Every Teens Dream... Broke to Independent

[DaRK9]

Logo.

Business cards. Be helpful man.

 

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[18inMiami]

Logo.

I don't know why I said logo , Book cover is what I meant to say and that's what I decided to do first.

First I will get a book cover done then I will start building a landing page

I don't know how to code so my options are an easy drag and drop landing page builder or hiring a freelancer.

 

[18inMiami]

My vote goes to the $300 landing page which only visitors will be the google bots due to $0 marketing budget.

You need think in terms of: How and where can I get people interested in buying my product? (Hint: It has something to do with marketing.)

I never said I wasn't going to do any marketing just that I am not going to INITIALLY spend money to do it.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

So what would you recommend?

Learn how to do it yourself.
EVERYTHING.
And spend ZERO $ doing it.

And not putting the book on Amazon (not to mention ZERO marketing) is self-pub suicide.

Do the above, and the growing process itself will be far worth any $$ you make.

 

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[GuestUser113]

ca$hvertising.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/16...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1601630328

 

[18inMiami]

I do plan on putting the book on amazon...just after I receive money from selling it through my own site. Amazon takes 60+ days minimum while my own site would take 21 days MAX

 

[Marius S.]

Learn how to do it yourself.
EVERYTHING.
And spend ZERO $ doing it.

And not putting the book on Amazon (not to mention ZERO marketing) is self-pub suicide.

Do the above, and the growing process itself will be far worth any $$ you make.

Yet I'm new in this too, I would seriously consider MJ's words!
I can tell you only this, and this is my personal point of view - its better to have a basic to mediocre marketing and spreading the book trough worldwide markets such as amazon and etc rather than have a 300$ landing page and have a waiting time of a "dream to come true" and expect some 21+days payments to cash in, considering book is real good and it will be bought from your website from the day of the launch at all. Marketing - is the process that can spoon-feed the initial taste of your product on to someone's mouth without them even buying it but just by catching their corner of an eye attention. Wait is well worth for 60+ day amazon transfers considering the payments you will receive will be considerably higher due to the audience marketed from the start. So think, and think wisely

Im not trying to discourage or demotivate, I wish a real success for you with doing this.

 

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[Charnell]

I do plan on putting the book on amazon...just after I receive money from selling it through my own site. Amazon takes 60+ days minimum while my own site would take 21 days MAX

You seem to think that 60 day is a long time. Obviously you're not going exclusive with any one seller, so there is 0 reason to NOT put it on Amazon/iTunes/Google/Smashwords/Kobo/any other of the hundreds of storefronts, especially with this being book #1.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but $300 for a book website is awfully expensive. Your best bet is to get hosting (~$10/month), a domain name (<$20), and a nice wordpress theme ($30-$70). Take what's left over from what you originally planned for your website and put that towards marketing.

 

[18inMiami]

You seem to think that 60 day is a long time. Obviously you're not going exclusive with any one seller, so there is 0 reason to NOT put it on Amazon/iTunes/Google/Smashwords/Kobo/any other of the hundreds of storefronts, especially with this being book #1.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but $300 for a book website is awfully expensive. Your best bet is to get hosting (~$10/month), a domain name (<$20), and a nice wordpress theme ($30-$70). Take what's left over from what you originally planned for your website and put that towards marketing.

Does setting up the wordpress theme require any coding knowledge?

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Does setting up the wordpress theme require any coding knowledge?

And what if it did? Give up? Look for something easier? Look for something that fits exactly into your skill set as it exists now?

 

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[DaRK9]

Does setting up the wordpress theme require any coding knowledge?

http://bfy.tw/4sf

And what if it did? Give up? Look for something easier?

I'll make it easy and make him a website for oh idk, $275...

 

[18inMiami]

• Hiring Ghost writer ($400)
• Book Cover ($100)
• Professional Quality Formatting & Interior design of book ( $200)
• Website ($300) * I don't plan on listing it on amazon initially because of how long it takes to payout (over 60 days) so i will make a 1 page website solely for the book with a paypal checkout ( only take 21 days or possibly less days to receive payments compared to 60+ with amazon)
• Marketing (0$) : This book is unlike anything published before and I know people will be excited to read to get the word out I will contact influencers and give them free copies for reviews and/or shoutouts and I have some guerilla marketing tactics I will use.

UPDATE!

• Hiring Ghost Writer ($300)
• Book Cover ($50)
• Professional Quality Formatting and design of book ($200)
• Website ($250)
• Marketing ($200)

 

[theag]

How about this:

Write book, design cover and put it on Amazon ($0)
Get some sales (+$$$)
Learn from the experience (PRICELESS)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

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[csalvato]

• Hiring Ghost writer ($400)

• Book Cover ($100)

• Professional Quality Formatting & Interior design of book ( $200)

• Website ($300) * I don't plan on listing it on amazon initially because of how long it takes to payout (over 60 days) so i will make a 1 page website solely for the book with a paypal checkout ( only take 21 days or possibly less days to receive payments compared to 60+ with amazon)

• Marketing (0$) : This book is unlike anything published before and I know people will be excited to read to get the word out I will contact influencers and give them free copies for reviews and/or shoutouts and I have some guerilla marketing tactics I will use.

Your costs are pretty off the mark in my experience.

Interior book design, for example, is going to cost a lot more than $200.

Your reason for avoiding Amazon is flawed logic in my opinion. I have done it both ways. Amazon wins nearly every time.

 

[csalvato]

Your costs are pretty off the mark in my experience.

Interior book design, for example, is going to cost a lot more than $200.

Your reason for avoiding Amazon is flawed logic in my opinion. I have done it both ways. Amazon wins nearly every time.

Made the mistake of posting before reading the rest of the thread. Please disregard.

 

[18inMiami]

Made the mistake of posting before reading the rest of the thread. Please disregard.

?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

• Hiring Ghost Writer ($300)
• Book Cover ($50)
• Professional Quality Formatting and design of book ($200)
• Website ($250)
• Marketing ($200)

There'ya go folks. The secret to making a fortune in book publishing, selling foreign publishing rights, the whole shabizz. And heck, this is just with $200 in marketing. Imagine if you spent $500-- we'd be looking at Harry Potter type success.

@MTF any suggestions to offer? @ChickenHawk ?

Look, I don't want to dissuade you from taking action, and at 18 years old, this is quite impressive. But here's the thing: You are NOT LISTENING to ANYONE but your narrow view, apparently on how easy it is to make $$ in publishing, secure foreign rights, etc... hell, just hire a ghostwriter and a landing page? C'mon man, save your money. Spending your entire bank account on this venture is, well, just foolish.

And BTW, if your $300 ghostwriter could produce a $300,000 piece of literature worthy of translation rights, she/he wouldn't be ghostwriting.

Again, I will reiterate my suggestion about as well as what @theag said...

Write book, design cover and put it on Amazon ($0)
Get some sales (+$$$)
Learn from the experience (PRICELESS)

But hey, as I like to say... some people don't want to be told the fire is hot, they need to get burned first.

 

[ChickenHawk]

First of all, @18inMiami, Kudos to you for venturing onto the entrepreneurial path. Even though I question your odds of success, I salute you for that. However... (Alas, you probably knew a "however" was coming, huh?).

This business is A LOT harder than it looks. While it's true that anyone can write a book, or pay a ghost-writer to write one for them, the odds of success, especially bigtime success, are really, REALLY slim. They're even more slim for someone with one book who's planning to sell it primarily from their own site.

Ideally by August I will have made enough to move out and quit job.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but the odds of this are slim. Even if your book is as good as you think, it's unlikely to take off like this, especially on such a short timeframe.

I will contact influencers and give them free copies for reviews and/or shoutouts and I have some guerilla marketing tactics I will use.

Here's the thing. A free book from an unknown author has NO VALUE to these influencers. You're asking them for their time and attention. Free or not, it's unlikely they'll even read your book. They don't have a lot of time and attention to spare. There are an infinite number of free books already, all an easy click away on Amazon. Free is only good if someone is willing to give up their time to read it.

As an author and a reader, it distresses me to see this approach. If only it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. But that's the problem, isn't it? It seems easy, simple even. But for every wild success story, there are thousands of other stories of people who tried it and gave up.

I don't want to discourage you from action. Even if you go down in flames, you'll learn something. which will boost your odds of success on your next venture. But I DO hate the idea of you spending so much money (relative to your net worth) on this venture. And I hate the idea of you getting your hopes up so high, only to feel discouraged or give up in the end.

Will you at least agree to something? If you do pursue this, will you keep us all posted? I'd love to be proven wrong and see you make gobs of money. But if you don't, at least tell us what happened so others can learn from your experience either way.

 

[18inMiami]

There'ya go folks. The secret to making a fortune in book publishing, selling foreign publishing rights, the whole shabizz. And heck, this is just with $200 in marketing. Imagine if you spent $500-- we'd be looking at Harry Potter type success.

@MTF any suggestions to offer? @ChickenHawk ?

Look, I don't want to dissuade you from taking action, and at 18 years old, this is quite impressive. But here's the thing: You are NOT LISTENING to ANYONE but your narrow view, apparently on how easy it is to make $$ in publishing, secure foreign rights, etc... hell, just hire a ghostwriter and a landing page? C'mon man, save your money. Spending your entire bank account on this venture is, well, just foolish.

And BTW, if your $300 ghostwriter could produce a $300,000 piece of literature worthy of translation rights, she/he wouldn't be ghostwriting.

Again, I will reiterate my suggestion about as well as what @theag said...



But hey, as I like to say... some people don't want to be told the fire is hot, they need to get burned first.

1. I understand the importance of web development and will devote my time to learning html,css,java,and php.I agree with you on that
2. It's hard for me to really get in to detail about the layout of the book , but just understand it's not just a quick outsourced romance novel . Only time will tell and I'm confident I know what I'm doing and if I am wrong I surely let everyone know where I went wrong I won't disappear!

Again the type of book I'm writing has never been done before . You're looking at this from your perspective. Of course when you were writing MFL you wouldn't have had any successful with a 200$ marketing budget ... that's because the type of book you wrote has been written thousands of times before and will continue to get written thousands of times after ( and before all you start crying about how his book is higher quality then those, I already know that ,but the average person doesn't know so you would need marketing to let people know). I don't know If you've read the book "Purple Cow" but my book is a purple cow it stands out and it gets attention.



And last I'm not expecting to get rich off this... I have journals full and documents full of different ideas, business plans, etc (Wantrepreneur? No because I not scared to fail and will use money made to reinvest in different businesses . These aren't just ideas that I write down but scared to attempt)

 

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[18inMiami]

First of all, @18inMiami, Kudos to you for venturing onto the entrepreneurial path. Even though I question your odds of success, I salute you for that. However... (Alas, you probably knew a "however" was coming, huh?).

This business is A LOT harder than it looks. While it's true that anyone can write a book, or pay a ghost-writer to write one for them, the odds of success, especially bigtime success, are really, REALLY slim. They're even more slim for someone with one book who's planning to sell it primarily from their own site.


I hate to be a wet blanket, but the odds of this are slim. Even if your book is as good as you think, it's unlikely to take off like this, especially on such a short timeframe.


Here's the thing. A free book from an unknown author has NO VALUE to these influencers. You're asking them for their time and attention. Free or not, it's unlikely they'll even read your book. They don't have a lot of time and attention to spare. There are an infinite number of free books already, all an easy click away on Amazon. Free is only good if someone is willing to give up their time to read it.

As an author and a reader, it distresses me to see this approach. If only it were that easy, everyone would be doing it. But that's the problem, isn't it? It seems easy, simple even. But for every wild success story, there are thousands of other stories of people who tried it and gave up.

I don't want to discourage you from action. Even if you go down in flames, you'll learn something. which will boost your odds of success on your next venture. But I DO hate the idea of you spending so much money (relative to your net worth) on this venture. And I hate the idea of you getting your hopes up so high, only to feel discouraged or give up in the end.

Will you at least agree to something? If you do pursue this, will you keep us all posted? I'd love to be proven wrong and see you make gobs of money. But if you don't, at least tell us what happened so others can learn from your experience either way.

I'm not going anywhere and will definitely keep everyone up to date

 

[18inMiami]

THE END OF THIS THREAD WILL BE WHEN I GO FROM BROKE TO INDEPENDENT (Get my own place)

I wasn't being realistic with the August deadline but by September of 2015 is very feasible ..... disregard that

I guarantee this will be in September 2015

 

[Chaseb731]

THE END OF THIS THREAD WILL BE WHEN I GO FROM BROKE TO INDEPENDENT (Get my own place)

I wasn't being realistic with the August deadline but by September of 2015 is very feasible ..... disregard that

I guarantee this will be in September 2015

So then write a check for 500 bucks that we can cash if you don't do it If you guarantee independence, you shouldn't worry about us cashing it.

 

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[AllenCrawley]

Of course when you were writing MFL you wouldn't have had any successful with a 200$ marketing budget

Care to venture a guess as to how much money @MJ DeMarco spent on advertising his book?

 

[18inMiami]

So then write a check for 500 bucks that we can cash if you don't do it If you guarantee independence, you shouldn't worry about us cashing it.

What will YOU be doing between now and September...

Care to venture a guess as to how much money @MJ DeMarco spent on advertising his book?

I haven't disclosed enough information for the answer to that question to directly correlate to the success of my book.

 

[Chaseb731]

What will YOU be doing between now and September...


I haven't disclosed enough information for the answer to that question to directly correlate to the success of my book.

Does it matter? I'm not out making guarantees, just growing my business.

 

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[18inMiami]

Does it matter? I'm not out making guarantees, just growing my business.

I'm just putting pressure on myself... I know i'm coming off as cocky and unprepared, from now on I'll only share when I've action taken action instead of just sharing ideas and thoughts

 

[Lady_Oasis]

Great post! Question, how did you find your Ghostwriter?

 

[18inMiami]

Great post! Question, how did you find your Ghostwriter?

Read the thread.... I haven't hired or done anything when I do I will post

 

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[BigBrianC]

I haven't done anything

and that's why you're still broke. Get to doing something!

 

[theag]

Lol this thread is getting better and better.