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Hello from Denver - self publishing success

COSenior

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Since there hasn't been a real update in over a year, how is everyone doing? Is it still possible to follow the same process and research until I found a profitable genre, read a bunch of the bestsellers, come up with my own version and repeat like it was 4 years ago? I'd love to hear from some of you guys again. I'll also check out some of your individual progress threads as well.

Thanks again. I've learned so much from you guys!
Hey, Joe :) ChickenHawk is still publishing. Hello from Denver has moved on to greener pastures, and I'm ghostwriting. It's significantly more difficult to find a space in the indie publishing market these days, because so many people discovered it a few years back. ChickenHawk found her market and has many loyal fans, basically without advertising. Hello and I had to advertise, and he did better than I did because of deeper pockets - and then a lot changed. Amazon changed their Kindle Unlimited program and changed it again. Facebook got cagey with their advertising policies. Toward the end of 2015, a lot of authors were losing their ad accounts and sometimes their entire accounts.

That isn't to say it can't be done. It absolutely can. However, I maintained then—and I haven't changed my mind—that it isn't Fastlane. In the first place, it violates the cardinal rule of control. It also, if you're writing fiction like we all were, is very time-consuming. Hard to scale yourself, though some have done so by using people like me, who will write for a price. I've written for flat fee, for royalty share, and for advance against royalty share. That's my favorite, because it's now money and if the author you work for is good at marketing, later passive money as well.

If you enjoy writing and want to see how your work does in the marketplace, don't let me discourage you from doing it. The last book I wrote was for a young man who is very new to the marketplace, and his books did $25k in October. $6700 of that was from the book I wrote. But it still isn't Fastlane. ;)
 
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AnAverageJoe

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Thanks for your quick response @COSenior. When you say @Held for Ransom moved on to greener pastures, does that mean he's no longer writing because of all the changes, or is he just not around here anymore? I'd still like to thank him for planting this seed in my head. I saw @ChickenHawk has a beast of a progress thread that's still pretty current so I'll have to go check that out. When you ghostwrite, are you ghostwriting fiction or non fiction? Is there a pretty big market for ghostwriters?

I think I'm still going to give it a go. I already have an established audience in the niche I would write to that has been following me for a couple of years now, so that would make the advertising a little easier. I also have some ideas to monetize the books outside of the actual books, so we'll see. If it doesn't work, there's really no harm done, but if it does, I have an extra income stream.

Thanks again.
 

COSenior

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Thanks for your quick response @COSenior. When you say @Held for Ransom moved on to greener pastures, does that mean he's no longer writing because of all the changes, or is he just not around here anymore? I'd still like to thank him for planting this seed in my head. I saw @ChickenHawk has a beast of a progress thread that's still pretty current so I'll have to go check that out.
To the best of my knowledge, both are correct. I chat with him on Skype a couple of times a week, and I'll let him know he has a response here, in case he isn't keeping watch. Maybe he is. If so, he'll probably have something to say about my speaking for him, lol.

When you ghostwrite, are you ghostwriting fiction or non fiction? Is there a pretty big market for ghostwriters?
I write fiction. Although I have written non-fiction, it's by no means as much fun as fiction. If I were to do it, I'd do it for my own e-books. There is a market for ghostwriters, but I'm not seeing much in the way of requests for fiction writers, and what I do see have absolutely ridiculous expectations for what they want vs what they will pay. And what I've seen of my competitors shows a prevalence of people who speak English as a second language, work from overseas, and will write for what those poor, misguided buyers want to pay. It's unfortunate that such is the case, because it makes it so much harder for people who have professional-level skills to find adequately paid work.

I think I'm still going to give it a go. I already have an established audience in the niche I would write to that has been following me for a couple of years now, so that would make the advertising a little easier. I also have some ideas to monetize the books outside of the actual books, so we'll see. If it doesn't work, there's really no harm done, but if it does, I have an extra income stream.

Thanks again.
That sounds like a good plan, and a good start with an audience already established. Hope it works out well for you. :smile2:
 

MJ DeMarco

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I'd still like to thank him for planting this seed in my head.

What seed? That you can make money writing?

I, for one, am not saddened that the money-chasing hype of self-publishing is on the downslide. Too many 99 cent books with 9 cents of value.

My philosophy, before the hype, during the hype, and after the hype has been the same: Write if you what you're writing is valuable. THEN DON'T STOP. Value is like creme as it rises, albeit, it might not be as fast as we'd like.

Don't write because "X made $X,000 last month!" or "Wow, it's somewhat passive!"
 
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COSenior

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What seed? That you can make money writing?

I, for one, am not saddened that the money-chasing hype of self-publishing is on the downslide. Too many 99 cent books with 9 cents of value.

My philosophy, before the hype, during the hype, and after the hype has been the same: Write if you what you're writing is valuable. THEN DON'T STOP. Value is like creme as it rises, albeit, it might not be as fast as we'd like.

Don't write because "X made $X,000 last month!" or "Wow, it's somewhat passive!"

So, so true! What we all discovered is that it isn't at all passive. Not fiction, at least. The glut of cheap fiction (notice I didn't say BAD fiction, though there's plenty of that, too) on Amazon and elsewhere has created a situation where your raving fans forget you in a heartbeat if you can't churn out novels at the rate of 1 a month or every six weeks. I was able to do that for a while, and it was even fun - for a while. Then it wasn't.

Then there's the marketing. The hype for the book, the launch, whether to put up for pre-order or not, ad nauseum. It's just the same rat race, but in your pajamas if you choose.

Come to think of it, as long as I have clients or an idea for a book and the yen to write, it isn't a bad life. But I repeat. NOT FASTLANE. Never has been, never will be.
 

AnAverageJoe

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My philosophy, before the hype, during the hype, and after the hype has been the same: Write if you what you're writing is valuable. THEN DON'T STOP. Value is like creme as it rises, albeit, it might not be as fast as we'd like.

I'm with you 100%. The seed that was planted when I found this thread wasn't "OMG I CAN MAKE 15k A MONTH IF I PUMP OUT MEDIOCRE SEX STORIES!" it was more of a realization that people like me without a publisher or book deal or going the traditional route of publishing can get their stories out to the world. I also don't expect it to be passive, nothing is passive in the beginning.

Now I'll find out if my stories are entertaining and provide value to the niche I'm serving, and I think they will.
 

MJ DeMarco

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OMG I CAN MAKE 15k A MONTH IF I PUMP OUT MEDIOCRE SEX STORIES!" it was more of a realization that people like me without a publisher or book deal or going the traditional route of publishing can get their stories out to the world. I also don't expect it to be passive, nothing is passive in the beginning.

It worked for me with non-fiction as nearly 10 years later after I first started writing, the books still sell.

I'm sure fiction is a different beast altogether. I don't much like the sound of having to write continuously simply to keep the wheels grinding.

1+1 should equal 3.

Based on what others are reporting, it sounds like it's only 2.
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Hello from Denver has moved on to greener pastures

Any chance we can get an update and resolution to the thread? Did he have an exit plan and sold? Did the passive income just wither and die? I'm sure there's a great story there with a great learning experience.
 

Daniel James

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Hi everyone. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. :tiphat:

In other words, I've been able to systematize much of what I do. I think that was the biggest surprise of all to me. But, when you really learn about what the big earners do, it's all systems. Very, very, very few successful fiction writers do it for "passion" and in fact write in a formulaic manner and cater to what the genre wants to read. Honestly, I truly believe that almost anyone can do this if they work this as a system.

Not being a writer myself (thank God for Word's spell and grammar checker!), I relied heavily on my ability to do market research and understand the Amazon ecosystem throughly (in terms of keywords). In my mind, this is definitely what has made me successful in this so far. Aside from that, I am an expert in creating catchy titles, coming up with eye grabbing covers, writing enticing descriptions and hooking folks when they "Look Inside" at the first 10-12% of my books. Of course, I do the very best job I can as a writer but I'm no Shakespeare. Luckily, it turns out that it doesn't matter at all.

My formula is simple.

Step 1 - Look at what is selling.
Step 2 - Come up with my own spin/version of it and sell it.

That said, I don't want to mislead anyone that is reading this... Behind the scenes, within that simplicity are mutiple layers of complexity that represent my system. Nothing I do is accidental or "inspired". I don't write for inspiration or passion.

I write for people and markets. That's it.

This thread crushed my soul a bit, haha. Immensely valuable though to see how people are successfully monetizing fiction.

Looking through your post history it seems the landscape has changed tremendously since this threads inception and even latest the replies, would it be possible to get like a "5 years later" update?

Reading through the forums a bit it seems Kindle Unlimited has had a big impact on how and what people are writing. Last I saw it seemed you were writing longer pieces edging towards novels at around 40,000 words. How have you adjusted your approach? Are you still doing it even?

Regardless, thanks for all of the previous replies and information. Would love to hear your take on things now if you ever come back online.
 
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Hey, Joe :) ChickenHawk is still publishing. Hello from Denver has moved on to greener pastures, and I'm ghostwriting. It's significantly more difficult to find a space in the indie publishing market these days, because so many people discovered it a few years back.
\

Oh, I didn't realize Held For Ransom was Hello For Denver when I saw MJ's request for an update. Apologies for resurrecting this. Maybe another request will convince him? :devil:
 

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Hi everyone. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. :tiphat:

I joined here yesterday but was first introduced to the MFL in December of 2011. I am A LOT older than most here (42) and certainly not a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination.

In fact, until the past several months I have never earned enough from any business I have started to support myself completely from that business. I have always worked for others in one fashion or another until recently. But, as of this month, I have earned more in a single month than I ever did working for myself (obviously) or anyone else. This has been an absolutley incredible acheivement for me which took forever to happen but now that it has, I feel 20 years younger.

So I'm not going to waste alot of time talking about all the things I've tried to become successful over the years. It's just not important to me anymore. Pretty much I used to think that sucked at everything I ever did, but then I read MFL and I realized it was the choices I was making that was the culprit.

Now I'd like to say that I read MFL and wham, I started on my fastlane within 24 hours but that would not be true. I still struggled. Mostly because I was mired in several things which produced modest results. But then in mid-2012 I finally burned all those bridges, focused on one thing and it all turned around for me. You see, it was around that time that I a friend of mine (who is not a serial entrepreneur but a real writer) told me about some success he was having writing e-books for platforms like Kindle, Nook and the like.

So, I researched it a bit and to make a long story short, one thing led to another and this month, it looks like I'll clear somewhere around $15,000 for my fiction titles.

Of course I realize that this road violates a couple of fastlane principles - control (ultimately Amazon and the rest are in control of much of what happens) and entry (anyone could write an e-book). Otherwise, it's been scalable as hell, definitely separates my time from my money and, the way I write, is without question an A-Z process.

In other words, I've been able to systematize much of what I do. I think that was the biggest surprise of all to me. But, when you really learn about what the big earners do, it's all systems. Very, very, very few successful fiction writers do it for "passion" and in fact write in a formulaic manner and cater to what the genre wants to read. Honestly, I truly believe that almost anyone can do this if they work this as a system.

Not being a writer myself (thank God for Word's spell and grammar checker!), I relied heavily on my ability to do market research and understand the Amazon ecosystem throughly (in terms of keywords). In my mind, this is definitely what has made me successful in this so far. Aside from that, I am an expert in creating catchy titles, coming up with eye grabbing covers, writing enticing descriptions and hooking folks when they "Look Inside" at the first 10-12% of my books. Of course, I do the very best job I can as a writer but I'm no Shakespeare. Luckily, it turns out that it doesn't matter at all.

My formula is simple.

Step 1 - Look at what is selling.
Step 2 - Come up with my own spin/version of it and sell it.

That said, I don't want to mislead anyone that is reading this... Behind the scenes, within that simplicity are mutiple layers of complexity that represent my system. Nothing I do is accidental or "inspired". I don't write for inspiration or passion.

I write for people and markets. That's it.

Over the long run, I think that this will be my true fastlane. That is, exposing my systems approach to others. The true beauty of it is is that there is no saturation possible. There are thousands of e-book categories on Amazon and hundreds of thousands of possible methods for serving those markets. In my mind, my system is like a Swiss Army knife that can be used in whole or part to achieve goals.

In fact, I hired a programmer last November to help me automate much of the research I do on the biggest platform of them all - Amazon. It is still a long way from being finished but even what I've come up with so far has quintupled my income. I am pretty confident that if it works for me, it will work for others. Time will tell of course - I am still very early in all stages here.

In the meantime, I am writing and building up my credibility as a "non-writing/author" expert. I believe that if I am able to demonstrate competence at a high level using my approach that it will make my job of implementing my fastlane easier down the line. I haven't seen alot of folks on here self pubbing but I just wanted to put this out there for anyone lurking and thinking about giving it a shot.

A word of warning if you do decide to try... Understand that it will not happen overnight.

It took me 227 days or, more precisely, 732 hours, 38 minutes and 44 seconds in working time to get there. How do I know? I use a time tracking program called Toggl to categorize and track every single minute I spend in my business. Again, part of my system since time is my most precious asset.

Beyond the time, it took me 34 titles (ranging from 8,000 - 20,000 words each) to break the $10,000 earned in a single month threshold. You see, once I ironed out what worked (and didn't) in my market, it all turned around - my last three titles have been awesome sellers.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you decide to try it you probably won't get a bestseller but everything sells so just keep at it. In fact, if I can keep doing what I've been doing, I've got a roadmap to $20,000 and even $100,000 per month mapped out.

I figure that even if I'm half wrong, that's still $50,000 per month!

Will I get there? I have no idea. It's a rough and tumble volatile, cutthroat business with Amazon constantly mucking around. But, what business doesn't have an equal number of threats? All I can do is keep it at and see what happens.

Anyway, sorry again for the lengthy post everyone. I hope that I am able to add some value here over time.

Thanks alot MJ for the inspiration - it has changed my life!


This sound's Awesome! I luv how you have the days, hours, minutes, seconds of sweat. Look forward hearing your progress, I have heard that the difficult part for a friend of mine was the formatting did that seem to be an issue at all? What is your topic that seems to sell most Vampires lol A joke :) You don't have to say ") Keep up the great work!
 

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What a thought-provoking thread! Congratulations on your success, and thanks for the inspiration. WOW.

It really has me thinking. I've written two-plus novels, but didn't want to self-publish, because the general advice was always, "once you self-publish, you'll ruin your chances of a traditional publisher taking you on." But you've got me rethinking this in a couple ways.

1. Money-Making Potential. I personally know traditionally published authors who make almost nothing, even though they have agents and a publishing house backing them. Your earnings are blowing them out of the water. With success like this, it really don't matter if a traditional publisher ever expresses an interest in your work. You've carved out a niche, and thus, don't need them.

2. Word Counts. Man, what a thought-provoking idea, focusing on shorter-lengths rather than long traditional novels.

That's so true, too, about Kindle books. I buy those $2.99 novels all the time, figuring, "Heck, it's cheaper than a mocha, even if I don't like it."

I like your philosophy about negative reviews. With a lot of people, an initial bad review would've stopped them right there. But you stayed focused. That's a good lesson. I've participated in writing groups. Writers can have incredibly thin skins. That's just one of many reasons you're succeeding where so many have failed.

Speed +

I like the short story version...like a book with 5-10 short stories.
 
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Tammyanne

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I couldn't either but here I am nearly ten months in still doing it. Once the money starts flowing in you might change your perspective as well. Also, and this is only my opinion, but literally there is no such thing as a saturated fiction market.

In other words, if you write enough and write to the best of your ability, eventually people will find your stuff. And people who read, read ALOT. Almost without exception, every title I've put out has done better than the one before it (especially since the spring of this year). I think there might be a bit of tipping point where people look for your stuff and buy when it comes out.

But, I could be wrong. My next story could be a flop. After all, it happens to the best of them!

But, "flop" is relative to where you are. I mean, when I first started, getting a sales rank of under 10,000 seemed like a friggin' dream - a smash hit! Now, if I can't get under 1,000, I'm really bummed - it's a flop. I really want to crack the Top 500 and Top 100. If you ever check the Top 100 paid Kindle E-books, you'll find it's almost always overwhelmingly fiction.

If you want to make bank with e-books, fiction is where it's at. I mean that only in the sense that if you are starting from nothing and you don't have any sort of non-fiction credibility (finance, business, health, self improvement, etc.), then your odds of "overnight success" are much better with fiction. Just my opinion of course. And, like MJ says in the book... over time, your process will tilt the odds of success in your failure as you continue to write and improve. Next thing you know, anything less than 1,000 in the Kindle store will seem sucky to you as well!

Anyway, the point is that the desire of fiction readers for new stories is insatiable - it really is. That will never, ever change. As evidence, I haven't done a single day of work in nearly a month - due to some neck and back issues that have finally prevented me from typing. I hope to have my new ergo workstation fully complete within the next two weeks. Even so, I'm still going to pull in a record month in spite of that!

In my opinion, my ability to earn without working is because I went with fiction. Anyway, I'll get off my soapbox on that topic.

Just something for you to think about...
Do you mean setting up a website for the book specifically outside of Amazon? I can't say that I've ever done that so I really couldn't say how effective it might be. Not really sure what you mean there...

Yep, those erco chairs for back n neck..if not the dam back starts a hurting yikes...true
 

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I appreciate what you are saying here. It's funny because when I started, everyone was saying the same thing.

It's too crowded, everyone is doing it, etc. And, you're right, anyone can do it. I agree 100% and I've said as much which is a problem from a Fastlane POV.

But, I think that in the long run, most people just don't stick with stuff whether it's e-books or whatever. For instance, I can tell you that when I login to my Author Central account on Amazon.com and look at my Author Rank, I can scroll back all the way to last fall when they first started to track that stat. Now, really it's a useless statistic but there's a point to what I'm saying...

Back then, I was in the 3,000s+ in my sub genre! So, what I mean is that last fall there was 3,000+++ people already writing in my sub genre. Talk about no barrier to entry!

I already knew I wasn't a writer, never desired to be, etc. so I had to figure something else out if I wanted to give it a legit shot. So, I just kept looking at the winners. What were they doing? What types of stories were they writing? Could I do something similar, or different or better?

I just kept plugging away - 1-star reviews and all. I even had someone once say they wish they could have given me negative stars.

Hilarious! :eusa_clap:

Fast forward six months, and I'm firmly in the Top 100 of my sub genre, day in, day out. It's one of the most competitive genres of all so if a guy who doesn't write and sits on his couch can do it, anyone can.

The point of all of this is not talk about my rank or anything but to illustrate the point that I could have looked at my situation when I was 3,000+ with only a handful of titles under my belt and said, "Bah, too competitive. It's not worth the $100 I made in September. E-books don't work."

I'm not saying that you are saying that but I'm saying that it's worth sticking with if you are interested at all.

So, for whatever reason, I didn't quit. I just kept digging. I could see the money there. I could look at their sales ranks and see it. I just knew I could do it. I just needed time.

Today, I'm right there with them and I'd say to anyone that the same opportunity is still there. You just have to be willing to ride the highs and lows of it all, of which there are many. Getting there is one thing, staying there is a different animal altogether.

This was an AMAZING post. The best thing is that it not only applies to writing books, but many other kinds of "content creation".
 
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