My Take on Self-Publishing

[GiroudJD]

First of all, great thread and thanks to HeldforRansom. His post confirmed to me that my situation is not all that unique, and that truly, anyone can make self-publishing successful, with the right mindset and work ethic.

So why create a thread for me? Well, unlike HfR, I outsource 90% of the process. Is it easier/dumber/less prestigious/more fastlane than writing everything yourself? Well, I have no idea. And who am I to say. Will some look down on me for not being a "real" writer? Probably. Am I still putting out a quality product that readers enjoy paying for? Absolutely.

All I know is that outsourcing has worked wonders for me, and I wanted to share the idea, in case it works for anyone else as well. I posted part of this on a different internet forum when I first started to see real success in self-publishing (last summer), but I've updated it and hope that maybe someone here can benefit from the read as well.

Self-publishing is the most successful way I've found to make money online. Yes, it has a lot of drawbacks (which I'll mention in a minute), but wow, do the rewards ever make up for them! I only seriously started attempting to make money with Kindle a little under a year ago. At first, I wrote, prepped, and released a book a week, all by myself, until I figured out a better outsourcing system. I now have 100+ books up under about 8 different pen names and am averaging a new book every week. Last summer, I started having 4 figure months. Then, in the fall, I had my first couple of 5 figure months. I know, I still can't believe it when I look at the reports, but it's not going away. I quit my day job as an attorney when I consistently started earning more every single month just by self-publishing. This has allowed me to work from home, spend more time with my family and doing things that are important to me (but that could be an entirely different thread).

Okay, this isn't to say that this is easy or there aren't cons. There are. Lots of them. Which is why, I imagine, there wasn't a lot of self-publishing talk before HfR came around.

Con #1: It's a LOT of work, at first. Even if you're outsourcing. I started by doing it all myself: research, writing, formatting, cover design, uploading, marketing. Everything. It's a huge time investment, and I suspect this is the step that scares most people off.

Con #2: It's NOT instantaneous. We're always looking for quick money in the IM world. Self-publishing is not that. It takes time and effort to build up an audience, to learn how to outsource correctly, to streamline the process for efficiency, and to collect your earnings. It's worth it, but it does take a great deal of time.

Con #3: Self-publishing is not PLR friendly, is not article spinning friendly, is not black hat friendly, etc, etc. This probably also scares a lot of people off, but it's a great thing for all of us who are trying to do this right. Mess with Amazon, or the others, and it will blacklist you. But even playing by the rules has gotten me much more than black hat stuff ever did.

Okay, it's not all doom and gloom. Let's see some pros.

Pro #1: Once you've uploaded a book, it's (nearly) set, forget, and earn. My very first book took me a long time to research, write, format, etc. It was a pain. But you know what? Since I uploaded it almost a year ago, I have done zero marketing, zero promotion, and have spent zero extra effort on it. Guess what: it's still averaging about 5-10 sales per day. That's with zero work on my part. IMO, that's well worth the initial effort. A few days pain for recurring money daily - I'll take that any day.

Pro #2: Tied in with Pro #1 is the fact that, if you sign up for KDP Select (which I recommend only for the initial 90 day period), you hardly have to do any marketing (unless you want, of course). I have a series of books in a non-fiction, educational sort of niche. I have done zero marketing on them. No blogs, no twitter, no fb, nada. All 4 books are in the Top 10 in their Kindle category. If you create a quality book, Amazon will market it for you. It will start showing up in people's feeds, in "people who bought X, also bought Y", and all that type of stuff. It's beautiful. Set and forget.

Pro #3: Once you get a system down, you can easily produce a book a week, maybe even a couple. Even if you only make one sale a day, that's $2. You have 10 books? That's $20 a day. You have 50 books? Hello, $100 per day. The possibilities are endless. Literally.

Okay, okay, enough of the rant. Just wanted to share what (I think) is an under-looked tactic. Yes, some will think that outsourcing 90% of the process is cheating. I obviously don't. Yes, it's not quick and easy money. But it's sustainable and, if done right, really profitable.

My tips:

Do your research - niche, genres, etc
Produce (or outsource) quality content. Emphasis on the "quality".
Enroll in KDP, but only for one period (90 days).
Set a goal of 1 book per month or per week, and make yourself stick to it.
Use the same pen name for similar books or similar genres, to build up an audience and make each book easier to find.
Put links to your books at the end of all of your other books, to make them easier to find. You want to funnel your readers to your next book.
Sit back and enjoy.

Any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them. I've only been at it for almost a year, but I've been doing it nearly 24/7, have earned enough to quit my day job, and have learned a lot. Been lurking this forum for awhile now, and finally have something to give back to the community, I hope!

 

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[AndrewNC]

This is really great for what I am working on now.

Do you mind elaborating a little bit more on your outsourcing of content.

For my current outsourcing, I type up a 10 section outline, with sub-topics in each category, and then links to reference for them to follow. I have been designing covers myself in photoshop that follow a template that I created, and worked for the first one. I have two freelancers that I work with on a regular basis, and like their work. Do you expand to more writers as much as possible to avoid that 'one point of failure', or do you stick with a few high quality freelancers?

Also, when you get below-average content, do you get rid of it, not pay for it, hire someone else to edit it, or another option?

Thanks again for your post. It definitely helps me.

 

[GiroudJD]

This is really great for what I am working on now.

Do you mind elaborating a little bit more on your outsourcing of content.

For my current outsourcing, I type up a 10 section outline, with sub-topics in each category, and then links to reference for them to follow. I have been designing covers myself in photoshop that follow a template that I created, and worked for the first one. I have two freelancers that I work with on a regular basis, and like their work. Do you expand to more writers as much as possible to avoid that 'one point of failure', or do you stick with a few high quality freelancers?

Also, when you get below-average content, do you get rid of it, not pay for it, hire someone else to edit it, or another option?

Thanks again for your post. It definitely helps me.

Well, the way I outsource varies greatly based on what I'm trying to get accomplished. I've got books in non-fiction and fiction, and spread across all kinds of genres, including cheesy romances, explicit erotica, young adult zombie series, foreign language instruction, and legal guides, just to name a few. So depending on which genre I'm aiming for, things can vary a lot.

For some, especially non-fiction, I'll draw up a pretty detailed outline, with chapter ideas at a minimum, and sometimes even more in-depth. With fiction, and especially if I'm using an outsourcer that I've already used and trust, I oftentimes just give them maybe 2 or 3 sentences of an overall plot and let them work their creative mind to come up with the rest.

I have about 3 or 4 freelancers that I've worked with on multiple projects that I trust to work like that. But I'm constantly looking for new freelancers, and posting new ads, running trials, etc. That's probably the most time-consuming part of the process, now that I think about it. I'm thinking of writing a guide on how to find great freelancers, so if I do, I'll post it here for free to share.

 

[AndrewNC]

Thanks for the reply. Its tough going with hiring someone new, when you love the work one person does. (I wen through 10 terrible writers to find one good one). But at the same time, you don't want that 'one point of failure'

 

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[Hicks]

Hi,
interesting....I have a few questions if that is ok. Feel free to skip the ones you feel are not anyone's business but your own!

1) I know that this is difficult to answer but...lets say on a yearly basis what percentage of net sales goes into wages? So for example if a book only takes $2 a day wouldn't it take a really long time to break even?

2) On having 8 pen names. Does this mean that you have started different companies in order to open different accounts? On my account I am only allowed 3 pen names.

3) I tried outsourcing formatting but found that it was a problem when I wanted to update 'book's you can also buy'. Do you outsources this stage as well?

4) What is the range in length of book? For example I've found that with non-fiction 8000 words and above is just about acceptable for the 2.99 range if the quality of info is good. What is your experience?

Thanks a lot for your time.

 

[joanna]

2) On having 8 pen names. Does this mean that you have started different companies in order to open different accounts? On my account I am only allowed 3 pen names.

I can probably answer this one.

KDP has no pen name limit, you can publish as many authors as you'd like. You can only have 1 account.

The 3 pen name limit per account relates to AuthorCentral which is separate (Amazon seems to love having gazillion separate places to login to...). You can have multiple accounts (and you will since, each country needs a separate account, if you want your bio, etc. to display both US and UK or any other country!).

Hope that makes sense

 

[Held for Ransom]

@GiroudJD - Very cool! Congrats on making headway and having such tremendous success with the outsourcing model. It's refreshing to me to hear about the amount of work involved in making it really go. Most people always suppose that hiring other people to do things for them will be easier than doing it themselves but really, it's just like getting any business off the ground. Anyway, thanks for sharing your perspective and great results!

 

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[Chazmania]

Awesome thread, thanks for posting!

 

[GiroudJD]

Hi,
interesting....I have a few questions if that is ok. Feel free to skip the ones you feel are not anyone's business but your own!

1) I know that this is difficult to answer but...lets say on a yearly basis what percentage of net sales goes into wages? So for example if a book only takes $2 a day wouldn't it take a really long time to break even?

2) On having 8 pen names. Does this mean that you have started different companies in order to open different accounts? On my account I am only allowed 3 pen names.

3) I tried outsourcing formatting but found that it was a problem when I wanted to update 'book's you can also buy'. Do you outsources this stage as well?

4) What is the range in length of book? For example I've found that with non-fiction 8000 words and above is just about acceptable for the 2.99 range if the quality of info is good. What is your experience?

Thanks a lot for your time.

1) I'm not sure I understand your question fully - are you saying what percentage of my earnings am I paying out to freelancers? If so, a very small percentage. Take last month - Figures won't officially be released until the 15th or so, but I think December was just under a $10,000 month. I spent less than $1,000 on freelancers that month. So it's a big profit margin still.

First, it's rare that a book only makes 1 sale a day, at least once you get a good system set up. Second, I'm only paying the freelancer once. I have a great erotica freelancer who wrote something for me back in July. I paid her in July (less than $500), and every month since then, that book has made me at least $500/month. So after the first month, it's been pure profit on that book.

2) Joanna answered that perfectly!

3) I do the formatting myself because (a) I find it really easy and (b) I can make sure that I set up my product funnel at the end of the book exactly as I want it (which is an important part in leading readers into buying your next book!)

4) The books range from about 5,000 to 80,000 and are priced anywhere from perma-free to $6.99. I usually set the first in a series at perma-free, the second at $0.99, any other books in the series at $2.99, and the bundle at $4.99 to $6.99. For fiction, that is. For non-fiction, it's always $2.99 or $4.99, depending on length.

 

[M&N]

Giroud, congrats on your success. It's awesome that you posted this thread because I'm doing the exact same thing. I agree with your thoughts, it's a lot of work but it can result in a really nice, automated business. I haven't hit a 5 figure month yet but I want to make it happen this year.

I have lots of questions, here we go:
1. What makes you more money - fiction or nonfiction?
2. How much $ do you pay for your content (per word) and covers?
3. What site has been most successful for you when it comes to finding good and reliable contractors - Odesk, Elance, something else?
4. Why do you think KDP select is useful only for the first 90 days? Do you earn some good revenue from other marketplaces (btw: where else do you publish)?
5. Do you use perma-free option with each of your pen names? I haven't tried it yet but I think I will start doing it too, my fiction books really need more visibility (nonfiction titles have been bringing better results so far) and I find them more difficult to "promote".
6. Can you write a little more about your research process?
7. Do you build email lists in each niche/genre?

PS. Speed for hard work, taking action and being a Gunner

 

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[GiroudJD]

Giroud, congrats on your success. It's awesome that you posted this thread because I'm doing the exact same thing. I agree with your thoughts, it's a lot of work but it can result in a really nice, automated business. I haven't hit a 5 figure month yet but I want to make it happen this year.

I have lots of questions, here we go:
1. What makes you more money - fiction or nonfiction?
2. How much $ do you pay for your content (per word) and covers?
3. What site has been most successful for you when it comes to finding good and reliable contractors - Odesk, Elance, something else?
4. Why do you think KDP select is useful only for the first 90 days? Do you earn some good revenue from other marketplaces (btw: where else do you publish)?
5. Do you use perma-free option with each of your pen names? I haven't tried it yet but I think I will start doing it too, my fiction books really need more visibility (nonfiction titles have been bringing better results so far) and I find them more difficult to "promote".
6. Can you write a little more about your research process?
7. Do you build email lists in each niche/genre?

PS. Speed for hard work, taking action and being a Gunner

1. Fiction, definitely. By far. That being said, non-fiction sells more audiobooks and paperbacks (usually), so it's still worth it for me to produce non-fiction in certain niches.

2. Totally depends on niche/genre and if I've worked with the writer before. I start off lower, with a promise to pay more if work is satisfactory. I also have like a 99% positive feedback and people can see I've spent like $5k total on freelancers, so they usually know I'm going to pay and I'm good to work with. That helps a lot of people take a chance and write for me at the lower price first, and then if it works out, I'll pay more the second time around.

Covers are another story. I have 2 people that I use on Fiverr. I buy the stock photos (got a deal on 200 of them for $100 a few months back), and then I send them a couple of covers to give them the idea of what I want, and the stock photo, and they get it done for $5. Can't beat that.

3. I use oDesk and Elance, mainly. Main differences:
oDesk = cheaper, but lower quality and more work to sift through freelancers finding one that will actually work out. Don't have to pay until work is completed to my satisfaction. Good customer service and good protections for employers.
Elance = more expensive, but usually higher quality and less work sifting through spam cover letters, etc. Have to pay upfront into escrow (they take it out of your bank right away). Haven't had as good of customer service and workers are more likely to complain.

4. KDP is great for the first 90 days to (a) get you visibility and (b) move some copies. After that though, I take them off KDP and publish on Smashwords and, through Draft2Digital, B&N, Kobo, and iTunes. KDP has become much less effective in the past 3 months, as Amazon's algorithms for free books have changed, so it's not a great long-term marketing technique, at least for me. I'll do a 5-day free run right away so people get the book (where they will also hear about my other books), and then publish it wider after the 90 days. You also need to have books published elsewhere and not enrolled in Select if you want to do perma-free (which is a big thing for me).

5. I use perma-free for all of my series. I prefer series, it's so much easier to market. I'll make the first book perma-free, the second $0.99, the third-fifth $2.99, and then the collection anywhere from $4.99 to $6.99 or so. I make sure to highlight at the end of the perma-free book and on the sales page that the collection is also for sale, and is a much better deal for the reader, so after they try the book for free, if they like it, they're much more likely to jump to the collection and buy it (which I want = more money for me).

6. I wrote something out to a friend a few months ago; will search for it this afternoon and post it. But HfR's posts about research are pure gold too!

7. Yes. Can't emphasize that enough. Set up MailCheat(Chimp) as soon as you set up a pen name. Put a link at the end of each book. With each new release, mail your list, no matter how small. You'll usually get a good bounce from downloads of people on your list, which will help shoot you up the rankings.

Hope some of that helps (I tend to ramble....)

 

[Bodie]

Thanks for the amazing info Giroud. Knowing you have had success with outsourcing blows my mind. The thought of getting out 1 book a week is amazing!

Got a question for you:

For personal reasons, I want to avoid doing any romance/erotica. Have you had success in other fiction genres? Or is the real money only in Romance?

 

[GiroudJD]

Thanks for the amazing info Giroud. Knowing you have had success with outsourcing blows my mind. The thought of getting out 1 book a week is amazing!

Got a question for you:

For personal reasons, I want to avoid doing any romance/erotica. Have you had success in other fiction genres? Or is the real money only in Romance?

I've definitely had success outside of romance and erotica. Everything from zombies to steampunk to detective mysteries to all types of non-fiction. That being said, romance and erotica are huge earners for me, and I could never imagine not publishing in those genres. If it's a matter of anonymity, you can use different pen names and publisher names and keep everything completely separate (as I do). If it's just a personal preference, then I would say it's definitely possible, but it might take longer to reach the earnings and audience you want/need.

 

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[M&N]

Thanks for all your answers! Four follow up questions for you:

1. You wrote that you publish paperbacks and audiobooks too. Is it really worth it? My ebooks aren't really that long so I hesitate to publish anything with Createspace. Also, as far as I know audiobooks are relatively expensive to produce. What's your experience?
2. When you build your lists, do you buy a domain for each of your pen names? Or maybe you position yourself as a publishing company and set different subdomains for each author? By the way, do you get many emails from your readers? I've read somewhere that one erotica author had some weirdos mailing him etc (even found his physical address) and it doesn't sound like much fun
3. Do you ask your writers to sign any ghostwriting contract agreements? I do but it's a simple one-page document to make things look more serious (if somebody wanted to scam me he/she would do be able to do it easily - it's hard to check the originality of fiction stories).
4. Do you track your sales daily? What do you use to have a good view of your business - just Excel, App Annie, maybe something else?

Regarding Odesk and Elance - I have very similar experience, at the moment I use Odesk more often. Anyway, now they are one company so it's a matter of couple months when they merge into one big platform.

 

[GiroudJD]

1. Definitely worth it. Paperbacks through Createspace cost $0 to produce. It opens up another income stream and provides your ebook with a bit more legitimacy. If someone is looking at your Amazon page, they'll see the ebook and right below it the price for a paperback. Makes you seem less like an indie and more like a "big" published book. Plus, sometimes you'll get a random book that takes off in paperback and brings in a nice chunk of change for a few months.

Audiobooks can also be done for $0. I use ACX and they give you an option to either pay the narrator per hour of production OR to split the royalties 50/50 with the narrator. I always choose the royalty split because (a) I don't want to front money for it and (b) it's hard to know which books will take off in audiobook. By choosing royalty share, I open up yet another royalty stream and it costs me nothing up front. Win/win.

2. I do have a website for my publishing company, but I don't have any author pages there. I have facebook and twitter for the more popular pen names, but honestly, just having an email list is enough of interaction for most readers. I do get some emails for a couple of the pen names, one in particular. Nothing creepy, just fans wanting to know when the next book is coming out. Respond and interact and these fans will turn into golden promotions for you.

3. Yes. I was/am a lawyer in my previous life, so I have a NDA (non-disclosure agreement) that I wrote up that I have every freelancer sign. It's simple enough that they can understand it but good enough to cover me (I hope - haven't needed to enforce it ever, thankfully).

4. When I first started, I tracked sales daily. No, more like, I would check hourly. I was obsessive. It was too much! I quickly learned I should be using that time to actually work. Now, I've gotten so that I check things on the 5th, the 10th, the 15th, and the 20th. I tend to stick to those dates as good benchmarks, unless I have a big new release I want to check on. I just check on KDP itself, no spreadsheets or anything else. I've heard there's a good app for Android called Afterword, but I'm an iPhone guy, so until it comes out for that, I just check on the KDP site.

 

[Rawr]

Curious on your testing methods, if you care to share. What happens when a freelancer quits but the readers love the series?

 

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[Bodie]

Thanks for the replies Giroud - this info is Golden!

Got another few q's please:

1. Any ideas where I can go to get someone to write me up a NDA? I want mainly just focus on getting stuff out there and don't want to spend too much time getting bogged down with this.

2. Do you use any research tools before deciding what to write? Or is it really just a case of just looking around on Amazon?

P.s. How did a guy from Florida end up becoming an Arsenal fan?

 

[GiroudJD]

Curious on your testing methods, if you care to share. What happens when a freelancer quits but the readers love the series?

Well by testing methods, I usually mean that in my post searching for a freelancer, I'll make specific note that the price I'm hiring for is a test price. If things work out, I'll pay more. This helps cast a wider net, as the freelancer knows there is something in the future if they do a good first job. This usually helps weed out the people who (a) aren't looking for long-term jobs and (b) don't have enough quality to complete the first test job.

If a freelancer quits during a series (which I have had happen), I just hire another one! I'll give them the already-completed stories and ask them to mirror the tone/feel of the stories as closely as possible. So far, this has worked great.

 

[GiroudJD]

Thanks for the replies Giroud - this info is Golden!

Got another few q's please:

1. Any ideas where I can go to get someone to write me up a NDA? I want mainly just focus on getting stuff out there and don't want to spend too much time getting bogged down with this.

2. Do you use any research tools before deciding what to write? Or is it really just a case of just looking around on Amazon?

P.s. How did a guy from Florida end up becoming an Arsenal fan?

1. There are a ton online, which are actually pretty decent. Just google publishing NDA or something similar and you'll find a bunch. From there, just change around some of the terms to fit your business/individual situation and then, if you want to be extra careful, you can pay a lawyer one hour's time to review/edit it, but that might not be necessary.

2. I'm trying to find a post I previously sent to a friend about researching, so if I can find that, I'll post it here. But basically just looking around on Amazon for the best-sellers, seeing trends, and doing some minor-tweaks to set my stories apart from them. Ride the wave, but differentiate. Has worked so far!

And I have some family members in London. My very first trip there was sometime around 2000 and my family's neighbor across the street was a 60+ year old, lifelong Gooner. He offered to take me to Highbury for a game and it was all over for me after that

 

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[Chazmania]

If you don't mind sharing, what sources did you pull from in the beginning when you decided to embark on self-pubbing? How did you develop your system? Was it a book or info-product that gave you the idea for the framework? What inspired you to get involved in authoring/publishing?

 

[Bodie]

Thanks again Giroud - Fantastic stuff. I've got a slow lane job so want to utilise outsourcing as much as possible.

P.s. I'm a Liverpool fan. Nevertheless it's always good to see football (soccer) fans on the forum

 

[Hicks]

1) I'm not sure I understand your question fully - are you saying what percentage of my earnings am I paying out to freelancers? If so, a very small percentage. Take last month - Figures won't officially be released until the 15th or so, but I think December was just under a $10,000 month. I spent less than $1,000 on freelancers that month. So it's a big profit margin still.

First, it's rare that a book only makes 1 sale a day, at least once you get a good system set up. Second, I'm only paying the freelancer once. I have a great erotica freelancer who wrote something for me back in July. I paid her in July (less than $500), and every month since then, that book has made me at least $500/month. So after the first month, it's been pure profit on that book.

2) Joanna answered that perfectly!

3) I do the formatting myself because (a) I find it really easy and (b) I can make sure that I set up my product funnel at the end of the book exactly as I want it (which is an important part in leading readers into buying your next book!)

4) The books range from about 5,000 to 80,000 and are priced anywhere from perma-free to $6.99. I usually set the first in a series at perma-free, the second at $0.99, any other books in the series at $2.99, and the bundle at $4.99 to $6.99. For fiction, that is. For non-fiction, it's always $2.99 or $4.99, depending on length.

Great thread, and congratulations on being an arsenal fan! I used to be able to hear the games from my house!

Thanks Joana and Gioud,
about the pen names I think i was more asking about the author central as I would always want an author page with any pen name. So do you just have author pages for your main pen names or have I missed something?

Thanks again for all of the great info. This is a real goldmine.

 

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[AndrewNC]

Do backlinks play a large role in ranking on amazon to your knowledge?
Also, do having customer reviews with additional keywords in it help your rank? I hit spot #1 and spot #3 on two medium sized keywords, but am currently sitting on page 2 for my "big keyword"

 

[M&N]

2. I do have a website for my publishing company, but I don't have any author pages there. I have facebook and twitter for the more popular pen names, but honestly, just having an email list is enough of interaction for most readers. I do get some emails for a couple of the pen names, one in particular. Nothing creepy, just fans wanting to know when the next book is coming out. Respond and interact and these fans will turn into golden promotions for you.

So for example if you set up a squeeze page for a pen name in romance genre, what's the web address? Is it a separate domain name for each pen name or something like publishingxyz.com/amandaramsey? Thanks once again.

 

[GiroudJD]

Great thread, and congratulations on being an arsenal fan! I used to be able to hear the games from my house!

Thanks Joana and Gioud,
about the pen names I think i was more asking about the author central as I would always want an author page with any pen name. So do you just have author pages for your main pen names or have I missed something?

Thanks again for all of the great info. This is a real goldmine.

Yes, in Author Central you can only have 3 pen names, so choose the 3 you are most likely going to build up and focus the majority of your titles under.

 

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[GiroudJD]

Do backlinks play a large role in ranking on amazon to your knowledge?
Also, do having customer reviews with additional keywords in it help your rank? I hit spot #1 and spot #3 on two medium sized keywords, but am currently sitting on page 2 for my "big keyword"

I can't say. I've never bothered with or worried about backlinks as they relate to Amazon. Same with keywords. Maybe they help, maybe they don't - I honestly have no idea.

What has worked for me is making sure I release a quality product, that is well-edited and formatted, that tells a good story or gives good information. After that, it's up to the audience.

 

[GiroudJD]

So for example if you set up a squeeze page for a pen name in romance genre, what's the web address? Is it a separate domain name for each pen name or something like publishingxyz.com/amandaramsey? Thanks once again.

You could do that, and I've seen other authors with pages off of their publishing company's site. As I said though, I don't set up any websites for individual authors. I have one website for my publishing company, where I feature new releases, giveaways, etc, but for individual authors, I've only bothered with FB and Twitter for a few of the best-selling ones.

 

[GiroudJD]

re: Research - found an old post

first I look through some of these, to get an idea of what's hot or trending on Kindle lately:

Best Sellers in Kindle Store:
Amazon Best Sellers: best Kindle Store

Hot New Releases in Kindle Store:
Amazon.com Hot New Releases: The best-selling new & future releases in Kindle Store

Movers & Shakers in Kindle Store:
Amazon.com Movers & Shakers: The biggest gainers in Kindle Store sales rank over the past 24 hours

Top Rated in several categories:
Amazon.com Top Rated: The best in Kindle Store based on Amazon customer reviews

Each of these sections allow you to drill further down and find top rated/best seller titles on a lot of subtopics to. Now, some people quit here and just try to copy exactly the subject of these. I don't think that's necessary (or even a good idea). Those areas, though they're best-sellers, are saturated. What you want to do is find something tangentially related to those topics, but where you can see an opening.

So, let's say I check out the Hot New Releases section. Then I drill down to Self Help, and then Inner Child. I see the #1 seller is a 36 page book about dealing with grief (it's not now, but it was when I first wrote this!), and it has a low rank, which means it's selling quite a few copies every single day. It's a really cheesy book with simple drawing and not a whole lot of text. Okay, easy enough. So I think, what's related to dealing with grief? I don't know, how about...dealing with job loss? Sure, why not. I can easily write a cheesy little story (or outsource it) about a police dog who is "let go" one day, for a new younger dog, and how he finds a new job as a seeing eye dog. Stupid, but it sells. I outsource the drawings, put it together and format it, and it can be up in less than a week. Now, it's probably not going to be a #1 best-seller on the USA Today list or anything. But I can (nearly) guarantee that, if done the right way, the half hour I spend writing it (or outsourcing), the few bucks I spend on outsourcing, and the hour I spend refining and uploading everything will pay for itself in a week or two, and then just start earning on auto-pilot.

That's how I research. Although, I should say, I would never choose that niche, not for non-fiction. So far, I've only published things that I am at least somewhat interested in. That makes it SO much easier to spend the necessary time editing and adding to if it's something personal, that makes the book that much better. Fiction - it's a free-for-all and I'd go into any niche if it felt like a good opportunity.

If you don't even enjoy writing it or working with it, nobody is going to enjoy reading it.

 

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[Bodie]

Thanks again Giroud.

I always had this vision of days doing lots of keyword research, research, etc. Good to know you can get stuck in and find something in a much shorter time frame.

I totally understand about what you mean in picking a genre where you have some interest in. Your more likely to create a product the reader will like and make future sales.

 

[Syc]

Hi Giroud,

Thanks for taking the time to share all this information. I have a couple of questions;

1. How do you deal with the lack of staying power?
For me, every book i release has about 2-4 months "in the sun" where sales are high, then they just plummet to a trickle. I've tried a variety of tactics to combat but none appear to work. It just seems i have to release a new book every week/fortnight to maintain a constant income level. Is it primarily an issue of quality or is it saturation? More research needed?

2. Do you outsource the copyediting as well?

3. During my research i've found that many of the bestsellers in the top 100 have pagecounts of usually 200-300. Do you try and match these pagecounts or keep them lower?

I would really appreciate your thoughts on these topics. Thanks again for this thread.

H