[Journey] Not quitting. Kindle

Ok, hi everybody

My name is Dan,

I've been doing IM for 3 years now, made about $160 with clickbank & SEO, then got slapped last year and tried lots of other stuff that didn't work

I've realized that my problems come down to


This is a very simple journey

Basically I need to publish my first kindle book right now. That's it

I'll share the lessons learned & progress

So far I've written a 10k book myself only to realize the niche and keyword was bad

Then I've outsourced another book but it was too bad to publish

Right now another book is being written by an outsourcer

After that

- title
- cover
- description
- publish

So nothing complicated, but I just need some urgency / accountability around this stuff

It really pisses me off that I've been reading about Kindle for 2 months and don't have anything published yet.

So let's do it

p.s. I don't really like wasting time on purposeless talking, but I would like to have some friends who're in IM for real or "coming up" like me. associating with positive, like minded people is key if the vibe is good. mine skype be danslsmkt

Good job on not giving up yet. Beginning is only 1% of the challenge. I would suggest that you stop worrying about 'my niche isn't good enough' -- and to start writing what you are good at. Don't worry about the length of the book either. You need to get your words out. Don't try to bullshit Amazon customers out of their money. Write stuff that people want and what they will share.

Getting started and taking action is the hardest part and you've already done it. You're well on your way to fine tuning your approach and banking. I recently started a journey here myself and it's great seeing others trying to make positive changes in their lives. Good luck man I'll be keeping an eye on your journey.

Good luck on your journey.

Following this journey because i plan on doing something similar soon.

Hey man good luck to you in kindle! I have one book published right now and I'm almost done with another. I have learned quite a lot in the short time.

Read everything you can. Learn to format as well as you can. I prepared my book in google docs and exported HTML.

Learn GIMP. I know a lot of people will say don't do it yourself but if you can learn to design your own covers, you can save yourself money.

This book I made got 3 sales and 5 borrows. Not a whole lot but more than I expected.

Hey man good luck to you in kindle! I have one book published right now and I'm almost done with another. I have learned quite a lot in the short time.

Read everything you can. Learn to format as well as you can. I prepared my book in google docs and exported HTML.

Learn GIMP. I know a lot of people will say don't do it yourself but if you can learn to design your own covers, you can save yourself money.

This book I made got 3 sales and 5 borrows. Not a whole lot but more than I expected. But hey, make some good quality content and do it over and over and you can make it happen.

Update

Now I have published my 1st Kindle book!

Pics or it didn't happen

View attachment 56499

Results

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Conclusion: KINDLE WORKS!!!! YAY

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I will only update this thread to the extent I publish new books (to motivate myself), so next update will be when I have published my 2nd Kindle book

The process roughly looks this

1. $$$

~$60-$70 / book - $55.55 odesk + (~$10 photo) + $5 cover

2. Production

Text

- go through all of odesk, search for writers, invite them all to a private job, ask for samples, filter the best ones

DON'T HIRE PEOPLE WITH B.S. SAMPLES or WITHOUT ASKING FOR A SAMPLE

- hire for a test job (first milestone - $5) - you're only risking $5 if they're bad

- explain what you're looking for FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE CUSTOMER, show examples of other books on amazon, explain what's good about those book, how success should look like

- if good - hire for the rest of the project

- provide feedback with video (Camtasia) & google docs

- make sure they agree about conditions of payment - no $$$ for plagiraism, spun content, poor grammar, punctuation
(the first book I outsourced for less than $50 was like that but I still had paid him - that's why it's so important to do a TEST JOB first)

Key lesson - pay at least $50 or more, anything below is b.s.

so there is a "funnel" for writers

1) "invitable" - has experience in your genre - you can invite him / her to your private job
2) "testable" - has a good sample that stands out and can be hired for $5
3) "hireable" - did a good job with the test job
4) "re-hireable" - delivered ultimately what you wanted + communication + open to feedback + punctuality etc

Title

- main title (1-3 words max, has to look big with big letters and stand out on cover when zoomed out)

- sub-title - description of what the book is all about - or just keywords

Author's name

- 3-5 letters for both name and surname is a good rule of thumb - looks big & easy to read on the cover. the shorter is always better

- look to build a brand

- brainstorm different names / surnames - look in google - make sure there are roughly less than ~100k searches for that combination (so you can easily "RANK" for it), not many pictures showing, no facebook / linked in / business showing and no "did you mean ..."

- check to make sure namesurname.c.o.m is open, twitter.c.o.m/namesurname is open and facebook.c.o.m/namesurname is open
(.c.o.m is the most important)

- register domain, twitter, facebook, google plus, make a new gmail address, if everything you did is ok, your website should be on first page once you install wordpress

- make sure it sounds good and looks good - VOWEL CONSONANT, not too much vowels and too much consonants at the same time. Sounds good is more important

- check amazon - there should be no searches showing up for you name surname

- Eben Pagan has some videos on youtube about "naming" - e.g. he created his name David DeAngelo. He uses examples like Marilyn Manson, Marilyn Monroe, BlackBerry - alteration is key

- read "22 immutable laws of branding"

Cover

- go through all of amazon in your genre and save covers that stand out to you / you like to your computer

- pick the best 10 (out of at least 50-100)

- figure out what makes them work for (e.g. layout, typography, simplicity, clear priorities where eye goes, stand out even when zoomed out etc)

- make a checklist for the cover guy in google docs & explain what you want with examples via Camtasia. also you can make a "rough" version of what you're looking for yourself and then it'll be STUPID CLEAR to him what you're looking for

- if you niche uses stock photos, get one (depositphotos) - search for a kw, go through at least 10 pages, save the ones that stand out, that pick the best 10 out of those, then pick the 1 that stands out the most

- go through all fiverr cover people - look for their recent portfolio

IF IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE JUST USING A COOKIE - CUTTER TEMPLATE - DON'T HIRE

the ones who have the most reviews aren't necessary the best

- contact them to make sure they can do what you want BEFORE ordering

- look for people who do UNLIMITED REVISIONS

- good fonts to use - Helvetica (Bold, light) (tor * cough * rent), Bebas Neue, google "book cover fonts"

- read "Presentation Zen" to understand what "noise" is in graphic design and try to minimize "noise" in your cover. less is more. the simpler the better.

- photo should "hint" / trigger associations at some emotions related to your book - e.g. diet -> photo of cake or slim abs

- Eben Pagan talks about "clear visual priorities - following eye gravity - where eye goes first, second, third". determine is it #1 text that should grab attention or #1 photo #2 text

​Formatting

- google kindle formatting - basically use indent, space after paragraphs, page breaks, copyright page, about the author / thank you page

- download kindle previewer - make sure it looks good

- look for typos (kdp will also let you know if there are any typos)

Upload

- register at kpd & make a "draft" of your book to motivate yourself to finish it

- gradually "fill it" - title when you have title, author name, keywords, text, cover, description etc

3. Marketing

Research

- top 100 kindle, top 100 in your genre, top 100 authors

- pick a "sub-niche" in your niche

- look for "prodigies" - less pages but still sell good

- determine how many pages on average you should have in your book

- read reviews - make a "swipe" file of reviews and a checklist for yourself and your writer to make it STUPID CLEAR what readers are looking for

- "look inside" through your competitors - again take notes, try to figure out what makes them work, make a checklist for yourself and your writer and send links to those books as examples to your writer

​Description

- try to answer Dan Kennedy question - "Why should I, your prospective customer / client / patient, choose to do business with you vs any and every other option available to me?"

or in case of Kindle - "Why should I, your prospective reader, buy name of your book vs every other book out here?"

- try to write a "rough" description for the book BEFORE you hire the writer to write it - it will help you figure out the key "selling points" of what has to actually be there for it to sell

- hype as much as possible - it will motivate you to actually create a good product that is WORTH all that hype

- read John Carlton "Kick#ss copywriting secrets of a marketing rebel" & "The Entrepreneur's Guide To Getting Your S##t Together " and john-carlton.c.o.m and everything he recommends

- read Dan Kennedy. everything you can

- read Sir Gary Of Halbert letter

- in short - brainstorm 20 answers to the Dan Kennedy question, 15 or so will be good, combine them to about 5-6 key features. (this is list of features)

then ask yourself from the point of view of your customer - ok, nice, so what will it do for me? how it it make me feel? etc

then fill in the blanks - it will help you..., it will make you feel..., it will teach you..., you will feel how it feels to...

sample structure

1) headline (the ad for the ad) - google 100 best headlines jay abraham

brainstorm at least 10-20 different headlines (to warm up), then figure out the benefits(bullet points) - their "buttons", then brainstorm more headlines (lesson from John Carlton)

2) sub headline

more hype / curiosity or just more benefits

3) problem definition

this is your customer's #1 problem or the key "conflict" in case of fiction

3) bullet points - key benefits or key short description of the "set-up" of the story

4) close / call to action

tell them "grab your copy today before ... scarcity"

e.g. kindle countdown deal, or discounted price for the first X copies, or just for the weekend etc

5) links to your website / facebook / twitter

- rewrite the description by hand a couple of times (I do it by hand), you'll automatically sense and correct the parts that doesn't "flow" smoothly

- imagine you're selling your book door to door in person and you're in your customers living room and try to read through the description OUT LOUD - you'll automatically sense where it's lacking (lesson from Claude Hopkins / Gary Halbert / Frank Kern)

- don't obsess to much over it, make a rough "publishable" description and then in spare time (while the book is being written) brainstorm about ways to improve it


Website

- I used wordpress and wpleadplus plugin to make a squeeze page to collect emails (no blog necessary)

- mailchimp + Mailchimp for wordpress lite plugin - use plugin API to disable mailchimp double opt-in - basically you get everything aweber / getresponse has without autoresponder for free

- connect everything & test to make sure opt-in works



Das it. After book is published, set up Author Central page, with links to website, fb & twitter

Follow 50-100 people in your niche on twitter (or even daily)



My next goal is to publish my 2nd Kindle book. I've already started contacting writers for a test job

Some of the problems I'm facing

1. Not doing enough

What I'm doing about it?

- plan every day, multiple times what is the "key event" I'm trying to produce - e.g. "Now I have published my 2nd Kindle book"

- work in 15 minute chunks + 2-3 m break - basically pomodoro technique but even shorter, because I'm ridiculously a.d.d. get distracted / lazy /
eyes hurt

- journal and think on paper - helps my a.d.d. brain focus

- don't post on BHW until I have my 2nd book published

- brainstorm using Dan Kennedy's "Ultimate Success Secret" 20 ways I can attack my problem and implement them all at once. fast.

- stop comparing myself to my "old" loser self, old friends / family. compare my "performance" / work ethic to people who are making money. change the "reference" group. there are people on this forum who make more money than me and still work harder / smarter / faster / more consistent than me

- going through "Wake Up Productive" by Eben Pagan

2. Quitting

What I'm doing about it?

- this thread keeps me motivated

- remember that I've been doing IM for 3 years now and 2 people who have started roughly the same as me are now either in thailand or singapore on the beach

- commit to at least do kindle for 6 months (recurring advice people give on BHW - pick a method and stick to it for at least 6 months). that is till 1st of April 2015. then judge by results. it frees me mentally to know that I've "put the anchor down" and quitting is not available until 2nd of April 2015.

3. Getting discouraged very easily

What I'm doing about it?

- only process oriented goals. no money. focus on publishing. 1 next book at a time. screw money. I can't control it. follow the process. master the process. at least I'm going to look back on my life / last month / last year and know I took action, not just read about it. even if I don't make any money from it.

- eliminate your desires. don't calculate / hope / fantasise / imagine my book selling great. it won't happen. give up your hope. nothing for me. "outdespair" your despair. don't look at other books "sales rank"

- focus on things I can control - publishing. going through the process. planning, sleeping, getting myself to work 6 days a week

- imagine myself being 70 years old. nothing to lose

4. Worrying about money

What I'm doing about it?

- pretty much as long as I have money for the next book - STFU and publish it. money will come. even if I run out of all money I'll still be pleased with myself looking back on my life that I at least tried to do something when I did have money

- rough plan 1)get ~$70 2) publish my next book 3) repeat until April 1st, 2015. If I run out of money - too bad for me, will have to get a job or something

- don't spend $$ on b.s. like new jeans. think about OPPORTUNITY COST (lesson from Warren Buffet) of not investing in Kindle.

5. Doing what's easy and avoiding doing what's hard

What I'm doing about it?

- figure out what work I'm trying to avoid. usually involves some hard thinking, making hard decisions or doing something uncomfortable (e.g. copywriting, making decisions about who to hire)

- set up a process-oriented goal what will make my subconscious "buy in" and make the "hard part" WORTH it

6. Learning too much, not doing enough (similar to problem #1)

This is what my successful IM friend from Thailand told me after spending some time with me

What I'm doing about it?

- admitting I do have a tendency to over-think things, learn too much. usually because of some fear of work / hard decision / hard thinking / failure involved

- make an implementation plan with a few "low hanging fruits" from every book I read and use it in my business

- don't read / visit BHW until I publish my next book

Great post mate. Highly detailed for those of us looking to break into Kindle!

Hey dandam,
when I read your post I thought to myself: "Oh no, not another Kindle journey!" but then I've read your last post with all this impressiv paragraphs. Amazing!

Before I start with Kindle I've also done a lot of research about this business. I've read everything I could find in the Internet and had a rocket start with my first book series. You are the first one I've seen here on BHW who also took such an effort for the research - And this pays off! I could tell you long long stories about good friends of mine who have seen my success and want to imitate me. They've seen that I outsource the writing and that I can publish new books week by week. But what they've not seen: The whole research work before and during the success. They won't listen to my and had just my income in her eyes so eg. they tried to outsource the writing even before they had a KDP account. Oo Sure, they failed, lost money and gave up. So you are on a good way. The research you've done is perfect and you'll definitely have success if you are following this steps!

I just want to add something to your paragraphs:
- When you want to outsource the work please work with a contract (+ bills) to get the exclusive rights because a) you have a certificate that you are allowed to publish the texts b) if you get in trouble because of plagiarism you have the contact address of the person c) your writer will not try to copy a text or sell it again to other customers - otherwise he could get in trouble.

- When I started to outsource the writing I've hired about 15 person. I told everyone to write a story about the same topic (researched a nice niche before). So at the end I had 15 stories. I told the writers with the best stories to write a second and third part of her stories. So at the end I had 5 high quality series and good writers for the futher. I've used the other 10 (bad) stories for another series but never worked again with those writers.

- make a binder and write down the names of your writers, the progress of the work, the appointed price, length etc. Make also a seperate binder for the bills and contracts. That's important because if you have so many writers you can not handle they in only with your brain. Structure is everything.

- I give my 5 writers everytime the same topic but a different plot. That helps me to dominate a niche faster and I save time because I don't have to research the market for new niches and keywords so often.

- If you think that one of your writer has an really amazing writing style you should seperate his books from the others. Create an own pen name (+blog, fb, twitter etc.) for him. That's the best strategy for long term success because you can provide the same quality to your readership (think about you've mixed different quality books ...and suddenly the people love your current book ...they expect such a high quality if they'll buy another book of you ...but getting frustrated if they get a low quality book). So it's okay to mix the books of different writers with mostly the same quality and/or writing style but if you have a really impressive writer you should let his works stand alone. That's important for long term success.

- Another point that's motivating me: Calculate the possibilities of your success. That sounds senseless but a big factor of my motivation is "dreaming". Let's say you have 10 books you can calculate a little bit: "Oh, I've 10 books out so far and made $30 today. If I will publish 5 books more next month I could make about $45/day. That's nice. That's about $1.300/month or $15.000/year. But wait ...I'll keep on working and will puplish 5 more books every month. So after one year I've published about 60 books. If one book lets me make about $70 minimum per month I will earn $4.200/month or $50.000/year. And so on.

- Seperate your time in books: I've 5 ghostwriters. Every ghostwriter is able to publish 2 or 3 books per month. That's about 2-3 books/week or 10-12 books per month or 100 books per year. That's my personal limit and I am not able to publish more than 100 books/year alone. Everything else would be too much work for me alone. So my advice is: Find out your maximum output rate. How many writeres can you handle alone? Can you read, format, write a product description, create the cover etc. within the time until the next books are coming? Etc. Don't think from book to book and create a structure how many books you'll publish per month (but make sure that the quality is decent enough because you don't want to publish rubbish).


Hope I could help you. I will follow your journey and I bet you'll have success!

Good luck with your journey mate. I wish you luck.

great nice nice info guys

11.21.2014 - Now I have published my 2nd Kindle book! YAY

Still not quitting.

30 days for the first book, 21 days for the second

Main lessons:

- the first book is the hardest since you're dealing with unknown variables.

the second was much easier. I had the cover done in advance, KDP "draft" filled in, formatting template and everything ready for the final text

- my first book got blocked 2 times because of the title. had to republish 2 times.

- don't be afraid "dis-attach" from current writer and find a new writer (I've found 2 - one is worse and another is better)

- don't bi*ch about money as long as I have $$$ for the next book

- create a "PROGRESS" spreadsheet to track what parts of the book are finished (I use google drive spreadsheet)


- to do IM you need money to invest. I need to get a job (I have applied for one yesterday)

- Keep it simple. KINDLE = publishing (key event / key number / key variable). the more you publish the more everything

- have a deadline for when to publish the next book - forces to stay up that extra hour or make hard decisions or aggressively follow up on people when they don't respond

- test job is the key. it shows everything about the writer - style, standards, communication, typos, ability to grab attention, grammar etc. Only costs $5

- twitter. type in search your keyword - select people - follow 50 people daily. re-follow everybody who follows you. mix promo tweets and "value" tweets - track clicks with some url shortener

- go to top 100 bestsellers in your niche - pick the books that are similar to yours - read reviews -> this will help you create a better product and explain the writer what should be included (+ examples with links to make it STUPID CLEAR)

- prepare thy business for money, son. If someone would give me $x,xxx right now, what would I do? would I be able to show positive ROI on it?

have everything ready. who would I hire? how many books would I work on simultaneously? what genres / keywords? covers?

- stuff keywords in the title / subtitle. it instantly shows the reader "here's what you'll get"

My plan right now

1. Publish my 3rd book
2. Get a job

Very simple. All process oriented goals. In general, I'm hitting the edge of my old self's comfort zone. I've been close to breaking the "fear of job" wall in the past, but always rationalized and never really broke through it.

Brace yourself

Never give up, and I suggest devoting a set time everyday that will be your "time to work". Treat it as if you were away from home at the office doing a real 9to5 job except you will reap all of the benefits and not a boss.

Few things I have learned from my Kindle journey so far: 1. Hire a writer for $100 for every 7k words atleast 2. Hire a professional designer for ecover ($3 to $5) 3. use the full description words (small description of the book is a bad idea) ($10) 4. Do KPD select for 1 or 2 days max 5. Market your book in all possible places (forum, blogs, FB, twitter). 6. Publish more book to increase residual income 7. Have a continuous marketing plan for the existing book. It is not a "publish once and earn forever area"

Listen.

What you are lacking here is passion. Passion for what you really love to do.

If you don't love IM (as your passion) then get out of it. Meaning, just STOP. Go do something that you actually enjoy doing and does not feel like "work"to you. If you are not willing to put in the long hours dedicating your self to a task that you know you could possibly outsource, then maybe IM is just not for you.

Keep this in mind. Just cause doctors get paid quite a bit of money, it does not mean that I want to go to school to become a doctor. Why? Because frankly I could not sit there getting lectured all this information that i was not interested in. So, what I am trying to say is do what you are passionate about and the money will come.

Update 12.05.2014

Now I have published my 3rd Kindle book!!

Yay!

it took me 14 days

and (the most important part) - I've got a job (finally) as an English teacher

Main lessons:

- 3 books is nothing, get to 10-20 books as fast as possible

- target specific keywords / niche. put it in the title, subtitle, description

- do KDP select 1 day at a time. ppl say the best days are THU, SAT & SUN. I'll test and see which works the best

- stick to something for 6 months then judge

- to do IM you need money to invest. Job is the solution.

- buy reviews - go through similar books, find reviewers with email addresses, send them a book as a gift and ask if they could leave an honest review for it

- try to improve each book compared to the previous books - e.g. targeting, cover, description, formatting

- there is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. become the guy who's living it, not just reading about it. results or lack of results shows the real "quality" and substance of my inner game, not reciting "think and grow rich" by heart

- there is a difference between persistence on "low revs" (which doesn't really count) and on "high revs" (maintaining the effort, the push)

- action model. problem -> brainstorm a list of potentially helpful actions (e.g. 10-20) and implement all of them. Fast. Refuse to accept anything less than success. (Dan Kennedy - The Ultimate Success Secret).

- have a stupid "macro" (strategic / long term) plan for everything - turn everything into a "funnel"

e.g. my stupid macro for kindle

1. get $$$
2. publish as much books as possible till 1.04.2015
3. see what happens

the kindle funnel looks like this

1. get $$$
2. hire awesome writers
3. publish books (some of them will turn out to be...
4. successful books
5. market
6. improve, learn, optimize for ROI, rinse & repeat

- successful people who are actually making money online don't get too caught up in "inner game", they're just busy taking action. a lot. fast.

- work expands to fill the time available for it's completion. if you want to get something done - ask a busy person to do it. be busy. it helps with productivity.

the #1 thing that has been working for me is focusing on the process and not the outcome.

so my "micro" plan is

1. test KDP select days & promo methods (websites, facebook, twitter) on my 3 books
2. get $$$
3. buy reviews for book 3
4. publish book #4 and make it better than book #3

Ok. Update 12.31.2014

happy new year everybody!

Now I have published my 4th kindle book! YAY

book 1 - 30 days
book 2 - 21 days
book 3 - 14 days
book 4 - 27 days

This book 4 is basically a bundle of my previous 3 books

for every 3-4 books - you get 1 book for free (as a bundle)

Lessons learned

- throw sh..t against the wall and see what sticks can work if you have a huge budget.

but I need to do RESEARCH!! I can only publish 1 book at a time right now and I did very basic (minimal) research for these 4 books. for my next book I've done about a week of research, going through hundreds of keywords to find the gold

1) LOW COMPETITION (less than 400 competitors in Kindle Store) + 2) BIG DEMAND (avg sales rank of top 20 and top 6 ~20-50k or less, no too much reviews in top 6 books)

- KDP free promo works like magic. this has been the sole reason I've been making sales. I just put all 3 books on free promo and rotate THU, SAT and SUN. free downloads trigger borrows / sales

- try to make everything as perfect as possible (lesson from Pinger030 in the ticket thread). There should be no question in my mind. I completely remade all titles, subtitles, descriptions, covers, inside, after the story, fonts, sizes etc

It may not impact the sales of these 3 books, but in general - INNOVATE!!! RAISE YOUR STANDARDS, SON!

- don't go after competitive keywords (1,000+). it ranks very low. go after mid (400-999) and low competition keywords (<399)

- track rankings for all books for all keywords to see what's working and what's not

- put links to other books, author website, collect emails (mailchimp), broadcast when something new is up

- every week do a "Kindle workshop" - brainstorm 20 potentially helpful actions to improve my kindle business. work ON the business (lesson from Chet Holmes). every monday. implement them all fast. then next week another workshop. and the next week another one. UNTIL it f..cking works

- learn like crazy. Right now I'm re-reading the Ticket thread, all posts by GringoMonkey, Pinger030, Carepolice and everything I can find when I search for "kindle" on BHW, all WSOs I could downloads, google "How to make money on kindle", kboards etc.

then I write down "APPLICABLE ADVICE TO ME RIGHT NOW" and only write down things I can apply right now (and IGNORE stuff about other niches, stuff about hiring 9999 writers and publishing 9999 books per hour. I can only do 1 at a time right now)

then make an "implementation plan" and do a "kindle workshop" about ways to implement all of that

- listen to podcasts like crazy whenever I'm not working. Internet Business Mastery, Smart Passive Income, Tim Ferriss, Social Triggers, Joe Roegan, Eben Pagan. anything to keep me in the "this stuff will eventually work. don't quit dude" mindset. tons of valuable stuff

- get busy. work expands to fill the time allowed for it completion (Parkinson's law). at the end of the day there is 1 KEY EVENT for me (e.g. right now publish book #5. das it). the less time I have to work on Kindle the more effective I have to be and only do things that lead to hitting that publish button on book #5.

- reach out to successful people. some will ignore you, but I managed to have a 6 hour chat with an awesome dude who's making money online and travelling the world and he taught me lots of stuff (cold showers, Tai Lopez etc)

- don't quit. stick to something for 6 months. but don't be stubborn in your methodology. stay focused on the outcome, but be willing to analyze / change your methodology. (lesson from Tony Robbins and Felix Dennis).

keep doing "kindle workshops" brainstorming potentially helpful actions UNTIL it works. refuse to accept anything else than success (Dan Kennedy - Ultimate Success Secret). count the times you feel like quitting (I've already wanted to quit 2 times)

- DOCUMENT THY METHOD, son!

write down exactly what you're doing so that you can know if it works or not. if not - then have a self-analysis checklist to figure out what went wrong

checklist for kindle (all key variables - lesson from Pinger030)

1) category
2) subcategory
3) content quality
4) keywords
5) title
6) sub-title
7) cover
8) description
9) price
10) free promo (day?)
11) other books (author rank? series?)
12) ??? other factors I don't know yet

if a book is successful - I did a decent job with these factors

if not - go through each step on by one, try to make everything as perfect as possible and... RESUBMIT!!! as long as the content is decent - there is no prohibition to resubmit the book again under a different title, subtitle, description, etc

the easiest to change is price -> drop it - if you get more sales -> then the issue was the price.

if not - change description, then change everything

<rant>

- MAIN LESSON!!! - most "successful" people don't share those THOUSANDS little internal changes, tiny lesson and distinctions they learned along the way. some are simply not "aware" how they're doing it (e.g. guys who are naturally good with girls) or some people just have a DNA "built" for certain things.

some think if it's obvious to them - how can other people not see it (these are the ones to usually bs about platitudes like "work hard, believe in yourself, don't give up, just do it, just take action" and don't understand how murky and confusing it is to other people)

some (usually those who had to LEARN IT THEMSELVES) ARE WILLING to share if you ask them about it 1-ON-1 (skype or in person).

that's the hope. reach out to successful people who have what you want and ask them. and then listen between the lines for those "principles" and tiny lessons / distinctions. and then you can find that their "success" has roots in lots of seemingly insignificant life experiences, books, little lessons they learned + actualy feedback from DOING STUFF.

Ok. </rant>

my current method is

1. get $$$ (apply for jobs, interview, get hired, work, get paid)
2. keyword research (low competition + high demand) - I COMPLETELY SKIPPED THIS STEP. no good
3. hire awesome writers (invite all to a private job, filter samples, hire for a test job, hire the best for the full project, rehire those who ultimately delivered what you wanted + don't be cheap)
4. research competition (their titles, subtitles, inside, descriptions, author page etc) - steal, copy and innovate
5. publish a "test" short book to test the niche. if works - publish more in a series. if not -> move to keyword #2 and remake the book and resubmit
6. rinse & repeat

right now I'm waiting to get paid my first real salary at my job (which is super exciting) and invest that $$$ to my book #5.

my big mistake was trying to start a business using my "allowance" from parents. that's not realistic. by the sweat of your brow -> get a job -> build a business (forces to "value" money and put more into research since it's my money on the line)

I'll update when I publish book #5. don't quit. just "collect" the times you feel like quitting i'm currently at 2

great to know you're still going strong! Stick with it and results would follow.

I've got faith in you mate. This is by far one of the best kindle journeys that I've read. Very, very helpful.