Kindle success, failures, and everything else - Progress Thread

[Rainy_TX]

Hey guys. I've been a member of this forum for some time now. Just wanted to leave this here as a bit of motivation that if I can do it, so can you!

Back in 2014, I started writing and publishing fiction to Amazon Select. I was in a terrible marriage at the time, with absolutely no support from my husband. In fact, he told his friends that I wrote 'vampire porn' and that my time would be better served working at McDonalds. I suppose writing was my escape from that life and boy, did I dive into my fantasy world. By March 2014, I had about 24 titles up (they were novellas) and my payout for March was a little over 6k which I received in May. It came as no surprise that dear old hubby changed his tune... "you need to write more so I can quit my job!" I left him in July of that year.

Since then, my personal life turned around - I'm with an amazing man that loves that I write and that I'm a creative, we have an 8-week old son, and I'm even thinner than I was when I was with the ex... and that's after having a baby at 41!

However... because my writing was my escape from my misery, my motivation ran thin as soon as I found happiness. After a half a year of 3-6k months and becoming a best-selling author due to a box set with a couple other authors, my publishings slowed to nearly nothing. Of course, fiction has a shelf life and when I stopped publishing, my sales dwindled. (I think I made $18 last month from Amazon.)

I've been evaluating things and realized that I was the ruination of the success train I had going. Do not take it for granted when you start doing well. Success is like a garden and it needs to be tended. I forgot about mine as I enjoyed the fruits of my past labors. DUMB! Now I have to go through and pick out the jungle of weeds and start from scratch... almost.

At any rate... I've had success and it tastes amazing! If I can do it, you can too. The keys are: research your niche, study your niche, live/breathe your niche, stay focused on your niche no matter what, and believe. I believed I could do it despite my depressing marriage... and I did it! If I did it in the face of all of that, I know I can do it again.

We can't make excuses... take accountability, learn from your mistakes, and just do it! Success is waiting!

 

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[Crossroads]

Hey guys. I've been a member of this forum for some time now. Just wanted to leave this here as a bit of motivation that if I can do it, so can you!

Back in 2014, I started writing and publishing fiction to Amazon Select. I was in a terrible marriage at the time, with absolutely no support from my husband. In fact, he told his friends that I wrote 'vampire porn' and that my time would be better served working at McDonalds. I suppose writing was my escape from that life and boy, did I dive into my fantasy world. By March 2014, I had about 24 titles up (they were novellas) and my payout for March was a little over 6k which I received in May. It came as no surprise that dear old hubby changed his tune... "you need to write more so I can quit my job!" I left him in July of that year.

Since then, my personal life turned around - I'm with an amazing man that loves that I write and that I'm a creative, we have an 8-week old son, and I'm even thinner than I was when I was with the ex... and that's after having a baby at 41!

However... because my writing was my escape from my misery, my motivation ran thin as soon as I found happiness. After a half a year of 3-6k months and becoming a best-selling author due to a box set with a couple other authors, my publishings slowed to nearly nothing. Of course, fiction has a shelf life and when I stopped publishing, my sales dwindled. (I think I made $18 last month from Amazon.)

I've been evaluating things and realized that I was the ruination of the success train I had going. Do not take it for granted when you start doing well. Success is like a garden and it needs to be tended. I forgot about mine as I enjoyed the fruits of my past labors. DUMB! Now I have to go through and pick out the jungle of weeds and start from scratch... almost.

At any rate... I've had success and it tastes amazing! If I can do it, you can too. The keys are: research your niche, study your niche, live/breathe your niche, stay focused on your niche no matter what, and believe. I believed I could do it despite my depressing marriage... and I did it! If I did it in the face of all of that, I know I can do it again.

We can't make excuses... take accountability, learn from your mistakes, and just do it! Success is waiting!

Well done on all fronts! Keep up your great work, and thanks for the encouragement. ;-)

 

[Rainy_TX]

Well done on all fronts! Keep up your great work, and thanks for the encouragement. ;-)

Thank you! Been quite a learning curve!

I suppose this will be my progress thread on getting back into the publishing world. I have to thank @SinisterLex for the threads he's written on start-up funds through working with UpWork.

Okay, so why do I need start-up funds for this? I'm going to go at it a little differently than I did in the past. I wrote my own stories before, and while they were always ranked well and got 4-5 star feedback, I'd like to test new waters... one that I've seen working for other authors. I plan on hiring a ghostwriter and partner up with them to produce an even better tale. I'm sure you've seen a James Patterson book that has his name as well as another author on it... James has been coming up with the story lines and then has someone else write the story. By doing this, I accomplish two things: one, I can use the mailing list I've already established for my pen name to introduce a new pen name, and two, I can get a couple of pen names going to ramp this up.

I can design my own covers, and I know how to put together a Kindle listing, thanks to my past experience. I already have an established blog and a facebook page. However, while I used to know what worked for marketing, that was a year and a half ago. Things seem to change rather quickly in the Kindle world. So I'll have to research that and try the old tricks I knew.

Anyway, I'll be posting updates here and let ya know how things are going!

 

[Mattie]

I believed I could do it despite my depressing marriage... and I did it! If I did it in the face of all of that, I know I can do it again.

I think this is something I will share with you. I changed myself this year in my writing for the similar reasons. I think when you're going through the healing process you are dumping. Point blank, from being in the forum for two and half years, I've come to a dead end to a degree. Since 2010, I've gone through different phases, different styles, and there is a point in time where you must raise the bar and shift gears. The forum forces you to step up, that means re-inventing your writing to be more clear, focused, and to the point.
There's always room for improvement in writing. It's just like entrepreneurship, you learn as you go.
I believe there's times when you change direction until you find what shoe fits best. I suppose it's like being reborn into a new writer, and leaving the old writer behind.
I wish you well.

 

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