Is Kindle KDP a saturated method?

So I was thinking about starting to write ebooks and sell them through KDP Select. (non-fiction)
Can this method still work? or is it saturated?

Most of the kindle success stories I know of write fiction.

For me, non-fictions works only for a little time and then they die. Most of the established and successful KDP authors publish fiction stories.

Liedan said:

So I was thinking about starting to write ebooks and sell them through KDP Select. (non-fiction)
Can this method still work? or is it saturated?

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Yeah mate it is saturated and you have to make some real efforts to get the expected result and better you can try affiliate marketing

When Kindle was new it was "hot" but like every good business there was more and more competition over the time = There was more an more efforts/quality necessary to make money. This happens with any business, whether Niche websites, YouTube or Kindle eBooks in this case. A few years ago you could produce bad quality while you were making money and growing with the market. So Selfpublisher from 2013/14/15 know what they do these days and they've no problem to make money even if the market ist "saturated".

For a beginner it's way harder right now. He can't produce shit, make money and grow with the market. The market has already been developed, so beginners have to deliver high quality from the scratch to make good money. And that's the big problem why this business isn't attractive for beginners anymore: You have to learn everything firstly, improve your skills and quality and fail again and again BEFORE you can expect to make good money. <- That's the time when people are crying that business x, y, z is dead.

But the Kindle eBooks are not dead. There's more money to make than ever before IF you're able to deliver high quality.

I would say (and this is just my personal opinion) that a beginner has to work and learn ~1 year to make stable 1k/month in this business. But if you've mastered this business and know what you're doing it becomes a really good job. Then you're able to increase your income by 300, 500 or even 1k per month.

Pinger030 said:

When Kindle was new it was "hot" but like every good business there was more and more competition over the time = There was more an more efforts/quality necessary to make money. This happens with any business, whether Niche websites, YouTube or Kindle eBooks in this case. A few years ago you could produce bad quality while you were making money and growing with the market. So Selfpublisher from 2013/14/15 know what they do these days and they've no problem to make money even if the market ist "saturated".

For a beginner it's way harder right now. He can't produce shit, make money and grow with the market. The market has already been developed, so beginners have to deliver high quality from the scratch to make good money. And that's the big problem why this business isn't attractive for beginners anymore: You have to learn everything firstly, improve your skills and quality and fail again and again BEFORE you can expect to make good money. <- That's the time when people are crying that business x, y, z is dead.

But the Kindle eBooks are not dead. There's more money to make than ever before IF you're able to deliver high quality.

I would say (and this is just my personal opinion) that a beginner has to work and learn ~1 year to make stable 1k/month in this business. But if you've mastered this business and know what you're doing it becomes a really good job. Then you're able to increase your income by 300, 500 or even 1k per month.

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Totally agree with this statement. However one point to do, if OP has access to influencer who would 'review' positively about the ebook then there is still a big chance of profiting.

Thanks for all of your answers guys! So the reason I wanted to start with selling non-fiction ebooks is because I thought of sort of 'converting' the ebooks to articles on a blog that I will open, so if I get sales on the books + earn money from the blog that's a win win situation. If I do decide to go and try that, I would obviously do my best to write quality content and try to market the ebooks, but now with most of your opinions maybe it could be a waste of time going for non-fiction kindle journey?
thanks

Everything in IM is saturated as f**k , so doesnt matter OP. But kindle is not that easy like before, you can try it.

@Liedan

I've published Fiction and Non Fiction but Non Fiction is working way better for me because:

- Fiction is entertainment/art. Except of the grammar etc. it's highly subjective to say if the quality is good or bad. So it's hard to produce. But even if you produce a great book that's selling good... it's the same with music albums... you won't stay for a long time in the charts no matter how good you're = no stable/passive income. Additionally it's hard to sell other products to your customers etc. Btw. I've re-published 15 bad romances in February and made ~10k so far... I don't want to say that you can't make money with Fiction but it's not passive. Your sales will dry and you have to publish new books to hold your income.

- On the other hand you can objectively say if a Non Fiction book is good or bad. You can look at your competitors and say: "Okay, I need these points in my book." So you know what you have to do and it's more easy to produce. If you've published objectively the best book in your niche there's no reason why your sales should decrease in the future except if a new author publishes an objectively better book than yours (okay, reviews, external marketing, popularity of the author etc. are also factors but that's another topic). But I hope the principle is clear. Additionally you can easily publish a paperback version of your Non Fiction eBooks. I make ~50% more with paperbacks than with the eBook versions but it's just working for Non Fiction (Customers prefer to read Fiction digitally - Just my experience).

Nevertheless, even you've no success with your Non Fiction books... you said that you want to use it as a traffic source and that's possible. Inside of the the Kindle program you've a "promo option" where you can give away your books for free for 5 days every 3 month. There's also a workaround to make a book permanently free.

At least: I recommend beginners Kindle even if this business is saturated because you can count on two hands what's necessary to have success. If you've mastered this business you've a good passive income. Then it's extremely easy to expand your business with a website and more expensive products, mobile apps or whatever you want. Sounds harsh but if you are not able to bring Kindle to a good level you've no chance with any other (white hat) business because it's so simple (but hard to master for sure).

So you should definitely give it a try!

This method works but you will have to work harder than before as it is getting hard these days to make something tangible monthly with KDPs.

@Pinger030 ... I started doing Kindle in 2014 and didn't do too bad. I always focused on providing great quality content so I made decent money. But back then it was also pretty easy to get reviews since they were so accessible. I see that's not really the case anymore. What is your method for getting reviews?

I know that for long term I need to build up a mailing list. I should have done that long ago, and I'm working on it. But in the meantime, how do you get quick reviews to get the ball rolling? Any suggestions are appreciated. I'll take suggestions on quickly building an effective mailing list also, (if you have any, by chance.)

@Calea21

There are Facebook groups where you can share reviews with other authors but I don't do this because I'm focused on publishing the next books.

My personal strategy is:
Most Online Marketer are only focusing on the sales and that's it. But even after the sale you have to focus to "sell" your content (not for money but for good reviews). Indirectly I'm seeing the book itself as a huge sales page to get a review at the end. It starts with a nice personal story at the beginning, informative content combined with personal anecdotes and emotions and ends with the question for a review. You build up a relationship to your customers while they're reading your book. At the end they must have the feeling that you're a buddy of them for years = you increase the chance to get reviews. But even if they're not completely happy with your book and would give your book a 3 star review ...the chance is high that they'll give you 4 stars because you're a buddy. That's what most Online Marketers don't do because they've only the Dollars in their eyes. You have to think outside of the box. For example: Look at the politicians in the news, read books about lobbyists etc. because they're the masters in this topic. Adapt their strategies to your books to get what you want = reviews. If you've perfected your titles, description, keyword research, cover etc. this is the next level. It's more than providing good content because everyone is doing this and I you do what everyone is doing you'll only get what everyone is getting = no success.

Pinger030 said:

@Calea21

There are Facebook groups where you can share reviews with other authors but I don't do this because I'm focused on publishing the next books.

My personal strategy is:
Most Online Marketer are only focusing on the sales and that's it. But even after the sale you have to focus to "sell" your content (not for money but for good reviews). Indirectly I'm seeing the book itself as a huge sales page to get a review at the end. It starts with a nice personal story at the beginning, informative content combined with personal anecdotes and emotions and ends with the question for a review. You build up a relationship to your customers while they're reading your book. At the end they must have the feeling that you're a buddy of them for years = you increase the chance to get reviews. But even if they're not completely happy with your book and would give your book a 3 star review ...the chance is high that they'll give you 4 stars because you're a buddy. That's what most Online Marketers don't do because they've only the Dollars in their eyes. You have to think outside of the box. For example: Look at the politicians in the news, read books about lobbyists etc. because they're the masters in this topic. Adapt their strategies to your books to get what you want = reviews. If you've perfected your titles, description, keyword research, cover etc. this is the next level. It's more than providing good content because everyone is doing this and I you do what everyone is doing you'll only get what everyone is getting = no success.

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@Pinger030 , thanks. Very helpful. I will keep all of that in mind.

I'm curious, on average how much do you spend to outsource a book? Particularly non fiction?

In general, I divide my books into two parts (theoretical and practical part). Let's take a cookbook for example:

1) The theoretical part has ~5.000 words (25 papberback pages). This is the part I outsource.
2) The practical part has ~80 paperback pages, eg. recipes. I do the research myself and copy everything into a Word file. Then I give it to a freelancer who rewrites everything, calculate the nutritions etc.

For part 1) I use an agencies like textbroker.com. They're more expensive than working with freelancers directly but the agency divides the freelancers into quality classes to guarantee the quality - So you definitely get what you've paid for. There are more advantages ...fixed deadlines, you don't have to pay every freelancer separately etc. For a decent quality you have to pay 1,8c/word (5.000 words = 90$).

For part 2) I don't use such an agency because for rewriting I don't pay per word. I've some students from the University of my girlfried for this tasks. It's hardly to say what I pay because it depends on the job. Eg. the calculation of nutritions takes a long time and I pay $1/recipe.

At the end I don't pay more than $300 for a book (except I use many stockphotos). I got every investment back since 2015, so for me it's a no brainer. Even if a book isn't running good ...you could easily rewrite the content, change the format, add photos etc. to republish the book one year later. So you definitely get your money back sooner or later.

Btw. For Fiction you should not use agencies but working with freelancers directly. It's hard to find good Fiction writers and you have to test lots of writers (and probably lose money) to find 1, 2, 3 good writers. I've published Fiction books in 2015/16 but I don't do it anymore because Fiction books are not stable enough and is just a matter of time until they die. You can make money but I'm focusing on long term/passive income. But the really cool thing is: Now I have these Fiction books from 2015/16. I can easily republish these books to make some bonus money. Eg. I've republished 15 Fiction books in February and made ~$8.000 so far (4 months and they are still running okay - but I know they'll die). So if I do this 2 times a year, I can generate $20k bonus.

Now this is a little bit abstract and next level but if I take the Fiction money and invest it into shares (Walt Dinsney, Coca Cola etc.), I'm able to make ~5% dividend per year. With $20k Fiction money I can make $1.000 dividend per year (it's also passive income). So even if the Fiction books are dying after some months I still make money from ithe books indirectly. I know it's very abstract but that's how I get every investment into my business tons of times back.

I highly recommend you to search for "ETF investing" if you have no idea. Just take 1 day to read about it. This can change your whole mindset how you operate in your business in the future.

@Pinger030 Thanks, man. You always provide such thorough and helpful information. I will look into ETF investing.

And yeah, I was spending on average probably $500 per book. But I would usually get that back within the 2 month mark, and then begin making that much per month with it. So it was just profit from there.

And I've actually never even heard of textbroker.com. How would you say they compare with Elance or Upwork? I'll have to get them a shot.

Thanks for the detailed comment and feedback, i wonder for publishing kindle kdp function n non fiction which guide or ebook is best recommended to purchase first for people looking to get involved in this businesd

If you know how to do niche research OR want to hit many different sub-niches, you can still make money

But if you want to tackle the big guys HEAD ON while offering the same tired generic books, YES-it's saturated.

blackbeans said:

If you know how to do niche research OR want to hit many different sub-niches, you can still make money

But if you want to tackle the big guys HEAD ON while offering the same tired generic books, YES-it's saturated.

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How do you do great niche research? I've taken many courses on kindle but I am afraid I'm not doing research correctly.

blackbeans said:

If you know how to do niche research OR want to hit many different sub-niches, you can still make money

But if you want to tackle the big guys HEAD ON while offering the same tired generic books, YES-it's saturated.

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Yeah well my problem rn is niche research ..
I've read about how to find a good niche but the strategies are in my opinion impossible to find "the perfect niche" or even a not saturated one

Liedan said:

Yeah well my problem rn is niche research ..
I've read about how to find a good niche but the strategies are in my opinion impossible to find "the perfect niche" or even a not saturated one

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Search around for KDP tools. There are quite a few niche research tools you can use.