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

[Cyberseraph]

Numbers for December + Year-End Update for 2014

Hi Fastlaners,
those are my numbers for December:

Books sold in December: 4523
Borrows in December: 6693
New books published: 21
Royalties earned in December: 6K+

Total books published in 2014: 52

In December I also published my first full-length book and it is doing very well. Within a short time this book made it to the Top 100!

The year 2014 - What a wonderful year! After struggling for 6 years, I finally was able to quit my 9-5 job. Lived for several months in South East Asia. Built my first profitable business. Now I am earning in a week what I used to earn in my full time job in a month. I want to thank everyone who supported me this year. I thank especially MJ DeMarco for writing his book and creating this forum. This community has inspired me a lot.

I wish you all a great new year 2015!

 

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[Cyberseraph]

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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[Cyberseraph]

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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[Cyberseraph]

Quick and Short Update:

- Last month was my first 5 figure month
- I am living in South East Asia now, renting a decent condominium, eating out (healthy food) every day, going to the gym 4 times a week
- The cost of living is still much less than Europe or US. Great for making money, saving money and enjoying life at the same time

My biggest challenge this year is to build something meaningfull to share with others. Right now I love my publishing business but I am not talking about it with others (except this forum). I prefer to keep a low profile and stay under the radar. But at the same time I am thinking about finding out what message I can share with others, how I can inspire people and making a difference. It would be great to have a platform to do this. But I also know that most people are lazy, full of excuses and are not taking action. Therefore I am not sure if I will start a platform at all.

Anyway, I wish everyone good luck (that you create yourself) on your journey!

 

[Cyberseraph]

Short Update:

This has nothing to do with the publishing business. But I have just made a long time dream come true and spent 6 weeks traveling in the USA. It was my first visit ever. It was a truly amazing experience! I was for one week in New York, then Washington DC. After that I rented a car and did a Route 66 road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles and back to Chicago. In total I have visited 12 states: Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Nebraska and Iowa. My goal for the next 5 years is to visit all 50 states.

I was also fortunate to meet other entrepreneurs and had some interesting conversations. This trip really inspired me with new ideas and I will be visiting USA more often in future. If anyone here can recommend interesting US based events for entrepreneurs then please let me know

 

[Cyberseraph]

Hello everyone

Sorry for no new updates for a long time. My business was doing well this year. But it's a very lonely type of business. I never met any of the freelancers that are working for me. I'm spending a lot of time in front of the computer screen alone. I recently bought an apartment in Bangkok that I paid full in cash. No mortgages and no debt which is good.

But here is the bitter truth:
Doing this Self-Publishing business for a year is as exciting as flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Now I'm thinking about an exit strategy and about the next type of business that can solve a need and be exiting for me. I have plenty of free time. But there are only so many days that I can hang out in malls, go to movies and hit the gym. I would like to make a difference but I have no idea yet what I could do next. I'm thinking about flying to New York for a few weeks to get inspiration. Never been to US but it has been always a role model country for me when it comes to Entrepreneurship.

This was my first rant but I needed to let it out. I will try to make my next post more positive and inspiring.

 

[MTF]

I'm in the same business as you are @Cyberseraph, and get what you mean (I write my own books, though). I was also tempted to start a new business that would be exciting for me (and allowed me to feel I owned a "real" business), but decided against it (well, at least until the end of this year).

Here's why: it seems you're seeking more meaning and substance in your life, and you believe that running your business is the only way you can do it. This part of your post makes it pretty clear:

I have plenty of free time. But there are only so many days that I can hang out in malls, go to movies and hit the gym. I would like to make a difference but I have no idea yet what I could do next

You don't necessarily have to start a new business to make a difference and feel more fulfilled (because I guess that's the main issue here).

It seems like it's your social life (and perhaps your personal life - hobbies, etc.) that needs work, not starting a new business.

What if you dedicated the rest of this year to networking with other entrepreneurs and doing fun things with them all over the world? What if you made it your goal to master one foreign language this year, acquire a few new cool skills or perhaps work on the relationship part of your life? I'm pretty sure your need to start a new business wouldn't be so pressing then.

Note I'm NOT saying that starting a new, more impactful business wouldn't be a good idea (I'm pretty sure it's a lot of fun to run a company that can make a huge difference). I would consider other areas of your life first, though.

Your current business is a gift - it's largely automated, makes you a lot of money and lets you enjoy a lot of free time. Many entrepreneurs running huge companies would gladly trade places with you. In the end, it's freedom to do what we want that's important for us, not meaningless numbers. Figuring out what we want to do with this freedom is challenging, but it's the best problem in the world.

 

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[Cyberseraph]

Update: November 2014 Review

Hi everyone,
a very quick update about if I have achieved my goals for November or not.

Goal for November: €4K - EXCEEDED
Books sold in November: 2774
New books published: 1
(currently published: 31)

I was expecting to publish much more last month but there were challenges like my writers had unexpected problems and could not write the whole month. I realized that I relied to much on few good writers and I spent the whole month hiring new people and improving my process. My product is still good.

"Business success is about the three P's: People, Process and Product."

New Goal for December: €5K and 50 eBooks published in total

PS: I will be very busy in December, it might take several days or a week for forum replies.
PPS: If I meet my December goal, I will buy a MacBook Air 13" and book a flight to Thailand.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

This has nothing to do with the publishing business.

But I have just made a long time dream come true and spent 6 weeks traveling in the USA.

But this was made possible by your publishing business? And being free to travel while making $$$?

 

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[Cyberseraph]

@ 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]

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.

 

[Cyberseraph]

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

 

[Cyberseraph]

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

 

[Cyberseraph]

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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[Cyberseraph]

Quick Update: Goals for November 2014

1. Publish 10 new short books (3 part series, 3 part series, 4 part series)
2. Earn at least 4K by November 30th.

Action steps taken:
- placed a new add to hire new writers
- chosen topics and covers for the new book series

I placed the add yesterday and I have 2 applicants already. Now the real work starts to test them and find the good ones.

Next bigger update is coming on December 1st.

 

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[Cyberseraph]

I would also be very interested in the process behind ghostwriters. Do you give them a summary of a book you feel will sell and give them the choice of what they write? Or is it a little more specific? It seems that in an industry with such a low barrier to entry, hiring reliable workers would be difficult.

Thanks for the Rep transfer Harry! To answer your and Kaptains questions:

- I only give them a lump sum per book, never a percentage of sales. It is a bigger investment at first but after some time the book is paying for the initial investment and is generating profit. The saying is true: It takes money to make money.

- the process behind ghostwriters is like this. I send them a list with my desired genres and ask them to pick one that they feel comfortable with. After this they are free to create their own story without my input. But I am very specific in how I want it to be written. 1st or 3rd person, past or present tense. I also tell them not what to write but how to write, to make the story exciting.

This is a crucial point. You can only outsource writing if you know how to write exciting fiction by yourself. Hiring reliable workers is difficult indeed. It takes time and money to test them with small jobs. Be prepared to lose money until you find good ghostwriters that you will want to keep.

 

[Cyberseraph]

Short Update:

Sorry for the long silence and no updates.
My business is still stable. It's just that being for two years in the publishing business, I'm not interested in talking about it anymore. It's not as exciting as people think and I'm glad that most part of it is outsourced now.

I'm still living in Bangkok, it's 1.5 years now being here in Thailand. I try to use my free time wisely and take care about my health. I used to be underweight but going to gym 5 days a week now I gained 17 pounds and look like a man instead of like a skinny geek. I'm in best shape of my life and also improving my social skills. I'm an introvert but getting better at socialising every day. Also my dating life has improved tremendously. If any of the guys here are interested in understanding women, having better relationships and being more successful with women, I can highly recommend this book here:

How To Be A 3% Man (by Corey Wayne) - this book is like The Millionaire Fastlane of Dating
I have been studying this book for a while now. Also check out his great YouTube channel.

That's it for today and I will write a new update soon.

PS: I have a very big project coming up, a new interesting challenge.
A little hint: "All 50".
More details in my next update!

 

[Cyberseraph]

But this was made possible by your publishing business? And being free to travel while making $$$?

Yes MJ, that's right. I remember when I read the TMF book the first time and listening the audio version so many times that you spoke about creating a business that later allows you to do what you love. Instead of doing what you love as a business. Being a producer instead of a consumer. Produce first and consume after you have "made it". I was listening to it again and again until it became my philosophy that I live by. Thank you for writing a life changing book!

 

[Cyberseraph]

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]

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!

 

[Cyberseraph]

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

 

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[Cyberseraph]

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]

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]

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.

Break down for you everything? Seriously? I am very busy and I will not do this.
If you believe that you can not make money from 5K books, it is not my job to "convince" you otherwise.

I said too much already in my previous posts and I will not disclose my numbers in the future anymore.
When I have reached my publishing goals and have more free time, maybe I will start an AMA thread in the Fastlane INSIDERS forum only. I'm back to work now.

 

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[Cyberseraph]

I am a rookie, i have several questions :

1- Do you publish your books only in English? Or German and English?
2- Is it a must to have a company or can we publish as individuals?
3- You are not a native speaker of English, like me. How are you doing writing part? Do you write in German and then hire someone?
4- Do you publish only in erotica?
5- Finally, can i ask questions to you in private? I could not find PM in forum.

To answer your questions:
1. I publish in German only
2. I am publishing as individual however I am registered as self-employed.
3. My books are in German only, no translation needed.
4. I have several genres and will go into new genres this year
5. Sorry, I am a very busy man with lot of things going on. You can post questions here and I might answer some of them when I have time.

 

[Yasai]

Have you tried rephrasing your ad? Maybe utilizing euphemisms for "erotica" such as the classic "romance novel" or even something as vague as "fated/fateful encounter literature" haha.
Maybe using a second account could be beneficial since they may watch you more closely after they had to remove one of your ads. Not sure how they handle this stuff in general.

 

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[KennyJA]

Short Update:
I am trying to hire my first English writers and tried Upwork.com (former Odesk.com). They have deleted my ad because adult content (also erotica writing) is prohibited.

Any suggestions for alternatives to hire writers are welcome

Firstly, I would like to say your thread was the very first I read here. Great work, I hope I can emulate it.

What I did on Upwork.com was say: "Creative Writing - Short Story - Fiction".

In the large details box, write the genre "Romance". You won't be banned from using that.

From there message the person you interview what you would like. I actually found someone that does erotica.

 

[Boozoon]

A lot of people on the Kindle Boards seemed to have good success with Bknights. Here is their fiverr gig ->
https://www.fiverr.com/bknights

I also think that depending on the genre of your book, you are going to find some sites more helpful than others. I am not successful myself, but I would like to see the take of others on this conversation ^_^

 

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[Cyberseraph]

@Cyberseraph
Congratz on your success so far. Since you already bought an appartment in Bangkok are you still a german citizen? Do you pay tax in germany?
If so can you please recommend me some resources where you learnt to live location independent?

I don't live in Germany anymore and therefore I'm not a German resident anymore. Thailand is my home base now and I receive all my mail there. It's a complicated topic but I can do recommend you the resources where I learnt all this:

http://www.earthcity.de
http://wirelesslife.de/digitale-nomaden-steuern/
http://www.coin-sl.com/produkte/ausland/index.php

 

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[ChickenHawk]

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!