Self Publishing Till Freedom

[GuestUser116]

I've got 8 titles out in the fitness niche on Amazon. All written by me. I make around $200 /month passively, most of it coming from 1 title. This last month, February has been fruitless though. I've made close to $60; my least paid month. And the month before February was my highest paid month, $270...

Outsourcing is in play now. I'm looking for a few writers to hire. Someone tell me, is there a contract or something they sign to give ownership of their title?

Highest paid month​

Lowest paid month

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Now I've got my priorities changed up; business is top priority now. This is my strive for freedom. I'm going all in to come out free. Free from time, location, and financial mediocrity.

Target goal is $2k /month by the end of summer. End game is $10k+ /month.

Ciao.

 

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[GuestUser116]

Looks like business is going to go good in March.

I hired 2 freelancers. One is writing a fitness title, the other is starting a romance/erotica series, and I'm writing a fitness title. 3 titles out in the making

 

[Empire]

Target goal is $2k /month by the end of summer. End game is $10k+ /month.

That is the very target I am also aiming for.
I have a number of titles in health and fitness and they do bring a regular trickle of passive income due to being evergreen niches but I find it really difficult to get a hit seller in that market these days.

 

[Jake]

Outsourcing is in play now. I'm looking for a few writers to hire. Someone tell me, is there a contract or something they sign to give ownership of their title

​

Elance has this agreement in place

"Ownership of Work Product and Intellectual Property Upon Freelancer’s receipt of payment from Client, the Work Product, including without limitation all Intellectual Property Rights in the Work Product, will be the sole and exclusive property of Client, and Client will be deemed to be the author thereof. If Freelancer has any Intellectual Property Rights to the Work Product that are not owned by Client upon Freelancer’s receipt of payment from Client, Freelancer hereby automatically irrevocably assigns to Client all right, title and interest worldwide in and to such Intellectual Property Rights. Except as set forth above, Freelancer retains no rights to use, and will not challenge the validity of Client’s ownership in, such Intellectual Property Rights. Freelancer hereby waives any moral rights, rights of paternity, integrity, disclosure and withdrawal or inalienable rights under applicable law in and to the Work Product."

https://www.elance.com/p/legal/independent-contractor-services-agreement.pdf

​

 

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[GuestUser116]

So the freelancer finished the fitness title and it was shit. All generic, bad guidance of mediocrity in fitness. I know too much on the topic to publish some bullshit like that. And my fitness philosophy and training is unorthodox so it was stupid outsourcing a fitness title, I got a refund tho. So I'm done with that and I'm done with writing fitness titles; got 10 out there.

From now on all I'm doing is outsourcing romance/erotica writers and starting multiple series in that niche. So far I found one good writer and published the first title in the on going series. I like the outsourcing operation, seeing my plot turn into an actual story is pretty tight.

 

[Method]

Looking forward to seeing your progress. What is the average page length & word count of your books? And why do you think that 1 book is outperforming your other 9 books?

 

[GuestUser116]

Looking forward to seeing your progress. What is the average page length & word count of your books? And why do you think that 1 book is outperforming your other 9 books?

Like 20-25 pages, 3k-5k words.

My conclusion is strong keyword and strong timing in the market's needs. It was the first title I ever wrote in my life too hahah. I've tried to replicate the success of it with different titles with the same keyword but it didn't go that direction.

 

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[Mattie]

Keywords/category/and how many books are in that niche have a lot to do with it. And really I don't believe they work for every book with the same keywords. The author rank changes every day by how many new books come in, how many are sold, and it's always changing with authors. So you're moving around by what people buy.

The other thing is keeping you rank up, and that means promoting your books a lot. And so I get conversions from that, but just letting them sit there isn't going to do anything. I have books in multiple niches and they don't move unless i move with promotion, and keep putting more books out, and amazon then helps some with promoting if they know you've had hundreds of reads on promotion. And I wonder too, if they pay attention to whether you're an Amazon supporter, or have your books else where.

I don't have a clue how it all works, and still learning myself, but I don't believe you're going to make a ton of money over night unless somehow you're paying for advertising and pushing it in ways that are legal with Amazon. I do believe you have to have a fan base, and it is something that happens over time. And many other writers have said the same thing.

Outsourcing I figured was crap for the most part, because I read a lot of it. And basically you can always tell, because it looks like a term paper, and boring read. lol Just my opinion. I can tell when people write it themselves, there's more feeling, emotion, and experience in it, when a real writer writes. I have people that outsource ask me for reviews all the time. And I don't know if they sell it. I'm used to reading higher quality books on everything, so reading some of these short reads on fitness, health, etc. are super terrible. I know how much goes into being a good writer and still honing my skills myself.

I still hear I get to the point, and not fill it with garbage about self, or sales pitches. There was one woman yesterday that outsourced and already making money with her life coaching, and has a nice business. I opened up her $4.99 book and on unlimited and all it had was advertisements, a picture of her, and her credentials. The description described a book with content. Now why would anyone pay $4.99 for that? It's just insane, and I"m sure she didn't check to see if the content was in there. I've seen this happen a few times, and they're professionals, and have crappy writing, that doesn't match a professional. Different voices in their books. People know how you write, and they can tell when you have five different authors writing for you.

Personally I get bored. The first part is always why am I writing this book, this is what you learn, and this is what you get, buy these other books, and one guy wasted the whole chapter explaining who the author was. lol And I'm like omg! This is just my biased opinion of course. Just hard not to notice who the outsource people are, and the actual real writers. They write differently, and not in the business for the same reasons.

 

[Jake]

The other thing is keeping you rank up, and that means promoting your books a lot. And so I get conversions from that, but just letting them sit there isn't going to do anything.

I let other people promote my books on a different platform for a commission and then I sell my books on Amazon for cheaper. People spill over to Amazon and buy my book for less. Earning me more and boosting rankings.

Leverage the work of other people. Use their traffic to not only earn you and themselves money but when a tire kicker decides not to buy but searches for your book on Amazon later they will see that it's cheaper and buy it..earning you a greater commission.

Work smarter, not harder.

 

[GuestUser116]

Keywords/category/and how many books are in that niche have a lot to do with it. And really I don't believe they work for every book with the same keywords. The author rank changes every day by how many new books come in, how many are sold, and it's always changing with authors. So you're moving around by what people buy.

The other thing is keeping you rank up, and that means promoting your books a lot. And so I get conversions from that, but just letting them sit there isn't going to do anything. I have books in multiple niches and they don't move unless i move with promotion, and keep putting more books out, and amazon then helps some with promoting if they know you've had hundreds of reads on promotion. And I wonder too, if they pay attention to whether you're an Amazon supporter, or have your books else where.

I don't have a clue how it all works, and still learning myself, but I don't believe you're going to make a ton of money over night unless somehow you're paying for advertising and pushing it in ways that are legal with Amazon. I do believe you have to have a fan base, and it is something that happens over time. And many other writers have said the same thing.

Outsourcing I figured was crap for the most part, because I read a lot of it. And basically you can always tell, because it looks like a term paper, and boring read. lol Just my opinion. I can tell when people write it themselves, there's more feeling, emotion, and experience in it, when a real writer writes. I have people that outsource ask me for reviews all the time. And I don't know if they sell it. I'm used to reading higher quality books on everything, so reading some of these short reads on fitness, health, etc. are super terrible. I know how much goes into being a good writer and still honing my skills myself.

I still hear I get to the point, and not fill it with garbage about self, or sales pitches. There was one woman yesterday that outsourced and already making money with her life coaching, and has a nice business. I opened up her $4.99 book and on unlimited and all it had was advertisements, a picture of her, and her credentials. The description described a book with content. Now why would anyone pay $4.99 for that? It's just insane, and I"m sure she didn't check to see if the content was in there. I've seen this happen a few times, and they're professionals, and have crappy writing, that doesn't match a professional. Different voices in their books. People know how you write, and they can tell when you have five different authors writing for you.

Personally I get bored. The first part is always why am I writing this book, this is what you learn, and this is what you get, buy these other books, and one guy wasted the whole chapter explaining who the author was. lol And I'm like omg! This is just my biased opinion of course. Just hard not to notice who the outsource people are, and the actual real writers. They write differently, and not in the business for the same reasons.

That's 100% solid on outsourcing nonfiction. The 10 fitness titles I've got are all written by me in my style, from my experience.

But for fiction its different; I'm getting quality stuff.

I'm going to set all my titles free for 5 days, see what that will do.

I let other people promote my books on a different platform for a commission

How do you do that and where do you find these people?

 

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[Jake]

How do you do that and where do you find these people?

Not to be a dick but I was hesitant to post that in the first place. It's not too hard to figure out where people earn commission by selling other people's products. Put up your product that gives others incentives to promote it..enjoy the free traffic and spill-over effect.

 

[Mattie]

I would just look it up in google. Make a twitter and face book account and those platforms usually find you.

 

[GuestUser116]

Like clickbank but for titles? Not finding anything on google.

 

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[GuestUser116]

So yesterday all 12 of my titles were free and most of them still are for 4 more days. I got 425 total downloads, if I get ~300 on the 4 days left I'll have a total of 1625 downloads. Impact millions to make millions, except those are free downloads hahah. I want to see what doing that 5 day promo for all my titles will do after tho.

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[GuestUser116]

End of 5 day promo got like 1200 total downloads, not bad huh? A few days after the 5 day promo I expected my sales to skyrocket and its just crickets.. So F*ck the KDP promos, they don't do jack shit.

​

 

[Mattie]

Yes, and did you expect this to happen over night with just a five day promotion on Amazon. Basically any author knows whether you're going through a publisher or self publishing, you are the sole advertiser in your book promotions. It does help to get your author rank up and you do get a conversion rate, but you also have to have other books, a fan base etc. I suppose it's easier if you're paying buck loads of advertisement on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms. And all authors don't agree on that, if it works or not. And how about reviews. If it was over night project, I think everyone would be a millionaire by now. And really some people believe in doing the five day thing, and other people believe doing one day or two and spreading it out.

Amazon helps in promoting your book if they see during promotion your book is being read and you can learn all about that on your own.

 

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[GuestUser116]

Ye I did expect to make 8-10 sales over the night after giving 1200 away for free. That's not too much to ask for.

 

[Mattie]

http://www.slideshare.net/Ezra_Barany/best-book-sales-strategies?related=2 This is the thing I keep running into when I dig through all these writing books and videos, and etc. When it comes to expectations: Are people just giving you a load of crap and making you think they got there over night, Spending tons of money and not getting sales on advertising, and pretty much it's a good sales man that makes you think it's going to happen over night don't you think, less you have big bucks to waste on promoting. But I hear a lot that doesn't always pan out, and really I believe it comes down to your specific book and whether people really find interest in it, and sure you can follow the trends, but for some reason I feel it's got to be something unique and different, and stands out from the crowd. Ha ha! Cause I can tell you from reading all this crap on Amazon, it's over saturated, says the same crap, and why waste my time reading another book from some businessman following the same trend with the same information. And thank God I signed up for unlimited in October, because fortunately, it saved me a lot of money. There's nothing knew going on in new books every month in business, marketing, and non-fiction. And I can see why people wouldn't buy books, they're just all the same information.

What did I learn by reading all these books?

Don't follow the trend! Don't make a book for the sake of money! And be unique and creative. Find a niche that not everyone else is following. And do you have something new or exciting to tell people, or just same old b.s.

Why is your book any different then the next persons? Nice cover but same content. Same content means less sales and not solving the readers problems.

One more thing I notice: The romance genre is disappearing into Erotica and on one famous author's site I heard people saying they just want to read a good romance novel without all explicit crap, so I don't know if anyone's hearing them readers, and I know Erotica is all hip and all, but there are readers being ignored.

 

[EricZ]

@Mattie - You nailed it on the head!

Dear @Glacier , thank you so much for sharing this! I'm going through the same 'experiment' too, I have a book on a blog that gets 200+ uniques per day. I made a book specifically for the readers, I thought I had nailed it, and well the results are way more dismal than yours:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/threads/a-b-testing-ebook-marketing-methods.58358/

So what I have learned is what Mattie said, QUALITY over QUANTITY.
I'm going to concentrate on evergreen content now,
but wait! You said you are doing fitness books? Then you should be emulating Mike Geary - he "only" makes one million (yes 1mil) per month.

What does he do different?
He doesn't concentrate on the book, it's only part of his product palette.
He doesn't sell on Amazon AT ALL - only through his website.
He is a Clickbank guru, and set up industry standards there by acing it to the max.

For more info google the Tim Ferriss post 4hwwk - The Truth About Six Pack Abs - Mike Geary

Brgs
E

 

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[EricZ]

P:S:
Another Universal Truth that keeps biting me in the a$$:

YOUR ROI WILL BE DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE EFFORT YOU PUT INTO MARKETING AND PROMOTING YOUR BOOK/PRODUCT

Think I'm gonna make a poster of that one...

AND - this is totally regardless of the Content, Keywords, Categories, Covers, and Titles.
It is a given(!) that you ACE all of the above.

 

[Mattie]

YOUR ROI WILL BE DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL TO THE EFFORT YOU PUT INTO MARKETING AND PROMOTING YOUR BOOK/PRODUCT

I believe this is true. And not just one platform, but finding high traffic areas.

 

[GuestUser116]

What does he do different?
He doesn't concentrate on the book, it's only part of his product palette.
He doesn't sell on Amazon AT ALL - only through his website.
He is a Clickbank guru, and set up industry standards there by acing it to the max.

Been down that road and it was fruitless. Unless you have a following and crazy marketing skills you're a small fish swimming in a pond of sharks. You won't make jackshit.

 

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[GuestUser116]

Is it possible to sell this cash stream somehow? Transfer the bank account or something?

 

[EricZ]

Transfer the books to another user? Unpublish, then give the .mobis to new user, but then you break the stream...

 

[TAPROOTkind]

Is it possible to sell this cash stream somehow? Transfer the bank account or something?

Can you make a thread, post here or send me a message on getting started with this amazon book "scheme"? It would be much appreciated.

 

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