Kindle publishing

[Jeffrey Luke]

I'm pretty sure these people mean well, but I'd be very cautious listening to their advice.



Generally speaking if it's fiction then it's indeed a good idea to lower the price, but going with the trends isn't always going to be a good idea. A lot of people leave tons of money on the table because they don't test higher prices. As for the KDP tool, forget about it. It's useless.



People from GoodReads are some of the worst readers and customers. They will criticize you to no end, especially as a self-published author. I consider this site a huge waste of time and never heard of anyone who's had any success with it.



Are you talking about the new KDP paperback program? If so, I'm not sure why you'd use it. Use Createspace instead. It's Amazon's company, too and they have a wider reach.



Oh man, if you want to use Amazon's tool for your book cover, you might as well give up now. Self-published authors are getting more and more professional. How likely do you think you'll be able to compete with your DIY cover with people who invest in professional cover design? It doesn't even have to be that expensive; I pay $50 for every cover and people love my covers. Don't forget that you're also competing with traditional publishing companies. They don't use Amazon's tool, either.



Like @Omni said, it's BS. As for KDP Select and free promo days, KDP Select isn't what it used to be. In some genres you'd make much more (or the same amount, but diversified over a few platforms) by going wide.



I've never paid much attention to keywords and my books still sell very well.

Maybe it applies more to fiction, but still, what's MUCH more important is being visible on the bestseller lists and actually getting sales, not tweaking your keywords.

All in all, be careful listening to advice from people in this industry because you'll usually either get advice from misinformed artists without business sense (no disrespect, just stating the facts) or from shady Internet marketers who have little to no experience with writing and books in general.

The best way to learn from others is to find consistent bestselling authors in your genre and follow their practices. Once you get good at it, you'll be able to set trends yourself.

MTF,

Thanks for your advice. I've read it a few times. It helped me to make a few decisions, mainly to not underprice my book (it's non-fiction, a photo instruction book), and not to rely too heavily on Kindle Select to promote my book.

This morning I listed this book for sale on KDP for $4.99 and on the front and back inside matter I have prominently displayed a link for people to download a free eBook in exchange for their email address.

My other book is just listed on Amazon at $6.49 and I am trying to figure out the best way to promote it if I don't use Kindle Select.

I haven't sold a book yet, but it's early in the game. If nothing happens I might try Kindle Select or try and find another way to promote these books.

Your advice was really good. Just want to thank you for it.

Jeff

 

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[Jeffrey Luke]

Assuming your book doesn't have any visibility because it's in a tough category: Your 1st book should stay at 99c, be enrolled in KDP select and boosted with ads occasionally when there's slippage. Then ensure you have a proper lead capture in place to build your email list. You'll be making more money off the sequels than anything else, so right now, your goal is more reads, more email captures, more reviews and repeat.

If your book already has visibility, then you can play around with the pricing at 2.99 / 3.99.

Also you can distribute your books for free in exchange for a review. Amazon banned that practice for physical products, not ebooks.

Lastly, you should not be creating your own covers when you have no photoshop skills. Paying someone on fiverr is a better bet. The covers are a huge factor in the % conversion to a sale, with the others being your title, reviews and blurb copy.

Hey @Omni I just want to thank you! Somebody bought one of my eBooks in the Kindle store today! First sale.

I accomplished this with a simple process. I enrolled my 1st book in KDP select. Inside the front matter I had a sign-up link for a 2nd free eBook, and the buyer provided their email address to download the free eBook. So I have officially begun my email list with a real customer.

It was you who told me about making the first book easy to buy and have the proper lead capture in place to build my list.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I promise to put them to good use!

Many thanks,

Jeff

 

[Omni]

Hey @Omni I just want to thank you! Somebody bought one of my eBooks in the Kindle store today! First sale.

I accomplished this with a simple process. I enrolled my 1st book in KDP select. Inside the front matter I had a sign-up link for a 2nd free eBook, and the buyer provided their email address to download the free eBook. So I have officially begun my email list with a real customer.

It was you who told me about making the first book easy to buy and have the proper lead capture in place to build my list.

If you have any other suggestions, please let me know. I promise to put them to good use!

Many thanks,

Jeff

Hey congrats on the first sale! That said, you've gotta create a stronger blurb. And get reviews on your book (you can gift them to get them rolling). Without those factors to increase conversions (sales) your marketing won't be as effective.

After that, price to 99c blast with promos (search kboards for a list of sites.) And that'll rank you to page 1 with visibility for some organic sales for both of your current kindle categories (yours are not very competitive). Swap the pricing to a higher one when you're there and ride off that momentum. Since you're in KDP Select now, if you haven't changed your price in X period of time, you can explore countdown deals which give you a 70% royalty on the 99c component and allow you to place artificial scarcity on the price increases to create urgency.

The marketing will probably cost $100-200 and you'll likely breakeven from those efforts. Again, it really depends on what you're trying to do here. I don't see your portfolio being big enough to shoot your kindle royalties to the stratosphere so a profitable method would be using the book as a lead gen to your site which then sells video courses or hitting "best-seller" status and using that as credibility to get higher paying photography jobs. Ebooks as a distribution medium might be sub-optimal here for photography lovers; I don't suspect many people go to a book to learn photography and instead would prefer video courses and definitely a live, hands-on course.

Hope that helps.

 

[Jeffrey Luke]

Hey congrats on the first sale! That said, you've gotta create a stronger blurb. And get reviews on your book (you can gift them to get them rolling). Without those factors to increase conversions (sales) your marketing won't be as effective.

After that, price to 99c blast with promos (search kboards for a list of sites.) And that'll rank you to page 1 with visibility for some organic sales for both of your current kindle categories (yours are not very competitive). Swap the pricing to a higher one when you're there and ride off that momentum. Since you're in KDP Select now, if you haven't changed your price in X period of time, you can explore countdown deals which give you a 70% royalty on the 99c component and allow you to place artificial scarcity on the price increases to create urgency.

The marketing will probably cost $100-200 and you'll likely breakeven from those efforts. Again, it really depends on what you're trying to do here. I don't see your portfolio being big enough to shoot your kindle royalties to the stratosphere so a profitable method would be using the book as a lead gen to your site which then sells video courses or hitting "best-seller" status and using that as credibility to get higher paying photography jobs. Ebooks as a distribution medium might be sub-optimal here for photography lovers; I don't suspect many people go to a book to learn photography and instead would prefer video courses and definitely a live, hands-on course.

Hope that helps.

Hey Omni,

Thanks so much for your encouragement and solid advice. I definitely gotta create a stronger blurb. Will do that now. BTW, the book was purchased from someone I helped out a lot with advice on Reddit. He actually bought another title of mine, UNSNAPSHOTS and wrote a nice review for it. It's my first review on Amazon.

I will look into pricing to 99c blast with kboards to gain visibility. I will take your advcie on swapping pricing to a higher one when I get momentum. Will try the countdown deals too as I haven't changed the price in a couple of weeks.

I don't mind if I breakeven with marketing, or even lose some money. I suppose I should have a clearer vision of "what I'm trying to do here" and I'd say that finding a market for my books and exploding the growth there would be great. As an example, Tim Ferriss serves his following really well with his podcast and videos, etc, and then periodically he sells his books with great success. I realize I'm not celebrity status as he is, but he's a model for filling a niche well.

Reddit has been super useful. I find many people are asking detailed questions and I'm able to help them. There are probably hundreds or thousands of people with similar problems. I think I've found a place to solve problems.

Thanks again for your detailed advice.

I'm going to start putting it to work.

Jeff

 

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