Trying Out Self-Publishing

[Aimee]

Hey girl! seems like your doing well! just keep at it!

I'm also starting out self publishing, but non-fiction and I will outsource the writing.

You said that you research bestsellers on Amazon,and note down trends and research bestselling authors on Amazon, and note down trends.

What do you look for specificly when you look at those lists?

I'm having a hard time finding a niche so that I could start the damn self publishing. Any tips on that? PS I'm already looking at the best sellers, clickbank, forums, and other sites for ideas, but I can't seem to come up a good potential niche...frustrating

Thank you very much!

My research is pretty simple. When I'm selecting a new niche I just look at the top 100 erotica/erom authors, look for trends, pick one that I'm at least semi-interested in, then read a few of the books to see what readers like.

I don't have much experience with non-fiction so I'm probably not the best person to ask, but I'd start by looking at the top 100 nonfiction bestsellers, see if I can see any trends, then drill down further into that niche (e.g. if 30 out of the top 100 books are focused on health, I'd look further into that). Then I'd look for more trends (from a quick 20 minute scan I can see that diet books, paleo books, and carb books are popular in the health niche) and drill down further (say I choose to look at diets...from another look through the bestseller lists, books about juicing seem popular), then I'd look at all of the books about juicing, see what they have in common, read the reviews to see what people like and dislike, and then tailor my book to that. I'd probably drill down further again, but that was just an example off the top of my head and I really don't know enough about juicing to give an example...

I find nonfiction to be a lot more work than fiction and I don't enjoy it as much, so I'm probably not the best person to ask. I did try it out once and the book absolutely flopped (so yeah, I'm definitely not the best person to ask), but I'm sure there are plenty others on this forum who are making a killing at it.

Goooooood luck!

 

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[Peakdesire]

Thank you very much!

My research is pretty simple. When I'm selecting a new niche I just look at the top 100 erotica/erom authors, look for trends, pick one that I'm at least semi-interested in, then read a few of the books to see what readers like.

I don't have much experience with non-fiction so I'm probably not the best person to ask, but I'd start by looking at the top 100 nonfiction bestsellers, see if I can see any trends, then drill down further into that niche (e.g. if 30 out of the top 100 books are focused on health, I'd look further into that). Then I'd look for more trends (from a quick 20 minute scan I can see that diet books, paleo books, and carb books are popular in the health niche) and drill down further (say I choose to look at diets...from another look through the bestseller lists, books about juicing seem popular), then I'd look at all of the books about juicing, see what they have in common, read the reviews to see what people like and dislike, and then tailor my book to that. I'd probably drill down further again, but that was just an example off the top of my head and I really don't know enough about juicing to give an example...

I find nonfiction to be a lot more work than fiction and I don't enjoy it as much, so I'm probably not the best person to ask. I did try it out once and the book absolutely flopped (so yeah, I'm definitely not the best person to ask), but I'm sure there are plenty others on this forum who are making a killing at it.

Goooooood luck!

Thanks that's good advice. What do you think about the size of the niches that you should go after? I've been suggested to only go for smaller niches that have like 200 search results so that it would be easier to dominate that niche. But then again small niches generate small sales..so I don't know should I choose a larger one or a smaller one.

 

[Aimee]

Thanks that's good advice. What do you think about the size of the niches that you should go after? I've been suggested to only go for smaller niches that have like 200 search results so that it would be easier to dominate that niche. But then again small niches generate small sales..so I don't know should I choose a larger one or a smaller one.

I've heard the same advice, but I've never really tried it out, so I'm honestly not sure how well it works. In fiction, however, I always go for the biggest niches. They're the most saturated, but it's also easier to get readers. I think that with the introduction of KU (assuming you're using Amazon), people are more willing to take a chance on smaller authors. Perhaps try one ebook targeting a large niche, and one targeting a small niche and see which works better? But yeah, I'm no expert on this subject at all.

I haven't been online much since my laptop broke and I've been having to use my iPad to write everything which is partly why everything has been so slow, but I'll post an update for the past week. Sales kind of died this week, so I've been trying to combat it by writing more. Think some of my stuff dropped off the 30 day cliff. Oops.

Books published:
Pen name #1: 10 books
Pen name #2: 7 books, 1 bundle
Total: 17 books, 1 bundle

Sales and borrows for first week of December:
Pen name #1: 88 borrows, 10 sales
Pen name #2: 18 borrows, 5 sales
Total: 106 borrows, 15 sales

Mailing list for #1 has 16 sign ups, mailing list for #2 has 0 sign ups. Going to try to increase sign ups by offering free books upon sign up or something, but I want to finish my series' for #1 and pump out some more shorts for #2 first. I have 3 stories to edit and publish for #2 tonight, soooo we'll see.

Think I'm finally starting to get the hang of this now, just need to write more.

 

[Aimee]

Borrow rate was $1.39 for November, up from $1.33 in Oct. I honestly think Amazon's just doing this to try and keep people hanging onto KU for a little bit longer to try and give them hope so everyone doesn't do a mass pull-out over Christmas, but whatever. If they're trying to tempt us, it's working for me. Gotta write faster!

November was my first full month of self-publishing, and I made just under $1k, so I'm pretty happy. It's definitely better than crawling around on my hands and knees scraping chips up off the floor and being screamed at because some lady got the wrong burger at McDonald's, ha. But life goes on. It was, erm, character building.

Sales overall so far in Dec: 270 borrows, 48 sales
Sales this week: 164 borrows, 33 sales

Was supposed to publish 2 books today and didn't even get them finished, but I guess I'm okay with taking a day off after seeing last month's results. Going to keep half of it for funsies and expenses, and stash the other half of it away to pump into future projects. I also decided to try outsourcing now I know how this thing works, so I've ordered one story from a freelancer to see how things turn out. My shorts sell much better in terms of time invested, but there are days when sitting down and writing 5k words of erotica just ain't all that appealing.

Thank you for all the support everyone has given me so far, it's great being a part of such a supportive community!

Used faaar too many smiley faces. Going to bed now...

 

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[Lex DeVille]

There's quite a bit of talk on Kboards about sales being low after Black Friday and before Christmas.

I think we'll see a nice little spike after Christmas.

Everybody will have brand new Ereaders, and I'm guessing many will also have brand new subscriptions to KU.

It's like a whole new market of customers coming to town.

 

[Aimee]

There's quite a bit of talk on Kboards about sales being low after Black Friday and before Christmas.

I think we'll see a nice little spike after Christmas.

Everybody will have brand new Ereaders, and I'm guessing many will also have brand new subscriptions to KU.

It's like a whole new market of customers coming to town.

I hope so! Supposedly Amazon are giving away 6 months worth of free KU subscriptions when people buy new kindles too, so it will be interesting to see what happens there. I had a huge dip at the end of November/beginning of December, but things seem to be evening out a little now,

 

[Selfy]

Glad to see your progress Aimee, my curve started off like yours, back around June. I pivoted to outsource model, and now back to to writing again and keeping the outsource model as well. I'm now on iteration 3.

I think it's really important to nail down the writing. When I started, I didn't build a mailing list bc my writing was crappy. But guess what happens after writing countless of these shorts and editing other shorts? Bam, now I feel confident of building an email list. I even have subscribers and some good reviews. Craziness..

A caveat on the outsource model. It takes time to master this model -- and requires not just time investment, but cash, and a wide range of business skills. I lucked out again as the first of my outsource model stuff came out when KU was a little higher, it just gave me enough to hammer a process down. It's not done yet, but it's seeded and ready to scale along with some quality measures built-in. Outsource model feels closer to entrepreneurship, but quality writing is just as an important. This community is great!

 

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[Gabriel]

I think it's really important to nail down the writing. When I started, I didn't build a mailing list bc my writing was crappy. But guess what happens after writing countless of these shorts and editing other shorts? Bam, now I feel confident of building an email list. I even have subscribers and some good reviews. Craziness..

Do you recommend any kind of book for developing a nice prose, and learning the art of writing fiction (Right now I'm writing on the health niche, but I would to switch to fictional and erotica).

 

[Lex DeVille]

Do you recommend any kind of book for developing a nice prose, and learning the art of writing fiction (Right now I'm writing on the health niche, but I would to switch to fictional and erotica).

The Cheater's Guide

This is a good one. It covers Erotica, Romance, and more.

 

[Selfy]

Do you recommend any kind of book for developing a nice prose, and learning the art of writing fiction (Right now I'm writing on the health niche, but I would to switch to fictional and erotica).

Emotional thesaurus is short answer.

Writing fiction is learned through GRIND. No book can teach you what the GRIND can. And the GRIND will hammer your creative process for you through experimentation. As for prose, the tiny brush strokes of writing, I think the nervous system kicks in subconsciously and projects what you have read, seen, and felt back into your prose. I mention subconscious because writing quality, immersive fiction is hard, requiring numerous skills which the brain's active memory cannot handle. To benchmark, I think it will take me 10 years (I kid you not) to achieve the mastery that I've seen in other authors, so it's a good thing that there's a market for creative shorts.

So long answer is there really is no short answer.

 

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[Aimee]

Glad to see your progress Aimee, my curve started off like yours, back around June. I pivoted to outsource model, and now back to to writing again and keeping the outsource model as well. I'm now on iteration 3.

I think it's really important to nail down the writing. When I started, I didn't build a mailing list bc my writing was crappy. But guess what happens after writing countless of these shorts and editing other shorts? Bam, now I feel confident of building an email list. I even have subscribers and some good reviews. Craziness..

A caveat on the outsource model. It takes time to master this model -- and requires not just time investment, but cash, and a wide range of business skills. I lucked out again as the first of my outsource model stuff came out when KU was a little higher, it just gave me enough to hammer a process down. It's not done yet, but it's seeded and ready to scale along with some quality measures built-in. Outsource model feels closer to entrepreneurship, but quality writing is just as an important. This community is great!

Woo, thank you! I read all the way through your thread before I started this venture. I loved watching your progress, definitely very inspiring!

I completely agree with you there. It's all about practice, there really is no short and fast method to it. It's repetitive and boring at times, but so is everything that's worth doing.

Thanks for the heads up. Right now I'm not spending much on it - just using some of the money I got from my November sales to fund it. I'm still writing a story every couple of days, but outsourcing's always something that I've wanted to try. It would have been handy to start when KU was a little higher, but I don't mind too much. As long as it stays above $1 for now then I'm good. When it drops below that, I'll take a time-out and re-evaluate.

I'm super glad you've got it to work out for you, you deserve it!

Emotional thesaurus is short answer.

Writing fiction is learned through GRIND. No book can teach you what the GRIND can. And the GRIND will hammer your creative process for you through experimentation. As for prose, the tiny brush strokes of writing, I think the nervous system kicks in subconsciously and projects what you have read, seen, and felt back into your prose. I mention subconscious because writing quality, immersive fiction is hard, requiring numerous skills which the brain's active memory cannot handle. To benchmark, I think it will take me 10 years (I kid you not) to achieve the mastery that I've seen in other authors, so it's a good thing that there's a market for creative shorts.

So long answer is there really is no short answer.

Exactly this.

 

[Gabriel]

Woo, thank you! I read all the way through your thread before I started this venture. I loved watching your progress, definitely very inspiring!

I completely agree with you there. It's all about practice, there really is no short and fast method to it. It's repetitive and boring at times, but so is everything that's worth doing.

Thanks for the heads up. Right now I'm not spending much on it - just using some of the money I got from my November sales to fund it. I'm still writing a story every couple of days, but outsourcing's always something that I've wanted to try. It would have been handy to start when KU was a little higher, but I don't mind too much. As long as it stays above $1 for now then I'm good. When it drops below that, I'll take a time-out and re-evaluate.

I'm super glad you've got it to work out for you, you deserve it!



Exactly this.

WHat's the price of the KU right now?

 

[Lex DeVille]

WHat's the price of the KU right now?

$1.39 per borrow.

 

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[Gabriel]

$1.39 per borrow.

Well it's not that baaad, you just need like 700 borrows per 1k dollars... But KU it's getting pretty popular right now ---> so more borrows. On low selling prices, borrows are even higher than the royalties.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Yeah, that's only a couple hundred books more than when it was at $1.80.

Every 10 to 20 cents they drop is a drop in revenue of a couple hundred dollars.

 

[Gabriel]

Yeah, that's only a couple hundred books more than when it was at $1.80.

Every 10 to 20 cents they drop is a drop in revenue of a couple hundred dollars.

Yes but also Kindle Unlimited accounts are growing up at a fast rate! Though I guess KU under 1.10-1.15 would be really really bad. Right now it's on the low side.

 

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[Charnell]

I foresee it as going to be up and down in 3-6 month trends. It reaches an incredible low, say less than or around $1, then a bunch of the big timers pull out because their royalties are going down (some of which already did at the $1.33 mark). That leaves the small fishes in the pool, raising borrow rates back up 20-50 cents. The bigger fish come back in for three months, it goes back down, rinse and repeat.

 

[Gymjunkie]

I foresee it as going to be up and down in 3-6 month trends. It reaches an incredible low, say less than or around $1, then a bunch of the big timers pull out because their royalties are going down (some of which already did at the $1.33 mark). That leaves the small fishes in the pool, raising borrow rates back up 20-50 cents. The bigger fish come back in for three months, it goes back down, rinse and repeat.

I think these will depend more on total Borrows customers do, not authors. I don't think Amazon watches too much who pulls out etc. The thing is Amazon can't keep high priced Borrows if there is a huge increase in Borrows. The more Borrows from new customers, the less each Borrow will be worth. Amazon would go in the hole for too much otherwise.

 

[Charnell]

I think these will depend more on total Borrows customers do, not authors. I don't think Amazon watches too much who pulls out etc. The thing is Amazon can't keep high priced Borrows if there is a huge increase in Borrows. The more Borrows from new customers, the less each Borrow will be worth. Amazon would go in the hole for too much otherwise.

I hear what you're saying. It would be nice to see how many people are enrolled in KU every month so we could predict borrow rates. There has to be a correlation between total amount of cash and number or subscribers. Unfortunately one of those numbers is unknown and neither is constant.

 

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[Gymjunkie]

I hear what you're saying. It would be nice to see how many people are enrolled in KU every month so we could predict borrow rates. There has to be a correlation between total amount of cash and number or subscribers. Unfortunately one of those numbers is unknown and neither is constant.

Yeah, that would be good. But not with Amazon haha

Anyway, if big names withdraw from KU, then it will build up some new names and that will be good. More midlist Indies. That is good. Like Select used to do few years ago. Temporary boost.

 

[Selfy]

Aww, thank you for being so lovely, I really appreciate it.

I agree that it does make more sense when you look at it like that, though. I think for my next venture, I'll try for a series of novellas. When you say 85k, do you mean 85k words per book, or for the entire series? I'm assuming you mean the former, which is super impressive. I'm very inspired!

Caution. Dig deeper in the forum.

I'm not sure if you're an English grad or what. But I'm sure you know writing 10k is different from writing 5k. And 80k is pro.

So, don't blast through it; instead, take your time to perfect your writing at the 5k level before inching ever slowly to higher word counts involving more complexities. You may even reduce the erotic content by percentage to give more shine to your plot. Romance is written. Erotica is better outsourced. You do not want to burn a pen.

Bundles, do not work as well in ku as before. Held for ransom had turned dinosaur. There is however new bundling variations cropping up which works for shorts for the time being

 

[Aimee]

Caution. Dig deeper in the forum.

I'm not sure if you're an English grad or what. But I'm sure you know writing 10k is different from writing 5k. And 80k is pro.

So, don't blast through it; instead, take your time to perfect your writing at the 5k level before inching ever slowly to higher word counts involving more complexities. You may even reduce the erotic content by percentage to give more shine to your plot. Romance is written. Erotica is better outsourced. You do not want to burn a pen.

Bundles, do not work as well in ku as before. Held for ransom had turned dinosaur. There is however new bundling variations cropping up which works for shorts for the time being

Nope, I don't have any formal qualifications in writing. I've definitely done more than 5k in one go, but I think the maximum for one story is about 50k. I understand what you're saying though, it is definitely much more difficult and requires a lot more focus to push through. I think 80k is still a little out of my reach right now.

I would like to give longer romance a try, but when borrows are so low right now, I'm just not sure whether it's worth it? Right now I've been doing 15k erom and 5k erotica, and although many more people have joined my erom mailing list than the erotica one, I get about 3x as many sales on erotica as erom, and it only takes me about 5 hours to write, edit and publish an erotica, as opposed to about 15 for erom...I've never tried a romance book before, but somehow it just doesn't seem so appealing right now.

I tried to keep a bundle out of KU and it got a total of 1 sale, which is absolutely naff, so not sure what to do there, but yeah, there's no reason for people to borrow 3 different books if they can just get them all in one bundle, so eh. Will have to keep experimenting to see what works.

 

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[Selfy]

Romance includes paranormal *flash pearly smile*

While it takes you 5 hours to write ero, some guy out there takes 30 mins to download a word file, pay, slap cover, categ etc.

But you're on the write track(haha), sales means nothing without production TIME. And word counts are useless without the sales. Like mj said, time is our primordial resource.

At the end, you have to pay your bills. What moves will help you get there?

Good luck, Aimee.

Subscribed!

 

[Aimee]

Romance includes paranormal *flash pearly smile*

While it takes you 5 hours to write ero, some guy out there takes 30 mins to download a word file, pay, slap cover, categ etc.

But you're on the write track(haha), sales means nothing without production TIME. And word counts are useless without the sales. Like mj said, time is our primordial resource.

At the end, you have to pay your bills. What moves will help you get there?

Good luck, Aimee.

Subscribed!

Hahaha That is true and I hope to get to that point soon, but I figure I should try it myself first. Still learning.
You say you've started outsourcing, approximately how much do you pay your freelancers if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Aimee]

So far in Dec: 490 borrows, 70 sales
This week: 220 borrows, 22 sales

So far I've released 23 titles (including bundles) across two pen names. I know most people said not to put bundles in KU, but it seems to have worked much better for me that way, so I'll be leaving mine in.

Don't have much to say this week, really. I've been quite busy doing various other things, so I haven't dedicated as much time to this as I'd have liked. Either way, I still plan to meet my 30 titles by New Year goal, so that's 7 titles in 7 days...should be fun (or not). Outsourcing is still work in progress.

 

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[Gabriel]

So far in Dec: 490 borrows, 70 sales
This week: 220 borrows, 22 sales

So far I've released 23 titles (including bundles) across two pen names. I know most people said not to put bundles in KU, but it seems to have worked much better for me that way, so I'll be leaving mine in.

Don't have much to say this week, really. I've been quite busy doing various other things, so I haven't dedicated as much time to this as I'd have liked. Either way, I still plan to meet my 30 titles by New Year goal, so that's 7 titles in 7 days...should be fun (or not). Outsourcing is still work in progress.

what's your regular sales and borrows per book? Do you have any book that oversales?

Why shouldn't I publish bundles in KU? I was thinking of publishing a series of 4 books the next month on KU...
thankk youu

 

[GuestUser116]

So far in Dec: 490 borrows, 70 sales
This week: 220 borrows, 22 sales

How much $ is 1 borrow?

 

[Charnell]

How much $ is 1 borrow?

We wont know until the 15th of the next month. In October it was $1.33, November was $1.37 or $1.38.

 

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[Aimee]

what's your regular sales and borrows per book? Do you have any book that oversales?

Why shouldn't I publish bundles in KU? I was thinking of publishing a series of 4 books the next month on KU...
thankk youu

(490 + 70)/23 = 24.3 units sold per book.
One book that took 10 hours has 5 sales, one book that took 3 hours has over 120 sales, hence why I'm concentrating on shorter stuff right now.

People say not to publish bundles in KU because you're essentially losing money if someone borrows the bundle as opposed to buying the books individually. Publishing a series is fine, just make sure to publish each book individually.

How much $ is 1 borrow?

Charnell is correct for the most part, I think borrows were $1.39 last month.

 

[Charnell]

(490 + 70)/23 = 24.3 units sold per book.
One book that took 10 hours has 5 sales, one book that took 3 hours has over 120 sales, hence why I'm concentrating on shorter stuff right now.

People say not to publish bundles in KU because you're essentially losing money if someone borrows the bundle as opposed to buying the books individually. Publishing a series is fine, just make sure to publish each book individually.



Charnell is correct for the most part, I think borrows were $1.39 last month.

There were really that high? Man I forget already and it's only been 7 days since the report.