your book?
    4. What readers are not buying your book?
    5. What book promotion sites are working?
    6. What book promotion sites are not working?
    7. What prices are working?
    8. What book prices are not working?
  9. Listen to What The Market is Telling You
    1. The Market is telling you everything you need to know to do well as an Author
    2. It’s up to you whether you LISTEN TO THE MARKET or ignore it
  10. Remove as many Assumptions as Possible. Remove as much guess work as possible
    1. Authors need to be in the creative mindset when writing their books
    2. HOWEVER
    3. When doing book promotion and marketing they need to get into a Sales & Marketing mindset
    4. This involves a few very challenging things
      1. Remove the assumption that your book is a masterpiece
        1. The market will tell you whether it is a masterpiece or not
      2. Remove the assumption that your book is perfect and if it doesn’t sell, you have to find someone to shoulder the blame
        1. It is YOUR BOOK. If it doesn’t sell you are 100% responsible for fixing the issues that are causing it to not sell
      3. Remove the assumption that what works for one authors, will work for every other author
        1. Different authors do well using different marketing strategies
        2. Different books (even ones from the same author) do well on different book promotion sites
      4. Measure as much as you can
      5. Measure as many things as you can
    5. You should get as close to REALITY as you can
      1. Your mind has painted an image of you becoming the next great author
        1. This is great when motivating yourself to write
        2. This is great when putting hard work into polishing and rewriting your book
        3. However, it becomes your enemy when doing book promotion and marketing
      2. When marketing the book
        1. The Market tells you how good your book is
        2. If it is selling very well, then it is great
        3. If it isn’t selling well, then it is not so great
          1. Regardless of how beautiful it is in your eyes
    6. The closer you get to Reality, the more you listen to the market, the better you will do as an author
  11. Eliminate Friction for Readers
    1. Make it as easy as possible for them to purchase as possible
    2. Remove all doubts
    3. Remove all confusion
    4. [Again] Make the book categories and sub categories super clear
    5. [Again] Make your book as polished as possible

There is a gap between

  1. What an Author thinks of their book
  2. What the Market thinks of the Author’s Book

The Market Always wins. So, if an author wants to do well

  1. The Author has to create a very polished product
  2. Promote it to the Exact Right set of Readers
  3. Listen to the Market (measure everything the Market is sign)
  4. Keep making Changes, until the Market thinks as fondly of the author’s book, as the author does
  5. The Market is not going to change its mind
    1. So it is up to you to change your mind and fix the book to be EXACTLY what the market is asking for

Please think very carefully about this – The Market ALWAYS Wins. In every market, the people who win are the ones who Create the Exact Product that the Market is asking for

The Critical Importance of Getting Your Book Genres Right when Promoting an Action & Adventure Book

The Game is Won or Lost in the Selection of Genres & Sub Genres

Part 1 – Please don’t put Adventure books into non Adventure genres

There are a few limited cases where you can put Adventure novels into other genres

  1. Adventure Thrillers can be put into Thriller category
  2. Romance Adventure & Romance Suspense can be put into Romance. In fact, they are better off in Romance
  3. Old Western Adventures can be put into Historical Fiction, provided you clearly indicate the book is a Cowboy Western/Cowboy Adventure and not ‘Historical Fiction’ Historical Fiction
  4. Survival Adventure and Post Apocalyptic Adventure can be put into Science Fiction, though they will do better in Adventure as Survival Adventure and Thriller as Survival Thriller and Post Apocalyptic Thriller
  5. Women’s Adventure can be put into Women’s Fiction, In fact, they will sell slowly in Adventure and fast in Women’s Fiction
  6. Science Fiction Adventure should go into Science Fiction, and not Adventure
  7. Fantasy Adventure should go into Fantasy, and not Adventure

Apart from these cases, and a few other cases, you should never ever put your Adventure novel into a non-Adventure category

It backfires and leads to bad reviews and low sales

You will get MUCH better sales if you put your Adventure book into Adventure categories

Part 2 – Please put Action & Adventure novels into the right Action & Adventure sub categories

Action & Adventure has a lot of sub categories and these sometimes have very little overlap. You cannot send a book in one Adventure sub category to all Adventure readers

Well, you can. However, it would not be as effective as promoting to readers in the perfect right Adventure sub categories

Let’s consider a few examples of what we mean

  1. You have a Sea Adventure Novel. You think you can just put it into all adventure categories
    1.  Well, readers in all of the following Adventure sub categories will have minimal interest in it
      1. Action Adventure readers
      2. Old West Adventure Readers
      3. Futuristic Adventure Readers
      4. Post Apocalyptic Adventure Readers
      5. Survival Adventure readers (unless it is a tale of survival)
    2. On the other hand, readers in Mystery and Thriller might be very interested (depending on whether it has a mystery element, or a thriller element)
    3. So you might get the best results by promoting it to Sea Adventure book readers and Mystery book readers
  2. You have an Old West Adventure
    1. It will be of great interest to readers who read
      1. Old West Adventure
      2. Action Adventure
      3. Historical Fiction
    2. It will be of very little interest to readers who read
      1. Any Futuristic or Techno Adventure
      2. Post Apocalyptic or Dystopian Adventure
      3. Adventure Thrillers
  3. The message we are trying to convey is that you should figure out what are the best genres and sub genres to promote your Adventure novel in
    1. Then focus on readers in those genres only

Action & Adventure is an under-served category. The readers are therefore very patient

You are not going to get hammered with negative reviews for getting the categories and sub categories wrong

You will, however, lose your money and time if you promote it to the wrong readers

Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites Insights – Make Sure Your Book Has Action and/or Adventure

This might be a crazy thing to write. Yet, roughly 40% of authors classifying their books as ‘Adventure’ novels and/or ‘Action’ novels, have books with close to zero Action & Adventure

  1. Please make sure your book has Adventure in it, if you are going to put it into an Adventure category
  2. Please make sure your book has Action, if you are going to say it’s an Action Novel
  3. To get a good idea of what Action & Adventure means, you can check out
    1. Action & Adventure novels in the book stores
    2. Action & Adventure movies
      1. If you’ve written Hope Floats in book form, please don’t put it in Adventure
        1. It should go into Women’s Fiction or Sleep Therapy
    3. Action & Adventure games

Wikipedia has a passably good description of Adventure Fiction

You want to make sure you have the key ‘Adventure Elements’ i.e.

  1. A fast paced plot
  2. Focused on the protagonist’s actions and adventures
  3. Danger
  4. Physical Action
  5. The events are something out of the ordinary i.e. the protagonist would not experience those ‘adventures’ in the course of their normal life

There are lots of different Adventure & Action sub genres, each with their own set of readers. Please make sure you have a book that meets their reading expectations

Becoming a Bestseller – Leveraging the Top Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites to Become a Bestseller

The good news is that Adventure is not as competitive as some other book genres (Romance, Mystery, Thriller, Steamy Romance)

The bad news is that it still takes a boatload of book sales to become a bestseller. Why? Because a lot of books that should be in Thriller or Fantasy or Science Fiction or Mystery get classified as Adventure by the authors

Everyone knows Adventure is under-served and has less competition. So they put their ‘not exactly Adventure’ novels into Action & Adventure categories

Your big advantage will be that you actually have an Action & Adventure novel. Action & Adventure readers are more likely to give you a good review. Action & Adventure readers are more likely to refer your book to other Action & Adventure readers

You will still have to do an immense amount of work to ensure you get lots of book sales. This includes getting book promotion slots with as many of the Top 10 Adventure book promotion sites as will accept you (or as your budget allows)

6 Key Things if you want to Become a Bestselling Author with your Action & Adventure Book

It’s a waste of money and time if you don’t ensure these 6 Key Things BEFORE you take a shot at getting Bestseller Status

Please make sure you have

  1. An Adventure Novel
    1. All your marketing efforts will be for naught if you try to sell a non-adventure novel to adventure readers
  2. A well polished book which is professionally edited, professionally proof read, and has excellent fit and finish
  3.  A professionally designed book cover which matches the Adventure & Action genre conventions for book covers
    1. Please let the book cover designer design a book that matches genre conventions
  4. Have a very well planned book promotion
    1. Regardless of what type of Bestseller Status you are going for, you will have to very carefully coordinate everything
  5. Use marketing methods that work for promoting Adventure novels
    1. The Top 10  Action & Adventure book promotion sites listed at the beginning of this post
    2. Facebook Ads targeted at Action & Adventure readers
  6. Have reviews and a review rating over 4 stars out of 5 stars

These 6 things are absolutely necessary and we strongly recommend doing these BEFORE making a Bestseller Push

Becoming a Category Bestseller

Becoming a Category Bestseller at Amazon Kindle Store is relatively straight forward

  1. Main Adventure Category – requires 1,000+ sales in a week
    1. However, to be on the safe side aim for 2,000+ sales in a week
  2. Adventure Sub Category – Requires 100 to 200 sales in a week
  3. Adventure Sub Sub Category – Requires 30 to 50 sales in a week

Getting this number of sales is quite doable

  1. If you can get Bookbub, then Bookbub alone will get you to #1 in the main Adventure category
    1. A Book bub in adventure will usually get you between 1,000 to 3,000 sales in a day
  2. If you can’t get Bookbub, then you have to focus on becoming a bestseller in an Adventure sub category as 1,000+ sales in a week are out of reach
  3. You must get 2 or more of out
    1. eReader News Today
    2. Books Butterfly
    3. Robin Reads
  4. You can supplement those with
    1. A few of the remaining Top 10 Adventure Book Promotion Sites
    2. Facebook Ads
    3. Bookbub CPC Ads
    4. Amazon Marketing Services
  5. You can take a shot at Category Bestseller status even with a new book, provided it is well polished and has at least a few good reviews and a review rating over 4 stars out of 5 stars
    1. Reviews are non negotiable
    2. A very well polished book is also non negotiable

To ensure you become a Category Bestseller you must use a combination of categories

You can contact kdp.amazon.com Help and add up to 10 categories to your  book. Please use all 10 categories and please make sure all of them are categories that fit your book very well

When going for Category Bestseller, you want to go with

  1. 3 Large Sized Adventure Categories
    1. Main Adventure category
    2. Large Adventure categories such as Adventure Thriller, Fantasy Adventure, Action & Adventure, etc.
  2. 3 Medium Sized Adventure Categories
    1. Categories such as Sea Adventures, Spy Adventures, War Adventure, etc.
  3. 2 Small Sized Adventure Categories
    1. Whichever small adventure sub categories or adventure sub sub categories are a good fit
  4. [Only if applies to your book] 2 Genres outside of Adventure your book fits into very well
    1. For Romance Adventures – Romantic Suspense, Romance are good choices
    2. For a Fantasy Adventure – Epic Fantasy or Fantasy depending on where it fits in
    3. For Futuristic Adventures – Science Fiction or Cyberpunk or Time Travel Science Fiction
    4. For Historical Adventures – Historical Fiction (requires historical accuracy)
    5. And so forth
  5. The scenario you are looking for is
    1. Become #1 Bestseller in one of the small categories early on
    2. Sales momentum starts getting you featured in Store lists such as Bestseller Lists
    3. You then make it to #1 or Top 10 in one of the medium categories
    4. The combination of continued book promotion and higher visibility takes you higher
    5. You can reach Top 10 Bestseller status in one of your Large Adventure categories

The key determinant of success is picking the Absolute Best Right Fit Adventure Categories & Sub Categories

Becoming an Amazon Top 100 Bestseller

You need 1,000 to 2,500 sales in a week to become an Amazon Top 100 Bestseller

You can also get it in one shot by getting 2,000+ sales in a day. However, that is a more risky move, and it is better to slowly ramp up and get 1,000 to 2,500 sales in a week

To get this you need a very specific book promotion set up

  1. You must get Bookbub, which is the largest adventure book promotion site
  2. You must get 2 or more of the #2 to #4 Adventure book promotion sites – eReader News Today, Books Butterfly, Robin Reads
  3. You must add on sales via
    1. Facebook Ads
    2. A few of the remaining Top 10 Adventure book promotion sites
    3. Amazon Marketing Services Ads

Your book promotion set up should be

  1. Day 1 – start with a few small adventure book promotion sites and Facebook Ads
  2. Day 2 – ramp up Facebook Ads and (optionally) start Amazon Marketing Services Ads
  3. Day 3 – Books Butterfly (the promotions are 5 to 10 days in duration so starting Day 3 works very well)
  4. Day 4 – 2 of the Top 10 Adventure book promotion sites, continue Facebook Ads
  5. Day 5 – Bookbub, a couple of the Top 10 Adventure book promotion sites
  6. Day 6 – as many of the remaining Top 10 Adventure book promotion sites as possible

This is a reliable ay to get to the Top 100 Amazon Bestsellers lists

Becoming a New York Times or USA Today Bestselling Author

Firstly, this costs a LOT of money. You have to have a very polished book and you have to have a large enough marketing budget

Secondly, you will need to get between 4,000 and 10,000 sales within a one week time period. Again, this requires a massive amount of marketing and it requires a very polished book

Thirdly, let’s look at how to make this possible. The things you will need are

  1. A very polished book
    1. The more polished the book is, the easier to get book sales
    2. Conversely, if a book is not very polished, it is neigh impossible to get 4,000 to 10,000 book sales
    3. Have you rewritten your book 3 or more times to make it better?
    4. Have you employed a professional book editor and a professional book designer?
    5. Have you employed a professional book cover designer?
  2. Knowledge and understanding of effective book promotion methods and book promotion sites
    1.  This is why we advise that you avoid trying for the big Bestseller lists with your first book, or as a new author
    2. You have to figure out what marketing methods and what book promotion sites work for your book
      1. This varies from author to author
  3. A large and loyal reader base
    1. While this is not necessary, it is very strongly recommended
    2. Loyal readers will buy your book, which helps with sales
    3. Most importantly, loyal readers will leave good reviews for your book, which massively helps increase sales from every book promotion and marketing method you use
  4. [If possible] Having a strong brand or a very unique selling point
    1. We do understand that this is not easy or even possible
    2. However, if you can create a unique selling point for yourself, it is a big help
    3. Equally helpful, is if you can create a very strong brand
  5. Adherence to book genre conventions
    1. Your book title, book cover, book description, author profile, and book categories must all match Adventure genre conventions
  6. Book placed in the Absolute Right Book Categories
    1. Any type of ‘gaming the system’ will backfire
    2. Any type of carelessness when selecting genres will cause massive problems
    3. You must put the book in the right book categories and the right sub categories
  7. Book promoted as the Absolute Right Book Categories and to the Absolute Right Readers
    1. You must promote it to Adventure book readers
    2. If possible, you must promote it to Adventure book readers in your book’s EXACT Adventure sub categories
    3. When promoting, the book genre displayed in all the promotion and marketing sites and methods must match the book’s actual book categories
  8. A very well laid out plan that is flexible (in case of things going wrong) and well structured
    1. There will always be things that go wrong. Be prepared to fix problems quickly and effectively
    2. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link – you cannot have weaknesses
    3. You must set things up so that your most loyal readers start leaving reviews as early after book launch as possible
    4. Plan things out at least 2 months in advance
    5. Keep the ENTIRE week of your Bestseller Push as free as possible
      1. The last thing you want is to be spending time doing some other work or errands, while there is a big emergency with your book marketing push that goes unhandled
  9. Very good measurement of what is going on
    1. First, you have to make sure that you are on target to get 4,000 to 10,000 book sales within a week
      1. So you need very good measurement of how things are going, what is working, and what is not working
    2. Second, you have to measure effectiveness and figure out what works and what doesn’t work
      1. The information of what works and what doesn’t work is going to help you A LOT for all your books and all your future book promotions

Going for the big lists (New York Times Bestseller List, USA Today Bestseller List) is very tough and requires a lot of money. Perhaps most of all, it requires a very well polished book

We strongly recommend approaching it only after you understand Books and Publishing very well

How to Increase the Number of Reviews you get after promoting your Action & Adventure Book

Getting reviews for your Action & Adventure Book is relatively easier than getting reviews for books in other genres. There are 3 main reasons for this

  1. Action & Adventure is a slightly under-served book category
    1. More Demand than Supply means readers are more appreciative of Adventure Novels
  2. Readers in the various Action & Adventure sub categories are VERY avid readers
    1. They read a lot and they never have enough to read
    2. Think of yourself as a Michelin Star Chef serving high quality food to diners who are starved for a week
      1. If your food is good they will love it
      2. If your food is very good they will be ecstatic
  3. Readers in Action & Adventure are generally very chill people
    1. In some genres (Political Fiction, some Non Fiction categories, Literary Fiction) readers can hold authors to a very exacting standard
    2. Adventure readers are very laid back
      1. The Dude Abides
    3. In Adventure, they just want to be entertained, and even if you fail they don’t take it personally

In some ways, writing Adventure Novels is the perfect set up for an Author. If you do great you get a lot of appreciation. If you mess up, they don’t come for you

So, provided you do 3 Main Things you will get good reviews

  1. Write very well
    1. You have to make sure your book is very well written, flows smoothly, and is a fun read
  2. Polish your book very well
    1. Absolutely no errors or typographical mistakes
    2. A good editor so that the book comes together well
  3. Categorize your book correctly, and promote it to the exact right set of readers
    1. Figure out with absolute certainty what Adventure genres and sub genres it fits into
    2. Promote to readers in those genres and, to the extent possible, only to readers in those genres

Now, of course, we don’t just want to get a few reviews, we want to get a good number of reviews

To get a good number of reviews, and to mostly get positive reviews, we need to do the following things (we will re-include the above 3 Main Things)

  1. Write Very Well
    1. Keep improving your writing skills
    2. Keep improving how well your book flows
    3. Keep improving how immersive your book is
      1. Spirit them away to a land of adventure and excitement
  2. Polish your book very well
    1. Have respect for your readers money and, more importantly, for their time
    2. Polish polish polish until your rough diamond is a crystal cut diamond
  3. Categorize your book correctly and promote it to the exact right set of readers
    1. The Game is Won or Lost in the Selection of Categories
    2. The more accurate and honest you will be in selecting book categories for your book, the more long term success you will experience
  4. Ask for Reviews
    1. The single biggest thing you can do to get reviews, is EXCEEDINGLY SIMPLE
    2. Just ASK FOR REVIEWS!!!
    3. Most readers have no idea that authors would like reviews
    4. Strangely, even though readers always read reviews before buying a book, they forget to leave reviews for books they like
    5. A gentle reminder will ensure that readers who like your book know that you would appreciate a review
      1. Then the number of reviews you get will increase, depending on what percentage of readers like your book
      2. That, in turn, depends on how much effort you put into writing and rewriting your book
      3. AND ALSO on how much polish you added to the book via professional editing, professional proof reading and other fit and finish aspects
  5. Ask for Reviews Nicely, to the Right Readers, and At The Right Times
    1. This might seem a bit counter-intutive
    2. You don’t want to ask everyone for a review
      1. Figure out a way to ask people who like your book to leave a review
      2. One good indicator of a reader liking your book is that they read your entire book
    3. You don’t want to ask readers at a low point
      1. So make sure to ask readers at a point that their enjoyment of the book is high or at its peak
  6. Write a Lot of Books, or write a long series
    1. For every 20 books a reader reads
      1. 10 are abject and can’t even be finished
      2. 5 are useless and the reader somehow trudges through them, and then feels it was a waste of time
      3. 3 are good and make readers happy
      4. 1 is very good and makes them really happy
      5. 1 is exceptional and makes them super happy
      6. Please keep in mind that it might take a reader between 2 months and a year to get through 20 books
        1. So across an entire year (20 books) there are only 3 good books, 1 very good book, and 1 exceptional book that a reader gets to experience
    2. Because it takes so much effort to find very good and exceptional books
      1. Readers really appreciate it when a good or very good author has lots of books
      2. In theory, if a very good authors has 10 books
        1. A reader can get TEN great reading experiences in their next 10 reads
        2. Contrast this with their earlier success rate of 1 exceptional and 1 very good read out of 20 – Just 10%
        3. 100% is a lot better than 10%
          1. Even if you move the goalposts and include ‘good’ books, readers are still only getting 25% reading satisfaction
          2. 100% beats 25% quite handily too
    3. If you are a very good author (or working towards becoming one)
      1. The best thing you can do to build a following, get lots of good reviews, and become successful as an author is
        1. Write a lot of Books
        2. Even better if they are all in one series (though they need to be as standalone as possible, unless you’re writing Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings)
  7. Sell a Lot of Books
    1. The more books you sell, the more reviews you will get
    2. Whether you have a good rate of getting reviews, or a low rate of getting reviews, selling more books will benefit you
    3. Sell more and more books, and that is one guaranteed way to get more reviews
  8. Keep improving the Quality of Your Writing
    1. This is paramount
    2. In the end the quality of your book revolves around how well you can write
    3. The more you work on your writing skills, the easier everything else will become
  9. Promote only to Readers in the RIGHT Action & Adventure categories
    1. Action & Adventure readers are quite accommodating
      1. They are not going to write bad reviews if you put your book in the wrong Adventure/Action sub category
        1. As opposed to readers in genres outside of Adventure who will most definitely give you bad reviews if you pretend your Adventure novel is something other than Adventure
      2. At the same time, you are not going to get reviews from readers in the wrong sub category
        1. If your book is a Sea Adventure, promote and market only to those readers
        2. If your book is an Adventure Thriller, promote to Adventure and Thriller categories
        3. If your book is a Romance Adventure, promote primarily to Romance readers as Adventure readers are not really into Romance
    2. Your results will be significantly better if you promote to readers in the Exact Adventure genres and subgenres which your book falls into
  10. Set the Right Expectations
    1. Basically you want to set the bar high enough that the reader buys
    2. But not so high that the reader is expecting Old Man and the Sea
    3. You also want to set absolutely perfect expectations about what genre of book it is, page length, whether it is a standalone or not, and so forth

Getting Reviews becomes easier as you understand your readers better and figure out what works for your particular book categories

Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites vs Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads have some very big strengths

  1. Facebook has 2 billion+ people. That’s more than you can find almost anywhere else
    1. Even if we assume only 10% read books, that’s still 200 million readers you can reach
  2.  Facebook allows you to target to very specific sets of readers, of any size
    1. You can target a very small, very niche set of readers
    2. You can target a very large set of readers
    3. You can target pretty much any set of people on Facebook
  3. If Facebook Ads work for you (they work for between 40% to 60% of authors, provided you can understand how to use Facebook Ads), then you can get good Return on Investment
    1. You can generally make back $1 to $3 for every $1 you spend on Facebook Ads
  4.   Facebook Ads are very good for creating a slow, steady stream of readers visiting your book page
    1. This is very important as you don’t want your books to disappear
    2. Even a few sales a day ensure that the book stays visible in the ebook stores
  5. Facebook Ads let you target by region and by city and by country
    1. This is priceless if your book is focused on a particular country or region

Facebook Ads also have some drawbacks

  1. You have to become very good at Facebook Ads. It’s a skill
    1. If you aren’t good at it, you won’t be able to make it work
    2. The other option is to hire a Facebook marketing expert. That does add roughly 20% to 25% to the Facebook Ads marketing cost
  2. You have to understand the bidding mindset
    1. Facebook Ads are a bidding auction
    2. You are bidding against other authors, other companies, and other entrepreneurs for people’s attention
  3. Facebook Ads cannot create a big spike of sales
    1. Because it is a bidding system it is not very expensive when going for a small number of sales each day
    2. However, if you start going for a medium or large number of sales you have to really increase your bids and the cost skyrockets
  4. Facebook Ads will not work at all for some authors, and will not work well for another set of authors
    1. Roughly 20% to 25% of authors will not see any results from Facebook Ads
      1. Sometimes it’s due to not being able to make Facebook Ads work
      2. Sometimes it’s due to Facebook Ads just not being right for your book
    2. Another 25% to 30% of authors will not be able to get anywhere close to break even with Facebook Ads
    3. So there is a clear 50%-50% divide with 50% of authors able to use Facebook Ads to get sales, and the remaining 50% not being able to leverage the power of Facebook Ads
  5. Facebook Ads become more competitive over time
    1. Some marketing channels like Google ads are very saturated and expensive
    2. Facebook Ads are not saturated yet. However, they are getting there
    3. As you are competing against EVERYONE ELSE for Facebook users’ attention, it can often be very competitive
      1. Bidding Auction system means that competition increase prices
      2. Authors will often get completely priced out

What’s quite interesting is that Facebook Ads are strong in some of the areas book promotion sites are weak (having billions of readers) and weak in some areas book promotion sites are strong (creating sales spikes)

The Top Adventure Book promotion sites are – very simple to use (don’t require tech savvy), can create big sales spikes (or small sales spikes), work well with Facebook Ads, no bidding system and price is generally fixed, are 100% readers

Authors have the opportunity to create a very powerful combination –

  1. Use the best Adventure book promotion sites to create sales spikes and raise your book’s sales rank
  2. Support the higher rank with Facebook Ads
  3. Keep using the top Adventure book promotion sites to keep creating small and large jumps in sales rank
  4. Continue to support the higher rank with Facebook Ads
  5. You can, basically, create a steady stream of sales with some spikes, by combining Facebook Ads with the top adventure book promotion sites

For many adventure authors, these will become the top two marketing methods for their books

Action & Adventure Book Promotion Sites – Facebook Ads Vs Amazon Marketing Services Ads

Amazon Marketing Services are a smaller, less effective, and more complicated version of Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads are generally better because

  1. Facebook Ads can target 2 billion people that use Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp
    1. Amazon Marketing Services Ads can target only Amazon users who visit book pages
    2. While 200 million+ people visit Amazon, only 10 to 40 million people visit the book pages
    3. Facebooks thus has access to 50 to 200 times more people
    4. If we assume that 10% of Facebook users buy and read books, we get 200 million readers
    5. Even with that lower figure, Facebook Ads will give you access to 5 to 20 times more readers than Amazon Marketing Services
  2. Facebook Ads work for roughly 50% of authors, and work very well for 25%of authors
    1. Amazon Marketing Services work for only 25% of Authors, and work very well for 15% of authors
  3. Facebook Ads are difficult to learn. They are, however, predictable to an extent and can be learned
    1. Amazon Marketing Services are even tougher to learn
    2. Additionally, they are not easy to learn and keep evolving

If Facebook Ads work for you, it might not be worth it to do Amazon Marketing Services

If Facebook Ads and the top Adventure book promotion sites are both working for you, then Amazon Marketing Services are a luxury you will probably not be able to afford time for

There are, however, some unique advantages of Amazon Marketing Services that are worth considering

  1.  Amazon Marketing Services let you show your book on the pages of popular books, and on the book pages of popular authors
    1. This is a pretty amazing feature that lets you target very specific sets of readers
  2. Using Amazon Marketing Services will help you figure out what books and what authors are similar to your book
    1. If readers are buying your book after coming from specific book pages, that book is similar to yours
    2. This will give you great insight into what your book actually is
      1. Most authors don’t really know what book genres their book is in
    3. This is actually priceless
      1. Knowing WHO you should promote your book to, is the Key to Success
  3.  If you can get Amazon Marketing Services Ads to work, you get a clear advantage over the 75% of people who will never be able to get it to work
  4. Amazon Marketing Services is a significant marketing channel. It adds on very nicely to Facebook Ads and the Top 10 Adventure Book Promotion Sites

Amazon Marketing Services is worth taking a shot at

The 3 Core Skills for Authors

There are lots of different skills and areas Authors can focus on. At times, it can be quite overwhelming

The most important 3 Skills, and the ones on which ALL authors should focus, are

  1. Knowing What to Write
    1. This is the skill of figuring out what market you should write for, and what book you should write for that market
    2. A lot of it is hard work and market research
    3. There is also an element of instinct
    4. This is a learnable skill
    5. The more you study markets and what sells and what doesn’t sell, the better you get at this Skill of Knowing What to Write
  2. Writing Very Well
    1. This is the skill of writing a beautifully written book which readers love reading
    2. Practice makes Perfect applies to this Skill – the more you write, the better writer you will become
    3. You also need to market test your book i.e. you have to ensure that what you write is actually delighting readers
    4. The best two tests of Writing Very Well are – getting good book sales, getting a high number of good reviews
    5. This is perhaps the hardest skill to master in terms of time. It can take 10 to 40 years to become a world class writer
      1. It is not a coincidence that nearly all the best authors are quite old
  3. Marketing Very Well
    1. This is the skill of marketing the book to the right readers, marketing it well so that readers recognize clearly that the book will satisfy their needs, and closing the deal by getting the sale
    2. We say ‘Marketing Very Well’ for conciseness. This is the Skill of – Finding the Right Readers, Marketing Very Well, and Selling Very Well
    3. This might be the toughest skill for Authors because authors are naturally averse (as are most people) to doing marketing and sales
      1. Finding the Right Market just takes hard work
      2. Writing Very Well just takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time
      3. Marketing & Selling Very Well takes learning two new skillsets (Marketing, Sales) and also going out of your comfort zone and understanding marketing and sales and DOING marketing and sales

These 3 Skills are absolutely vital

If you become very good at all three of these skills, you will almost certainly have a long and productive and successful career as an Author

Please also read this post on Levels of Mastery of The 3 Core Skills to better understand the 3 Core Skills for Authors

How the 3 Core Skills apply to Action & Adventure Book Promotion

The 3 Core Skills are absolutely vital to Action & Adventure Book Promotion

  1. Knowing What to Write
    1. While the level of competition in Action & Adventure book categories is not crazy high (as it is in Romance, Thriller, etc), there is a huge variation between different sub categories of Action & Adventure
      1. A few Action & Adventure book categories are over saturated
      2. A few categories have readers starved of books
      3. The rest vary in terms of balance between supply and demand
    2. If you do proper market research, you can write for an Adventure sub category where readers are dying for books, will buy every book you write (provided it is well written), and will really appreciate you as an author
    3. On the other hand, if you don’t do market research, you run the risk of
      1. Writing for a market that doesn’t exist. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to an author
      2. Writing for a market that is too small
      3. Writing for a market where the competition is too strong
  2. Writing Very Well
    1. Action & Adventure the bar is not as high as other book categories
    2. HOWEVER, writing very well will create a very strong brand, will build a huge readership, and will position you very well for the possibility that in the future Action & Adventure becomes a more saturated book category
    3. Please do keep in mind that we are seeing only the tip of the iceberg for ebooks right now
      1. There are 1 billion+ people in Africa, 1.3 billion people in China, and 1.4 billion people in Africa who cannot afford $10 to $30 paperbacks and $5 to $15 ebooks
      2. However, they can afford $1 to $3 ebooks
      3. They will buy
      4. We are seeing 3% to 5% of the eventual demand for ebooks
      5. If you can become the Big Brand Name Author for a book category or even a book sub category, you have a good chance from benefitting massively from the eventual rise of ebooks
  3. Marketing Very Well
    1. In Action & Adventure the biggest challenge is reaching the right readers
      1. Even very large book promotion sites like Bookbub (10 to 15 million readers) and Books Butterfly (4 million readers) have only an Action & Adventure list and no dedicated marketing method for Adventure sub categories
      2. You have to figure out some way to reach readers in your particular sub category of Adventure
      3. Then you have to figure out how to convince them to buy your book
    2. Right now, with the relatively low level of competition in Action & Adventure books, it is very critical to market and get sales and build up your brand
      1. One mindset says – Marketing isn’t that important because competition is low. Even with weak marketing you can do well in Action & Adventure
      2. Another mindset says – Marketing is even more important because competition is low. You can create a large reader base and build a very big brand
      3. We prefer the 2nd mindset
    3. You have to learn marketing and sales. It’s a golden opportunity to become the Stephen King of Adventure
      1. Even being the Stephen King of a sub category of Adventure is too rich an opportunity to pass up

So, yes, the 3 Core Skills for Authors do apply to Adventure Book Promotion

The 7 Golden Rules of Action & Adventure Book Promotion

To increase your chances of being successful as an Action & Adventure author, these are the 8 Golden Rules to follow

  1. Listen to the Market and Give It What It Wants
    1. On one side are lots of readers with their wallets in their hands, just dying to give you their money
      1. All you have to do is write the book they want to read
    2. On the other side are a handful of readers, with their hands firmly in their pockets, not sure why you are trying to convince them to buy something they don’t want to read
    3. What side would you choose?
      1. The #1 mistake authors make is they never embrace the cruel, harsh reality that absolutely no one buys something they don’t want to buy
      2. If you write what the market wants to buy, the market will reward you with success and wealth
      3. If you write what you want to write but no one wants to read, then no amount of stubbornly trying to change readers’ minds would work
        1. If being stubborn is more important to you than being successful, then be content with that
        2. The most important thing is to be happy
        3. If, however, you are willing to take the short term extreme unhappiness of writing what readers want to buy instead of what makes you happy to write, you will get the lasting long term happiness of becoming a successful author
  2. Product Market Fit is more important than every thing else combined
    1. Ask authors what they think is ‘the secret of succeeding as an author’ and you will get 40 different answers
    2. You will be lucky if even one answer matches the actual correct answer
      1. The secret of success is – creating the product that people are dying to purchase
    3. If you write The Right Product for The Right Market (Product Market Fit) then you will do very well
    4. It’s not just that it is more important than writing well, or marketing well, or any other factor
    5. Product Market Fit is more important than every other thing combined
      1. If you have Product Market Fit then even a half polished book that is marketed half-heartedly will sell
      2. We don’t recommend it. However, that is the power of Product Market Fit
  3. Adventure is up for the Taking – Seize the Moment and Build Your Brand
    1. You will be hard pressed to find any other book category where authors with ‘I made it myself on Photoshop’ covers are still able to sell books at a good rate
    2. Some Action & Adventure categories are so under-served that even authors with sales-repelling covers can sell tens of thousands of books
    3. All you have to do is write the right book for the right market, make sure it is high quality and well packaged, and market it well
      1. You will do very well
    4. Seizing the moment is not just about selling books
    5. Build your brand and build up a loyal and large reader base
      1. Perhaps the biggest opportunity in Adventure at the moment is to become a go-to author for adventure readers
  4. The Game is Won or Lost in the Selection of Genres
    1. EVERYTHING depends on what book category you write in
      1. Adventure has so many sub categories that are dying for more books
    2. Pick the right Adventure sub category to write in and everything else will be easy
    3. Pick the wrong Adventure sub category, or write the wrong book for the right category, and everything will be hard or impossible
  5. You can never convince the market to do what you want it to do
    1. An old joke about Psychologists –  How many Psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?
      1. Answer: Just One, but the light bulb must really, really want to change
    2. It’s the same with authors and readers – You can sell any book to readers, provided it’s a book they really, really want to buy and read
    3. We have, over the last 11 years in ebooks, never seen any single instance of an author convincing readers to buy something they don’t want to buy
      1. Not once
      2. Authors try all sorts of ‘do what I want you to do, and not what you want to do’
      3. It never works
  6. Please don’t fall in love with your book
    1. If someone made and sold shirts, and they told you
      1. My shirt is perfect. It was perfect the first time I thought of it. I didn’t even have to tweak the design. I don’t even have to sell it in a beautiful box. I just put it in a drab brown box and its immense beauty just shines through and overwhelms everyone looking to buy a shirt
      2. However, something is wrong. Because it is not selling
      3. These customers are idiots for not buying my shirt
      4. Perhaps they are overcome by how amazing it is and are scared to buy it and then never be able to wear any other shirt
      5. Perhaps something is wrong in the shipping. Perhaps on the way the shirt gets damaged and loses its perfection
      6. Perhaps the store is broken
      7. Perhaps the store hides my shirts because they don’t want people to buy it, and stop buyig every other shirt, because my shirt is just so good
    2. You would have a hard time taking that person seriously
    3. Yet, over 50% of authors behave in this manner
      1. Why?
      2. Because they have fallen in love with their book
      3. They no longer think of it as a product to be sold to customers
      4. They think of it as their first born child
      5. The most beautiful creation in existence
    4. Please don’t fall in love with your book
    5. It is a product
      1. Like all products it is in constant development
      2. As you make it better and better, it will sell more and more
      3. If you fall in love with it, you will stop improving it, and it will stop selling
  7. Pick an Adventure sub category you are passionate about and understand
    1. The good news is that there are lots of Action & Adventure sub categories that are promising and fast growing
    2. The bad news is that you have to understand the category to be able to write for it
    3. The 2nd piece of bad news is that you have to be passionate about it
      1. Without passion you will not be able to give your 110% and that is what is required to do well
    4. If you are passionate about an area, then doing 5 rewrites to make the book super smooth and very fun to read is a pleasure
      1. If you are not passionate, then you won’t even be able to do 3 rewrites
      2. Your brain will be screaming to you than 2 rewrites is enough
    5. It is super important to understand the sub category you choose. There are so many nuances that only people who are familiar with an area understand
      1. Make sure you have some real life experience that gives you a good understanding of the Action & Adventure categories and sub categories you write in

There are lots of opportunities in Action & Adventure. It’s a very good book category to write in. Your success will be determined to a very large extent by what Adventure categories and sub categories you choose to write in. The Game is Won or Lost in the Selection of Criteria. After you get that right, please follow as many of the above Golden Rules as you can

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