17 year olds goal of reaching $20,000 per month self publishing

[soonrich]

*LONG POST ALERT- I have never been part of any forum and hate writing (ironic since i publish books) so i am sorry if i sound like i am ranting or if something doesn't make sense.

Hey guys, i just wanted to start off by saying thanks to MJ for this forum and to all of the fastlaners who are getting sh*t done. I just finished reading the millinoire fastlane- after putting it off for about 2 years- and i really wish i picked this book up when i first heard about it. I am 17 years old (18 next month), i live in london and i recently started to publish books on kindle. I have always had a fastlane mentality (even though i didnt know it was called fastlane) and i have never wanted a job. I left school when i was 16 to start a online ecommerce store but that eventually failed. After that venture i found kindle publishing. I have decided to devote my life to business and I WILL make my first million before 20. I also have no intention of going to uni, google got me this far.

For the past 8 months i have been publishing books on kindle and my system is finally falling into place, i currently have 70 books published- like i said, the system is falling into place. Everything is outsourced, i hate writing. Although i have quite a lot of books published i have been sooo busy doing shitty admin work and managing people that i have not had any time to WORK ON THE BUSINESS so the revenue is not that great, I have started to put the correct systems in place so i no longer have to spend all of my time sending emails and i can now focus on growing revenue. All of my books are in the same non-fiction niche- this really was not the best niche to get into and looking back it was a mistake but it had the least barrier to entry for a then 16 year old that only had $200. What i had to do to get that $200 is a whole different story I was lucky enough to strike gold with my first book and it generated enough for me to create 3 more books then 3 grew into 70. This is not an easy process and there WILL be roadblocks, difficulties, stress, sleepless nights and A LOT of missed parties but it will pay off in the end.

After reading the Millionaire Fastlane i realised that i am following the SCALE model as i produce quite a lot of short, lower priced books instead of long higher priced books. All of my books are about 3000-6000 words each and are priced at $2.99.

I am set to make about $3000 this month and if all goes well $6000 next month- i know the numbers are shyte but i have a plan to get my company to $20,000 per month so i started this progress thread to hold me accountable and to get advise- i am also more than happy to help anyone that is trying to get started in self publishing. I would hope i know a thing or two after publishing 70 books.

There are a lot of people on this forum who are crushing it self publishing and i would really appreciate it if you guys could help me to reach my goals by sharing some knowledge.

Look out for my next post where i will talk more about my plan to reach the $20,000 per month mark, this post is getting too long.

*sorry i will not disclose what niches i am writing in or my strategies for producing the volume i do, its taken me a long time to develop my systems and you cant get 8 months worth of stress and 18 hour work days for free

Thanks again MJ, your book is currently on its way to all of my closest friends.

 

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[lolo08]

How much do you have to pay to your writers for one book?

 

[Greyson F]

Writing books that are worth $2.99 would be more appropriate. A good business verse to hold onto is "quality over quantity", I'd rather make $20,000 a month off of 5-10 high selling good sized books instead of throwing your reputation out the window manufacturing 70 small sized "quick fix" books. Just a thought. I thought about writing my novel in the 60-70k range, but I've learned that publishing markets love averages and usually people expect your book to be about with the market average in all aspects, especially page number (word count)

 

[soonrich]

Writing books that are worth $2.99 would be more appropriate. A good business verse to hold onto is "quality over quantity", I'd rather make $20,000 a month off of 5-10 high selling good sized books instead of throwing your reputation out the window manufacturing 70 small sized "quick fix" books. Just a thought. I thought about writing my novel in the 60-70k range, but I've learned that publishing markets love averages and usually people expect your book to be about with the market average in all aspects, especially page number (word count)

Hi Greyson, i totally understand what you are saying and most of it is right but things vary massively from niche-to-niche. If i was writing in the fiction niche i would definitely be writing a series of 5-10 much longer books but with the longer word count comes a much longer lead time and a cost per book that goes into the thousands if i intend to outsource it. All for something you are not 100% is going to sell. Don't get me wrong fiction books are definitely in my roadmap as that is where the vast majority of money is when we are talking about kindle books but for now non-fiction does the trick.

All of my books are priced higher than the niche average so they all have to be the best quality and i really do stand by my product. When dealing with kindle you cant afford to have low quality anything because it only takes one 1 star review about ANYTHING a reader doesn't like and your sales will dry up faster than you can blink.

 

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[Greyson F]

Hi Greyson, i totally understand what you are saying and most of it is right but things vary massively from niche-to-niche. If i was writing in the fiction niche i would definitely be writing a series of 5-10 much longer books but with the longer word count comes a much longer lead time and a cost per book that goes into the thousands if i intend to outsource it. All for something you are not 100% is going to sell. Don't get me wrong fiction books are definitely in my roadmap as that is where the vast majority of money is when we are talking about kindle books but for now non-fiction does the trick.

All of my books are priced higher than the niche average so they all have to be the best quality and i really do stand by my product. When dealing with kindle you cant afford to have low quality anything because it only takes one 1 star review about ANYTHING a reader doesn't like and your sales will dry up faster than you can blink.

That is definitely true! I think it is awesome to see a guy my age doing great stuff like this. I turned eighteen not two weeks ago, so it feels good to have other people join the minority. Fiction is something that I'd like to get out there at first. A word of advice for you though is that with the reputation as an author comes the rallying point. Changing from non-fiction to fiction can screw up sales because you're switching to different audiences. Be careful with that, because it can hurt sales. It feels great knowing another young self-publisher. Keep in touch!

 

[Hicks]

That is definitely true! I think it is awesome to see a guy my age doing great stuff like this. I turned eighteen not two weeks ago, so it feels good to have other people join the minority. Fiction is something that I'd like to get out there at first. A word of advice for you though is that with the reputation as an author comes the rallying point. Changing from non-fiction to fiction can screw up sales because you're switching to different audiences. Be careful with that, because it can hurt sales. It feels great knowing another young self-publisher. Keep in touch!

Just use a different pen name.

Soonrich: Absolutely great progress. I too have pretty much just concentrated on non-fiction and it is definately a different game than the fiction one. Good luck.

 

[soonrich]

How much do you have to pay to your writers for one book?

It varies greatly depending on niche, quality, and wordcount. If you are trying to outsource a short book look in the $200-$500 range

 

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[soonrich]

That is definitely true! I think it is awesome to see a guy my age doing great stuff like this. I turned eighteen not two weeks ago, so it feels good to have other people join the minority. Fiction is something that I'd like to get out there at first. A word of advice for you though is that with the reputation as an author comes the rallying point. Changing from non-fiction to fiction can screw up sales because you're switching to different audiences. Be careful with that, because it can hurt sales. It feels great knowing another young self-publisher. Keep in touch!

We definitely should keep in contact hicks, thats what i like about this forum- most of the people are young and getting shit done. All of my sidewalk/slowlane friends think i am crazy when i say i am going to get a range rover and have my first rental property when i am 18 but oh well f*$k em!

If you like writing and think you can nock out great books then go for it, you know where i am if you need help with the publishing process.

 

[COSenior]

Well, my dear, some of us here are old enough to be your grandparent, but that's beside the point. I'm here to congratulate you on taking action. With that kind of drive, you'll succeed at something. May it be sooner rather than later.

 

[Lauryn]

Congratulations... and welcome. I'm so proud of the fact that you're doing this so early in life. You've got a kickass headstart.

 

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[RobertHungry]

Hey bro i am in the same situation as you please pm me

 

[Blue Lion]

Congrats on what you've achieved so far and welcome to the forum.

A couple of questions:

Where do you find your writers? How many do you use?
Do you just come up with the concept of the book, break it down into chapters and then outsource?
How much money does it cost you on average to produce one book?
How did you decide upon your niche? Was it after analyzing the competition or a topic you have interest/knowledge about?

 

[soonrich]

Well, my dear, some of us here are old enough to be your grandparent, but that's beside the point. I'm here to congratulate you on taking action. With that kind of drive, you'll succeed at something. May it be sooner rather than later.

Thanks a lot for your kind words, they helped get me out of a ditch theses past couple of days.

 

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[soonrich]

Congratulations... and welcome. I'm so proud of the fact that you're doing this so early in life. You've got a kickass headstart.

Thanks for the encouragement lauryn

 

[soonrich]

Congrats on what you've achieved so far and welcome to the forum.

A couple of questions:

Where do you find your writers? How many do you use?
Do you just come up with the concept of the book, break it down into chapters and then outsource?
How much money does it cost you on average to produce one book?
How did you decide upon your niche? Was it after analyzing the competition or a topic you have interest/knowledge about?

It looks like you are just starting out so ill give you my recommendations based on what i did when i was a just starting.

To find writers go to sites like elance, odesk, freelancer. Stick to writers that are uk, canada, or US based; basically stick to english speaking countries. Make sure that they have good reviews and DONT BE CHEAP, if you are just starting out make sure that pay for good quality work ($500 max for non-fiction).

When structuring the books make sure that you look at your competitors books (the amazon preview feature on the kindle pages) and cover all of the topics they cover plus more, you need to provide more value and than your competitors. Once you have written up the outline send it to the writer and let them work their magic.

The cost varies widely but when i first started out i was paying $250-400 for content, doing the covers myself (i have basic photoshop skills but not recommended), formatting myself (make sure you learn how to format, people make mistakes and you need to be able to modify books on the spot), and the writer also edited the books. If you wanted to outsource on a budget i would recommend fiverr.com (not for writing).

Finding the niche is probably the hardest/ most time consuming part because it is where the money comes from, take time on this step. I messed up with the first niche i picked and it is coming back to haunt me now, i chose a niche with a low barrier to entry but that also meant that it becomes saturated very quickly. Follow the money and get into what is selling, it doesn't matter if you are interested in the topic since you are hiring someone who is interested in it to write the content. If i was to start over i would look at the fiction niches, it cost more to start but that is where the money is.

 

[ck4750]

I have a niche I've just started looking into that's got maybe 10-15 books/guides on the subject. Is that considered overly saturated? That number seems low to me. Just curious what everyones take is

 

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[Hicks]

I have a niche I've just started looking into that's got maybe 10-15 books/guides on the subject. Is that considered overly saturated? That number seems low to me. Just curious what everyones take is

please note and then tell us the sales rank of the top 2 and the bottom 2 from the page so we can answer more easily. Are they on .com or a different amazon site?

 

[ck4750]

please note and then tell us the sales rank of the top 2 and the bottom 2 from the page so we can answer more easily. Are they on .com or a different amazon site?

Ok so the top 1 and 2 are 73,677 and 104,044. Bottom two are 490,586 and 791,602. They weren't on one page I had to do a little searching to find them. What do you guys think?

 

[soonrich]

I personally dont enter any topic that is ranked more than 50,000 (1 sale per day).

 

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[Hicks]

Yes I think that sounds very low indeed. Especially if they were published very recently. Don't get me wrong you will perhaps make money but I would keep looking if I were you. I've had a book at the '791,602' range and that book just doesn't really sell. Good luck

 

[ProweJosh]

Good luck man, great to see another young person on the Fastlane and taking action, hard to find these days

 

[soonrich]

UPDATE

I haven't updated this thread in quite some time but things have really been up and down. Hit a massive roadblock shortly after creating the thread -my niche's pricing flipped on me- and a lot of sales dried up overnight so i changed the prices on most books but i wasn't happy with the revenue at the lower price point so i changed it back to normal, things have started to stabilise a little.

I also hit a milestone this week and systemised the running of one of my accounts to a point where i only have to work about 1 hour per month scheduling the kdp promotions and send the dates to an assistant who then completes a marketing plan i created for the books that are on free promo. I no longer have to touch that account and it makes me around £1000 ($1600) per month so that is a step in the right direction i guess.

I have started work on a new account in the same niche but servicing a different type of customer. I plan to add an auto-responder series giving helpful content+selling niche specific affiliate products on the backend so that i can generate more revenue whilst providing value. I will publish more books and start more accounts in this niche until it is making me £5000 ($8326) monthly. Once i reach that point i will start publishing in other non-fiction niches to reach the $20,000 (£12,000) per month. I have a pretty high risk tolerance so once i reach the goal of $20,000 i would probably put all i have into a rapid expansion into fiction books as thats where all the money is.

I am also currently working on two new business with partners so that is taking up a lot of my time but i like a challenge.

More updates soon.

 

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[COSenior]

Wait, you're how old?

 

[soonrich]

Wait, you're how old?

Turned 18 on the 15th *sigh* i feel like an old man The clock is ticking now so i have to put my head down and grind.

 

[Rainy_TX]

Turned 18 on the 15th *sigh* i feel like an old man

You feel like an old man? At 18? >Insert something tastefully witty that doesn't reveal how old I am here< If only I would have started my attempt at the fastlane when I was 18, yeesh. You are so ahead of the 8 ball at this point! Stay focused, keep your traction and don't loose sight of your goals.

 

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[Hicks]

Turned 18 on the 15th *sigh* i feel like an old man The clock is ticking now so i have to put my head down and grind.

Happy Birthday!
Gotta, say pretty impressive at any age but 18?????!!! Well done Sir.

Have a quick question: in your post you mention releasing different books under different 'accounts'. Do you mean actually different amazon accounts? If so; why do you do this and how do you do it?

 

[COSenior]

Well, 'old' man, I wish I'd had your vision and drive when I was that age. I'd be long retired by now.

 

[ROBugatti]

Keep it up! My first book ever on Kindle was 100% written by me and it is non-fiction. The next 18 were all outsourced, but they are fiction. My current business plan has a mix of both, but for the most part I'll be writing all of them myself. Good luck, and keep it up. I'll be keeping an eye on your results.

 

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[JahvonCreamCone]

Hey man, great to hear all the work you've been putting in to the fastlane journey. I just turned 20 4 months ago and i'm looking to get serious about publishing also. Do you know how to code? I don't and i feel like this might be a road block. Your thoughts?

 

[Bruh]

Hey @soonrich, can you give an update? I'm sure many of us would love to hear from you.