Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

[thedan39]

Hey Gringo,
I tried replying earlier but my message didn't send. I have about 50 books at the moment. Few personal problems jumped in my way over the last year that stopped me from really dedicating myself to it unfortunately. I tend to work like 3 days and then take 2 months off. I know I can dominate Kindle if I really put everything into it though. Of my 50 books about 30 are not making much anymore. They were testers from the early stages when I was trying to figure out which niches would work for me. All of my recent books have made a lot. Especially when you consider the fact that I could write three a day.

 

[Pirate Monk]

@thedan39 @pinger

Would any of you like an Intern? Me Please.

 

[GringoMonkey]

Hey Gringo,
I tried replying earlier but my message didn't send. I have about 50 books at the moment. Few personal problems jumped in my way over the last year that stopped me from really dedicating myself to it unfortunately. I tend to work like 3 days and then take 2 months off. I know I can dominate Kindle if I really put everything into it though. Of my 50 books about 30 are not making much anymore. They were testers from the early stages when I was trying to figure out which niches would work for me. All of my recent books have made a lot. Especially when you consider the fact that I could write three a day.

Hi thedan39,

Based on what your saying you have about 20 books that make all your money, so that's about $200 each book per month on average.

In just digital downloads from Amazon I would expect to be doing north of $20k for each batch of 20 books per month, before I considered scaling to the level you are talking about.

I understand you have been testing niches and that is a good thing. I agree with you about the covers. But there is a lot more you can do than just have a nice cover! When you find a "winner", in my opinion, to have sustained success, you should be more patient and test everything before you scale at the volume you are talking about. Plus I think you will find you can make more money per book.

It is easier to make more money per book than write more books. For example I have done something as simple as change category and doubled sales in some books! Wouldn't you kick yourself if you missed that trick 90 times each month for lack of testing?

I have done things similar to what your proposing doing and it will not go unnoticed and then other players will come in and hit you.

For example I saw a category that 1 guy had all 20 books on the first page. I looked through it, all he had was a nice cover, figured I could do a lot better than that. Did a test and within 2 days of launch I was at #1. Bang bang bang 2 weeks later he had no income and I owned all 20 spots. But I made sure I fixed all the "issues" with his books so he could not do it back to me. You can only do that by raising the quality to lower the potential competition.

Eventually someone will go up against you. But you need to make it difficult for them to do so. Else they will just knock you off in a few weeks. I bet if you showed Pinger and I your best selling book and we did the same, we can both copy yours in an instant but you could not replicate ours with the same ease.

At the level you are talking at scaling to, it is not about time, it is about maximizing profit. Only then can you come in and bank hard. But in my opinion only do it when you know how to bank hard and can make it difficult for others to go up against you, otherwise it will be short lived success.

GM

 

[Pinger030]

I totally agree with your statement, Gringo. A nice cover and title is important to sell because if you publish a new book (that still has no reviews) the customers don't know about the quality. For short-term success it works but your books are easy to outrank by your competitors.

There are lots of new publishers jumping on the train month by month and they're publishing tons of books with equal covers and titles to yours. You will definitely lose your visibility/sales - it's just a question of time. So at the end the quality is important and you are able to push and secure your success with good marketing (social media, branding, email list etc.)

That's why I don't publish books with 5k words because these books are easier to outrank than books with 10, 15, 20k words. (And yes: Quality isn't equally page number but if a customer has the selection he'll take the longer book). That you have to optimise your keywords, formatting, blurb etc. is clear.

BUT:

Fiction books are not my plan for long-term success because you are not able to sell other products. Yes, you can sell more books or maybe audiobooks but you can't sell so much physical products, videos, courses, content websites, mobile apps etc. Another reason is that I'm not dreaming to be a bestseller author. That's why I don't take the effort to build up my pen names with facebook, blogs and so on. Look at the music charts: There is no musician in the top 100 for five years with his album. The same for movies, games etc. Entertainment products have their (mostly short) life time so you have to publish new products again and again.

So I'm just using fiction books to increase my income step by step (because it works) to a nice level. Then I take my financial freedom and focus on non fiction to build up a strong business (/I'm already doing it). In general information are never getting old and you can count on it even in 10 years (sure, there are trend topics too but the risk is lower). Stupid example but if I would publish a vegan cookbook with 1000 recipes, hundreds of photos (the greatest vegan cookbook you've ever seen) the chances are high that it'll has success even in 10 years. With the time you'll get a strong position (because of good reviews) so even if a competitors takes this huge effort to create a vegan cookbook with 1001 recipes... he can not riddle on your position.

CONCLUSION:

If @thedan39 knows a way how to increase his income by $200/books (fiction) it's okay if he's doing it. On his level ($5k/month) it's really good increase. Look at other selfpublishers - most of them were happy with such a result. But time will come when he doesn't care about $200 more per book. He has just to make sure that this is nothing for long-term success.

But (and that's not personally against him) 3 books/day (every day!) sounds like really bad quality even he's outsourcing the writing. The cover, description, formatting, correction etc. needs it's time. Without a big team it's definitely not possible if you try to make everything perfect. And you have to make everything as perfect as you can even if we are just talking about books with 5k words. If everything is just generic ...sales will fall even more faster as they would fall anyway.

That's just my personal opinion and I also have a friend who has some really great fiction bestellers in the charts. But he's also doing a lot of marketing in the background. Not my strategy.

 

[GringoMonkey]

Hi Pinger,

I understand your strategy, but I think you are missing a trick with fiction. You can and I do, sell tons of extra products you just have to think a bit outside of the box.

To use your example:

Non-fiction = Vegan cook book and all the spin offs from that.

Fiction = Batman and all the spinoffs from that

If you do fiction correctly you will absolutely cream non fiction because the market is so much bigger.

I make good steady money with non-fiction, but really big money with fiction. Sure it won't last 10 years, but it will make 10x as much 10x quicker and it is all in the spin offs! Like I said you need to think outside the box.

 

[Dayspring]

What advice do you guys have for keywords that get you very few results with rankings all over the place? I just found a keyword with only three books. One is a standalone title with a ranking in the low 6,000s. The other two are are from a different author and rank low (best is in the 280,000s) because their quality is low. Is this a keyword to avoid or is it a golden keyword I should try blasting with 20 books ASAP before others find it?

 

[Pinger030]

Because there are just three results it doesn't mean automatically that the customers are searching for this keyword. And if there are three books but just one of them is selling good then I don't think it's a great keyword. If the customers are really searching for this keyword there is no reason why the other two books are selling bad. Conclusion is: The good selling book must have another primary keyword.

 

[thedan39]

No offence guys, but the advice I'm getting here is complete garbage. I'm just going to delete my account here and do my own thing. I highly doubt you're as successful as you claim to be considering the stuff I just read.

 

[RandomInternetGuy]

I know this thread isn't directly aimed at this, but this feels like a good place to ask. Is it possible to find any artist to draw for an ebook and split the profits? I am sure I could think of something that would at least make a few sales, but my drawing skills are terrible.

 

[theconscience]

How do you reduce ad print ready PDF in size as it says max size upload is 40 MB for cover template?

 

[NemoTheOne]

Is it true that only cuckhold is acceptable in romance? That is, having the woman as the cheater never works?

anyway, I think I'm going to stick with non-fiction. I like the idea of building a brand.

 

[OnMGrind]

I think it doesn't matter how many books I have and how much money I make right now. It will not help you. But I can tell you that I'm able to publish about 10-15 fiction books per month with my current system. I pay $100 for a book with 10k words and my personal experience is that one book makes $100/month on average. So I'm able to increase my income by 1,5k per month (sometimes more because some books making up to $600 but I like to calculate with the minimum).

I can easily scale it up if I would hire more writers, more cover designers etc. to be able to publish 20, 25, 30 books per month but it's time to say "No" because my system is running good, I'm happy with $1,5k more every month (I started from nothing just 10 months ago) and I have to focus on non fiction to secure my financial freedom. And with non fiction I don't mean thousands of shitty cookbooks but a few books with outstanding quality that no competitor can outrank so fast. I'll definitely lose money because a) I'm not able to increase my output rate/my monthly income with fiction books b) Not every non fiction book will have success ...but for long term it pays off. If you publish a non fiction book with an outstandig quality that people like to buy you'll make much much more and your income is secure in the future.

I've started with non fiction books and I had great success with my first books ($1k+ in my second moth) but there is a reason why I switched to fiction books. It's cheap to build up a business (by outsourcing) that increases my income month by month automatically. Now I have a big income that grows by alone, I have the money to invest in bigger things etc. (eg. for two great photographers for my next non fiction books). Without my automated "fiction business" I did not have this freedom to increase my income stable and focus on other things at the same time (like websites, mobile apps, audiobooks etc. or even take a break for some weeks and travelling).

It's hard to describe but I'm absolutely convinced of my strategy. No question, a passive income is nice but an automatically growing passive income will change your life dramatically!


$150/month with your first four books is not bad (even if just two of them have success). Focus on the niche where you have the most success and publish a book with a better quality. Think about paperbacks and try fiction books. Wish you everything best!

so... i havent read every page so i dont know if you stated this already... but did u start outsourcing from book one? i tried once... making my own book last year(?) but it failed did research and such but my writing... and more importantly my knowledge of the subject of the book was inadequate... (i hope thats why i failed... because even tho i said in previous post that i didnt do much research on keywords,.. i spent like 2 whole days... its a defense mechanism... make myself feel better from my failures... lol anyways..) still in a shit situation... so thats why im asking. did u outsource from book 1?if so... do you think the quality of ur books are way better now?(now that you have your set team of writers) because you said u made money off the first book... just not sure if u outsourced... and was it also for 100? or did u just adjust to that price as you went on?
thanks

 

[Pinger030]

@OnMGrind

No, I've not started with outsourcing from day 1. When I started in May last year I was only focused on non fiction. I've published my first non fiction series and had success (about $1500 in my second month). Then I've tried other niches like "household", "personality development", "time management" etc. with less success. I thought: "I can't write 1 or 2 month on a great non fiction book with the risk to fail. There must be a better way to increase my income steadily." I knew about fiction and the possibility to outsource the writing but I thought it's impossible for me. I read about the possibility to publish erotica. "5k words are enough? Ok, I'll give it a try." My girlfriend wrote me the story but I just made $50/month with it. So I tried romances and made $100. I tried a second story and again: $150. "Okay, if I find a way to publish just 10 books per month I can increase my income by $1000/month." I started to outsource the writing. But it's not easy when you've never invested money. You don't know how to organise it, how to delegate the people, how to make contracts etc. - so I started slow and hired two writers. Because their writing was not so good (but I also made $50/book within 30 days) my next thoughts were: "If I get $50 out of this shitty books I have nothing to lose. Then I get my investment back after 60 days. Even if I would make $25 - I'll get my investment back after two month. I can do what I want - I'll not lose. So before I'm just testing 2 writers per month (= 24/year) and hopefully find 4 good writers for my team - I'll go all in!" I hired 20 writers within a month and found 4 good writers for my team. Since then I'm publishing 10-15 fiction books/month. Next thoughts were: "I need time to focus on non fiction because there is more potential for long term success." So I hired someone for the correction of my fiction books.

My advice is: Prove it before you invest. If you test something and it's not working for you ...what do you want to scale up? A method that's not working? You'll just burn your money. You can just tell your workers what they have to do but if you don't know what's to do ...It makes no sense. Find a way that is working for you. Test different things (fiction, non fiction, genres, prices, niches, keywords etc.) and if you have success you should think about outsourcing.

And just because it's working for me it doesn't mean that it's working for others automatically. Eg. GringoMonkey is extremely successful with fiction. I can't see the potential of long term success in fiction. That's why I'm focusing more on non fiction. Both seems to work but everyone has an individual strategy. You have to test what's working for you to find your personal strategy. But never invest blind.

 

[Dayspring]

Anybody thinking of trying the new KindleScout program? If selected, that's a $1,500 advance and you're locked in at 50% royalty for five years. If you don't earn at least $25,000 in that time, you can opt out. If not selected, there's nothing preventing you from doing what we all do now.

That drop in royalty seems odd, but I suspect Amazon would go all out in promoting your book if you get selected (after all, they're expecting minimum $25,000 over 5 years and paying you an advance).

 

[Chancho]

I've a question about fiction kind of ebook.
I've published 4 books (in my Language) on KDP Select and now it's time to make a box set Book .

Have i to enroll the box set book on SELECT too?
it seems to be without sense but i don't know if it's possible to do the opposite.

 

[kekmaw]

I'm thinking of hiring a ghostwriter for my first book, I'm thinking erotica (seems to be a good first book niche?).
Can I sell a 5k word story for $2.99? In general, how much would a ghostwriter for a project like this cost me? Does anyone have a agreement statement to share that I can make my writer sign so I get the full right for the story?

Any tips for a first timer would be highly appreciated!

 

[danieledwards]

hey gringomonkey I got a quick question for you

do you use keywords as your title? Like for example if I was writing a book on lemons I would title the book:

Lemons: 101 ways to use lemons

I've seen a lot of people do this and it seems to work for them.

 

[T2tkid]

If anyone have an answer to this question. Please share! Am so interested in hiring a writer and publish at least 3 books to test the market.

I'm thinking of hiring a ghostwriter for my first book, I'm thinking erotica (seems to be a good first book niche?).
Can I sell a 5k word story for $2.99? In general, how much would a ghostwriter for a project like this cost me? Does anyone have a agreement statement to share that I can make my writer sign so I get the full right for the story?

Any tips for a first timer would be highly appreciated!

 

[GringoMonkey]

hey gringomonkey I got a quick question for you

do you use keywords as your title? Like for example if I was writing a book on lemons I would title the book:

Lemons: 101 ways to use lemons

I've seen a lot of people do this and it seems to work for them.

Yes using your core keyword in the title helps captures peoples interest.

So if your core target is people who want Lemon recipes I would use Lemon recipes in the title.

 

[Carepolice]

Yes using your core keyword in the title helps captures peoples interest.

So if your core target is people who want Lemon recipes I would use Lemon recipes in the title.

To add to this, it's very important to ensure your title remains natural when including keywords. Do not simply add your keyword to the end of a title like this:

My Book Title (keyword)

This can become tricky when working with longer keywords but it's an important talent to develop. Make your titles look good AND use keywords.