Self Publishing Progress

[Darko Jocic]

I've finally listened to advice from many smart forum members. With this thread I'll begin my translation from a wantrepreneur to an entrepreneur. I've been chasing smoke for too long. I've decided to start writing. I have never written before, but now I will. As an actual very first attempt at earning money online, this may very well be a beginning of a Fastlane.


GOALS(as of now, until fulfilled):
1) Write a novel of approximately 70,000 words by September.
1) After September, be making a constant $15/month.

PROGRESS: Today, I've written from 0 words to 3500 words. I intend to keep progress at least 2500 words per day, every day, until finished.

I hope you'll like the thread!

 

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[Polarbeans]

Write a novel of approximately 70,000 words by September.

Awesome that you at least decided upon something and took action. Continue, and you will see results from it.

However, you tell very little in your OP, but did you do your research on your 70,000 word novel?

 

[Darko Jocic]

@rwiman Research? I didn't really know I should do research for fiction.
I'm such a beginner i guess. So what's the research about? What do I need to know?

 

[Polarbeans]

Assuming you're writing to sell in the Kindle Store - Amazon is vast.

1-16 of 3,775,119 results for Kindle Store

Amazon has a lot of books in their store. Fiction may not be as dependent on the research as a non-fiction is (you can come up with a story), you still have to do some serious thinking about who your audience is and what they like.

If you're gonna have a book out by september, start by joining 10 niched facebook group to your topic, tell them you will have a book out in 2 months. Tell them the title. ask if there are anyone who wants to have a free copy once it's out, in return for an honest review.

That's the first thing you do.

Then you write the book.

then you network some more

then you find relevant keywords

then you tweak each little corner of amazon

then you launch your book

Then you start promoting it and start writing the next one (because the first one will be perma free), you will need books that collect the money for you.


There are lots of GREAT kindle threads on this forum, take inspiration and tips from them.

Remember, Amazon is a search engine, think of it as if you are ranking a website.

 

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[Darko Jocic]

@rwiman All right. In the hype I kinda forgot the business part of it.
So, I have a question. Why should the first book be permanently free? And if it really has to be, why waste 70,000 words for no profit? I believe 15,000 could do just as good for that role.

 

[Charnell]

@rwiman All right. In the hype I kinda forgot the business part of it.
So, I have a question. Why should the first book be permanently free? And if it really has to be, why waste 70,000 words for no profit? I believe 15,000 could do just as good for that role.

You sell it in the beginning, but use it as a loss leader after (assuming you're writing a series) the second books is released. Your second book is the upsell.

For example, you release your first book and sell it for $1. In that time it takes to write book #2 you sell 100 copies of book 1, and make $100. Let's say 10% of everyone who reads your book joins your mailing list and will read anything your release. It took 3 months to writer book #2.

When you release book #2 you sell it for $2, and make book #1 free. You release to your mailing list, and those 10 subscribers from book 1 all buy your book. $20 made on release day.

Now, since book 1 is permanently free, it gets 100 new readers a week. Let's say 10% of those people go on to buy book #2, and 1% join your mailing list. In the 3 months (~13 weeks) it takes your to write book #3, you made $260 and have 13 new fans, all from making book #1 free. That's in addition to organic sales. Keep going for exponential growth.

Of course these numbers are nice and round and easy to follow, and most people won't experience numbers like this, but that's basically why you would turn book #1 into a permanently free copy.

 

[Darko Jocic]

@Charnell
All right, thanks! Making books one free would make more money than selling it. That's actually quite nifty!

 

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[Polarbeans]

@Charnell already pointed it out, thanks.

I would do it like this:
First free
2nd 2.99
3rd 2.99
4th 2.99

And then bundle them.

Always ask for a review and give them an option to sign up to your mailing list.

Always write series.

 

[Darko Jocic]

@rwiman

Thank you for all the advice. I think I'll start with $3.99, It just feels more in-place or something.

a quick update: I've just passed 10,000 words! I know it's not much, but I kinda feel good about doing all that work. Even if I haven't made any money from it yet

 

[Darko Jocic]

All right, a small milestone was passed today. I actually have a published book on Amazon! It's actually a short story, but let's not talk about technicalities
For the first book I started writing, turns out it will be the type of 700-800 page books. Cutting it short would ruin a good book and story, so I've decided, since I actually want to make some progress, to write shorter pieces and work on the "main" book part time.

Okay, that's the news. For the future, I'll first wait a week or two to see how the "Book_1" fairs, while I study, both for school and myself. After that, depending on the outcome, I'll either write a series of short stories, or a series of novels. Either way, it should be fun. Will be back in some time to report on the success of the book(no matter how small).

 

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[gregarious18]

All right, a small milestone was passed today. I actually have a published book on Amazon! It's actually a short story, but let's not talk about technicalities
For the first book I started writing, turns out it will be the type of 700-800 page books. Cutting it short would ruin a good book and story, so I've decided, since I actually want to make some progress, to write shorter pieces and work on the "main" book part time.

Okay, that's the news. For the future, I'll first wait a week or two to see how the "Book_1" fairs, while I study, both for school and myself. After that, depending on the outcome, I'll either write a series of short stories, or a series of novels. Either way, it should be fun. Will be back in some time to report on the success of the book(no matter how small).

What genre are you writing in? 10k words for $3.99 (follow the market and only price up if the market calls for it or you have engaged reader base) is steep for unproven author, it's a tough sell in almost all genres. Don't wait 2 weeks to see results (the first book is just one step). Your test should be completing a serial of 3-6 books and then evaluating because 10k words doesn't take too long to type up. You can't say you read all these forums and say F-it I'm going to do this haphazardly that's a waste of your time. The reason my tone is this way is because this could make you a crap load of money if you take it serious and research the market.

 

[Darko Jocic]

@gregarious18

Oh, you seem to misunderstand. The first book, which I'm still writing is the one in reference to the 10,000 word milestone post. The one I published, It's an approximately 2000 word short story priced at $1.49

I am taking this seriously, just seriously enough that I still have fun. If not for that, why would I even write? There are better opportunities for making money than self publishing. If I found writing excruciating, I wouldn't write, because I'd have an alternative. The best of luck to you, whatever you do, and don't be too serious.

 

[Darko Jocic]

All right, here are the stats: It's been approximately 12 days since the book's(short story) been published. It's been running on a free promo for a duration of 4 days, during which, 36 downloads have been recorded, the top for one day being 14.

The book's top recorded rank is:
7,907 Free in Kindle Store
252 in Short Stories > Single Authors

I can't really judge the ranking as good or bad by myself, so I'd love opinions.
Interestingly, the book made no sales whatsoever. In any country.

I've made no marketing effort, except for a single comment on a book related video on YouTube. No keyword research either. Basically, only the intuitive stuff: Make it look good, write a fair description... The title's pretty unimpressive, too. Published under an unknown author name.
I've made the cover myself, a first try at cover making all together, mixed with a public domain image.

I really, really want your opinions. I want to know what you think could be done to improve the next book's success, as well maybe improve this one's. I'll post the link to the book here. I'm not exactly sure whether I should, but there's no better way for anyone to know what's going on, than to see for themselves. The preview should be enough for anyone to see the style of writing, etc.
Still, if anyone really wants to read the rest, I certainly can't bite the feeding hand and make anyone here buy it. I'll PM a link to a free download to anyone helpful from the forum.

THE BOOK

 

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[Funke]

• Include html formatting and keywords in the description (sales copy).
• Title, subtitle and maybe series name with keywords.
• Author Central account for credibility.

Get more downloads during free promotion.

• Post on Facebook groups that were created for free books (over a hundred of groups)
• Post on Reddit here http://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEBOOKS/
• Get into Niche places - ask yourself where your audience is (parents with kids 4-6 years old?) and post there.

• Offer a bonus within the ebook, extra downloadable story (additional value), get them on mailing list during free promo.
• (Promote next stories to the list)

 

[EPerceptions]

A couple of thoughts:

1. The layout in the preview seems weird, like you've put hard coded spacing or some such in it.

2. When my kids were four years old, the books had big bright pictures with supporting text. At 9 pictures weren't as important. I only mention this because 4-9 is the age range listed for your book.

 

[Polarbeans]

No keyword research

This is your problem.

Amazon is a search engine, period.

• Include html formatting and keywords in the description (sales copy).
• Title, subtitle and maybe series name with keywords.
• Author Central account for credibility.

Get more downloads during free promotion.

• Post on Facebook groups that were created for free books (over a hundred of groups)
• Post on Reddit here http://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEBOOKS/
• Get into Niche places - ask yourself where your audience is (parents with kids 4-6 years old?) and post there.

• Offer a bonus within the ebook, extra downloadable story (additional value), get them on mailing list during free promo.
• (Promote next stories to the list)

This is what you have to do

 

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[Darko Jocic]

@Funke @EPerceptions @rwiman

Thank you everyone! I'm sure this will help!

I just have a couple of questions for you:
1) How can I add multiple authors on Author Central?(Can I?)
2) How do I do keyword research?(Just looking for quality resources)

 

[Funke]

You can have 3 pen names per author central account (you can 'leagally' create more accounts on different e-mail addresses).

When you add a book in Author Central with different author name, there should be pop-up about adding a new pen name.


For keyword research you can check free videos from Nick http://www.yourfirst10kreaders.com/

 

[Darko Jocic]

Hi! I've just published a new book days ago. New author, new niche, overall better done than the first book. Again, a short story.
The free promo just started today, and there have been 12 downloads since, outdoing the first book's first day multiple times over. I'm still not sure if it will result in sales, though, so I'm kind of afraid I didn't do it good enough. Time will tell.

there are still things that aren't as good as could be.
1. I'm still not that proficient with sales copy
2. Keyword research is still in learning phase, as well
3. Not enough reviews-none ; this has been solved, so for the next book, it won't be a problem
4. The pseudonym is by no means famous yet.

Speaking of the next book, I have a draft ready. Should be able to publish in a week.
I'll be back after I publish the next book, to update.

 

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[Mattie]

3. Not enough reviews-none ; this has been solved, so for the next book, it won't be a problem

How did you solve it? Mine keep disappearing for some reason. And there's no way for me to tell who is a virtual assistant and whose not when they give me reviews, and I don't pay for reviews, so I don't know why they're vanishing.

 

[Darko Jocic]

@Mattie There's this website..
Basically, they find you potential reviewers, based on your book. Then, they gather all the info for the potential reviewers, and send you a minimum of 50, for $0.50 a pop.

@EricZ has a pretty useful guide with more information to make better use of the service. Here's a link to it, it has a link to the above mentioned website in the files. You can download it for free by entering 0 in the field, but it's honestly worth much, much more.

I think Amazon deletes the reviews because it's in their policy to delete family member reviews and similar. So, if your reviews aren't indeed sourced from family, then Amazon's code is simply prone to error, which you might want to report to them.

 

[Mattie]

@Mattie There's this website..
Basically, they find you potential reviewers, based on your book. Then, they gather all the info for the potential reviewers, and send you a minimum of 50, for $0.50 a pop.

@EricZ has a pretty useful guide with more information to make better use of the service. Here's a link to it, it has a link to the above mentioned website in the files. You can download it for free by entering 0 in the field, but it's honestly worth much, much more.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
I think Amazon deletes the reviews because it's in their policy to delete family member reviews and similar. So, if your reviews aren't indeed sourced from family, then Amazon's code is simply prone to error, which you might want to report to them.

Thank you. No, I have no family or friends on reviews. I asked another person the other day, and he stated perhaps it was the virtual assistance. Which I wouldn't doubt because they seem to do stupid stuff. Although, I have no way of telling who is and isn't until they start asking me for reviews a zillion times, and than being pushy about them. Usually if they're like that, I just say no thanks, because I figure they're working for someone and usually do end up getting their accounts suspended both on Amazon and Facebook. Other authors have also told me if you have friends on your list that are authors or virtual assistance they will take them off too. A lot of them are stating this actually, if they read each others books and review them it seems to vanish. I've hear authors say there's are too, so it's a mystery. lol

Mine have vanished over three months on the same book. So I found it odd.

I'll have to look at your link and see how I can utilize it. Thanks again.

 

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