Belgian authors (and networking specialists) on Amazon.com

Published by Bert Verdonck, on 27/02/2008

I would like to present you 2 interesting books :

The first book is written by my friend Jan Vermeiren, the Networking Coach . Social Networks Around The World: How is Web 2.0 Changing Your Life? is created by fellow blogger An De Jonghe.

Jan Vermeiren launched his book Let’s Connect in the US market through a massive sales action on Amazon. His goal was to become the first Belgian author to appear in the top selling list at Amazon!

He informed everyone on his mailinglist, his mastermindgroup, his friends, family and a lot extra people through his indirect network.

So, what happened?

Here is a short overview of how I experienced it on the launch date (9th October 2007):

• Jan mailed everyone on time. I received even a reminder that the launch-day was coming…excellent!
• I also informed several friends and posted an article on Ecademy.
• His book was still on pre-order on the 9th! This way people could not publish their testimonials/reviews and create more traffic to his book. I can imagine that several people thought they even could not buy the book yet…
• On top of that, there is no index, free chapter or any other goodies available in the pre-order phase.
• I ordered a couple of books from different accounts. Why? Well, it seems more logical to order 3 times 1 book then ordering 3 books at once (1 order vs. 3 orders), although the total stays the same!
• I watched every couple of hours at the ranking of Let’s Connect on Amazon. I saw it moving up in several categories. So, it really works!
• Some people ordered at Amazon in the UK or Germany, instead of in the US! Efforts were split, resulting in a sub-optimal rankings.

These are the best results Jan got with Let’s Connect:

• Number 2 Marketing book (Amazon.com)
• Number 9 Management book (Amazon.com)
• Number 16 Business Management book (Amazon.com)
• Overall Amazon.com: 176
• Overall Amazon.co.uk: 3715
• English books on Amazon.de: 746

I congratulate Jan, because despite the several challenges, he made it into the top 10 twice and into the top 200 overall, just in 1 day! How did Jan make this happen? Just read his blog

Social Networks Around The World was recently published and is also available at Amazon. An’s book is about social networks around the globe, where users create their profile to be shared with friends, collegues, etc. for social OR for business purposes. An and her team investigated over a 1,000 social networks! She classifies them by country and uses 6 different categories. Very handy if you are looking for an overview of social networks or need a place to start networking… Check out An De Jonge’s Blog too if you want interesting facts on these social networks…

Can she make into Amazon’s top 10 as well?

Let’s support our local authors, right? So, why don’t you buy both these books? Become an outstanding networker by reading Jan’s book and find the perfect place to exercise your networking skills through An’s book

By the way, did you ever launched a book on Amazon? Or do you know anyone who did? What are your (their) experiences?