Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

[loybond]

That's awesome! For the benefit of those who have books that aren't doing well, do you think that your success with those two books just happened to be the right topic selection, or did you have some process of choosing categories/topics?

Sorry to hear about the income drop, that's not fun.

This really is do-able, provided you find the right niche. I have two books which made just short of $900 combined last month.

However, anyone who says Kindle is completely whitehat is wrong. It isn't.

Because my books were topping bestseller lists, I've had a number of competitors joining the space. As Pinger says, that's fine, expect it, and just make sure you're doing a better job.

I am doing a better job, but this month my books have been targeted for negative reviews, and sales have dropped to the point where I'm only looking at $400. It sucks, but because I'm committed to playing fair, there's nothing I can really do except write more books.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how to get negative reviews pushed to the bottom of the review page? I'm not sure how, but the fake negative reviews are the top review on my product pages, but he has managed to push all his negative reviews (not from me, his book actually sucks!) to the bottom of his page.

 

[thedude1984]

I am doing a better job, but this month my books have been targeted for negative reviews, and sales have dropped to the point where I'm only looking at $400. It sucks, but because I'm committed to playing fair, there's nothing I can really do except write more books.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how to get negative reviews pushed to the bottom of the review page? I'm not sure how, but the fake negative reviews are the top review on my product pages, but he has managed to push all his negative reviews (not from me, his book actually sucks!) to the bottom of his page.

Sorry to read that happened.

I don't get trying to destroy another person's income if they haven't screwed you over. Well I get it, I just don't agree with it.

That's one of the pros of straight smut/erotica that I've read. The concept and/or genre draws people to buy the book not reviews (I'm not talking about erotic romance).

The con is the volume of stories (approx 200) required to make a decent income (ie. 1.5K to 2K).

 

[dennis_797]

Thanks Morgadeshou, I didn't realise it was that simple! It worked, though, so I appreciate that.

To Loybond, I picked a topic I had interest/knowledge in, but having done my research I knew it was a good one. I put the effort in, and spent the money, to ensure my product blew the competition out the water, and it did that as my book jumped to the top of the bestseller list. I paid more than most of the people in here talk about paying, plus I used my own expertise as a professional writer to extensively edit the work, but I strongly believe the key is finding the right topic. Remember, you can see the exact rank of other books out there (which allows you to calculate daily sales, roughly) so you have no reason to jump into a niche that isn't profitable. That said, to some extent it is, of course, a numbers game, and no book is guaranteed to sell, even if your research is sound.

And, to thedude1984, you're right, cheating to boost your book is one thing (although that does cost me income), but leaving negative reviews to another author's book is a low, low move. The thing is, anyone can play the blackhat game -- I'm aware of the irony on a blackhat forum -- but it ruins the Kindle platform in the long run as customers don't want shoddy products, and that is not good for anyone. If these people put half as much effort into making their own products awesome rather than screwing others over, they would achieve the same success, and the Kindle platform would thrive and make their long term success sustainable....

 

[Pinger030]

That's one of the pros of straight smut/erotica that I've read. The concept and/or genre draws people to buy the book not reviews (I'm not talking about erotic romance).

The con is the volume of stories (approx 200) required to make a decent income (ie. 1.5K to 2K).

My personal experience is that the competitors in the fiction genre are generally less "aggressive" than the competitors in the non fiction genre. The readers in the fiction genre are also much nicer and don't give bad reviews too fast.

I think the reason is: a) In the fiction genre there is no right and wrong. The story, characters, writing style etc. can be good or bad but not right or wrong. It's subjective. On the other hand: In the non fiction genre there is a right or wrong. You can provide wrong information and you can miss important information. So you can objectively say that a book is great or crap. Hard to describe. b) In the non fiction genre you have exactly niches/topics. The competitors in the non fiction genre see fast if someone new is in their niche. On the other hand: In the fiction genre you have not such exactly niches. The competitors can't recognise every new book so they don't know in wich direction they have to shoot. And even if they see a "dangerous competitor" they will not shoot against others because there are tons of new books coming out every day. That's too much effort.

But you'll find stupid people everywhere. Don't waste you time with them and focus on publishing new books. Read about "karma". Everything bad will come back to them. That's no esoteric crap.


Back to topic: I think short erotic/smut stories are a good way to make fast money. But even if you publish 200 books and make $2k/month -today- it's absolutely not a stable income and your income will drop down fast if you don't publish more books day by day. The reason is that everyone is doing it. Erotic is the genre where the most books are going to be published. Your books will lost their visibility within a few days. So this "method" is not really better than an ordinary 9 to 5 job. But you are looking for a stable passive income, for financial freedom and for a great lifestyle. I don't want to say that this is impossible if you/your pen name become an authority in this genre but I think that this genre is one of the hardest genres to become an authority or to build up a business (outside of Amazon). Because erotic readers are mostly not interested in sign up for your newsletter, follow you on Twitter, Facebook and so on. Even if I already have the experience I would never try to become an authority in the erotic/smut genre. The chances for long term success are too low.

So my advice is: If you need fast money or if you want to make first experiences in the fiction genre - do it! But if you have enough money and experience you should go to another genre than pure erotic/smut.

 

[NemoTheOne]

Thanks for the informative post, Pinger.
I'm very pleased. I published my 1st book about a week and a half ago, and have been making 1-2 sales a day from it.
Definitely doeable.

 

[vypersells]

Back to topic: I think short erotic/smut stories are a good way to make fast money. But even if you publish 200 books and make $2k/month -today- it's absolutely not a stable income and your income will drop down fast if you don't publish more books day by day. The reason is that everyone is doing it. Erotic is the genre where the most books are going to be published. Your books will lost their visibility within a few days. So this "method" is not really better than an ordinary 9 to 5 job. But you are looking for a stable passive income, for financial freedom and for a great lifestyle. I don't want to say that this is impossible if you/your pen name become an authority in this genre but I think that this genre is one of the hardest genres to become an authority or to build up a business (outside of Amazon). Because erotic readers are mostly not interested in sign up for your newsletter, follow you on Twitter, Facebook and so on. Even if I already have the experience I would never try to become an authority in the erotic/smut genre. The chances for long term success are too low.

This is what I've found. First the rule about book size people are talking about here is B.S. short smut sells better than long smut. Most of them are 5k-15k words tops, and they all sell for $2.99. They sell well too.

I started with a diet book and it sold "ok", when I switched to smut I realized why people say its the best genre. Even my bad books make 2-5 sales a day. I wrote a very bad story with the goal of testing TIME. I wrote the whole thing in one day, about 3 hours of writing, 1 hour of editing, and a couple more hours of publishing. I used a new pen name and put her up. It sells. 6 copies today so far, and KU loans ontop of that, I expect it will make $40 this week.

All this talk about research and such is important, and if you do your research you will find that erotic/romance sales are about 50% of the TOTAL sales of EVERYTHING on kindle. Nonfic is like 12%, mystery is like 8%... Erotica is just infinitely more popular than any other category.

This is where I disagree with you Pinger. Not to discredit your work but I tried a couple genres and honestly, nothing sells close to as well as erotica. There's a weird phenomenon too, whereby once you hit 30~ erotic books, they self sustain based on your author page. My sales have yet to drop off, if anything they have accelerated over time. Marketing to other genres is fine, and everyone will have their own niche, but you need to keep in mind over 80% of kindle owners are women in their mid 40's to late 50's. They fuel the vast majority of sales, and if you are catering to another age or demographic, you will not typically succeed.

Erotica requires the same, if not more research though. For example, cuckold is huge right now, vampires were huge for awhile but dropped off. If you find out what erotica is selling the best and write for those keywords you will have much better luck.

 

[Pinger030]

Congrats to your success. Nice to see that it's working for you but let me explain to you why I would never focus on smut:

1) It's against the TOS of Amazon. Here is the original quote which you can find on the KDP help page: "We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts." Smut sells and maybe that's the reason why they accept it but what's if they change their mind? They can kick you out without a warning. It seems to be impossible but the risk exists and that can not be denied. So I don't really want a living that is based on risk...

Maybe the next points doesn't effect you -now- because maybe you only focus on Kindle but you don't know what the future brings. Think about this:

2) Most of the other distributors don't accept smut. You lose the possibility to increase (but also to secure) your income.

3) Are smut paperbacks accepted by Amazon? You lose another income stream.

4) Imagine if you want to publish audio books. How to find narrators who are ready to record smut stories? Is it allowed? Again: You lose another income stream.

5) My facebook fans, Twitter follower, Email list etc. is growing day by day. I can offer them my newest books or other products to be successful since the release day. I can also ask my customers for reviews. I don't think that smut readers like/follow you in the public. It's not good to be dependent of one platform. And you also lose another great income stream: Affiliate.

Never say never. And there are tons of other possibilities/income streams which you miss when you just focus on smut. Maybe you are happy now but your income is not secured. If something breaks away in my business it doesn't hurt me because I have enough income sources but if you lose your Kindle income...

But again: I don't say that it's impossible to build up a business around smut but it's really really hard. Smut is good for the fast money but for long term success I can not advise it.

IM is very dynamic and things can change fast. And at the end you've wasted month or years because you've focused on the fast money. At the end you have a lot of smut that you can't sell anywhere in a profitable way. Your future/sucess is based on luck.


EDIT: I talk about smut and not erotica in general because there are big differences eg. between smut/porn and erotic romances.

 

[thedude1984]

Congrats to your success. Nice to see that it's working for you but let me explain to you why I would never focus on smut:

1) It's against the TOS of Amazon. Here is the original quote which you can find on the KDP help page: "We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts." Smut sells and maybe that's the reason why they accept it but what's if they change their mind? They can kick you out without a warning. It seems to be impossible but the risk exists and that can not be denied. So I don't really want a living that is based on risk...

That's a legit concern from what I've seen. It seems that Amazon has a periodic 'purges' regarding smut.

First they got rid of non-con, dub-con, incest. Then they got rid of any books with explicit mention of step-relations in the title or blurb. And now apparently they have strange rules regarding the use of virgin, babysitter, and other words in titles and blurbs.

I also have read what you've said that there are 'trends' regarding genre sales.

Like you say though erotic romances seem to be consistent sellers in comparison to straight smut titles. I'm going to try to write erotic romances alongside smut.

 

[MudassirMustafa]

GobBluthJD you're my man buddy....first of all congratulations on cracking kindle success code and secondly the way you've shared everything here is awesome! I need to know something:
1. I've written my first book for kindle on a self help topic, could you please recommend some free stock photo sites and could you please also recommend any tutorial for creating kindle cover in photoshop if possible.
2. Please recommend how to give your book links in another books.
3. Does a Muslim pen name make a difference? like mine....
Appreciate your effort.

 

[ChrisRR]

Can we put a twitter handle/user name and email address in the inside of the book?

I want to put both at the end of my story

 

[NemoTheOne]

That's a legit concern from what I've seen. It seems that Amazon has a periodic 'purges' regarding smut.

First they got rid of non-con, dub-con, incest. Then they got rid of any books with explicit mention of step-relations in the title or blurb. And now apparently they have strange rules regarding the use of virgin, babysitter, and other words in titles and blurbs.

I also have read what you've said that there are 'trends' regarding genre sales.

Like you say though erotic romances seem to be consistent sellers in comparison to straight smut titles. I'm going to try to write erotic romances alongside smut.

So far my (first) non fiction niche book is selling about 2-3 copies a day with the same amount of borrows. I'm upselling the 2nd one which is being put together now, along with a 3rd also in the pipeline.
I have other stuff being put together in fiction genre - erotica is one of them - for my exciting case study.

I think what's most interesting is that short erotica for $2.99 sells better than longer reads, according to vyper.

At the end of the day, I think it's best not to put all your eggs in one "genre" basket. But hey, if I see my erotica suddenly outselling my other booeks 10 to 1, I think it's wise to go where the money is. Then again, the limitation on marketing and longevity like Pinger pointed out is VERY important.

Great discussion fellows.

 

[NemoTheOne]

Congrats to your success. Nice to see that it's working for you but let me explain to you why I would never focus on smut:

1) It's against the TOS of Amazon. Here is the original quote which you can find on the KDP help page: "We don't accept pornography or offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts." Smut sells and maybe that's the reason why they accept it but what's if they change their mind? They can kick you out without a warning. It seems to be impossible but the risk exists and that can not be denied. So I don't really want a living that is based on risk...

Maybe the next points doesn't effect you -now- because maybe you only focus on Kindle but you don't know what the future brings. Think about this:

2) Most of the other distributors don't accept smut. You lose the possibility to increase (but also to secure) your income.

3) Are smut paperbacks accepted by Amazon? You lose another income stream.

4) Imagine if you want to publish audio books. How to find narrators who are ready to record smut stories? Is it allowed? Again: You lose another income stream.

5) My facebook fans, Twitter follower, Email list etc. is growing day by day. I can offer them my newest books or other products to be successful since the release day. I can also ask my customers for reviews. I don't think that smut readers like/follow you in the public. It's not good to be dependent of one platform. And you also lose another great income stream: Affiliate.

Never say never. And there are tons of other possibilities/income streams which you miss when you just focus on smut. Maybe you are happy now but your income is not secured. If something breaks away in my business it doesn't hurt me because I have enough income sources but if you lose your Kindle income...

But again: I don't say that it's impossible to build up a business around smut but it's really really hard. Smut is good for the fast money but for long term success I can not advise it.

IM is very dynamic and things can change fast. And at the end you've wasted month or years because you've focused on the fast money. At the end you have a lot of smut that you can't sell anywhere in a profitable way. Your future/sucess is based on luck.


EDIT: I talk about smut and not erotica in general because there are big differences eg. between smut/porn and erotic romances.

That TOS seems like it's just a butt-covering measure from Amazon
"offensive depictions of graphic sexual acts"


So what is "offensive," anyway? Isn't this where they say 'yay' to Bob and Mary doing it. But say no to brother and brother etc stuff?
Then don't they just ban your book, then you have to fight it to be approved again?

Which isn't so bad - but it's something that I guess may not be 'worth it' to go through. Or is it?

 

[vypersells]

So far my (first) non fiction niche book is selling about 2-3 copies a day with the same amount of borrows. I'm upselling the 2nd one which is being put together now, along with a 3rd also in the pipeline.
I have other stuff being put together in fiction genre - erotica is one of them - for my exciting case study.

I think what's most interesting is that short erotica for $2.99 sells better than longer reads, according to vyper.

At the end of the day, I think it's best not to put all your eggs in one "genre" basket. But hey, if I see my erotica suddenly outselling my other booeks 10 to 1, I think it's wise to go where the money is. Then again, the limitation on marketing and longevity like Pinger pointed out is VERY important.

Great discussion fellows.

Bundles are key to erotica. I can sell short form 5k~15k words erotica for $2.99 and they sell, when I bundle 3 or 4 books together and sell them for say, $5.99, I will sell MORE of my individual books AS WELL as selling the bundle. Typically I see a surge of about 25% of book sales on top of the sales of the bundle!

 

[findsm]

hey this is a really good article, I actually just launched my first book on kdp on kindle. I'm actually having troubles it's been on kindle for 2 days so far, ive done facebook, instagram and tried other stuff and I know it won't just happen over night but I figured I would get more action. I'm looking for any tips on what things I could try. I also wanted to know what is the book prices that you guys sell your book for? My book is urban fiction, and forsale for $7.00 I hate to drop the price lower since I have the paperback at $15.00 so it's half the cost but any idea's would be greatly appreciated. Thanks BHW

 

[NemoTheOne]

Has anyone has any success in FICTION niches that are NOT erotica?

 

[nilbog]

hey this is a really good article, I actually just launched my first book on kdp on kindle. I'm actually having troubles it's been on kindle for 2 days so far, ive done facebook, instagram and tried other stuff and I know it won't just happen over night but I figured I would get more action. I'm looking for any tips on what things I could try. I also wanted to know what is the book prices that you guys sell your book for? My book is urban fiction, and forsale for $7.00 I hate to drop the price lower since I have the paperback at $15.00 so it's half the cost but any idea's would be greatly appreciated. Thanks BHW

Is the $15.00 book selling? Seems like a high price for both eBook and paperback if you are an unknown, first time author.

 

[Carepolice]

Has anyone has any success in FICTION niches that are NOT erotica?

Yes, in a huge way!

There's so much open space in the Kindle marketplace that it's almost impossible to NOT find a successful niche that you're comfortable writing about/editing. The biggest factor is simply finding demand in the marketplace. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here and I'll be happy to follow up.

Cheers!

 

[theconscience]

Well I am depressed as I made a ebook and did the Pinterest and youtuube posting on similar Vids got a Facebook page last week and not 1 sale

 

[Carepolice]

Well I am depressed as I made a ebook and did the Pinterest and youtuube posting on similar Vids got a Facebook page last week and not 1 sale

You're going about it backwards. The Kindle marketplace funnels TONS of money into books where there's demand, it's quite amazing really. Your goal (if money is the objective) is to identify the topics and keywords that put you smack dab in the middle of niches with more demand than supply.

Once you do this, the money just arrives naturally without tedious promotion tactics. You'll literally accumulate sales the very first day with zero effort beyond placing yourself in the center of that stream of money.

Think of it like hijacking a free (incredible) traffic source, because that's what it is. By targeting the money keywords and providing a relevant and quality product, you'll latch on to more sales than you'll know what to do with.

TLDR: Don't waste time forcing markets that aren't going to succeed, pick the winners and set yourself up for success from the start.

 

[NemoTheOne]

Yes, in a huge way!

There's so much open space in the Kindle marketplace that it's almost impossible to NOT find a successful niche that you're comfortable writing about/editing. The biggest factor is simply finding demand in the marketplace. If you have any questions, feel free to ask here and I'll be happy to follow up.

Cheers!

Thanks for that Carepolice!
One question I had - and you sort of answered it - I think - are keywords as important in FICTION genres as they are in non-fiction?

And not sure if you can offer insight into this trend or not - but it seems, with EROTICA, short stories sell well, and often times, as reported here - BETTER than longer stories - do you see the similar results with Fiction?
Thanks,nt1