Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!

I'm doing something wrong... my best book had about 600 Downloads in total during the 5 Days Promo. How many pages do you write?

matzek31 said:

I'm doing something wrong... my best book had about 600 Downloads in total during the 5 Days Promo. How many pages do you write?

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Did you submit your book anywhere for promo a couple days ahead of time and meet their submission criteria? I noticed that something people never brought up is that a lot of these sites require a certain number of good reviews and pages before they will promote you.

My book is only 26 pages (one of the shortest in its niche)... It's one of the only things I regret about the book. It's extremely well written and a spun off topic of a fairly hot subject right now, so that may explain things.

How is your book doing after the promo?

Edit: sorry for the poor wording, this moderation system makes it difficult to discuss certain things as a "newbie"

I didnt submit my books anywhere for promo. Most Websites I found required at 3+ Reviews or their submit forms didnt work.

Maybe my Topics are too general. I probably should publish books about more specific subjects..

I uploaded new covers for my eBooks yesterday which have finally been published a few hours ago. Lets have a look how they work out.

matzek31 said:

I didnt submit my books anywhere for promo. Most Websites I found required at 3+ Reviews or their submit forms didnt work.

Maybe my Topics are too general. I probably should publish books about more specific subjects..

I uploaded new covers for my eBooks yesterday which have finally been published a few hours ago. Lets have a look how they work out.

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It sounds like you have a couple problems then. It is vital (imo) that you get some sort of notoriety to catalyze your rankings. If you never shoot up from the bottom of the barrel, that's where you'll stay. But if you have a big first day and get shot up to the top 10 in your subject, you will then get subsequent downloads from people browsing those top seller lists. Everything from your cover to the description of your book is very important.

I'm speaking like an expert when I'm not, but there are definitely people out there that have done this from start to finish that can probably support what I've learned already

Hey guys,
just a small update: I published my 6th book last week. It doesn't run good. Today I will drop the price to 0.99$.

I think my mistake was: You know about the "people who bought this book, also bought that book"-section on the product page of each book. If you can get your book to this section of other books in your niche (hopefully a bestseller) your book will sell too (because these books have tons of impressions per day and now you get visible too). But first you have to sell many books and that is more possible with a low price. That's just my opinion.

My other 5 book series is running good (~40$/day) but I have noticed 3 new competitors in my niche. They give negative 1 star reviews to other books of the niche and so on. It's a hard business.

I'm excited what happens next and will update my journey.


Sry for my bad english. It's not my first language.

Pinger030 said:

Hey guys,
three days ago I published a new book (non fiction, 58 kindle pages, 9800 words, self written, + 20 self made photos). Now I have a total of 6 books on Amazon and have reached the 50$/day mark. I also tried to outsource some books but the writer was not good enough - I have canceled the plan for now. My next plan is to write two more books this month and two more next month. Then I have a total of 10 books and hopefully 80$/day. Then I fly for 6 weeks in the summer (Spain ). When I come back, I want to do this business full time. When I hit the 100$/day mark, I will try to outsource again and set up new income streams (a website and so on).

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Congrats on the 50 USD/day mark! I've just published my first eBook there and while I reached #1 on my free promo days (both categories in which the eBook is listed in) with total of 7.500+ downloads, the sales are kind of slow. I price my eBook 2.99 USD (29 A4 pages long, 48 "Kindle" pages) and I sell around 5 eBooks per day. I hope to at least maintain this volume (it's only 4 days since the free promo days ended).

May I ask how much do you charge for your eBooks? 0.99 USD, 2.99 USD or more? Also, do you make your own covers? I do the covers myself, but I outsource the writing (for 20 USD per 1000 words). Thanks.

Pinger030 said:

Hey guys,
just a small update: I published my 6th book last week. It doesn't run good. Today I will drop the price to 0.99$.

I think my mistake was: You know about the "people who bought this book, also bought that book"-section on the product page of each book. If you can get your book to this section of other books in your niche (hopefully a bestseller) your book will sell too (because these books have tons of impressions per day and now you get visible too). But first you have to sell many books and that is more possible with a low price. That's just my opinion.

My other 5 book series is running good (~40$/day) but I have noticed 3 new competitors in my niche. They give negative 1 star reviews to other books of the niche and so on. It's a hard business.

I'm excited what happens next and will update my journey.


Sry for my bad english. It's not my first language.

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What's the average length of your eBooks and do you outsource them? Sorry to hear about those 1 star reviews - it sucks and I really hope that Karma gets those bastards.

90 days isnt that bad. Normal royalties for books are every quarter anyway.

Hey pirx2030,
i have a series of 4 books (non fiction, 60-80 kindle pages, self written, 3.99$).
I also have a fifth book, which includes all 4 books of the series. I sell them for 6,99$.
My sixth book (non fiction, 58 kindle pages, self written, + 20 self made photos) I sell currently for 0,99$ because it is not so successful.

All the books I have written within a month itself. The cover and formatting are no problem for me because I have previously done an education as a media designer. I also tried to outsouce the writing but made bad experiences with the writer. I will continue alone and will try to outsource the writing later again.

Here are a few tips:
- Learn how to analyze the kindle market (read every blog and forum thread, buy tutorials, connect with other successful writers, make notes of your findings)
- If you found a niche: Buy the most successful book, make a better cover, a better description, more content, cheaper price and so on (Your book has to be better than the competition's books in every respect)
- A tip that I have strangely never read anywhere: If you're good in graphic design, build a few images on the first pages of your book. I do not mean ordinary photos. You can design a logo for the header for example. You can create a glossy banner to advertise your other books and so on. In each book you will find only the standard fonts, but with such graphic stuff you can catch the reader. Know what I mean?
- Another curious thing that works for me: Create a quadratic 3D cover with mirroring and stuff like that to make it look expensive. Add a label, as do the publishing companies too. (invent a name. The main thing the book looks official. Your book must have a high quality). Now you buy a photo in which a face can be seen (it depends on your niche. For a cookbook, of course you're taking a photo of a chef). Now it looks like an official book and you can price it much higher. Yes, that sounds stupid but it works if the quality of your book is great.
- At the end of your book link your readers directly to the review page of your book
- If you have many books in a niche, then create a Facebook page (not for your author but for your niche). It takes less than 5 minutes and costs nothing.

There are tons of fresh marketing methods that you will not find in the ordinary Kindle Tutorials (or forums, blogs and so on). So do not be focusing exclusively on Kindle, but more generally on marketing methods.

Those were all very helpful tips. I have experienced very hit or miss sales the first couple days after my free promotion. I've had 7 sales one day, no sales another day, four the next... It's really unpredictable. I've just uploaded my second book, and I'm just trying to get it some reviews before I put it on free promo.

Skype me if you are interested in a review exchange

So after being inspired by this thread to write my first eBook, I must say that disappointingly enough, my book will not sell despite being enrolled in KDP select and being priced at $0.99 (was originally $2.99, had to drop). I believe my cover and description are adequate and I had a friend leave a 5 star review, so I'm not sure what the reasons are for the lack of sales.

I published on the night of June 8th, had no sales on the 9th, had a free promo day yesterday which resulted in a total of 70 downloads, and today I'm back to no sales. I'm not sure what to do, any help guys?

Hey @Pinger030,

fantastic tips, thank you. Yeah, I'm learning all that is to learn as obsessively as possible.

Couple of more question, if you don't mind:
1) Did you try (or will you try) to build a landing page for one of your eBooks and promote it on FB? I plan to do this to see how it goes, but after the KDP Select period is over.
2) Do you have any experience with perma-free eBooks? Some people publish their eBooks on Smashwords for example (for free), notify the Amazon to match that "price", and Amazon makes their eBooks free permanently. It could a be good lead-gen method, but I'm not sure, what kind of download volume can be expected. I'm not considering this at the moment - only if the sales should stop (which I hope they don't, hehe).

@PrimitiveEvil: I too thought it will be easier, but it's not easy at all. You really need to learn as much as possible, promote your eBook everywhere, make great covers, descriptions, titles, sub-titles, you need good ratings etc - and even that doesn't guarantee anything. I think the key is not to despair after the first try.

Just an update. I am in a free period with my second book and made a huge mistake by starting the promo on Father's day. Downloads were super low, but are at somewhat acceptable levels today. As far as paid sales, I can averaging about 1 a day with my first book, although they come in spurts of no sales for 1-2 days followed by days of multiple sales. I will probably write one more non-fiction book under this pen name and start on a fiction name. $50/day with 6 books is either very lucky, or my books are doing much worse.

pirx2030 said:

Hey @Pinger030,
fantastic tips, thank you. Yeah, I'm learning all that is to learn as obsessively as possible.
Couple of more question, if you don't mind:
1) Did you try (or will you try) to build a landing page for one of your eBooks and promote it on FB? I plan to do this to see how it goes, but after the KDP Select period is over.
2) Do you have any experience with perma-free eBooks? Some people publish their eBooks on Smashwords for example (for free), notify the Amazon to match that "price", and Amazon makes their eBooks free permanently. It could a be good lead-gen method, but I'm not sure, what kind of download volume can be expected. I'm not considering this at the moment - only if the sales should stop (which I hope they don't, hehe).

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1) I have a FB site for my niche and a hyperlink inside my books. But I have no HTML landing page. If I have published enough books, I will also create a website with a landing page with a newsletter form. To create an email list of your customers is the best thing you can do because then you are 100% independent.
2) A free book can be very well used as an advertising platform for other books. Currently I am concentrating on writing and trying to come up to 100$ per day. If I have a stable income, but I will also try it out. I think it's a good way to consolidate yor sales for the future. But I think it only makes sense if you have already published many books in a particular niche.

Enifrica said:

Just an update. I am in a free period with my second book and made a huge mistake by starting the promo on Father's day. Downloads were super low, but are at somewhat acceptable levels today. As far as paid sales, I can averaging about 1 a day with my first book, although they come in spurts of no sales for 1-2 days followed by days of multiple sales. I will probably write one more non-fiction book under this pen name and start on a fiction name. $50/day with 6 books is either very lucky, or my books are doing much worse.

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I cannot confirm this. I had more sales than before on Father's Day. Probably because my target audience are women. Meanwhile, I've also tested the promo days for my 6th book. I used the five days at a stretch and had about 6.000 downloads and 3 new four star reviews in these days (without external advertising). Also, my book has slipped extremely higher among the keywords. I hope that the sales increase ...we will see.

At the end of this week I will publish my 7th book (apiritual niche), next week the 8th book (alternative medicines) and then I'm going to focus back on my first niche.

I'll keep you up to date ...

Pinger030 said:

1) I have a FB site for my niche and a hyperlink inside my books. But I have no HTML landing page. If I have published enough books, I will also create a website with a landing page with a newsletter form. To create an email list of your customers is the best thing you can do because then you are 100% independent.
2) A free book can be very well used as an advertising platform for other books. Currently I am concentrating on writing and trying to come up to 100$ per day. If I have a stable income, but I will also try it out. I think it's a good way to consolidate yor sales for the future. But I think it only makes sense if you have already published many books in a particular niche.

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Thanks. I'm about to create 2 LP's for my first eBook. I'll use one to sell it and the other to collect email addresses. I'll split test these two to see which one will perform better.

I don't have any specific plans to promote my eBook on Amazon, tho. I'll just keep releasing more eBooks in the same niche under my pen name. Also, I might try the BookBub promo service. They are expensive but people say it's worth it.

You are right. I too will hold off publishing any free eBooks at the moment. I'll release one to test the waters after I complete my first objective, which is publishing 10 quality 2.99 USD eBooks.

I would do this, but I have no idea what to write about O_O

Well, I have one Kindle e-book out and I've made about $50 off it in three months.

You probably just need a system -- and it's important to write series, all under same author, similar cover design. I bet that would work great.

I need to focus on it, but as OP said, it's a ton of work, but pays off in the end, because that book will be out there forever.

I also don't understand KDP select -- can you price a book for 99 cents? It won't let me price anything below $2.99. It also only lets you run one FREE giveaway promotion per period, which is really annoying.

Here's a tip:

Right when you publish your book, run a 7 day FREE giveaway, and ask BHW members to check out your book, officially download it so its a verified purchase and leave reviews. Most will be really helpful for you.

FatPenguin said:

I also don't understand KDP select -- can you price a book for 99 cents? It won't let me price anything below $2.99. It also only lets you run one FREE giveaway promotion per period, which is really annoying.

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Sure you can, but you need to select the 35% revenue option. But you really need to make a lot of sales with that price to earn anything worth mentioning.

To earn 10 USD at .99 USD you need to make 28 or so sales (35% revenue model).
To earn 10 USD at 2.99 USD, you only need to make 5 sales (70% revenue model).

By the way, today was my first day with no sales. I hoped to sell at least 2-6 copies per day at worst. If the sales don't pick up by the end of this week, I'll do a count-down promo and I still have 2 FREE days left.