Non-Fiction sales are rockin’ on Amazon and other retailers but books sales is not where you’re going to make your “longtail” money. It’s all about how you serve your readers AFTER the book. So how do you do this effectively? That’s where the term “back matter” comes in to play.

Back matter is the portion of your book that comes directly after the final chapter of your book and it is absolutely essential to any nonfiction author. This is where you can place a plethora of information that will lead your readers into taking the next step. Here are some examples of information you can place in your back matter so that your reader becomes a life long fan.

1. About the author – Place a short bio here so readers can learn more about you and your credentials.

2. Other books by this author – The reader just finished your book and is craving more from you.  Tell them about your other books.  If you have a book on preorder, let them know the preorder is available at select retailers (Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo).

3.  Connect with the Author – The reader loved your book, they think you’re AWESOME, and they want to connect with you.  Add your active links for Facebook, Twitter, your blog, your website, and your mailing list. Once a reader connects with you via social media, they can start to get to know you and appreciate your super-awesomeness on an entirely new level.  It’s an opportunity for you to start a long term relationship building process that can help casual readers become fans, and help fans grow to become super fans.

4.  Sample chapters of other books – Give them excerpts of your other books with an order link at the end.

5.  Special Free Gift – Many authors provide a special downloadable free gift at the end of their books for readers. A downloadable action guide, to-do list, or other free book is a great list builder.

When I called, even the associate wasn’t sure what happened to Shelfari. She had to run and check with someone else. Sure enough, Shelfari has been eliminated as an option for adding to your Amazon author page. When I asked if it was for a certain segment of books (ex. nonfiction vs. fiction), she said “No. All books.” Her words were she thinks that allowing the option “was more trouble than it was worth.”

I’ve heard that some authors abused Shelfari. I’m not sure how. Probably only promoting their own books and not actually sharing and recommending books written by other authors. When sharing good books was really the point. Shelfari was suppose to be a book sharing and social site like Goodreads; but alas Goodreads does it so much better.

So now that Amazon owns Goodreads, I wonder how they will incorporate it (or some of it’s features) into the Amazon book marketplace? It will be interesting to see how it unfolds and hopefully will be of some benefit to us indie authors.

Amazon recently announced via its annual list the most well-read cities in America. This is the fifth year that Amazon has compiled this sort of information and they do it by gathering and analyzing sales data of books, magazines, and newspapers in both print and Kindle formats. This years data was compiled by looking at statistics between April 2014 and April 2015 in cities with more than 500,000 residents.

This year’s top 20 well-read cities are:

There was also some interesting data that Amazon pulled when taking a look at the statistics. It’s not surprising that Seattle was the #1 city considering that is Amazon’s home base. They probably have a very strong and loyal buyer base in that city.

Another interesting tidbit was that Las Vegas was the #1 city for buying romance on Amazon.

California is that state that seems to be the most well-read because three cities represent the top 20 from that state: San Francisco, San Diego and San Jose. Maybe when the weather is great you tend to read more:)

One more interesting fact is that Washington, D.C. was the #1 consumer of print books.

Cool data huh?

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Available on Amazon:

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