Every Teens Dream... Broke to Independent

[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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[theag]

Marketing (0$)

Oh boy. Somebody is in for a huge surprise.

 

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[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.

 

[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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[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.

 

[theag]

Lol this thread is getting better and better.

 

[BigBrianC]

I haven't done anything

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

 

[Charnell]

I don't get why everyone's so negative here.

It's only a thousand dollar experiment. It's better to take action, fail, and adjust for next time, then to never take action paralyzed by "WHAT IF NO ONE READS IT?".

Guess what?

If the book doesn't exist, we know for sure no one will read it.

Because he doesn't have $1,000 of experimental money. He's put himself in a make it or break it situation, but doesn't have the know how or credentials to succeed.

He also keeps repeating the timeless classic "no one has done this before". His marketing plan is going to basically ask people who've made it for a review.

"Hey, I'm a guy that outsourced a book and was wondering if I could use your popularity as marketing. This has never been done before, and I know everyone will love it."

 

[DaRK9]

What need does 50 shades of Grey fulfill? ....it doesn't fill anyneed but to entertain. My book will entertain young adults.

More than you think.

 

[Charnell]

1. I'm targeting high school juniors/seniors and college students
2. No , I've this would be my first time for all things listed
3. 'm going to use a pseudonym name and

1. What are 17-22 year olds doing right now? They're outside going to festivals, concerts, oceans and lakes. They are outside. If you release this during the summer your target audience will be out and about doing other things besides reading. Most have been in class the rest of the year, they probably don't want to read a book for entertainment.

2. You're going to want a marketing budget then.

3. Why?

Are you going to a Tucker Max-esque book style? Just stories of sexcapades? It would be more likely(which is still incredibly small) to go 'viral' that's your target audience until school starts back up. When do you want to hear about a book, at the beach or sitting in Ms. Johnson's English 101 class?

 

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[ilrein]

I don't have the luxury of being able to wait until august...with that being said I still feel it will get read because it hasn't been done before

I don't get why everyone's so negative here.

It's only a thousand dollar experiment. It's better to take action, fail, and adjust for next time, then to never take action paralyzed by "WHAT IF NO ONE READS IT?".

Guess what?

If the book doesn't exist, we know for sure no one will read it.

 

[Charnell]

i respect what your saying but what you're saying applies more towards tech startups. There are people making 300-400 dollars a day through romance ebooks do you think they got to that point reading niche forums and looking for regularly mentioned products?

HAHAHHAHAH That's exactly what they do and how they go there! I'm apart of a few closed off groups and that's 50% of the job: research. NEWSFLASH: if no one's doing it, there's a reason no one's doing it (because it doesn't work). I know people that are doing $1300+ a day and they spend an hour everyday looking at the Amazon top lists to see what's trending, what works and doesn't work, etc.

The easiest part of self-publishing a book is writing the book.

Another thing, you're planning on releasing an ebook, but not on the largest platforms (Amazon, Google, iTunes, etc). You're selling from your own website, but have no following or marketing budget. How do you expect 17-22 year olds to not only go against the grain and buy from your website instead of the major retailers AND get them to read a whole book on their computer. Yes I understand there are ways to transfer them to devices, but who's going to find all that worth it?

 

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[ilrein]

@Charnell

That's a wise assessment, and I do agree with you.

My point is that it is difficult to dissuade a headstrong teenager when he is convinced his path will work.

Ask me how I know

I also don't fully believe that this is make-or-break. It's just an emotional thing. Teenagers tend to exaggerate. Better to see the harsh realities of failure and realize that fastlane isn't an overnight success, then to try to caution these personality types. They won't listen to you anyways.

 

[theag]

Waiting on paypal to verify my ssn so I can send money from my bank to paypal. Not really sure what should be done next...Domain Name? Landing Page? Logo? I need to decide soon

Logo.

 

[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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[Drq]

If you want to go and do it your way, that is completely fine. In the process, you'll find out if it was right or wrong (and it might cost a bit).

However, I don't think you should be locking in your budget before you do some actual research.

Ghost writer - How did you come up with that number? Have you talked to any ghost writers? Have you talked to anyone who has worked in the field? Have you seen the quality you would get $400 for an entire book?

"Professional Quality Formatting & Interior design of book" ? Google templates for books, find a FREE template, use it. Put that $300 aside for later.

Website - $300 ? Seriously? Google "Wordpress", "wordpress premium templates" - better yet, go to Youtube and search for those, another $300 saved.

It's almost never about resources. It's ALWAYS about RESOURCEFULNESS!

Most of the advices given to you here might not make complete sense to you, and that's okay - it takes experience to figure those things out. But just try a few of those things that don't make sense before you dismiss them and you will be surprised from the outcome.

 

[Chaseb731]

What need is there for your book?

 

[db7903915]

I'm 18 as well. Similar situation, in that, I too want to move out on my own before the end of this year.

I've been given some excellent advice today, and that is to:
1. Choose a market that spends money
2. Read niche forums, and look for regularly mentioned problems
3. Create a scalable product or service around the problem(s)

I know you probably don't want to hear that, since you seem pretty confident about your book. But I'm just sharing what I learned, and what I am currently acting on.

And one more thing, you should never have a marketing budget of $0. It's similar to assuming you'll find enough change on the sidewalk to cover your lunch. You always need a marketing budget, especially for a product sold online.

 

[Chazmania]

I Can't even put into words how lucky you are to get a little advice and even some ballbusting from some of the PROVEN ENTITIES around here including MJ himself. If I could be your age again and had actually recieved advice from some real players, I would definitely listen to every word they are saying, because it would have saved YEARS off my learning curve.

Don't be cocky or defensive.

Don't let the ribbing get to you. Pay attention to what these guys and gals are saying to you. They have been through the process and come out successful. Don't think you know more than they do because they are advising you on the real fundamentals of business Dude. You're lucky to get any advice from people who have succeded.

Get what I'm sayin?

Keep on after your goal and gratefully take advice from people who have succeded in what you are trying to do. Don't re-invent the wheel.

 

[Chaseb731]

What need does 50 shades of Grey fulfill? ....it doesn't fill anyneed but to entertain. My book will entertain young adults.

It's dangerous to declare an exception to the rule as an example. Without a need, you are running on borrowed time before you even start.

 

[Charnell]

Just to your first point, I actually disagree. I'm in college myself and I know that I and a lot of my friends/peers are looking forward to having a chance to actually do some reading on our own. The school year, for me at least, has been unbelievably hectic and there is almost no time for personal reading. The Summer is an opportunity to have a little bit of extra time that I think a decent amount of students will devote partially to reading.

Right, there's no doubt that someone will read it, and that people that age read during the summer, but if he's banking on a book for students going viral, he's probably better of releasing it when students are all together.

 

[Gsuz]

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.)

 

[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.

 

[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?

 

[Drq]

UPDATE

In theory everything sounds good. My previous posts about my plan to invest my next $1000 dollars into a website and book is still something I would consider but not at the moment when I don't even have $200...

The best option is to acquire the skills needed to do this myself. There's no point in paying a freelancer $300 dollars to help me install a template when I have the resources available to do it myself.

At this point I don't know exactly what my next business will be but it will be soon. I'm starting with zero coding knowledge so my first task is to learn html (which I started today) , then css, java , and whatever makes logical sense after.

Whatever I decide , will be a website , hence why I'm learning these specific languages but as far as what exactly it will be i'm undecided

Service?
E-Commerce?
Directory?


With advanced skills the 1000$ used to create one source of income could potentially be used to fund 3 or 4

We'll just have to see but everyone will be updated refuse to be an action FAKER

Smart choice! The biggest resource you have at the moment is free time, put it to use. Forget HTML for now, learn Wordpress -it's simple, it'll get you the initial website you need in place, and you won't need coding skills.

You can literally have a website fully functional within hours.

Learn how to install it on a web host with cpanel (youtube videos available, search for them)

Learn how to install themes

Learn about pages and posts, the dashboard, widgets and common settings

Play with it, try different things, check out themes available for free or premium, before you know it you'll have a marketable skill you can use to raise money for your next project. Maybe you won't be able to code up facebook.com, but I don't see a reason why would wouldn't be able to make simple business card websites for local businesses for example.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Yeah i'm going to focus more on wordpress and integrating some nice templates

Happy to hear that you are getting started on experimenting with the world. And happy to hear that you didn't allow some of the criticisms here push you away. Good luck.

 

[ZCP]

Get a job for funds.
Start a hustle thread to expand those funds and learn how to sell.
Get the book written. Run it by @ChickenHawk . If she says 'not bad', I'll give you the $200 for marketing.

Just want to see you take the fire you have and move forward. Get many fronts going and learn in many areas. Just go DO.

 

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[18inMiami]

I am a 18 year old entrepreneur living in Florida. At this very moment I only have 160$ because of poor planning and decisions but that's in the past. I have two main goals at the moment

1. Move out of parents house by August 2015
2. Quit job and work on business full time

I just got a full time job at a restaurant that will pay about 1500 a month. I'm currently in training so I haven't been paid yet. The money receive from my first two checks will go towards a book I'm going to publish.

The money I save up from my job will be going towards

• 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.

So all in all I will be investing 1000$ dollars into this project which will be 100% all the money I have. Depending on the success of the book I will use the money to start another entrepreneurial project, pay for more marketing for the book, and use it to move out. Again I do not know what I will do first it depends entirely on how much money it makes. Ideally by August I will have made enough to move out and quit job.

I am very confident and excited about the potential of this book I've just been working on rough draft what I want the book to look like when published.

As the book gets more success I plan on selling foreign rights, the initial book I am publishing will appeal to US Audience but it can easily be replicated to appeal to different countries (China , Japan , Europe , etc) .I also plan on selling the rights to the main US version.

So as of today my task is to go to work so I can get seed money and each day working on a skill that will allow me to be 100% prepared for when the book is published.

I'll answer any questions and take any advice offered

 

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[Charnell]

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.

I'm a bit curious what genre your future book is in. You don't need to go into specifics, just the broad niche.

Have you done any of the things you're budgeting for before? Not necessarily for an ebook, but for anything?
Do you have a name for yourself already, or are you going to use this book as leverage/mailing lists/get traffic/whatever?

 

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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...