As authorpreneurs, I think one of the major challenges we face is finding our audience. I know I had a heck of a time figuring out my target demographic when I started writing the Kate Jones Thriller Series. Who was I aiming at…er, I mean for? Who did I think would enjoy reading about a woman who made a huge mistake in her 20s and has been on the run ever since? With guns. And explosives. And really bad guys chasing her?
Did I mention guns?
I couldn’t really market them as romances, although there’s certainly some of that in the books. I toyed with the mystery moniker, but that didn’t fit either. So, I settled on thriller and action/adventure. But when I looked at the types of books in the thriller genre, I realized my character wasn’t your typical stoic, quiet-but-lethal dude. In fact, Kate’s got some issues and isn’t real quiet about them. My other character, Leine Basso, is more along the stoic and lethal lines. Both have boatloads of courage, though, and the storylines are fast-paced and action-packed, which can be found in most thrillers.
Enter Yasiv. I just ran across this site the other day and I’m still playing with it, but I think it’s going to help quite a bit in identifying the demographic for my books. Rather than guess what my target audience might be, Yasiv gives you a visual rendering of the actual connections to a specific product on Amazon—in this case, your book.
Also, it’s interactive and all shiny an’ stuff.
Anyway, to get started, go to Yasiv.com and enter the title of one of your books (your author name works, too). I used Bad Spirits, the first novella in the series:
I’ve pulled back on the visual in order to give you more of an overview of which books have connections to the one I chose (the titles that appear correspond to the “also-bots” on each book’s page). Hopefully, other titles in your series are linked closest to the book you’re researching. If not, then readers are finding books besides yours to purchase, and you don’t want that. Here’s a closer look at the same screen, except I’ve opened the drop-down menu in the upper left-hand corner which displays a list of the book titles found in the search:
I clicked on The Kate Jones Boxed Set book cover and the book opened in a window to the right with a description (this can be done with any of the books that appear in the visual). Connections from that book to others show up as orange lines. Oooh. Pretty. Double-click on any of the titles to build a whole new network revolving around that title. I learned that along with mystery and thriller readers, urban fiction and humorous romantic mystery readers have been buying/downloading my books. Quite the spread, there. Who knew?
Notice, too, that on the bottom of the screen there are other countries you can search to find out what readers are buying along with your titles. Trés cool! I could probably spend a whole bunch of time on this site doing “research.” Then again, I’m easily amused.
That concludes my (extremely short) tutorial on Yasiv. As soon as I figure out how to get my books in front of all those urban fiction and romantic mystery readers, I’ll let ya know…
Now this is something I will definitely look into. Trying to define my audience has been the biggest challenge of writing career. Thank you.
Boy, I hear ya there, Yvonne. Hope this helps!
I just pulled up my name. My two earlier books showed – then nothing. Boo hoo. Back to square one.
Play around with it, Yvonne. Try entering one of your titles rather than your name. I tried Yucatan Dead, but it only pulled up Yucatan Dead (print version). Then, when I clicked on YD in the ‘formation’ of the rest of my books when I entered Bad Spirits (the e-version), it brought up more. I think it has something to do with print vs e-book.
Interesting. Back From Chaos only pulled up Through Kestrel’s Eyes. But Through Kestrel’s Eyes pulled up not only BFC but also a number of other fantasy books involving birds in some way. 🙂
DV, I did a post on my blog where Yasiv was relatively new as an idea for readers to discover potential reads, but had since forgotten all about it. Using it for this purpose isn’t something I thought of, but it makes perfect sense.
I must have missed that post, Al. I’d never heard of Yasiv before. Anything that helps an author figure out their reader demographics is good. Trying to figure out a way to get the books in front of them, however, is harder. Now, if they came up with an app for that, I’m so there 🙂
Pretty cool, but yikes! Just shows my own books. Guess I have some work to do.
I commented above on Yvonne’s similar experience, Laurie. It might be bringing up print only, although I’m not 100% positive that’s why it happens.
also bots…. I LOVE it
😀
That’s extremely cool. 🙂 Using the full title of SEIZED got me only a link to FISSURED, but putting in the series name pulled up the whole series *and* a bunch of other links. Fun! Thanks, DV!
You’re welcome. Lynne! Glad you’re having fun with it 🙂
Brilliant, DV! I’m off to check Yasiv out myself. Many thanks. 🙂
Welcome, AC. Have fun!
Thank you for this article, DV! I’m the author of yasiv, and knowing it helps someone makes me happy.
Yvonne, you can also use product ASIN to see relationships. Your book has similar products for kindle edition: http://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=B006112JPG&category=All&lang=US
Laurie, this is visualization for your latest book: http://www.yasiv.com/#/Search?q=B00FD64RL4&category=All&lang=US .
This feature is a little bit obscure, but you can enter link to your book on Amazon.com directly into the search field on Yasiv, and it will build visualization.
Hope this helps :).
That was fantastic. Thanks. 😀
I’ve been on Yasiv since its debut, and my books have links all over the place, LOTS of. I played with it then forgot. Apart the nice visuals and see that readers of Best Sellers (I believe that’s the meaning) somehow link to my titles, it would be nice to hear from Andrei what best use of Yasiv he would suggest writers.
Thank you, Andrei! That’s very helpful. And thanks for Yasiv 🙂
The way I see it, the more you sell, the more nodes in the graph you get. So if your book is in the wrong category, chances are it doesn’t sell so well and therefore you get few nodes. Also, if the book has been free for a while, you’ll get nodes all over the map. I’m not sure how this helps finding a more appropriate category.
It helped me understand what kinds of readers were downloading my books–which is helpful in terms of marketing (e.g., find that audience and engage). I can see using the information to change categories if you’re not getting at the audience you’re targeting.
As for free books, yes, there are folks who will download a free book just b/c it’s free, but after a while you’ll start to see a pattern (especially with perma-free). Some of my books have never been free, so I’m able to compare those to the ones that have.
Does that help?
I hope so. I’ll have to pay a closer attention to the site. Thanks.
This is actually a helpful way to use a bot– once you’re published and, as pointed out, categorized your work at least a little bit…
I’m still on manual mode. go to the book store, look at books you think you’re similar to and see how they’re categorized; read reviews of books/books you think you’re like and categorize accordingly.
Never send a bot to do a reader’s job 😉
Besides, you can declare all your reading time as “research”
LOL–Yeah, mtdecker, I use the term ‘research’ to explain a lot of things 🙂
Thanks for stopping by!
Also bots and authorpreneurs. Egads woman, more entries for a future dictionary, I predict. Does not surprise me that you get readers of humorous romances at all. You skirt that category a lot (verb intentional), especially with Leine…you have a romantic side, embrace it!
lol Ruth–my writing partners have been trying to get me to go over to the dark side (aka romance) for a while now 🙂 I’m afraid romance will always take second place to gunfire, bad guys, and explosions, although it’s great to use as seasoning–kind of like a nice dash of paprika…
Nifty! I’m gonna check it out.
🙂 Yay!
Well, my first couple of attempts were depressing. The title brought up only my book No More Mulberries and when I tried my name (Mary Smith is admittedly not an unusual name) it came up with a totally different writer. I’ll try to play around a bit more and see what happens.
Mary -try the ISBN as was suggested to me. It really made a difference.
Keep trying your name and different titles, too. You never know which one will work 🙂
This is very interesting, DV.
127 connections for Born to Die. I haven’t checked the vamps yet.
Thanks for the great information. 🙂
192 for the vamps. The murder mystery seems to be where I would expect it to be, except for the – cowboy series? There are no cowboys in Montauk, Long Island that I know about…