Thanks for the advice Dennis... Curious how you can check plagiarism on an eBook. I would think running through Copyscape or something similar would just check web content. Seems like someone could download a kindle ebook and burn you with copied content if it isn't out in the open somewhere.
Guys: Kindle is the Ticket!
- Thread starter GobBluthJD
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Pinger030
Regular Member
- Oct 15, 2013
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Make a transfer agreement to get the exclusive rights. With this contract the writer has to confirm that the text is written by himself and is unique. Also you have to work always with bills (for tax benefits and contact information if there are problems). Everything else is shit! Because without this your writer is allowed to sell the text again and again to hundred customers and at the end maybe YOU will get in trouble because of plagiarism (if you have no bills and no contracts you can not prove that you have the rights to publish it). Grow up your business in a professional way ...since day one.
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Talyn
Regular Member
- Oct 22, 2014
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I've done extensive research in the erotic category, and this is a very grey area. In fact Amazon has written their policy to the extent where there is no real written policy and they can simply pick and choose who they pull down. Nearly every erotica book that I found where people were saying that it was pornographic has been pulled down.
Anything to do with incest, rape, or excessive amounts of detailed sex seems to be a potential problem.
Books like 50 shades of grey and many others have made it through and there is no real doubt there are rape fantasies and excessive amounts of porn in them. If you choose to write in erotica you do risk the possibility of having your books simply being banned one day without any explanation. And I would make sure there is plenty of non-sex content in the book so that it isn't blatant porn.
Things that will for sure get your erotica book banned: Overly sexual covers, nude illustrations, insinuating that the sex involves underage people, incest, forced sex, torture in a sexual manner...
There are still a few books out there like this that are flying under the radar, and people love them, but I wouldn't waste my time with a book that might get banned. Unless you get a smash hit like 50 shades of grey, you're gonna be under some scrutiny if people complain.
Yep, my eBook reached #1 in Health & Fitness (one of it's subcategories) and #2 overal. However, that didn't translate into too many sales. After a few weeks, the sales died out completely. :-/ I'm not in this business anymore, but there is potential, for sure.
Raven13
Power Member
- May 31, 2011
- 659
- 417
Guys, I've got 4 KOLL borrows, how does this work actually? After searching i've found that the person have to check at least 10% of the ebook, and the payout per ebook vary month to month from 1buck to 2. Does you KOLL readers convert for short ebooks? Short means like 20/30 pages.
Pinger030
Regular Member
- Oct 15, 2013
- 304
- 379
You get borrows by KU and Prime members. The prices for borrows are changing month by month (the average is currently $1,50). I know about the 10% hurdle but I can not see any differences of the borrow rate of my short books and my longer books (so I wouldn't confirm that a short book is getting more payed borrows - based on my own experience/numbers). What I can tell you: Short length = less content = less sales = less visibility = less borrows. So I would not focus on too short books with the idea to publish hundreds of books within a short time to make the big money only with borrows - that doesn't work.
Maybe it works for the first 30 days when a book is new (because it's promoted in the new and popular list) but after that you'll lose your visibility so it's not a great strategy of long term success and it's also not the idea of passive income because your income is limited and you have to publish new books constantly if you want a constant income.
Maybe it works for the first 30 days when a book is new (because it's promoted in the new and popular list) but after that you'll lose your visibility so it's not a great strategy of long term success and it's also not the idea of passive income because your income is limited and you have to publish new books constantly if you want a constant income.
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Raven13
Power Member
- May 31, 2011
- 659
- 417
Thanks for clarifications, so it's like the release of apps, we get featured one week and after that the trafic drop...
Right now one of my ebooks is getting like 3sales 1 borrow a day, I'm not aiming getting borrows but if it makes extra money why not
.My aim has changed a bit, now I target releasing 13 short (3k words) ebooks this month to see the niches where I performs the most, after that I hire a good writer to enhance the ebooks that works better by adding quality content and going from 4k words to 10k or more. I think it's a better strategy than releasing like 4 long ebooks in wrong niches. what do you think?
Pinger030
Regular Member
- Oct 15, 2013
- 304
- 379
Don't get me wrong. Borrows are great. I'm also making a few hundred Dollars per month only with borrows. Another great point is that a borrows counts like a sale (based on the rank). So big publishing houses who sell their books on different platforms are not in the Amazon Select program = now borrows = higher chances for self publisher to get a better ranking.
What I want to say: Even a $0.99 book has to provide a decent quality. Otherwise you'll get bad reviews and your book losts all visibility. So for long term success it makes no sense. If someone has the idea eg. to create 100 crappy books within a month with the idea to make a lot of money with borrows ...you'll fail because after a few weeks your books are invisible for potential readers = also no more borrows.
It's the right strategy to publish short books first to test different niches. That's the same strategy that I followed when I started. I've testet a niche with one book ($2.99) and when I saw that it worked I published a 2nd, 3rd, 4th book and finally made a 4 in 1 collection and sell it for $9.99 and also made a paper back version for $14.99. = about $1.600/month only with my first series. Then you should publish more books and try to dominate your niche. Publish books (or better series) with different quality levels $4.99 books, $6.99 books + collections. After you dominate the niche take all your content and produce a bible or your niche ...A premium book (or a series) that you can sell for more than $10.
What I want to say: Even a $0.99 book has to provide a decent quality. Otherwise you'll get bad reviews and your book losts all visibility. So for long term success it makes no sense. If someone has the idea eg. to create 100 crappy books within a month with the idea to make a lot of money with borrows ...you'll fail because after a few weeks your books are invisible for potential readers = also no more borrows.
It's the right strategy to publish short books first to test different niches. That's the same strategy that I followed when I started. I've testet a niche with one book ($2.99) and when I saw that it worked I published a 2nd, 3rd, 4th book and finally made a 4 in 1 collection and sell it for $9.99 and also made a paper back version for $14.99. = about $1.600/month only with my first series. Then you should publish more books and try to dominate your niche. Publish books (or better series) with different quality levels $4.99 books, $6.99 books + collections. After you dominate the niche take all your content and produce a bible or your niche ...A premium book (or a series) that you can sell for more than $10.
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Pinger, are you doing any promotion of your romance and erotica books? Your sales are so strong right out the gate man...
I think your secret sauce is you've already found good writers who will do it on the cheap. I can't believe you're getting your outsourcing that cheap and still getting results. The people I've outsourced so far have been rather bad, and I've only outsourced non-fiction. I have a weird fetish erotica book that I am publishing either today or tomorrow, so we'll what happens. It's only 10k words though.
I think your secret sauce is you've already found good writers who will do it on the cheap. I can't believe you're getting your outsourcing that cheap and still getting results. The people I've outsourced so far have been rather bad, and I've only outsourced non-fiction. I have a weird fetish erotica book that I am publishing either today or tomorrow, so we'll what happens. It's only 10k words though.
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Talyn
Regular Member
- Oct 22, 2014
- 216
- 74
Hi Pinger030, how did you choose the keywords for romance short stories ?
Pinger030
Regular Member
- Oct 15, 2013
- 304
- 379
@dsavior
No, I don't promote my books in a special way. I just have a fb site and an email list for my best selling fiction and non fiction pen name. But my other (6) pen names have nothing. I think the best way to sell more (even the older books) is to publish constantly more and more books. Because then you are always listed in the "new releases list "= people will buy your older books if they like you actual book.
On the other hand: My erotica book sells good although my pen name is completely new and it has no reviews. I don't know why. I'll try to make everything perfect. Perfect analysis of the niche + keywords, perfect cover, perfect description etc.. I do everything as perfect as I can. I also spend much work for the "look inside feaure" to differ me from other competitors and to catch the readers. Eg. My main headline on the first page is no boring standard text but a nice looking graphic followed by a graphic of my pen name (it looks like my pen name is written by hand or a signature - that's more personal than just a text with a standard typo. Then I have a catchy foreword and also a nice banner of my whole series with 3D boxes and mirror effects - so it looks really professional. I also include a yellow/blue "order button" directly under this ad banner. And so on. I think people are bored of the typical looking ebooks. They've already seen that hundred of times. But when they look inside my books and see the colorful graphics and stuff like that ...for some people it's like: "Loook look, he made fire!!!" Lol And if you get the attention you will sell. Search for the "AIDA formula" on Google. It's a basic marketing method that works for EVERY product. And you can also use it for your product description. Don't use standard phrases that everyone is using. Be creative!
Hmm, I've also made bad experiences with other writers when I tried to outsource. Bad qualty, not delivered, they just wanted to steal my niche ideas, and so on and so on. There are a lot of crazy people out there and it's not easy to find a few good writers.
No, I don't promote my books in a special way. I just have a fb site and an email list for my best selling fiction and non fiction pen name. But my other (6) pen names have nothing. I think the best way to sell more (even the older books) is to publish constantly more and more books. Because then you are always listed in the "new releases list "= people will buy your older books if they like you actual book.
On the other hand: My erotica book sells good although my pen name is completely new and it has no reviews. I don't know why. I'll try to make everything perfect. Perfect analysis of the niche + keywords, perfect cover, perfect description etc.. I do everything as perfect as I can. I also spend much work for the "look inside feaure" to differ me from other competitors and to catch the readers. Eg. My main headline on the first page is no boring standard text but a nice looking graphic followed by a graphic of my pen name (it looks like my pen name is written by hand or a signature - that's more personal than just a text with a standard typo. Then I have a catchy foreword and also a nice banner of my whole series with 3D boxes and mirror effects - so it looks really professional. I also include a yellow/blue "order button" directly under this ad banner. And so on. I think people are bored of the typical looking ebooks. They've already seen that hundred of times. But when they look inside my books and see the colorful graphics and stuff like that ...for some people it's like: "Loook look, he made fire!!!" Lol And if you get the attention you will sell. Search for the "AIDA formula" on Google. It's a basic marketing method that works for EVERY product. And you can also use it for your product description. Don't use standard phrases that everyone is using. Be creative!
Hmm, I've also made bad experiences with other writers when I tried to outsource. Bad qualty, not delivered, they just wanted to steal my niche ideas, and so on and so on.
There are a lot of crazy people out there and it's not easy to find a few good writers.
NemoTheOne
Power Member
- May 18, 2009
- 735
- 248
@dsavior
No, I don't promote my books in a special way. I just have a fb site and an email list for my best selling fiction and non fiction pen name. But my other (6) pen names have nothing. I think the best way to sell more (even the older books) is to publish constantly more and more books. Because then you are always listed in the "new releases list "= people will buy your older books if they like you actual book.
On the other hand: My erotica book sells good although my pen name is completely new and it has no reviews. I don't know why. I'll try to make everything perfect. Perfect analysis of the niche + keywords, perfect cover, perfect description etc.. I do everything as perfect as I can. I also spend much work for the "look inside feaure" to differ me from other competitors and to catch the readers. Eg. My main headline on the first page is no boring standard text but a nice looking graphic followed by a graphic of my pen name (it looks like my pen name is written by hand or a signature - that's more personal than just a text with a standard typo. Then I have a catchy foreword and also a nice banner of my whole series with 3D boxes and mirror effects - so it looks really professional. I also include a yellow/blue "order button" directly under this ad banner. And so on. I think people are bored of the typical looking ebooks. They've already seen that hundred of times. But when they look inside my books and see the colorful graphics and stuff like that ...for some people it's like: "Loook look, he made fire!!!" Lol And if you get the attention you will sell. Search for the "AIDA formula" on Google. It's a basic marketing method that works for EVERY product. And you can also use it for your product description. Don't use standard phrases that everyone is using. Be creative!
Hmm, I've also made bad experiences with other writers when I tried to outsource. Bad qualty, not delivered, they just wanted to steal my niche ideas, and so on and so on.
Pinger (and others) thanks for keeping this thread alive with such amazing and helpful info.
I currently have my first two books (or one - I have one writer doing 7,000 words and another doing 6,000 words - then I plan to edit, add my flavour and bump it up 20,000 words.)
Non-fiction.
Erotica seems to sell well - have you any insight on the fantasy genre? Do small books/series sell as well?
Carepolice
Power Member
- Mar 25, 2009
- 575
- 629
Just a heads up to anyone who was/is publishing in the Minecraft niche, be careful because Mojang is currently pressing hard for takedowns on copyright. If you were watching this in Zon Sidekick then there's a good chance you made a nice chunk of change from it on the upswing but I'd suggest focusing on other hot niches in light of their recent actions.