OK, I'm in! Let's Self Publish.

[Dave C]

Also, I took this model from South Parks Underpants Gnomes

 

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[ctcrompton]

With that public service announcement out of the way, let me explain how I've expanded the non-fiction side of things.

Found this really informative. Now, the question is, what industry are you working in? (Assuming that's not too nosy of a question). I work in marketing, and I think a similar plan of attack could work well, especially for the digital side of things.

 

[Dave C]

Found this really informative. Now, the question is, what industry are you working in? (Assuming that's not too nosy of a question). I work in marketing, and I think a similar plan of attack could work well, especially for the digital side of things.

I'm in Dating Advice, at this point I can't decide whether or not I'd prescribe this course of action. Using books as a funnel to a community that can be monetised is a tall order, the advice you give really has to make some waves or appeal to a certain market segment. So you are limited by how well your books sell, how many word of mouth (or blog) shout outs you can get and then how monetisable that community becomes in exchange for further help.

On the other side by building the community I am also creating a catalogue of material I can later sell i.e. audio recordings and lectures. Really it all comes down to whether or not it can be scaled. Scaling is one of the most important parts of the process and although I have created something that can live without me after it hits critical mass, it's yet to be decided if I have found a real profitability gap in the market.

My focus has now switched back to writing the next book in this series because time is the main factor in seeing whether this will build now. The marketing work is done for the time being.

 

[Dave C]

Ok, as per usual let's preface this:

I am not making significant money and attempting to emulate the road I've taken so far could give you spectacularly bad results, also this post is written in a stream-of-consciousness prose. As such if I come of arrogant or pretentious it's simply because I'm excited by certain realities and ideas swimming around in my head.

My employer finally got his comeuppance for spending all his company's money and has been moving people from payroll to contract + commission. This is surprisingly weird coincidence because this comes at a time where I ma be able to generate some good revenue from my business in a similar market.

That and my mentor recently told me about salary being one of the worst things for you, within reason, because it doesn't force you to go out there and work. Instead it takes up a lot of time for no extra incentive. Specifically if I need more money but am on salary my only option is to reduce spending or sell more time.

Now I feel like if I need more money I can work harder, hustle for the money.

Only thing different in my situation is I still have a safety net of sorts, because I'm losing a full time job due to an employer unable to pay me I can file for Unemployment and still take contract work from my old employer. If he stays afloat I keep taking work from him and keep things growing. If he can't pay me then Unemployment kicks in at $450 a week until I take a different full time job.

My (over-ambitious) goal is to have a revenue stream of $2000 a month within the next two months. It's not impossible and for many it probably seems a small amount. For me it would be the world!

Right now, I think book sales will come in at $250 a month, coaching should come in at $150 a month and product sales should come in somewhere at $50 so $450 down, $1550 more to go. Wish I hadn't done the maths just now.

The other good news is that with the marketing I've been working on I've actually released no new books but increased sales and therefore profits. I also created a customer base that has started buying from me. So far it's only three paying clients, but my hope is to get it to continue growing organically.

Of course, this presents many new challenges to me that I had not considered, such as how to effectively price, and making it scalable. These are my new goals along with continuing to increase profitability, there is no business without profitability and yet I don't want to end up working for my business instead of having it work for me.

New goals, release the next book within the next two weeks, the covers been done for a while, time to add a word file and call it a book.
Figure out how to scale reliably
Figure out how to deliver more paid content with DRM in place, especially with audio products.

I guess return of investment is happening on it's own, I feel like I'm still at break even because I spend on tools that improve my service or my marketing. Each one is a one-off payment so that's good.

-D

 

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[Hicks]

Ok, have been meaning to drop by. I am doing pretty much exactly the same thing as you except: different genre and I'm not selling consulting services.

But I am writing non-fiction and (about to) upsell digital products; memberships/newsletters/downloads from a website. I've gotten pretty far but am not quite there yet. Be good to swop hints and tactics.

 

[Dave C]

Ok, have been meaning to drop by. I am doing pretty much exactly the same thing as you except: different genre and I'm not selling consulting services.

But I am writing non-fiction and (about to) upsell digital products; memberships/newsletters/downloads from a website. I've gotten pretty far but am not quite there yet. Be good to swop hints and tactics.

Yes, maybe we should chat on Skype? If so send me your username via pm.

 

[Dave C]

Ok, it's that time where I look at the money and ask it some questions.

US Store Only:
As before it's Digital + Physical = Total

Jan 2014 = $19.68
Feb 2014 = $35.88 + $27.66 = $63.54
March 2014 = $142.40 + $47.40 = $189.8
April 2014 = $179.94 + $21.30 = $191.27

So my Kindle book sales are increasing and my CreateSpace sales have declined (sessional book), technically I've seen sales go up in all stores this month without releasing anything new. This is great and I'm hoping to keep this going. Sadly due to a conflict of interest I've had to take down my books temporarily which sucks.

So this will go down next month instead of up.

-D

 

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[Dave C]

Doesn't time fly when you're busy!

I'll probably drop the update in this thread for a while now, the meh news is that my sales have now dropped to ~$100 a month.

The good news is that I've learnt so much from doing this that I'll be collecting $2500 this month on top of my regular salary from consulting gigs, I hope very soon to build the consulting into a 6-figure business ASAP.

I was hoping for the books to create a passive income, but I've noticed that for many it's a cyclical process of non-stop writing and that along with interest that developed from coaching others took things in a different direction for me.

I've spent a lot of money, made it back and hope to now start making even more. Part of the reason I'm doing OK now is that I've made a shit tonne of mistakes. I have felt very silly a lot of the time, but I have always learnt. I have always learnt quickly because why waste a lesson?

I wish everyone else on here continued success in my (hopefully short) absence. Everyone on here is amazing and I hope by the years end I can come back and update on how a business built on the idea of self publishing before evolving turned out.

Love!