whitefox: helping brands, thought leaders and writers create beautiful bespoke books

The challenge

Gaining a top spot on Amazon’s book charts is a highly coveted achievement for an author. Methods for attempting to beat the algorithm are plentiful, but which ones actually work? Rudy Sprogis managed to find out.

Rudy is an award-winning salon leadership coach based in Poughkeepsie, New York. His new book, The Self-Reflection Habit: The Key to Leadership Self-Awareness, explores the importance of prioritising a sense of self-awareness in order to become a truly effective leader, guiding readers through the steps of making this practice into a self-reflection habit. 

Choosing to self-publish his book in order to retain creative control, he decided to partner with whitefox for editorial and design services. whitefox worked with Rudy to make his book competitive among other titles in the genre.

The solution

whitefox worked closely with Rudy in editing and designing The Self-Reflection Habit. Our editorial expertise helped enhance its unique angle so that it stood out from competing titles in its genre. Professional editors from whitefox’s extensive freelance network carefully polished the text to make it the best it could be.

The whitefox design team created a cover for Rudy’s book that was bold and eye-catching. With the title displayed in large typography and sharply contrasting colours, the book’s cover is particularly well suited for online display; the team used these deliberate design techniques to ensure that the title could be easily read even as a thumbnail image on retail platforms such as Amazon. This helped to further distinguish the book from its competitors and draw in more readers.

The result

The book’s editing and design, combined with its niche subject, worked in Rudy’s favour. It garnered many enthusiastic readers who pre-ordered the book, causing The Self-Reflection Habit to reach #20 on Amazon’s Top 100 Business Mentoring & Coaching books before its official publication. It has also gained attention from notable figures in the industry. These include Karen Salmansohn, a happiness and wellness expert and author of Happy Habits, who said of the book, ‘Read now! Lead better!’ Rudy’s book The Self-Reflection Habit shows that it is indeed possible to overcome the often befuddling Amazon algorithm, and even use it to your advantage.