Use A/B Testing to Triple Your Author Earnings
Self-published authors and writers are missing a grand opportunity to sell more books, test their products, and learn what works.
I’m all about improvement. I don’t want to be like I was yesterday. I want to be better by leaps and bounds. But self-improvement isn’t an easy thing. It’s hard to know which way is the right way, which way will lead to success, and the outcomes aimed for.
You can do a whole bunch of failing, as I did and like so many others, or you can rely on a proven system. In my time working with writers and authors, I’ve learned that a majority of them are failing in a circle.
They write book after book, article after article, and on and on, never seeing success. Worse yet, they develop negative emotions surrounding the whole writing and publishing process that leads down an even worse road of writer’s block.
When it comes to growth, I like to think outside of the box by looking to other creative industries. In tech, when developers are trying to figure out which product or website works best for their audience or customer base, they implement A/B testing.
It’s a simple technique of releasing two versions of one thing to see which one performs better.
Seeing it like that, I’m sure your mind is already racing with ways to implement this strategy.
How Authors Use A/B Testing
A writing friend who makes his living from self-publishing on Amazon and the like uses A/B testing whenever he starts writing in a new genre or a new series. He uses A/B testing to learn his audience and figure out what they respond to best.
What he does is create pre-orders and lead magnets with two different book versions. For his pre-orders, he’ll have an artist make two different book covers. One based on data from top authors with the genre. He’ll look at common color schemes, characters on the cover, etc. Then he’ll make a cover similar to that one.
For his second cover, he sticks to his own professional experience. He has been writing for almost a decade now, so he knows a thing or two. He’ll have a cover designed to his exact liking. Then, he releases both covers out into the world as pre-orders for the same book.
Using targeted ads and the correct placement, he’s able to see which cover performs better, while still getting the earnings from both. Essentially he’s pulling in more earnings than just releasing one pre-order cover into the world. Adding in a lead magnet related to the book to get email subscribers to push his earnings even further while still giving him useful data.
A lead magnet in terms of authors and writing usually refers to a shorter work being used as an incentive for email signups or some other funnel system like getting customers to purchase email courses or larger works. He uses prologues or opening chapters as his lead magnet.
For A/B testing, he writes two openings. One based on critiques and data and the other based again on his own storytelling experience of what he believes makes a good opening. Subscribers love free things, so he gets upwards of 100 signups for just one lead magnet. When he throws a second one into the mix, his sign-ups go up.
More subscribers equate to more direct customers that you can sell your work. By A/B testing his book even before his release, he’s got new subscribers who are hungry for more of the story and pre-order sells in his pocket. And just in case you missed it, he hasn’t even written the book yet.
That’s right. A/B testing allowed him to make earnings off a book he hasn’t even worked on yet. It also gave him insight into what his customers and readers want to see within the story. Now when he goes to release it to the world, he does so from a place of knowledge about his audience.
Currently, I don’t have any books out, so I use A/B testing on my blog, sites like Medium, newsletter, and my social pages. I learn which topics are popular on which platforms, where my audience is, what resonates with them, and which direction to grow.
By using examples from my own career and others, I’ll break out an A/B testing strategy that will have you developing and earning in an upwards motion.
How You Can Use A/B Testing as a Writer
I’ll be using Medium as the first example since we are familiar with the platform before breaking it out to see how it can work in our newsletters and social pages.
How do you know what your readers will resonate with? Say, for example, you have a story idea that you think rocks, but no publications are picking it up. You think it’s something that will benefit their readers, but the editors don’t agree.
You eventually self-publish it with little or no views. It goes nowhere and dies in your back catalog.
Now, let’s tackle that same issue with a bit of A/B testing.
Before submitting your story to a publication, you make two drafts. One formatted and written in the original style and the other formatted and styled like one of the top stories at the publication. Don’t change much of the actual content, but focus more on the sentence and paragraph level stuff along with the breaking up of sections.
Instead of submitting the original one or revamped one to the Medium publication first. Post the original one on your blog or another platform. Better yet, if you have a newsletter group, offer it to them as a free read opening up the floor for feedback and reactions.
Publish the revamped one within the same group with the same prompt. See which one gets the most engagement. By keeping the story in a separate group from Medium and the publication, you’re able to control the spread and see the results for yourself.
I will say that sometimes this method does not yield results if you’re sending the story to an audience that already doesn’t engage with you. So, if you have a newsletter group with 1% open rates and 0% click rates. it’s doubtful that they’ll respond to your story no matter how good it is.
But in the past, I have seen this result in other factors. For instance, I A/B test articles on my personal blog frequently before publishing them on here. Unfortunately, on my personal site, I’m reaching 50 odd people vs here where I’m reaching 900+, more if I’m in a publication.
However, I get more freelance work from my personal site than I do from Medium. That tells me this isn’t a platform for me to find gigs or to post in a manner that helps me find gigs.
That data led me to structure my profile and content in particular ways. In my profile, I list popular Medium publications as credits to my writing achievements. I don’t mention that I’ve been listed on international awards for my fiction, edit, and judge for award-winning publications or any of that jazz. I only include that when I’m showcasing my authority so that you, the reader, will trust what I have to say.
Make Your Work Work for You
Stop failing around the block and start writing and acting smart. There are tools and techniques out there for you to use. So use them. Try something new and daring. Be the risk that takes you to your dreams.
Aigner Loren Wilson is a queer Black SFWA, HWA, and Codex writer. She was listed on the honors list for the Otherwise Fellowship award for 2019. Her work has appeared in Tor Nightfire, Rue Morgue, Terraform, and more. She offers a writing craft newsletter to people who want to become better writers and publish quality pieces.