Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

[Carepolice]

I mean, I can write. But when it comes to E-Books and Blogging. That's what I can't write about.

It's really not difficult. You've said it yourself, you can write. If you can write about anything then you can publish a Kindle ebook and earn money from it. A great exercise to get started with is to write down everything you're knowledgeable about. Make it a decent sized list, then narrow this down to the topics you find most interesting. Your readers will know if you're writing about a topic that doesn't interest you and that will hurt your bottom line.

From there, you'll want to search through the Kindle book store to find books in your keywords that generate an acceptable number of sales. The sales figures may be converted from the Amazon Best Seller Rank you see on each product listing. There are many free charts for this, we developed our own for Zon Sidekick but the information is out there. Loosely speaking, books with <=25k are a good starting point.

It's important to note that we've found keywords with a good "spread" of sales to be ideal for publishing a new product. This typically means that shoppers aren't finding what they're looking for and/or are willing to purchase multiple books (this can sometimes be verified through the "customers also purchased..." fields) and provides you with a greater chance of success when publishing a new book. If you'd like some more advice on picking a topic to write about (you really can do this) then feel free to shoot me a pm. My software automates this entire process and I talk about this stuff all the time with my customers, we'll be releasing a great public knowledge base soon but for now I'm just a PM away.

 

[Twister105]

nice post, thank you for sharing!

 

[NBG99]

Does this really work? I mean the Kindle store is full of shitty ebooks which don't sell (and nobody needs).

I've checked the Top 100 Paid of each cat but there are only Kindle versions of commercial (printed) books.

 

[GobBluthJD]

I've checked the Top 100 Paid of each cat but there are only Kindle versions of commercial (printed) books.

This is completely untrue. One of mine is in the Top 100 (Top 50, actually) for both Fantasy and Paranormal right now. I do not have a commercially printed book.

 

[customary390]

I agree -- there is also now an "indie published" list of top sellers at the NYT.
I just put up two erotica short stories. I'll try to submit to some promotional sites tonight and update with how it goes. Is there a name for the Skype group? I can give reviews.

 

[Street-smarts]

I've changed the 17 thing to 18 and my book got accepted. Not only that, it made a sale on the first day (no promotion whatsoever), which has never happened to me before with non-fiction books! And if you're writing content yourself, fiction is waaay more fun to do than non-fiction, at least for me anyway. I've been a writer hobbyist for as long as I can remember, but the hassle of having to deal with brick and mortar publishers has always been a stopper for me. KDP seems to be the 'promised land' for us writers.

My goal is to write 1k words per day. I could crank it up some more, but my productivity rate seems to be spiraling downwards after the mentioned quota, so it's kinda not worth it to push myself above the limit.

Anyway. Do you think it's realistic to expect around 10 sales per ebook per month as an unknown author?

 

[NBG99]

This is completely untrue. One of mine is in the Top 100 (Top 50, actually) for both Fantasy and Paranormal right now. I do not have a commercially printed book.

Completely untrue? Just because ONE of your books is in the top 100? A non-report one?

 

[JarryW]

I've changed the 17 thing to 18 and my book got accepted. Not only that, it made a sale on the first day (no promotion whatsoever), which has never happened to me before with non-fiction books! And if you're writing content yourself, fiction is waaay more fun to do than non-fiction, at least for me anyway. I've been a writer hobbyist for as long as I can remember, but the hassle of having to deal with brick and mortar publishers has always been a stopper for me. KDP seems to be the 'promised land' for us writers.

My goal is to write 1k words per day. I could crank it up some more, but my productivity rate seems to be spiraling downwards after the mentioned quota, so it's kinda not worth it to push myself above the limit.

Anyway. Do you think it's realistic to expect around 10 sales per ebook per month as an unknown author?

Great job on the insta-sale, that's promissing.

I think that expecting 10 sales per month is an ok goal to start with. It all depends on the quality of your book. Did you start it with the few days free promotion? If you did, you might get a few 4 or 5 stars reviews which would really help to make sales in the future.

In any case, good luck!

 

[GobBluthJD]

Completely untrue? Just because ONE of your books is in the top 100? A non-report one?

That was just ONE example. I have another book in the Top 20 in Sustainability & Green Design, one in the Top 30 in Outdoor Cooking and Top 30 in Culinary Arts & Technique, one in the Top 30 in Seasonal, one in the Top 10 in African cooking, one in the Top 80 in Italian instruction, two in the Top 50 in Spanish instruction, and on and on and on....and that's not even getting into my fiction books...

So yes, your claim is completely untrue.

But hey, I'm glad you think that Kindle is impossible to sell on. Less competition for guys like me.

 

[NBG99]

That was just ONE example. I have another book in the Top 20 in Sustainability & Green Design, one in the Top 30 in Outdoor Cooking and Top 30 in Culinary Arts & Technique, one in the Top 30 in Seasonal, one in the Top 10 in African cooking, one in the Top 80 in Italian instruction, two in the Top 50 in Spanish instruction, and on and on and on....and that's not even getting into my fiction books...

Everybody can claim that... proof?

But hey, I'm glad you think that Kindle is impossible to sell on. Less competition for guys like me.

I didn't say it's impossible but you didn't said which genres are working (just something with reports/infobooks and erotics). And now we know that you are mostly focus on cook books. That doesn't mean that everybody here will start writing cook books now

 

[yanner]

Everybody can claim that... proof?



I didn't say it's impossible but you didn't said which genres are working (just something with reports/infobooks and erotics). And now we know that you are mostly focus on cook books. That doesn't mean that everybody here will start writing cook books now

He won't start laying out his exact niches for you just so you go on copying him. Stop complaining and doubting the guy, if you don't believe in the method then just get out this thread mate

 

[GobBluthJD]

And for the record, I started with cookbooks, but they only make up about..10 of my 103 books (so far)

 

[NBG99]

He won't start laying out his exact niches for you just so you go on copying him.

You can copy his niches and write similar books - but you'll not have the same success.

Stop complaining and doubting the guy, if you don't believe in the method then just get out this thread mate

Which method? Find a niche, write a book, done?!

I wrote already that the Kindle store is FULL OF CR/\P RELEASES. I would love to see some more success stories here but i doubt it.

 

[aldoraine]

I wrote already that the Kindle store is FULL OF CR/\P RELEASES. I would love to see some more success stories here but i doubt it.

I'm having success with Kindle, and so are tons of other people. I'm on track to make more from Kindle than my regular job in the next month or so. Also, we have one person in our Skype group that wrote a good book and was making 400-600 euro/ day.

Ignorance is bliss.

 

[NBG99]

I wonder why focus only on Kindle... If a books sells well in the Kindle store it will on the Apple store too. Also a printed version (books-on-demand).

Btw this "method" isn't for me because i'm not a native english speaker/writer and the kindle sold not well in my country .-/

 

[demoniste]

Anyway I don't get why speaking about it on BHW. It's not blackhat, not even IM. Better to post your success story on self-publishing forums.

This thread will just make few people loose their money on odesk ( but some people on odesk will win ), make many crappy books on kindle store that will disappoint buyers and make amazon control more the KDP autors.

OP have been very lucky at start and it make him focus and work hard to become very skilled at self-publishing. Some people will have success on it, mainly ones who like writing ( or at least reading ).

But for most of us, non-fiction people, writing e-book for warriors forum or clickbank will bring you more than 10 times your bucks per book. If you affiliate sell product it's 100 times per sale...

Don't forget that amazon will pay only a 60 after end of the month and they can ban your account at anytime for anything ( no respect the guidelines, fake reviews, to big refound ratio, even if their is too much gramtical or formating error in your book... )

I don't say it's not possible and your clearly say it's not easy in the OP but during the thread I think not everybody understand that is more a personal experience. I don't think the OP will ruin his magik method at XXXXX$ by spoonfeed publicly for few +rep and thanks on BHW.

 

[WizGizmo]

@ GobBluthJD:

Incredible ongoing work you have done with this thread. Great job!

"Wiz"

 

[GobBluthJD]

Anyway I don't get why speaking about it on BHW. It's not blackhat, not even IM. Better to post your success story on self-publishing forums.

You do know there is an entire white hat sub-forum here too, don't you? I suppose you would want that deleted in its entirety as well?

 

[Ocke86]

First , thanks GB for creating this post , it has really opened my eyes for a great passive income opportunity. I have a question about using public domain books , if you basically do a translation of a book to a foreign language and than add some original pictures to it ,is that legally sellable on kindle ? ,

 

[GobBluthJD]

First , thanks GB for creating this post , it has really opened my eyes for a great passive income opportunity. I have a question about using public domain books , if you basically do a translation of a book to a foreign language and than add some original pictures to it ,is that legally sellable on kindle ? ,

Yes. But you can't enroll public domain books in KDP Select. And, in my experience, public domain books sell really poorly.

But it's worth a try, I suppose?