Like most people in the self-publishing area of this forum, I give a huge thanks to HFR for his awesome thread. Very inspiring! I'm going to try hard to keep this thread updated as I think I've turned a corner and had a revelation that I've known was coming for a long time.
Let me start off by saying that I got into self-publishing first because I wanted to make money. I was involved in internet marketing and this was just another "system" to make some cash. But...at the same time, I always thought of myself as very creative, pretty good with the written word, and I absolutely loved creating stories for my kids when they were young. So when I found Kindle and figured out that I could mix the two to make money and do what I like/love, I was sold.
My first book was a collection of short stories for kids. Only four stories, but one was a really good one (still my overall favorite). I'm pretty good with graphics, so I whipped up a cover and published it. I made it free on KDP and had over 5000 downloads. After that, it hit #1 in the category! I was amazed. Last year about this time (the holiday season), I was selling about 10-20 per day and I had royalty checks of $1200, $1800, and $1500 for a few months. Those do include other books, but not nearly selling as well as my first. To date I've made $8-9K just from that one book.
Of course I went on to publish volumes two and three, then a collection. Those never did as well as the first one, though. I tried other formats, like picture books, which did ok, but not great. I published one fantasy novel (that got fair to bad reviews), a sci-fi novella (fair reviews at best), and some horror collections. The horror books (short story collections) got pretty good reviews, and I love the genre, so I'm happy those did as well as they did.
As of today, sales have slumped considerably, but I haven't put out any new books for over six months. Plus, with me jumping around from genre to genre, I never really focused my writing. Maybe I was looking for what clicked for me, or at least for what sold. I slipped back into the IM arena for a while, and ended up spending hundreds of dollars and getting essentially nothing back from it. It's a dangerous downward spiral called "shiny object syndrome". Beware.
So now, after ten or even fifteen years of trying to "make it" in the IM world, with thousands of dollars spent on systems, programs, PDFs, videos, and anything else that might make me a quick buck, I've pretty much decided that this entire experiment was mostly a waste of my time and definitely my money. Now, to be fair, I've learned a lot while doing IM and as you know a lot of that translates over to Kindle/self-publishing and how we can market our books, so I'm not disappointed or unappreciative of everything I've done.
With a new year comes new beginnings (not resolutions; I hate those) and so I sat down and looked at where I was and where I wanted to be. I could a) waste more of my time, energy, and money buying new products to help me make money online, or b) FOCUS on ONE THING, get good at it, put my heart and soul into it and let the money flow if it was meant to be.
I chose B.
I'm taking a long break from IM. Unsubscribing from countless email lists. I promised myself not to spend even a penny on anything that is not directly related to my self-publishing career. I figured if I don't make a choice and conscious effort to make a positive change, then things will keep slugging along as they have been and I'll wonder where the thousands of dollars had gone a few years from now.
I'm going to focus on writing. It's what I want to do. I want to write, publish, evaluate, learn, get better, and hopefully make a few bucks along the way.
I've got lots of ideas that I've written down over the past coupe of years, some of them complete outlines of a novel! It's time to make time to do what I really want to do. So that's what I'm doing. Hopefully people will like what I publish, and want to buy more if it. I know a lot of times it takes time and several (if not many) books before you start seeing real results. All I have to do is look back at the last ten years and ask myself "ten years from now do I want to be where I am now? disappointed that I never took a chance at my dream? or do I want to finally do what I know I want to do?"
I hope that I can update this thread a year from now and tell you how wonderful my decision to write was. And how much better my life is. I'm certainly going to give it my best shot.
Let me start off by saying that I got into self-publishing first because I wanted to make money. I was involved in internet marketing and this was just another "system" to make some cash. But...at the same time, I always thought of myself as very creative, pretty good with the written word, and I absolutely loved creating stories for my kids when they were young. So when I found Kindle and figured out that I could mix the two to make money and do what I like/love, I was sold.
My first book was a collection of short stories for kids. Only four stories, but one was a really good one (still my overall favorite). I'm pretty good with graphics, so I whipped up a cover and published it. I made it free on KDP and had over 5000 downloads. After that, it hit #1 in the category! I was amazed. Last year about this time (the holiday season), I was selling about 10-20 per day and I had royalty checks of $1200, $1800, and $1500 for a few months. Those do include other books, but not nearly selling as well as my first. To date I've made $8-9K just from that one book.
Of course I went on to publish volumes two and three, then a collection. Those never did as well as the first one, though. I tried other formats, like picture books, which did ok, but not great. I published one fantasy novel (that got fair to bad reviews), a sci-fi novella (fair reviews at best), and some horror collections. The horror books (short story collections) got pretty good reviews, and I love the genre, so I'm happy those did as well as they did.
As of today, sales have slumped considerably, but I haven't put out any new books for over six months. Plus, with me jumping around from genre to genre, I never really focused my writing. Maybe I was looking for what clicked for me, or at least for what sold. I slipped back into the IM arena for a while, and ended up spending hundreds of dollars and getting essentially nothing back from it. It's a dangerous downward spiral called "shiny object syndrome". Beware.
So now, after ten or even fifteen years of trying to "make it" in the IM world, with thousands of dollars spent on systems, programs, PDFs, videos, and anything else that might make me a quick buck, I've pretty much decided that this entire experiment was mostly a waste of my time and definitely my money. Now, to be fair, I've learned a lot while doing IM and as you know a lot of that translates over to Kindle/self-publishing and how we can market our books, so I'm not disappointed or unappreciative of everything I've done.
With a new year comes new beginnings (not resolutions; I hate those) and so I sat down and looked at where I was and where I wanted to be. I could a) waste more of my time, energy, and money buying new products to help me make money online, or b) FOCUS on ONE THING, get good at it, put my heart and soul into it and let the money flow if it was meant to be.
I chose B.
I'm taking a long break from IM. Unsubscribing from countless email lists. I promised myself not to spend even a penny on anything that is not directly related to my self-publishing career. I figured if I don't make a choice and conscious effort to make a positive change, then things will keep slugging along as they have been and I'll wonder where the thousands of dollars had gone a few years from now.
I'm going to focus on writing. It's what I want to do. I want to write, publish, evaluate, learn, get better, and hopefully make a few bucks along the way.
I've got lots of ideas that I've written down over the past coupe of years, some of them complete outlines of a novel! It's time to make time to do what I really want to do. So that's what I'm doing. Hopefully people will like what I publish, and want to buy more if it. I know a lot of times it takes time and several (if not many) books before you start seeing real results. All I have to do is look back at the last ten years and ask myself "ten years from now do I want to be where I am now? disappointed that I never took a chance at my dream? or do I want to finally do what I know I want to do?"
I hope that I can update this thread a year from now and tell you how wonderful my decision to write was. And how much better my life is. I'm certainly going to give it my best shot.
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