When I first started writing short stories to sell on Amazon (mostly erotica), I kept hearing the term “back matter” on a lot of blog and forums.
So…what in the world is back matter?
Well, it’s something writers have been doing for decades and decades to promote their own books.
Back Matter is just a section at the end of your book (after the story is over) where you promote your other content.
For example, let’s say you write romantic mystery novels. Well, at the end of your book, you can include links to other books that you sell, promote your website, or get people to sign up on your email list.
It can be as simple as something like: “Hey if you enjoyed my book, be sure to check out these books and my website.”
A back matter is an extremely powerful marketing tool for self published authors. And it is an incredible way to get big sales on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP).
In fact, I routinely see big sales days on Amazon KDP because of my back matter. I can tell because the same person bought 15+ books at the same time!
These days don’t happen every day, but they do have their moments.
So in this post, I’m going to discuss some of the best practices when it comes to back matter marketing on Amazon KDP.
1. Don’t Spam People
One thing a lot of new authors do is spam their readers with books in their back matter.
You don’t need to include your entire book catalog in the back matter. In fact, I would not do that at all!
Spamming a reader with 20+ books is not going to get them to buy them all.
Instead, focus on books that are very similar or at least in the same genre. Keep it classy and simple with just 4 – 5 other books you think they might like.
2. Include Descriptions Or Samples
If you are trying to get readers to buy your other books in your backmatter, be sure to include a description of the story.
Just using the description from your Amazon book page is fine. Another smart thing to do is to include short samples from the stories you are trying to promote.
It doesn’t have to be anything crazy, just 2 – 3 pages from the story should be good. It just needs to be enough to get readers hooked 🙂
Including descriptions or sample stories in your back matter will dramatically increase your conversion rates.
3. Include Book Covers
Never judge a book by its cover, right? Wrong! People do it all the time!
Always include the book cover in your back matter. This will dramatically increase the click through rate.
As obvious as this is, I didn’t start doing this until much later in my erotica publishing career. And what a big difference it makes!
People in general are very visual. So including the book cover image of the books you’re promoting in the back matter is a very powerful marketing trick.
A book cover just screams “click me” to your readers, which brings me to best practice #4….
4. Always Include Links
I work with a lot of students in my Erotica Academy Course and one thing I see all the time is people do not include links in their back matter.
I always include links to my books in my backmatter in both the text and the book cover pictures to increase the likelihood of additional sales.
Some people are lazy, so if you don’t have the links for them to click through, they will not search for your other books on Amazon.
Trust me on this, including links in your back matter is a real game changer!
Back Matter Marketing on Amazon KDP: Final Thoughts
Overall, back matter marketing on Amazon is really important to optimize your sales.
And best of all? This marketing is free, because you are marketing in your own books. What could be better than free? haha
I noticed a big increase in my book sales when I started taking back matter marketing seriously. And it doesn’t require much effort to create decent back matter.
So give it a try if you’re struggling to get sales.