TheVoyager
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Hi folks,
this is my first post in this forum. Up to now I was just a quiet reader, but I learned a lot from your contributions. Thanks for that. I thought I share my story, as I finally made my first million $ with my selfpublishing business.
Let me begin far in the past. I’m a mid-40, born in germany, where I still live and work. So please excuse if my english isnt perfect. In highschool I was the second worst student, by far the worst in mathematics. That didnt keep me from programming computer games with my Commodore Amiga. But I was interested in spaceflight and SF and mentioned that I was eager to study astronautics at university. Family and friends then were eager to tell me „forget it – you wont make it“. Also an advisor in school looked at my grades and thought that would be not a good idea. Now I know that there is no better motivation for me than some guy to tell me I would not succed.
I had a hard time but finally got my bachelor in astronautics and later a master and PhD in nuclear engineering. A couple of years I worked at university and later at DLR (german NASA) as project manager. Great team, good work, poor salary. Finaly I came to the conclusion, that this was not the thing I would do until the end of my life. I quit to an opportunity in real estate, but this was just short time.
At this time I was an avid SF reader. I even wrote some stories myself, but these writings went directly to the paperbin. Finally i stumbled over these new selfpublished kindle books on amazon. All I read was crap. No professional covers, no copyediting. I had the need to read something of quality, but nothing. A need … That was at a time when german publishers tried to push their own ebook-reader and didn‘t publish ebooks at amazon. A need … At that time I had an idea for a novel and wrote that down within three month. People were saying „You will never succeed. Nobody will read your novel.“
I thought, go f*** yourself! I read every book about creative writing I could get. I visited writing schools in a nearby city and wrote the novel as good as I could. Then I hired a professional copyeditor and cover designer. Some more months later I uploaded the novel to amazon.
The thing went straight to #1 in SF. The first 20 reviews were 5-star. I made 300$ in the first month and then it went up to 1000$/month.
I then began writing my 2nd novel. I took a lot of time to make it better than the first one and published it one year later. It went up straight to #2 of all amazon books and made 50k$ in one month. I remember almost fainting after seeing the numbers. That novel was wildly successful in germany, winning an indie award on the day my son was born and it was nominated for two major book awards. In that year I made 200k$.
Was that novel that good? I dont think so. It was solidly crafted but essentially it was the only novel with that high quality standards in SF on the german market at amazon. It was successful due to the need. Other people followed in that trail and now the situation has changed. One year later there were more authors with professional production and thus more competition. It was harder to be profitable on that level and I learned a lot about online marketing in that time.
Scaling was difficult. The earnings reached a ceiling and now, five years later, I’m still at 200k$ per year. There are only so much people reading SF in germany. But it brought me now my first million since starting the business. And a lot of experience. I tried to break into the english speaking market. Boy, professional translations are expensive. I started a marketing campaign but I was just able to earn the costs back. All in all about 200k$ before leaving the overcrowded english speaking amazon SF market. At least I got that money back.
That business brought me quite a lot of things. I was able to work at home, see my son growing up und be with my family when my old job would have sent me from one business trip to the next. I was able to repay my mortgage 15 years early and to make some travels with my family I never thought I could afford.
But now, 6 years, 16 books and 1.3 million words later I’m somewhat bored. My son will enrole to school this year and I’m missing new challenges. More and more I ask myself if this is, what I want to do until the end of my life.
What i want to do now is to start a new business with the wisdom from my old one. A new challenge. I will write new novels but with a lower daily wordcount, while looking for new needs I could make a new business from. I consider my selfpublishing business as stepstone to the next one.
What will I do? I don’t know. Yet. Perhaps some words about my opinion concerning ideas. There are so much people in this forum looking and asking for ideas. I dont think, that it is possible to ask for ideas. The idea has to find you! You just can go open-minded through life and identify needs and problems you are able and eager to solve. This moment will come and up to that moment you should do anything to bring yourself into the right position by learning and getting experiences.
If I do another business it might be a SAAS, as I had a lot of fun with computer programming during my university time. However I’m missing some experience with web programming and I set myself a schedule to close these knowledge gaps. On the other hands this will not be necessary. An entrepreneur is not necessarily the developer of the software or the product. The entrepreneur identifies the need and organises whatever is necessary to find a solution. A good entrepreneur can organize a solution to any problem. If money is needed for this solution there are enough people eager to invest in a promising business. It’s about problem and solution.
There is the need to send a man to mars? I’m sure there‘s a solution for that. Okay, you might find Elon Musk as competitor. But that man also began with programming computer games on his Commodore Amiga as a kid.
I’m really looking forward to the next years and I’m really looking forward to the next guy who tells me „you can’t succeed!“. Let’s go!
this is my first post in this forum. Up to now I was just a quiet reader, but I learned a lot from your contributions. Thanks for that. I thought I share my story, as I finally made my first million $ with my selfpublishing business.
Let me begin far in the past. I’m a mid-40, born in germany, where I still live and work. So please excuse if my english isnt perfect. In highschool I was the second worst student, by far the worst in mathematics. That didnt keep me from programming computer games with my Commodore Amiga. But I was interested in spaceflight and SF and mentioned that I was eager to study astronautics at university. Family and friends then were eager to tell me „forget it – you wont make it“. Also an advisor in school looked at my grades and thought that would be not a good idea. Now I know that there is no better motivation for me than some guy to tell me I would not succed.
I had a hard time but finally got my bachelor in astronautics and later a master and PhD in nuclear engineering. A couple of years I worked at university and later at DLR (german NASA) as project manager. Great team, good work, poor salary. Finaly I came to the conclusion, that this was not the thing I would do until the end of my life. I quit to an opportunity in real estate, but this was just short time.
At this time I was an avid SF reader. I even wrote some stories myself, but these writings went directly to the paperbin. Finally i stumbled over these new selfpublished kindle books on amazon. All I read was crap. No professional covers, no copyediting. I had the need to read something of quality, but nothing. A need … That was at a time when german publishers tried to push their own ebook-reader and didn‘t publish ebooks at amazon. A need … At that time I had an idea for a novel and wrote that down within three month. People were saying „You will never succeed. Nobody will read your novel.“
I thought, go f*** yourself! I read every book about creative writing I could get. I visited writing schools in a nearby city and wrote the novel as good as I could. Then I hired a professional copyeditor and cover designer. Some more months later I uploaded the novel to amazon.
The thing went straight to #1 in SF. The first 20 reviews were 5-star. I made 300$ in the first month and then it went up to 1000$/month.
I then began writing my 2nd novel. I took a lot of time to make it better than the first one and published it one year later. It went up straight to #2 of all amazon books and made 50k$ in one month. I remember almost fainting after seeing the numbers. That novel was wildly successful in germany, winning an indie award on the day my son was born and it was nominated for two major book awards. In that year I made 200k$.
Was that novel that good? I dont think so. It was solidly crafted but essentially it was the only novel with that high quality standards in SF on the german market at amazon. It was successful due to the need. Other people followed in that trail and now the situation has changed. One year later there were more authors with professional production and thus more competition. It was harder to be profitable on that level and I learned a lot about online marketing in that time.
Scaling was difficult. The earnings reached a ceiling and now, five years later, I’m still at 200k$ per year. There are only so much people reading SF in germany. But it brought me now my first million since starting the business. And a lot of experience. I tried to break into the english speaking market. Boy, professional translations are expensive. I started a marketing campaign but I was just able to earn the costs back. All in all about 200k$ before leaving the overcrowded english speaking amazon SF market. At least I got that money back.
That business brought me quite a lot of things. I was able to work at home, see my son growing up und be with my family when my old job would have sent me from one business trip to the next. I was able to repay my mortgage 15 years early and to make some travels with my family I never thought I could afford.
But now, 6 years, 16 books and 1.3 million words later I’m somewhat bored. My son will enrole to school this year and I’m missing new challenges. More and more I ask myself if this is, what I want to do until the end of my life.
What i want to do now is to start a new business with the wisdom from my old one. A new challenge. I will write new novels but with a lower daily wordcount, while looking for new needs I could make a new business from. I consider my selfpublishing business as stepstone to the next one.
What will I do? I don’t know. Yet. Perhaps some words about my opinion concerning ideas. There are so much people in this forum looking and asking for ideas. I dont think, that it is possible to ask for ideas. The idea has to find you! You just can go open-minded through life and identify needs and problems you are able and eager to solve. This moment will come and up to that moment you should do anything to bring yourself into the right position by learning and getting experiences.
If I do another business it might be a SAAS, as I had a lot of fun with computer programming during my university time. However I’m missing some experience with web programming and I set myself a schedule to close these knowledge gaps. On the other hands this will not be necessary. An entrepreneur is not necessarily the developer of the software or the product. The entrepreneur identifies the need and organises whatever is necessary to find a solution. A good entrepreneur can organize a solution to any problem. If money is needed for this solution there are enough people eager to invest in a promising business. It’s about problem and solution.
There is the need to send a man to mars? I’m sure there‘s a solution for that. Okay, you might find Elon Musk as competitor. But that man also began with programming computer games on his Commodore Amiga as a kid.
I’m really looking forward to the next years and I’m really looking forward to the next guy who tells me „you can’t succeed!“. Let’s go!
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