Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

I provided some Amazon affiliate links in my first book. I'm not sure if it's allowed but I still did it. :-P


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Gob, your post is partly the reason I started my journey. I had read a few from people doing the same, but your's put me over the edge.

I started Sunday by posting an ad on odesk hiring ghost writers. I have around 25(so far) apply. I selected six based on grammar in my messages with them, and price. It's crazy that some people want $100-200 for a 7000 word story. I'm staying in the $10-20 for each story. I should have my first book in three days, I'm going to have the cover finished before then.

I have a quick question, I had one girl message me and she loves doing fantasy stories with dragons and stuff. I told her that she can do that, but to make it more realistic with touches of fantasy(like Game of Thrones and True Blood). I'm a little unsure if fantasy will actually sell on Kindle. It's ok, I'm just spreading out across different genres, then when one starts selling well I'll start loading up on that genre.
 
Are you guys doing one pen name per genre?
You can have max 3 pen names/account right?
 
ortogonk said:
Are you guys doing one pen name per genre?
You can have max 3 pen names/account right?
Click to expand...

You can have unlimited pen names published on your KDP account. You can only have 3 pen names on your Author Central account (where you create author pages in Amazon). But I have well over 3 pen names published on my KDP account - there's no problem with that.
 
GobBluthJD said:
Seriously. It's the most successful way I've found to make money online. Yes, it has a lot of drawbacks (which I'll mention in a minute), but holy s*** do the rewards ever make up for them! I only seriously started attempting to make money with Kindle 2 months ago. I wrote, prepped, and released a book a week, until I figured out a better outsourcing system. I now have 20 books up and am averaging a new book every 2 to 3 days. My latest book was just released last week and, well, since then it's sold 500+ copies. I know, I still can't believe it when I look at the reports, but it's not going away. At even $2/book profit, that's not too shabby.

Okay, this isn't to say that this is easy or there aren't cons. There are. Lots of them. Which is why, I imagine, there's not a lot of Kindle talk around this forum.

Con #1: It's a LOT of work. Even if you're outsourcing. I started by doing it all myself: research, writing, formatting, cover design, uploading, marketing. Everything. It's a huge time investment, and I suspect this is the step that scares most people off.

Con #2: It's NOT instantaneous. We're always looking for quick money in the IM world. Kindle is not that. It takes time and effort to build up an audience, to learn how to outsource correctly, to streamline the process for efficiency. It's worth it, but it does take a great deal of time.

Con #3: Kindle is not PLR friendly, is not article spinning friendly, is not black hat friendly, etc, etc. This probably also scares a lot of people off. Mess with Kindle, and it will blacklist you. But even playing by the rules has gotten me much more than black hat stuff ever did.

Okay, it's not all doom and gloom. Let's see some pros.

Pro #1: Once you've uploaded a book, it's (nearly) set, forget, and earn. My very first book took me a long time to research, write, format, etc. It was a pain. But you know what? Since I uploaded it 2 months ago, I have done zero marketing, zero promotion, and have spent zero effort on it. Guess what: it's still averaging about 10 sales per day. That's with zero work on my part. IMO, that's well worth the initial effort. A few days pain for recurring money daily - I'll take that any day.

Pro #2: Tied in with Pro #1 is the fact that, if you sign up for KDP Select, you hardly have to do any marketing (unless you want, of course). I have a series of books in a non-fiction, educational sort of niche. I have done zero marketing on them. No blogs, no twitter, no fb, nada. All 4 books are in the Top 10 in their Kindle category. If you create a quality book, Amazon will market it for you. It will start showing up in people's feeds, in "people who bought X, also bought Y", and all that type of stuff. It's beautiful. Set and forget.

Pro #3: Once you get a system down, you can easily produce a book a day. Even if you only make one sale a day, that's $2. You have 10 books? That's $20 a day. You have 50 book? Hello, $100 per day. The possibilities are endless. Literally.

Okay, okay, enough of the rant. Just wanted to share what (I think) is an under-looked market on this forum. Yes, it's not black hat. Yes, it's not quick and easy money. But it's sustainable and, if done right, really profitable.

My tips:

Do your research (I'll post more on this later, if wanted)
Produce (or outsource) quality content.
Enroll in KDP.
Set a goal of 1 book per month, per week, or per day even (if the quality doesn't suffer).
Use the same pen name for similar books, to build up an audience and make each book easier to find.
Put links to your books at the end of all of your other books, to make them easier to find.
Sit back and enjoy.

Any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them. I've only been doing it 2 months, but I've been doing it nearly 24/7 and have learned a lot. Been using this forum for awhile now, and finally have something to give back to the community!
Click to expand...

Hey nice post man.

But I just want to point a couple of things out for the less experienced Kindlers here.

Con#1 Not always true. The amount of output is ALWAYS equal to or slightly less than the amount of input. Basic physics. But take this guys advice as far as setting expectations goes. Don't EXPECT anything.

Con#2 Hate to piss on your parade here dude, but I was banking inside the first week. Without any push. Maybe I hit a lucky break or maybe Amazon just fuckin love me. It IS possible to bank straight away. Again, just don't EXPECT it.

Con#3 I'm not sure what you are driving at here, but I created my first ever book by rewriting PLR. True, plain PLR, unprocessed is a mistake. But what is research at the end of the day? It's finding facts. PLR is chock full of facts, even when shittily written by some japanese kid on 4c an hour in a PLR sweat house in Kobe. Info is info and that's what you are selling, unless you are a fiction writer like I am now, in which case all that research shit goes out of the window anyhow.

Graphics are VERY easy to come by. Simply go to
Code: 
http://sxc.hu
and sign up for a free account. Then edit and modify what you want. In fact, some of my stuff has unedited royalty free graphics. Most Kindle users don't give a shit about the graphics anyway.

One point that stands out for me here, though and it is VITAL. Take GobBluthJD's advice and write QUALITY and Amazon will market it for you. KDP is good, but it does tie you to Amazon for 90 days. I won't reveal what I am selling here, but suffice to say, I am one VERY happy mofo. My non-fiction stuff is selling extremely well and getting some very good reviews.

A little hint on how I got started with my non-fiction stuff. Give the first chapter away for free. Do that for 2 or 3 months while you are writing your next chapters and refining and tweaking. If you are a writing nut like me, you can finish a book in two or three months of 25 - 40 chapters plus proofreading and editing. People go nuts for free samples. The advantages here are obvious. If your stuff is good enough people will leave you reviews and tell you to write more. If your reviews are shit, shelve it and move on to the next book, or rewrite and try again. The review section is your weapon and your yardstick.

Anyway, good post man, sorry if it seems I'm hijacking, but I just wanted to share my experience.
 
infested27 said:
This is the cost of running a business in my country (Greece) and it pretty much kills any attempt of a low capital start-up. Off course in most other business-friendly countries this doesn't apply. Still even if i create an offshore corporation the Taxation is super high for non-USA residents.
Click to expand...

Register the business elsewhere. Or run multiple tiny business under different holding names.
 
redfan123 said:
Con#2 Hate to piss on your parade here dude, but I was banking inside the first week. Without any push. Maybe I hit a lucky break or maybe Amazon just fuckin love me. It IS possible to bank straight away. Again, just don't EXPECT it.
Click to expand...

You're not "pissing on my parade".

I was referring to the fact that you won't get your first Amazon check until 60 days after the end of the first month that you upload a book.

You obviously should start selling right away, and if you're not, you need to go back and re-tweak things, because sales should be happening within the first week.

But you're not actually going to see any money from those first week sales for another 60+ days.
 
infested27 said:
I have read most of the post here and i was about to start thinking to start this venture with a twist untill i did some research on the amazon FAQ for kindle publishers...and i found that:



This means that if you live in Europe you are screwed they will withhold 30% of your income (if you sell at 2.99$) plus another gross 30% of that 70% royalties for USA tax...before any expenses like dollar to euro conversion with is usually another 5-10%...also my country will withhold even more taxes from me since i will have an income as a publisher...

So from the 2.99$ sale Amazon will take 30% (1$)
USA tax will take 30% of that 70% royalties or 21% (0.6$)
My country will take another 25-50% depending on my income from the rest of the sales so about (0.35-0.7$)
The dollar to Euro conversion will take another 5-10% (0.10-0.20$)

My earnings will be less than a dollar for each book sold
Also the Tax work that needs to be done for Non-US Publishers found https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A1VDYJ32T5D3U4sounds like a real nightmare.

I don't want to sound negative but i will have to sell 25.000+ (less than a 1$ profit from each sale) ebooks per year (EVERY YEAR) to make the income that a guy flipping burgers in a first world country makes...

Do you think this is viable (selling 70 books per day)? Is there any other way to avoid all those taxes and other expenses? Starting a legal business in my country for the double-tax avoidance treaty is ridiculously expensive (costs of 1000$ per month ) so creating a company is not an option.
Click to expand...

Check this link http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/United-States-Income-Tax-Treaties---A-to-Z
If you're country is on the list, you're safe I guess
 
SlappinDaBees said:
Check this link http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/International-Businesses/United-States-Income-Tax-Treaties---A-to-Z
If you're country is on the list, you're safe I guess
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply but as i already mentioned in order to be eligible for double tax exemption i must have a legal business which in my country costs 1000$ per month to sustain so it is not an option for me.

In fact the only reason you see me here trying to figure a way to earn income online is because my country is a semi-communist hellhole with heavy taxation. If it was more business friendly i could just get a job (since there would be more business owners offering jobs) or start my own offline business and make a decent living.

Until i figure out a way to make some income online with zero capital and then immigrate into another country i am stuck with no options that need to "run a business".
 
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DJANG0 said:
Some books, after a certain period of time (say 50 years I dont know exactly) fall into the public domain and you can use their content freely without getting sued... It should be a nice basis to write ebooks faster (by copying some paragraphs, etc... use your imagination)
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I find it a little funny that you suggest copying others work and then end your post with 'use your imagination'.:p

Great ideas in this thread though and I've already started writing. Many thanks to GobBluthJD and others like you that share these excellent methods with the rest of us.
 
Thank OP.

Back around 2002 I wrote a legitimate guide to starting an IT Services company. Then I did nothing with it. It's over 110 pages in MS Word and has been gathering dust for a long time.

I'm going to update it and have a go at this.
 
There is a lot of good info in this thread.

I used to ghost write for others but since February started just writing for myself and as of April my monthly income is hitting 3k. I can only stress the hardest work is finding a niche you can scale, the rest is just procedure.

The only thing I think I can add that I haven't seen - is stressing book formatting.

Have a navigable table of contents so people can easily flip between chapters.

Have a professional looking book cover. You can typically get them on fiverr.
 
GobBluthJD said:
You're not "pissing on my parade".

I was referring to the fact that you won't get your first Amazon check until 60 days after the end of the first month that you upload a book.

You obviously should start selling right away, and if you're not, you need to go back and re-tweak things, because sales should be happening within the first week.

But you're not actually going to see any money from those first week sales for another 60+ days.
Click to expand...


Oh. Well that wasn't clear to me at all, sorry.

Nice post though.
 
I have been online for so long that i should write about it ! My experience could benefit lots of people but honestly, i don't know where to start ? I've never thought about kindle. In fact, i'm new to all of this.
 
mem1975 said:
There is a lot of good info in this thread.

I used to ghost write for others but since February started just writing for myself and as of April my monthly income is hitting 3k. I can only stress the hardest work is finding a niche you can scale, the rest is just procedure.

The only thing I think I can add that I haven't seen - is stressing book formatting.

Have a navigable table of contents so people can easily flip between chapters.

Have a professional looking book cover. You can typically get them on fiverr.
Click to expand...

Is the 3k/month from writing Kindle books only?


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