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PROGRESS THREAD: How I quit my Job to pursue a Self-publishing Fastlane Journey

Cyberseraph

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Hello everyone,

Today I joined the INSIDERS-Forum and decided to finally start a progress thread. Please excuse me if there will be grammatical mistakes as English is not my first language.

My story and background as brief as I can: I am from Germany and I worked in a dead end job as a CSR in a call center (IT-Support) for the last 3 years. Before I started to work there, I had big goals and dreams to become rich as an investor. Basically I read every Rich Dad – Poor Dad book available and many other books. However I lived a life in the Slowlane, investing in stocks, penny pinching, saving money, but still not earning enough to purchase an investment property. I started to lose my dreams and any hope to reach my goals.

After discovering The Millionaire Fastlane book in April 2013 everything changed. Realizing that I was living in the Slowlane with very slim chances to succeed was bitter. But I was happy to finally read a book without any BS. After this I was brainstorming all the time what type of Fastlane business I can start and what needs or problems I can solve but I made no progress. Also I realized that I was burned out by doing a job that I hated, commuting 3 hours every day and trying to build a business in my spare time was not an option.

In December 2013 I had enough money saved to quit my job and I did it. In January I moved to Chiang Mai in Thailand to overwinter for 3 months and to get some inspiration what I can do. From my research I knew that Chiang Mai is full of entrepreneurs from all over the world and it would be good to be surrounded by them and to learn from them.

At the end I found a co-working space and half of the people there were entrepreneurs in some way. Many of them were bootstrapping their business and working location independent. Some interesting Startups were born in this place when I was there. In March I met Chris Backe, an author and entrepreneur from Chicago and he invited me to his Self-publishing seminar. In this seminar he explained everything from creating, publishing on Amazon and promoting. Now I knew what I wanted to do and I returned to Germany last month to finish my book that was in progress since last year.

Two weeks ago I finally published my book on Amazon and I am already working on my next book. For now I am writing non-fiction but after reading the Gold thread “Hello from Denver” I want to switch to writing fiction ASAP. The challenge is that I don’t know how to write fiction yet and I need to learn things like developing characters, plot and setting. I am considering taking short classes if I can find any in my area.

I am looking forward for “The Self-Publishing Fastlane call” next week – this is really perfect timing!
 
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ChickenHawk

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I've heard that Germany is one of the best places to self-publish right now. With that in mind, I'm betting that you could use your German language skills to a good advantage. BTW, your English looks excellent to me!

Also, it looks like you've lived quite the interesting life already. I'm betting that will provide some terrific inspiration for your upcoming fiction ventures.

Can't wait to hear more!
 

Cyberseraph

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@ ChickenHawk: Thank you for the compliments about my English! I guess I was lucky because I stayed in Australia and New Zealand for 3 years. This kind of helped me to become fluent in English. Since being back in Germany I am worried a bit though. You know how the saying goes – use it or lose it.

Anyway, back to the self-publishing topic. When I published my first Ebook on Amazon I spent a great deal of time marketing it. I created an author page on Facebook and I also posted the book launch on my personal Facebook page. For the first few days I discounted the Ebook to 99 cents to climb up the Amazon ranks.

Later I did some research on Facebook for groups that are related to the book topic. One group I found had 7,000 members. I posted my book cover there with direct link to Amazon to buy it. Guess what? On the same day there were plenty of comments, making fun of my subtitle and telling me that the subtitle sucks. One of the guys wrote: “…it is not clear for whom exactly the product is…”

This was a great learning experience and I was so grateful for this. I thought that I had a great and catchy book title but the customers were telling me otherwise (Note: none of my friends told me that my title sucks). Of course I incorporated the feedback and created a better subtitle for the book the next day. This experience reminds me about MJ DeMarco and his first book cover design. He was smart enough to listen to the feedback from readers and to incorporate it.

Now I am just finishing my second non-fiction Ebook and will post more updates here soon.
 

Cyberseraph

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Just a very short update today because it's 2:00 am here already...

I finished and uploaded my next 2 non-fiction books on Amazon. Now there are 3 in total.
Tomorrow I will promote them on Facebook (post in groups: "New book, special price: 99 cents - only this week...")

From now on I finally want to start with fiction which is new to me. Last time I wrote fiction in school which is more than a decade ago. My action plan for this week is to download several bestsellers (as free samples) in the fiction niche that I want to write. Then I will read them one by one and try to learn the style how they are written. This should give me some inspiration how to write good fiction.

For now I am doing everything by myself, except cover design. My graphic designer is from US and I found her on Fiverr. She is doing really good job with my ebook covers!

More updates coming soon.
 
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Cyberseraph

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Hi everyone,
Sorry for the late update. It has been more than one month since my last post. I was busy writing books and I wanted to have new books published on Amazon, before posting any update.

As I promised, I started writing fiction. This is quite new to me and I had no idea how to write fiction and how to start. Therefore I bought two books on Amazon, one about writing fiction in general and another one about writing fiction in the specific genre that I wanted to write.

Those books were great and had plenty of writing exercises. It took me several weeks to finish reading those books and to do all the exercises. But the invested time was worth it.

Long story short, I finished my first fiction series (3 part series) by the end of June and published them at the beginning of July. The sales are so much better than my non-fiction books. I will stick with fiction novels now and write, publish and repeat the process.

More updates are coming soon.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Moved per request.
 

Cyberseraph

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New Update:
Last week I have published another 3 fiction books. This is a new 3-part series. My current process goes like this:

Week 1: writing
  • Mon-Tue = book 1
  • Wed-Thu = book 2
  • Fri-Sat = book 3
Week 2:
  • giving the text to proofreader
  • ordering covers from a freelancer
  • start formatting Word to MOBI (titles, table of content, links)
  • writing description for Amazon
  • choosing the keywords
  • Publish the books

This way I am publishing new books every second week, which really pisses me off because I could publish every week if I would write faster. My goal is to write 3 short books in 3 days and spend the rest of the week with dealing with proofreader, covers and publishing.

But I will get there soon!
 
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Yankee427

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Great job on taking action and good luck with the books. If you don't mind me asking, how many pages are each fiction book? How many pages are you able to have written per day?
 

Cyberseraph

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Great job on taking action and good luck with the books. If you don't mind me asking, how many pages are each fiction book? How many pages are you able to have written per day?
No worries, I am here to help and happy to answer questions.

How many pages: I don't count in pages but in words. I write 5000 words for each book.
I write around 2500 words per day. I am also tracking my word count per hour and words in total per writing session.
At the end my books are between 30 to 35 Kindle pages.

Hope this helps ;)
 
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Cyberseraph

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Here are my numbers for July:

eBooks published: 6
eBooks available in total: 9
Royalties earned: €1,000+

- my best book sold 259 times in July
- my best day was 48 books sold / day

This is the best month I ever had so far since I started 3 months ago!

May: 1 book in total available, €30+ earned
June: 3 books in total, €50+ earned

In August I will start the outsourcing process and I am consulting a lawyer now regarding NDA

My goal: 50 eBooks by the end of this year!
 

Unknown

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I take it the fiction books are Erotica? If not, what genre are you able to sell that many 5k word books in?
 

Selfy

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Welcome.

First, are you in Chiang Mai?

Second -- are you writing these books yourself or outsourcing? Theres an outsourcing mastermind by SYC which i'm also getting to.

- How long are you taking per book to write? And what are the costs?

I have 15 books generate a close number for July (not 1k though), my third month. So the model works.

I WILL MEET YOUR 50 BOOKS BY THE END OF THE YEAR CHALLENGE!!! :)
 

Cyberseraph

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Welcome.

First, are you in Chiang Mai?

Second -- are you writing these books yourself or outsourcing? Theres an outsourcing mastermind by SYC which i'm also getting to.

- How long are you taking per book to write? And what are the costs?

I have 15 books generate a close number for July (not 1k though), my third month. So the model works.

I WILL MEET YOUR 50 BOOKS BY THE END OF THE YEAR CHALLENGE!!! :)
@Selfy: Thanks for your comment.
1. I left Chiang Mai already and back in Germany now. I will go again to CM in January and stay there for 2 or 3 months to escape the cold winter.
2. Now I am writing the books myself. But I really want to start outsourcing this month. Would love to join the mastermind.

The costs:
$5 - $15 for cover on fiverr.
€25 for proofreader
No more costs for now, but it will change of course when I start outsourcing writing.

- It takes two days for me to write one book. But I write normally 3 books in one go (series) and it takes one week.

I am glad for you, that you are having success with it as well, the model works for sure!
 

Cyberseraph

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Short Update & Success Story:

I posted a request for a custom made NDA (non-disclosure agreement) on a German online lawyer portal. The next day one lawyer sent me an offer to create the custom NDA for €300 bucks.

Then I did a background check on him, found out his website and his phone number. This morning I called him directly on the phone. I thanked him for his offer, but told him that it is too expensive. We negotiated, I offered him €150. He said “yes“ and is working on my custom made NDA already. Now we're talking baby :smoking:
 
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Cyberseraph

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New Update: Outsourcing

By the end of July I finished my book #12 and they are on auto pilot now.
My main focus for Augist is to start outsourcing. I wrote ads on several sites and got a bunch of application from freelancers. I am always asking to send me a text sample and now I am reviewing them.

Result:
- hired 2 freelancers
- will hire another 3 this month

My plan is to let them write a short book each and upload it on Amazon. Then I will let the buyers decide which freelancer are good enough to consider him for long term work. For now I can afford to have 2-3 freelancers who will write 4 short stories (5K each) per month for me. This will be like producing 2-3 books every week. But for now I see that it is like a full time job, looking for freelancers and review their applications. Once I have my team of good freelancers, it will free my time for other things.

The Self-Publishing Business is hard work but it is also so much fun and very profitable!
 

rblitz

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Hey Cyberseraph,

your story sounds great!
You're definitely very committed to work on your own. Keep it up!

I'll have a question, if you don't mind. Are your books written in English or in German?
 

Cyberseraph

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Hey r6203,

Thanks mate, questions are welcome as we are here to help each other.

My books are written in German only. Germany is the second biggest market for Amazon after US. But I am considering if I should translate my books in English or not in the future. I have not decided yet.
 
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Ziva

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Hey Cyberseraph,

Great to read about your successes! I have been self-publishing on Amazon for almost a year, and have outsourced the writing since the beginning. I started with non-fiction and had mediocre results. My most recent books have been fiction, which has proven far more lucrative for me as well. Like you, I have systematized my publishing process and am scaling things up, publishing 3-5 ebooks per week. My goal is to have 80 fiction ebooks published by Christmas. I will definitely keep following your thread here, so please continue to post your progress and experiences!

As for translating to English, do it. It would be a one-time investment that could drastically the income you make from your books right now. I'm now considering translating my ebooks to German after reading your thread! :)
 

Cyberseraph

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New Update: 30 eBooks on Amazon now!

Hello everyone,
Sorry for the long absense but I've been working hard on my self-publishing business.
I realized that it takes much time to log in to this forum, write weekly updates - it is time that I could use to work and publish more.

But tonight I published my book no. 30 and it is going very well so far:

- I have 4 ghostwriters writing for me now
- also 1 professional corrector
- 2 US based cover designers
- 4 different pen names
- 1 main Facebook fan page and other pages in progress
- 1 main e-mail list, others in progress

Managing all of this is a full time job but I am working on automatization of this business :)
@Ziva : It seems that you are doing the same with awesome results!
I will read about your progress as well - see you on the "inside" ;)

My goal is still 50 eBooks by December 31, 2014
 

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Hi CS!

I was reading this thread again the other day and was bummed you hadn't checked in recently. Pleased to see you again!

How are your sales doing?
 
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Cyberseraph

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Hi CS!

I was reading this thread again the other day and was bummed you hadn't checked in recently. Pleased to see you again!

How are your sales doing?

Hi Jam Wheel,

I will try to post updates more often if I have time to do so.

The sales are doing better every month. It is like giving myself a monthly pay rise ;)
September: around 2.000 EUR
In October I am aiming for 3K.


Next update coming in November, 1st
 
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Jam Wheel

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Nice! Thanks for popping back on here to answer my question.

Keep on going!
 

Cyberseraph

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Quick Update: My numbers for October 2014:

Hello Fastlaners,
I am back and here are my numbers for October only:

Earned in October: 3.150 EUR
Books sold: 1872
(without borrows)

I totally love this business, it is hard work but it pays now more than my old job. Another thing that I love about it, is that it is working location independent. It is a wet dream coming true for all aspiring Digital-Nomads. In case that I would like to overwinter in SEA again, I can take my laptop with me and work from Chiang Mai or wherever. But for now I am happy to work from home and constantly switched on and focused on publishing good books that people want to read. Yes, this is the big secret right there: Write and publish what people want to read. This is the 1. commandment in The Millionaire Fastlane : NEED

If you are also writing and publishing, this is the best advice that I can give you: Research what sells before you begin writing!

My next update is coming soon by the end of November.

My goals for December is 5K at least.
 
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Lex DeVille

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Impressive! Keep up the good work!
 

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Great results! Totally agree with you that action should be guided by what the market has said it needs and wants. I publish steamy romance stories, but I don't love that niche. I certainly am not passionate about the actual stories I publish, but i am passionate about the process I am developing that will bring me and my family more freedom. Do you still only publish in German? I will continue to follow your progress. Awesome!!!
 

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Nicht schlecht ;-)
Thanks for keeping us updated.

Quick Question: Would you be willing to test something for me?
(This might increase in your earnings)
 
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Can you break down for me, where you advertised, for how much and then what pay off you got?
Just curious how you skipped to 2-3k a month from self publishing some 5k word books, usually you sell none... So tell me how you got from 0 to 2-3k.
 

Cyberseraph

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Great results! Totally agree with you that action should be guided by what the market has said it needs and wants. I publish steamy romance stories, but I don't love that niche. I certainly am not passionate about the actual stories I publish, but i am passionate about the process I am developing that will bring me and my family more freedom. Do you still only publish in German? I will continue to follow your progress. Awesome!!!
Thank you! Yes, I still publish in German language only. I will start searching for good translators next year and also publish in English then. Unfortunately I had to take a day job in October, because of the high costs for health insurance and social security for self-employed people. I have only a few hours a day to work on my business, that's why I have not started publishing in English yet. This is just temporary and I plan to quit the job in December, when I have reached my publishing income target.
 

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