Charnell's eBook Progress Thread [Here we go, it's getting serious!]

[Charnell]

Good evening everyone!
As you can tell, I just joined the forum, and want to jump right in.

Who am I?
I spent 5 years in the Marine Corps, and now I get to reap the benefits of going to school! 23 year old freshman, hell yeah. I got out of the Corps in April, and in June moved to the city where my school's at. I've made a lot of new friends, and reconnected with some old ones, but for the most part everyone is wrapped up in the 9-to-5 and partying or school and partying. Don't get me wrong, I love to party, but there's no one around here with the same money hungry mindset that I do. I've been going to a few of the Entrepreneur Club meetings, but everyone's caught up in the "5 year business plan and $500,000 bank loan" business. I'm about the act and react now business. Will it hurt me in the long run? Maybe, but it hasn't so far.

I've been playing around with self-publishing since the end of March. I started out actually writing books myself, but found it's a whole lot easier outsourcing. Right now I have 3 writers on oDesk, one who's been working for me since April, and the other two I just hired.

Here's my sales chart since I've started, and you can also see the amount published. September may be off around a hundred dollars, depending on how much KDP borrows are. Right now, based on the amount of sales I've had in October already, it's putting me at around $1300.

In total my expenses have been around $100 for stock photos, and $120 for outsourced writing.

Here we go!

 

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[Silverhawk851]

Understand your point, and understand you want to make money.

Going to save you alot of $ and time by telling you, getting money is fundamentally an exchange.

You have to give people a reason to give you money...give them something they want.
Create Value.

The more people you help, the more you'll get.

It's the only way.

all the best

 

[seamles]

Interesting. So you've had the most success with iTunes? Did you do specific marketing?

 

[Charnell]

Interesting. So you've had the most success with iTunes? Did you do specific marketing?

Actually, I only publish on Amazon. Maybe the color scheme is off on the charts...

I haven't done any marketing at all.

A majority of the books are fiction, with 2 being non-fiction how-to's, and 4 joke books. I put them all in select, launch the 5 day freebies so the also bought's populate, and forget about them.

All of the fiction are erotica. After reading a bunch of threads on Reddit one night, I stayed up until 8am writing my first story. Put it on Amazon, and since March, it's earned a whopping $7.03. What I like about the erotica genre is people buy bundles a lot. I have a 3 story bundle that's earned $127 so far, while the 3 stories that make it up have maybe earned $30 together.

 

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[Charnell]

Today I hired another freelancer from oDesk. She's from America, so hopefully I wont have to do as much editing. I'm banking that she provides quality work so I can ramp up her pay, and ramp up my profit.

 

[Charnell]

So the month is nearly over, so I figure I'll round up numbers. As of right now I have

Sales: 105 ( about $230)
Borrows: 586 (if @ $1.50, $879)
Total: ~$1109

Freelancer Expenses: 172.75

Profit: ~$936

I'm not rolling in the dough yet, but I'm making steady gains (+$600 from last month) so my goals for November are to hire at least 2 more workers. I have 3 consistent workers right now that provide quality work. One is producing over 2k words a day minimum.

I'm considering hiring a VA for marketing reasons as well. Posting on various websites, submitting to review websites, "trading" reviews for me, etc.. Also to combine similar stories for me for volume.

 

[voltron]

always nice to see a journey like this. how are you finding the process of managing your workers? im looking to outsource certain aspects of what im doing in the future.

 

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[Charnell]

always nice to see a journey like this. how are you finding the process of managing your workers? im looking to outsource certain aspects of what im doing in the future.

Honestly, I probably do a poor job of doing it. I let them work at their own pace, and give them bonuses for speed and also for every milestone they hit for me. After two months I renegotiate payment if their work is good.

 

[Charnell]

So KDP was down most of the day and yesterday for "technical difficulties". I have 3 stories I needed to publish, one completing a series that's been doing me pretty well, and another completing another series that's been doing alright. Tomorrow I'm going to need to upload all three, as well as the bundles for the pair of series. That will bring the total amount published for the month up to 14.

After doing some number crunching, excluding all bundles from calculations:
Average amount spent per books: $7.73 (the total number of books includes ones I've written as well. Without them the average would be closer to ~$14)
Average amount earned per book: $49.66
Luckily, for every book that sells a grand total of 1 copy over the last 5 months earning $.35 (damn), there is another that earns over $100 a month consistently.

 

[Charnell]

Royalties report came out today on Amazon, I finally broke into the 4 figures club this last month. Clocked in at about $1,056, depending on how they calculate exchange rates. So far so good, for every 1 dollar I've put into this I've gotten over 4 back.

One thing I think I'm going to do, after looking at my sales trends, is moving into non-fiction. Adult fiction is fast, easy, and cheap, but the shelf life is bottom of the barrel. I have some erotica books released in June that have completely fallen off, while my how-tos have consistently sold ever month, now surpassing most of the fiction singles. Of course, the bundles are the real bread winners, making up over 3/4 of sales.

 

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[Charnell]

I'm in the process of getting my first non-fiction ebook created! I'm having one of my freelancers that really provides high quality books create it. He's also doing it at a reduced rate ($8/1000 words, as opposed to $10/1000) because I'm providing him with all the research material he needs.

I found a niche that is growing increasingly popular, and only has one! kindle book on the 'zon about it, which has an average of 2.6/5 stars after nearly 30 reviews; it has over twice as many 1 stars as 5 stars. When it is written and published, I plan on hiring ~20 people from odesk to review it to really get the ball rolling.I'm also not going for the normal 5000 word book. My plan is to have it made up to 20,000 words.

 

[Peakdesire]

I'm in the process of getting my first non-fiction ebook created! I'm having one of my freelancers that really provides high quality books create it. He's also doing it at a reduced rate ($8/1000 words, as opposed to $10/1000) because I'm providing him with all the research material he needs.

I found a niche that is growing increasingly popular, and only has one! kindle book on the 'zon about it, which has an average of 2.6/5 stars after nearly 30 reviews; it has over twice as many 1 stars as 5 stars. When it is written and published, I plan on hiring ~20 people from odesk to review it to really get the ball rolling.I'm also not going for the normal 5000 word book. My plan is to have it made up to 20,000 words.

I'm having a hard time finding good niches.

Any tactics you find good?

I've used the regular searching for keywords in amazon, searching klickbank.

Can't find s*it.

 

[Gymjunkie]

I'm in the process of getting my first non-fiction ebook created! I'm having one of my freelancers that really provides high quality books create it. He's also doing it at a reduced rate ($8/1000 words, as opposed to $10/1000) because I'm providing him with all the research material he needs.

$8 per 1000 words??? GTFO! What a deal if he's good.

Good luck!

 

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[Charnell]

I'm having a hard time finding good niches.

Any tactics you find good?

I've used the regular searching for keywords in amazon, searching klickbank.

Can't find s*it.

I'm going to have to research how to research haha.

$8 per 1000 words??? GTFO! What a deal if he's good.

Good luck!

He's ghostwritten 6 of my erotica stories, and they have all been pretty damn successful. Zero editting to do, and he was working for $3/1000, plus a bonus when a series was complete to bring it up to roughly $4.5/1000. He's a college student in Sri Lanka, and does work!

 

[Charnell]

As you can see, as long as I put in the time, I'll make money. The average day is so low because it's kept track from day 1, before I even had a sale. I'm looking forward to 2015 when I can start a new one and really see how things go.

I also got swamped with homework over turkey day break, but good homework...

 

[Peakdesire]

As you can see, as long as I put in the time, I'll make money. The average day is so low because it's kept track from day 1, before I even had a sale. I'm looking forward to 2015 when I can start a new one and really see how things go.

I also got swamped with homework over turkey day break, but good homework...

The money is waiting. You can smell it already.

 

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[Charnell]

It's beautiful, seeing my estimated earnings per hour and per book rising everyday.

Yesterday I put out 2 books, one of them being a 2-for-1 special containing the first stories in two different series. Hopefully it generates some mailing list joins and people reading the rest of the books in the series. I checked goodreads, and was met with a bunch of 5 star reviews. Can not be mad about that!

I've hired 3 more freelancers today. It's time to start the nonfiction portion of the journey. I'm a little nervous, to be honest...

Also, I'm a little over halfway finished with TMF . Oooh I can't wait to finish it, probably tomorrow morning. After I'm finished with it I'll blaze though Lifehacked by Allen Wong.

 

[Peakdesire]

It's beautiful, seeing my estimated earnings per hour and per book rising everyday.

Yesterday I put out 2 books, one of them being a 2-for-1 special containing the first stories in two different series. Hopefully it generates some mailing list joins and people reading the rest of the books in the series. I checked goodreads, and was met with a bunch of 5 star reviews. Can not be mad about that!

I've hired 3 more freelancers today. It's time to start the nonfiction portion of the journey. I'm a little nervous, to be honest...

Also, I'm a little over halfway finished with TMF . Oooh I can't wait to finish it, probably tomorrow morning. After I'm finished with it I'll blaze though Lifehacked by Allen Wong.

What are your expected earnings for the next month ?

 

[Daniel A]

@Charnell I just listened to the song...





Just Googled her name though. She's Greek, but is that Greek? Confused...:joyful:

 

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[Charnell]

What are your expected earnings for the next month ?

Unfortunately this month was mostly spent preparing for next month's nonfiction overhaul. Projections point towards $500-600 depending on borrow rate. This is the kind of graphs you get with fiction:

Nice peaks for a few days then they drop off the planet. I'd rather publish books that do consistent sales, even if it's just one or two a day.

@Charnell I just listened to the song...

View attachment 8639



Just Googled her name though. She's Greek, but is that Greek? Confused...:joyful:

I don't think I can comment on that with tact...hahahhah

 

[Peakdesire]

Yeah non-fiction is better.

I'm going to start my self-pub journey this weekend

 

[Charnell]

So I ended up hiring 7(!) more freelancers for writing. That brings the grand total to 9. . . I'm mostly focusing on business niches, targeting 18-35 year old corporate types. Hopefully sales reflect the $350+ a week increase in spending. If not I'll just go back to what I know: fiction.

In other news, since the start of my journey back in March, I've spent around $550 between outsourcing, stock photos, and advertising. I went on appannie.com for the first time in a while, updated my credentials, and checked my revenue as of Oct. 31st. Here are some of my top earners overall.

It turns out 1 hours of work one day back in each April, September, and October is worth $882.86 a few months down the road. Not only does that cover all expenses so far after taxes, that leaves a whole lot other money to try other ventures. Next stop, Android apps.

 

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[Gymjunkie]

So I ended up hiring 7(!) more freelancers for writing. That brings the grand total to 9. . . I'm mostly focusing on business niches, targeting 18-35 year old corporate types. Hopefully sales reflect the $350+ a week increase in spending. If not I'll just go back to what I know: fiction.

In other news, since the start of my journey back in March, I've spent around $550 between outsourcing, stock photos, and advertising. I went on appannie.com for the first time in a while, updated my credentials, and checked my revenue as of Oct. 31st. Here are some of my top earners overall.

It turns out 1 hours of work one day back in each April, September, and October is worth $882.86 a few months down the road. Not only does that cover all expenses so far after taxes, that leaves a whole lot other money to try other ventures. Next stop, Android apps.

Congrats on both! How do you test the writers before hiring, or do you just hire and then see how it works out?

What did you do on AppAnnie?

 

[Charnell]

Congrats on both! How do you test the writers before hiring, or do you just hire and then see how it works out?

I'll admit, my screening process for finding writes is pretty bare bones. I have a simple "script" I wrote up with my most common interview questions, because it's so much easier to copy+paste and change the name. I use the "include the word 'earn' in your application..." so I know they actually read the post. Then from those with correct punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and so on I'll ask for a sample. I think it's worth it to take the risk sometimes though. When I first started I hired the cheaper guy I could find, but the $406.88 up there was a $35 investment.

What did you do on AppAnnie?

It's just an analytics website. They primarily cater to apps, showing ranking, earnings, downloads etc. You can also link your KDP account and it wlll (I assume) take the Excel files from the payments tab to gives a visual on monthly earnings. Unfortunately they don't account for borrows, so a book might have 15 sales and 70 borrows in a month, so it looks like those 15 sales earned $180.

 

[Gymjunkie]

I'll admit, my screening process for finding writes is pretty bare bones. I have a simple "script" I wrote up with my most common interview questions, because it's so much easier to copy+paste and change the name. I use the "include the word 'earn' in your application..." so I know they actually read the post. Then from those with correct punctuation, spelling, capitalization, and so on I'll ask for a sample. I think it's worth it to take the risk sometimes though. When I first started I hired the cheaper guy I could find, but the $406.88 up there was a $35 investment.


It's just an analytics website. They primarily cater to apps, showing ranking, earnings, downloads etc. You can also link your KDP account and it wlll (I assume) take the Excel files from the payments tab to gives a visual on monthly earnings. Unfortunately they don't account for borrows, so a book might have 15 sales and 70 borrows in a month, so it looks like those 15 sales earned $180.

Yeah, it's a numbers game.. tough to hire the right person without trying many times..

And I see, I thought you had some apps doing well!

 

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[Charnell]

Yeah, it's a numbers game.. tough to hire the right person without trying many times..

And I see, I thought you had some apps doing well!

Not yet, but within the next 9 months I plan on it.

 

[Gymjunkie]

Not yet, but within the next 9 months I plan on it.

Book + App business model!

 

[Charnell]

Book + App business model!

Gotta diversify at some point. See what other opportunities are out there; I have to learn one at a time though!

 

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[Gymjunkie]

Gotta diversify at some point. See what other opportunities are out there; I have to learn one at a time though!

I don't believe in diversifying fast.. that's just distraction (until you are kicking a$$ to a certain level and can start risking.. but that's not at $3k a month for anyone)... now providing info for solving a problem and then having an app to support it/solve problem is a double punch to dominate a niche.. that's a real business, not a spray-and-pray approach.

 

[Charnell]

I don't believe in diversifying fast.. that's just distraction (until you are kicking a$$ to a certain level and can start risking.. but that's not at $3k a month for anyone)... now providing info for solving a problem and then having an app to support it/solve problem is a double punch to dominate a niche.. that's a real business, not a spray-and-pray approach.

Right, I hear what you're saying. I definitely wouldn't want to flood the market with a bunch of two bit reskinned apps that just take up space. I'll learn a bit of development, figure out a good product to put out to accompany a book, and release them together. Right now I'm plotting what I could put out that would make an impact, something simple enough I could do most of the programming to further increase proficiency.