Self-Publishing, from $0 to $24,000 per Month

[snowbank]

My estimation is that 400 books should give me the $24,000 monthly, however I believe that with proper quality, backend, affiliate marketing and list building behind those books, 200 books under multiple pen names should be enough.

why not just write 1, really good book?

Hopefully I will manage to do it all before book business dies

fwiw the book business won't die. the low quality book business will die.

$24,000 monthly is my goal for F.U. money

It's not FU money if the income stream disappears.


Just be careful as the route you're going is the same as throwing up 400+ affiliate sites and spamming them with SEO back when it was "hot" to do so. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's a good idea. The real money isn't made jumping into what's "hot", it's finding a great opportunity that isn't "hot" yet.

View yourself as an investment manager of your life. Right now you're jumping into a declining stock and going all in.

This doesn't mean it's "wrong", it's whatever is best for you. If that stock has unbelievable dividends and you understand the reason for those high dividends is because of the high probability of the stock going bust, and you're cool with it, then I am rooting for you. Just wanted to take a minute to share my thoughts as I feel many people picture a very different long term result than what the reality of it will be.

 

[Polarbeans]

why not just write 1, really good book?

Because not even the best top authors in the world ever wrote just 1 good book.

Nike just don't create 1 super awesome pair of shoes.
Louis Vuitton just don't create 1 good hand bag.
Apple doesn't just sell 1 good universal iPhone.

Most brands and companies have multiple product lines.

You are correct, this is not warrior forum. But for some, making a smaller part time hustle to build funds can be the means to a fastlane business. You cannot just expect the fastlane opportunity to fall in your lap.

And besides, You can still provide value by creating small time hustle.

I sell copywriting as a freelancer, I'm not alone and I'm hardly the best copywriter on upWork. But I do provide value to those I help out. It is not remotely close to being fastlane, but it's a way for me to build funds and I make lots of connections through it. The same goes for Kindle Publishing (or any other ways of small time hustle).

The publishing business (because that's what this thread is about) can be a way to learn the outsourcing game, time management, pricing, networking, advertising, promotions etc.

So while you're looking for the next Facebook idea and reading blogs, some take imperfect action that someday, for some, will lead to a fastlane opportunity.

I'm a true believer in what MJ teach in his book, but there is more to it.

 

[Funke]

Hey everyone!

I have decided that I need accountability and support, so I'm going public with my goal and hopefully it will have some kind of effect on me, more pressure and motivation.

$24,000 monthly is my goal for F.U. money and I want to have it with the end of this year.
After 2 years of fighting, failing, learning and creating stability inside my brain I got to the point where I "understand" myself and what I should do to produce results.
I tested a lof of things including blowing money on innovation startup, different workshops and trainings, and I was trying different businesses which got me into debt of $10,000.


$800 / month - cost of living right now (all of my bills, including debt payments)
$770 earned last month (February) from books, not including expenses

March should bring me $1000+ with my 21 non-fiction books already published on KDP and Createspace. I should have more freedom with each payment from Amazon that comes from now on. I will also start tracking expenses for the business much more, as I have been a bit of careless with my investments and testing marketing options/courses around me, though I learned a thing or two with each.

My estimation is that 400 books should give me the $24,000 monthly, however I believe that with proper quality, backend, affiliate marketing and list building behind those books, 200 books under multiple pen names should be enough.



As you can see my idea is to go for quantity, with that I always try to find 20/80 marketing solutions and small quality things which matter but don't require much time. I am outsourcing the business as much as I can afford it.

I want to do updates on my progress every week (think fridays) or more often. I also want to set up a blog and publish posts with my progress in different places/groups. I want to explore different non-fiction niches, as well as try some fiction and books for kids. I want to try to translate books to different languages and explore foreign Amazon markets.

Hopefully I will manage to do it all before book business dies and then I will diversify the income with other projects.

Regards,
Tom

 

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[Polarbeans]

I’m no finance wizard, but I AM a voracious reader, and I can tell you right now I’d rather spend $5 on one awesome book than 99¢, 5 times on 5 crappy books that pay some not-so-talented writers $10. Call me crazy.

Neither are you nor your post crazy. It make perfect sense to me. From my stand point Amazon, and online publishing is facing a consolidation in a near future.

--- Why do I think this?
Amazon and many other publishing platforms has long been around and provided a no-entry for aspiring indie writers who yearn for fame and virtue. But exactly as @Rawr mentions this is not something that can go on forever.

A consolidation means that big players capture larger portions of a market, or even the majority of the market to make it more difficult for smaller players to get in. Hence increasing the "no-entry." This will result in an increasing number of writers who will go out of business faster due to the fact that they do not produce good enough quality to sustain a proper business (they where riding the money train).

A consolidation happens if a market is saturated, however books, or scripts has been around for thousands of years and is unlikely to go away, ever. But poor quality has never been sustainable. If you think about it. Can you mention a famous book from the past that is absolutely crap or regurgitated bullshit? A pretty hard task to do. The majority of what is remembered through history is quality work. Not saying always positive, but quality in a sense that it was of high performance with the intentions it had.

• So, if you are an established business on Amazon or another publishing platform, you are probably looking at a solidification of your business. I.e. if you put in the time you might look at a more stable business for yourself in a near future.
• If you know you publish poor content, perhaps this is the time to think about where you want to be in the future. If the market consolidates and the demand for volume disappears you might find yourself out of business.

This happens because of market trends and cycles between those that consolidated out of the market place and are moving on to the next opportunity. It will eventually be harder for new players to enter the market as the needs for entry will rise and those who already have market shares will solidify their positions and push away smaller players. As with any market.

--- The next big thing
When the market consolidates, a lot of actors on the market usually look for the next big thing. The next wild west. It does not mean it is a new hot idea. Just a way to look at a current market in a different way. ‘losers’ in the economic market swing over to a different channel.

There will be a lot of money to be made from online publishing in many years to come, even though it will experience a consolidation and a swing to other hotter markets from time to time (it goes in cycles). It will endure.

However, poor quality DOES NOT survive a market consolidation, or a downward cycle. When online publishing cycle down, poor quality will be filtered out at a rapid rate and it will crush those in for the quick buck.

There is a period where people are fighting for the opportunity on the new channel, which means opportunities open up on the old channel.

Need a real life example? Search for:
Lehman Brothers
Enron

--- Cost of Poor Quality

"Quality is never an accident, it is always the result of an intelligent effort"​

A manufacturing company had annual sales of $250 million. Its quality department calculated the total cost of repair, rework, scrap, service calls, warranty claims and write-offs from obsolete finished goods. This aggregated cost, called Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ), amounted to 20% of their annual sales. A 20% COPQ implied that during one day of each five-day workweek, the entire company spent its time and effort making scrap, which represented a loss of approximately $ 100,000 per day.

Once a quality problem has been identified, the first step is to initiate an investigation and to properly identify the root cause of the problem. After the root cause has been identified, you create a Corrective Action. In this case it can mean to fire a poor writer, invest more money in better book covers etc.

By the way, you do have metrics in your business, yes?
​

--- Consolidation and the consumer
Consolidation, is something very good. In fact it's like washing your dirty hands to see them become clean and nice.

It is needed. It brings health to a market and the economy. Out with the crap and make way for new and fresh. The consumer is the biggest winner in long-term. Because those with good customer support and service, a health price level and good quality will stay and strengthen their positions. A customer can trust in their seller if it stick around through a consolidation because this means the business can survive "bad times."

--- Your business (should) be your future

In order to compete you have to be more strategic about how you approach your customers, how you treat them, and in the quality and pricing of your products. What this means for someone who is an Amazon entrepreneur is that you can’t just tinker around and treat this as a side project anymore. If you want to compete on a channel that has consolidated, you have to take it seriously, run it like a real business, and think like a real company, otherwise you will get consolidated out.

--- How to best prepare for a consolidation

• Know your market. Who are the leaders, where do they play and how well?
• Know your organization, strengths and weaknesses.
• Be prepared to look for new market shares.
• Know the customers in your category. What are their values? What are they asking for, and what are their emerging needs?
• Can you offer supporting products to your existing ones?
• What are the growth opportunities?
• What are the costs/benefits?

These are just some bullets to illustrate. As you can tell this is pretty straight forward and common sense. Measure what you do, act upon it, be proactive and you'll be fine.

 

[Funke]

Im thinking you prob used elance, fivver, oDesk, or something. Just wanted to check though.

Yes, Im using oDesk and Elance, but also I have used writing service outside of those portals.

Also, are pen names OK for non-fiction?

Yes. You need to make sure that one author name specializes in a specific niche. It would be questioned when he/she would write on diet advice, car mechanics, gardening and forex.

Do you carry out any particular form of niche or keyword research to ensure that your book sells good numbers without too much competition?

I always make sure to target keywords that appear in Amazon's search bar when you start to write something there. Then when you see the results, there has to be books that have high Amazon bestsellers ranking. By high I mean the numbers must be as low as possible. (With that it's always good if they don't have too many reviews.) Then you know that people search for it and buy it.

Can you give some advice on your outsourcing?

Always hire people who are highly rated, ask for samples, check if they did not make mistakes in their proposal. Don't risk ghostwriters that have no portfolio.

Where do you look for ghostwriters?

oDesk, elance

How is the quality of what you receive?

It differs a lot. I've made my mistakes and I've had one book where I had to edit it a lot. I rushed it and chose a bad writer. But most of the time I just need to format and adjust a few sentences here and there.

How do you plan and outline your book?

As I have pm'ed you Just check what is there already. Make sure to aim for what people are looking for. Check table of contents and description of books that are already there. Check their negative reviews for what they missed. Search sites like Yahoo Answers or Quora.

Do you outsource the whole book to 1 writer or do you spread the chapters onto different writers?

1 author per book.

• How long is your book which earns the most in terms of revenue?

• How long is your book which earns the least in terms of revenue?

Word count does not matter. It's about the value you provide and marketing efforts. It can have 6 pages of tips that can change lives of many people Or 300 pages of BS

What is your estimated ROI/book?

I will have precise statistics on 15th of April when KDP generates report for March. There is a book that barely got the money back, but there is also one that made 300% already

How did you decide on non-fiction?

I have no idea, I think I believed that people who have problems and want to solve them will be more desperate to buy a solution. But the market is huge and there is plenty of opportunities in any category.

 

[Funke]

Hi!

Long time no see. It's going well right now. I have had two months of stagnation. The income hasn't changed, because I didn't have funds to invest and I had other issues. I took this time to learn things, solve things, look for answers and I have found them Learned a lot!


I have just released a book which had close to 2600 free downloads during 3 days of minimal free promotion, I got 300+ subscribers then. This ONE book brings me $40-$60 every day now and I've just released second book from the series.
Basically what I did was to use KBookPromo to post in 130 Facebook groups, sent 40 twitts and shared it here http://www.reddit.com/r/FreeEBOOKS/ I have also tried Goodreads group, but they are all dead.

I can share that the niche selection was extremely important in this case, and also innovative high quality offer.



I treat it more like a business now, I want to dominate this niche and have an exact plan of how can I do that. The first book is #1 Bestseller in 3 subcategories. With continued promotions I should have 1000 subscribers this month. The pain in my a$$ is having to wait months for royalties, I could move extremely faster if I had money (though slow movement lets me think about things). I know how to connect with the readers in this niche and what to offer to them (I had no idea and motivation to do such things in other niches).

Overall, all of my books have continued decent sales, same for non-fiction and romance.



Someone mentioned "focus" before and that was the case recently. I felt too good about myself and I took too many projects, I got overwhelmed and depressed because of that.
I am heavily focused now, thanks to Kyle Graham from 10minutefunnels (much, much better than Leadpages). He shared with me his presentations about Theory of Constraints, powerful tool! (it's private, PM me if you want this). After doing what he said, there is no procrastination and I know exactly what I should be doing to achieve my successand what not. All decisions are easier to make and I have superb clarity. Changed my life!


The other thing that changed the game was a presentation from Hal Elrod

After which I have started running every day in the morning:

This is powerful!


Hints:
1. If you change paperback price to 10.99 there is a very high chance that Amazon will reduce it's price to 9.99. You get more, they lose. The higher price will be sliced.
2. Asking for reviews at the end of the book matters a lot, I got extra 10+ reviews during free promo.
3. Offering big value at the end of the book will get you more 'pages read' in the new Amazon KU system. People may scroll through to the end.
4. Posting in 10 'niche' FB groups can get you the same or more downloads than in 120 'readers' FB groups.
5. Free promotion can bring money - lots of people click Read for free with Kindle Unlimited instead of buy button, I had over 40 KU borrows registered during free promo.


Tom

 

[Funke]

Did you earn that all on KDP?

KDP and Createspace, 1/4 of book sales are paperbacks. I would like to create audiobooks as well, but I need to research options and costs.

As far as Ebooks go, I have seen two major trends or differences.
1.) Authors that publish books, and series of books, to maximize their income through "just authoring".
2.) More businesslike entrepreneurs where the book is only 1 part of their product palette. Quite often the books is only a lead magnet (free) to funnel the customers to their UPsell - videos or online courses etc.

I am going for both. Trying to maximize profits through books and I use them as funnels to build email lists. I have gathered around 150+ emails but haven't send them anything yet, apart from the "magnet".

Could you give us a breakdown of how you got to 770$?

All of those books have been outsourced for $1-$1.25 per 100 words. Same for covers $5-$15 each. I've done most of the marketing myself and then outsourced a few things (and overpayed here and there).
Production cost me around $2600, I got it all back and now it earns

 

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[Funke]

400 books? You're working hard not smart.

Its couple of hours per month when automated

Whats your main marketing strategy?
Any advice, seems Im getting stuck on that. I have 2 books published already. Not sure what way to go.

You need to get reviews on them. I'm getting them during KDP free promo, I the promo for 5 days for each new book and I get people to download them for free and review (I have a VA who gets me those reviews).
Also if you manage to get lots of downloads during those 5 days, your book will get higher positions in the catalogue. Make sure you have some kind of lead magnet inside the book to get emails from people.

You can get lots of downloads by posting the book on Facebook groups (I post it in 100+ groups), and by adding it to these sites here: http://www.readersintheknow.com/list-of-book-promotion-sites (many of them will promote your book for free during the promo)

Basically leverage places with lots of readers. I've done it manually at first, later on I hired people on Fiverr to save my time, and right now I'm using this tool which does it after one click http://bit.ly/1FYx6Hl saves both time and money, at least when you have lots of books.

 

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[BigRomeDawg]

This really bugs me. What’s the point in flooding the online book market with outsourced regurgitated info crap ebooks? Did you miss the part in the Millionaire Fastlane about providing value and solving problems? (oh wait that’s what the whole book was about)

snowbank is right. “why not just write 1, really good book?” Your income from this won’t last and you aren’t going to make really money until you provide real value and solve real problems.

The worst part is that people in this thread are treating you like a role model. It’s not all about money guys.

p.s. i thought this was fastlane forum not warrior forum.

 

[Funke]

This really bugs me. What’s the point in flooding the online book market with outsourced regurgitated info crap ebooks?

Why would you think that my books are crap?

 

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[Funke]

Looks like its more AMA than progress thread


Progress:

• Today I am updating all my Digital an Paperback editions with more links to each other. I have had that before but it's getting an update, as well as the message that invites the reader to review the book. (21/21)
• I am adding social media share buttons that can be clicked or tapped to share the book. In front, to be seen and maybe clicked when someone opens it with "Look Inside" feature. And in the back after reader reads it and would like to share it with friends.
• After all of that will be updated, I will go through all descriptions of all 21 books to check if there is something missing.
• Then I will make sure that digital copies are linked with paperbacks, some of them never got linked and looks like I lost a lot of sales because of that, I will message Createspace to do it asap.

 

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[Rawr]

http://ellecasey.com/who-wins-in-the-race-to-the-bottom/



A RACE TO THE BOTTOM
Last, I’m going to send out a dire warning to the entire book-reading community. I hope I’m wrong about all of this, but I’m pretty sure I’m not. I’ve been an indie author for almost 3 years now, with several bestsellers and lots of time spent studying the numbers. I see lots of changes coming very fast that I think will end up hurting us all, writers and readers alike.

Amazon, a company I love to work with and respect very highly, has engaged in a race to the bottom of ebook pricing with several other online retailers and subscription service providers. As a result of their campaign to offer the lowest prices anywhere, the average price of books has gradually gone lower and lower, to the point now that many readers expect all books to be 99¢ or free.

Is this good for readers? On the surface, sure. It’s awesome. You can now buy ten books instead of just one. What could possibly be wrong with that? Well, let me tell you…

Have you noticed that the quality of the books has gone down while the quantity has gone up? Because I sure have. And I’ll tell you why I think that’s happening, and why it’s happening at a very accelerated pace right now:

Amazon has this new deal, where if an author joins their subscription service with a 99¢ book, and someone who subscribes to that service downloads that book, the author will earn $2.00 in royalties.

Say whaaaat? Yes, it’s true. You’ll have to ask the number-crunchers how this equates into a good idea financially for Amazon (who incidentally sells a lot more than just books, so if you save money on books, I guess you have more money to buy other products from Amazon, right? — so they don’t necessarily lose out) but for now, let’s just forget their profitability. Let’s look at the authors involved.

If you’re a writer of quality material, you’re generally not writing 99¢ books, unless they’re just serials or short-stories or on a special promotion (like first book in a series, or temporary sale to increase readership). A good writer can get $4.99 or more for her work without too much trouble, and that’s a fair price: $4.99 for many hours of entertainment is way cheaper than a 2-hour movie.

But a writer who can’t write well or who is happy writing little short stories can churn out all kinds of stuff at 99¢ and then make a killing with this new Amazon deal. All they need is a download, not even a full reading of the book!

Did you know that great authors, people with thousands of genuine 5-star reviews, are talking about taking full novels and breaking them up into pieces and selling them at 99¢ per piece so they can continue to earn a fair royalty? Yeah. That’s how bad it’s gotten. Authors who want to continue to be authors have to be survivors too. When Amazon does something like this, we have to adapt, and unfortunately, everyone loses (everyone but Amazon, actually).

So what kind of material are YOU seeing online? Have you seen quality go down and quantity go up? Do you find it harder and harder to find books you like? If you answered YES, well, you’re not alone. That’s all about the race to the bottom.

Think about it: If you pay 99¢ or less for a book and it sucks, you don’t get too bent out of shape over it. You move on. But if you pay $4.99 for a book and it sucks, well, you definitely have something to say about that. So when books are priced higher, writers have to respond by either upping their game and writing quality material or stopping writing altogether. Bad writing at $4.99 is not a sustainable model. Bad writing at 99¢ is. We’re seeing that now, thanks to Amazon.

So I’m asking you this: which is better for the readers? A glut of crappy books that may or may not be worth what you pay for them, or a system of pay that rewards good writing and punishes bad writing?

I’m no finance wizard, but I AM a voracious reader, and I can tell you right now I’d rather spend $5 on one awesome book than 99¢, 5 times on 5 crappy books that pay some not-so-talented writers $10. Call me crazy.

I’m going to (finally) finish this piece by saying that I LOVE AMAZON. Without Amazon, I wouldn’t be living as a writer. Amazon has changed not only my life but the book-reading experience forever, and mostly in a very good way. And the people who work there are always coming up with new things to improve the customer experience. Sometimes they get it really right, and sometimes they get it really wrong, but at least they’re trying.

But, it’s important to remember that Amazon is not a person; it’s a business — a business struggling to remain profitable. Amazon knows that to be the #1 online retailer, it needs sales. Sales of ANYTHING, not just books. So if books become a loss-leader for them, where they basically give them away for free or it costs them money to “sell” them, but consumers spend more time on the site and buy more things, they’ll do that. I think this race to the bottom is a very short-sighted plan, causing good writers to disappear, but hey, like I said, I’m no finance wiz. All I know is that as my income drops, I have to come up with a plan for myself and my readers that will keep me writing and them buying my books."

 

[ChickenHawk]

Damn I thought kindle was the big dog and Createspace was nothing. Is that all non fiction? I'm a publisher and most of the titles I have are non fiction at $2.99 40-80 pages. I'd earn more for sure getting print versions.

To chime in here, I actually make more per copy on my Kindle versions than on my printed CreateSpace versions. Once the printing costs are factored in, sadly, there isn't a ton to spare, royalty wise for the author. But I still think the CreateSpace versions can be worth doing, because it makes your book listings look more official, meaning more like a traditionally published book.

 

[Funke]

My CS royalty is that big mostly because I have increased the prices to $12.49. To be exact I get $5.34 per sale.

 

[EricZ]

Awesome - you alread earned 770$! That's more than most can say.
Did you earn that all on KDP?
There are some great authors here - ChickenHawk, Aimee, Giroud, check out their threads.
As far as Ebooks go, I have seen two major trends or differences.
1.) Authors that publish books, and series of books, to maximize their income through "just authoring".
2.) More businesslike entrepreneurs where the book is only 1 part of their product palette. Quite often the books is only a lead magnet (free) to funnel the customers to their UPsell - videos or online courses etc.

Could you give us a breakdown of how you got to 770$?

E.

 

[Funke]

why not just write 1, really good book?

I cannot risk that at the moment. Sadly I have no time and money to spare. I have to do what I know that works and make more of it. In other words, if I would fail with a business idea right now, I would have to do a few steps back with my life which I don't want to do. I sacrificed too much already.

fwiw the book business won't die. the low quality book business will die.

I think it won't die entirely, because you can always find your own customer out there even if the quality is lower than competition. They read a book, they get next one, and next one, and next one on the same topic, and I just need to make sure I am in that chain.
Still I am trying to do my best with the quality. Those books provide real solutions to people's problems and I am constantly learning how to get to those people.

It's not FU money if the income stream disappears.

Yup, I know. That's why in the end it will be diversified with real estate investments and other business projects that will not leverage other platforms as much. I want to milk this cash cow as much as it will be possible and have time freedom and funds to do better.
I have plenty of ideas that can and will go live later on.

Just be careful as the route you're going is the same as throwing up 400+ affiliate sites and spamming them with SEO back when it was "hot" to do so. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's a good idea. The real money isn't made jumping into what's "hot", it's finding a great opportunity that isn't "hot" yet.

View yourself as an investment manager of your life. Right now you're jumping into a declining stock and going all in.

This doesn't mean it's "wrong", it's whatever is best for you. If that stock has unbelievable dividends and you understand the reason for those high dividends is because of the high probability of the stock going bust, and you're cool with it, then I am rooting for you. Just wanted to take a minute to share my thoughts as I feel many people picture a very different long term result than what the reality of it will be.

I understand your points snowbank and I am happy that you bring that on. I keep it all in my mind and of course I have those feelings that it may suddenly end, even with Amazon getting bigger each year and improving possibilities for indie authors. Amazon can end, Internet can go offline
However, as said before, I cannot risk anymore. What I learned last year is that innovation costs time and money (I have neither), and that I should be doing what already works and let other take the risk for me. At least with my current financial status

I like blue ocean strategies, creating new exciting things that haven't been made yet - I did that and I will be doing all that next year hopefully

PS. I plan on targeting all those people jumping into what's "hot", already made few bucks doing that

 

[Polarbeans]

I have also started to open a trade daily on forex. I guess I always want to do more than I am able to and then I fail with my estimates and I feel bad with it (still moving forward technically)

or backwards.. I really liked your thread when you started it (ABOUT 10 FREAKING DAYS AGO!!) and now you are saying three things:

1. You are changing into a totally different sub-industry withing publishing
2. You are looking to start a membership site
3. You are starting to engaging in forex trading

Let me address this with the little knowledge that I have.

If you feel like you are getting nowhere with the non-fiction, fine, it might be good to change. After all you have 25 books up and running.

But a membership site? Already? I totally believe in the learn-as-you-go, but since you publishing is about making money, and your membership would teach (course) others to create a publishing company, and you've made $770 or so.
I would NEVER sign up to that membership site. Prove to me you can make $770/day and we can talk about it.

My point is not to be a nay-sayer or turn you down, just a wake up call.

you may have too much on your plate.

Yes, totally.

And then also forex? I've been trading forex. Heck, I've studied it on master level. I suck at it. Forex trading (in the sense to make a full time income) is not something you do on the side to make pocket change (what is really?).

You need to study methods and try strategies that will work. You need MUCH more of a mindset and a psyche to deal with heavy losses in trading. It might seem like a cool thing. It is not. You will make money, you could make a LOT of it in fact. But you will also lose a heck of a lot if you haven't tried it before.

If I were you, I would keep grinding that non-f/fiction niche of yours, start scaling it. See where it gets you in a years time.

Then, in time, you can teach others about how to make money. If you want to teach, there are plenty of other ways to do so, and niches where teaching is more or equally lucrative to making-money-online.

 

[Funke]

@Rawr
Last 3 days approx:
$88 $67 $90

According to KDP BookReport, Createspace and Amazon Associates.
I've been lying sick for 4 days and didn't do anything, so I'm grateful the 'passive' income works.

+ Got a $30 Clickbank sale from a lead from one book, I get something like this once or twice a month, but if I would improve offers in books I think I could get more...


Edit: Also

 

[Funke]

I have 24 non-fiction and 4 short romance books (+bundles made from those).

I didn't really published many things during last 3 months, I didn't have money to invest, I was struggling with different departments regarding my business entity, and I was also exploring (among other things) course making stuff like Udemy and Fedora. I even made a full draft for the course and I have learned technical things about producing good quality video and sound, and I recorded a few videos (for me).
Creating optimized Udemy courses can be a great business too (building authority with a list), but as I mentioned before, I have decided to focus on books and resist such things for now.


Most of the income is from 2 non-fiction books, a niche that I have decided to explore further and connect with the audience. I published 2 books last month. I will stick to that niche and get all kinds of social media going for it, I like it, and I have plenty of ideas for it.


The Clickbank thing is actually surprising. I got a book where I get 10 hops per month from it and every 10th there is a sale. So it looks like people buy the book and take the CB "upsell" sometimes. It's the only book where I have it like that, on others I forward them to a leadpage... and then nothing happens as I didn't create any followups. This needs more work and I will probably put direct offers to aff pages in all of those books as I don't feel like connecting with the audience there.


Edit: I'm setting up Facebook ads right now. Never done that for my books.

 

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[Funke]

I'm trying to figure out series of messages for my audience and I have just started going through Autoresponder Madness course - amazing stuff! Very, very valuable information.
Until now I've been doing broadcast e-mails only, giving value and nurturing those who trusted me with e-mail addresses.

And of course I'm having some kind of writer's block because I want it to be perfect. I cannot accept the fact that I won't have 100% of results first time I send a message. Maybe with time it's gonna get easier. Need to set up those A/B tests.

I have content for two more books almost ready so I should take this time I have now and finish those e-mails.



Finally I'm doing the niche that I 'feel', and I like going deeper with it. I have a Facebook group for readers and they are actively posting. Also created other social media channels, slooowly learning and pushing content around.
I want to create a membership site for them, I will probably use(try) MemberMouse + Clickbank for that.
With two new books published and free promotions, I should be able to go over 1000 confirmed email subscribers next month.



If everything goes well I should hit numbers I never had before and pay off my debt. I predict going over $4000/month with the end of August. Right now I am constantly earning $100+ per day.

Still I am worried, restless and anxious every day. I fear that suddenly something happens and I will have 0 sales, even though I adapted very well in the past to different changes and problems. I have no idea when it's gonna end, hopefully when the debt will be paid and I will have solid income diversification in place. It's very hard to be grateful for what I have, I am living in the future all the time...

 

[Rawr]

Still I am worried, restless and anxious every day. I fear that suddenly something happens and I will have 0 sales, even though I adapted very well in the past to different changes and problems. I have no idea when it's gonna end, hopefully when the debt will be paid and I will have solid income diversification in place. It's very hard to be grateful for what I have, I am living in the future all the time...

This is all normal. Welcome to the game.

Let me ask you - if you found out 10 years later that it worked for 10 years, would you be upset that you worried for 10 years for how long it would work? Focus on what you can control - putting a book out. Let go what you can't control - reader's expectations/response/amazon changes. Then remember that we as people tend to adopt to the thing that is coming at us - so at the time when it's time to change something, we usually do. No point to worry. I should take my own advice, but seriously, do best you can in RIGHT NOW and push aside the future, focus on next 2 steps only and execute.

 

[Funke]

Thank you for your support @mws87 and @Rawr !
@EricZ I use Aweber, no problems so far

This is all normal. Welcome to the game.

Actually I entered the game 3 years ago and since then I felt pressure constantly growing. It was very hard to manage my 'states' back in 2014. Lots of ups and downs. I survived the battle, its much better now than it was then, but there is this fear of failure and fear of having to go through those moments again (this creates motivation). Though I think it is not possible with the experience I have gathered.


I just finished a very looong e-mail giving lots of value to my subscribers. Surprising thing happened just after finishing the e-mail. I needed advice if I should split it into two and how to test things.
And what? 6 minutes later I got a response on the issue from e-mail marketing guru Noah Kagan Got enough confidence.

That's another reason I'm looking at Gumroad, much easier to sell your videos through them.

Is it? How many videos have you sold?
I wouldn't use gumroad for that. It's like programming Windows and Internet Explorer to surt the Internet.
If I would want to record a course now, have more profits and have it on my domain, I would go with http://usefedora.com/ But marketing is the hard part usually...

It's easier to sell to existing audience, and later with experience try to step up and build your own traffic sources. You can get existing buying customers from Udemy and drive them to your site on Gumroad for the next "module" or video. I wouldn't have such sales on my books without the leverage of distribution channels of Amazon and Createspace.

There is a reason people do guest posting on blogs, they use someone elses traffic.
The same case is for Udemy which is growing amazingly fast, over 5 000 000 students is worth building a position there.

It's good that the entry level is higher than on KDP, creating a video course is not that easy as outsourcing short ebooks to Philipines. It's also very good that they have quality requirements and things like having content in chunks (people love quick consumables).
I've recorded a test video in 720p and it passed without problems, encoded in Camtasia.

I've got some notes from a webinar with a guy who released 6 courses on Udemy, it's not a rocket science:

• Create original course. Create good sales page. Make sure first 15% is awesome (previews).
• Give it away for free every 1-2 months whenever you want your "popularity" to get higher. (Popularity is a number of new students within given time period (week), and its default search sorting)
• Get reviews for social proof, again giving it away for free, those who liked it will recommend it to other buyers from the niche. (When you send someone to Udemy with a coupon and they buy something else you get aff $$$)
• Triple displayed course length by adding PDF's
• Have 12 modules, it's a "sweet" spot.
• Have the course enrolled into Udemy's promotions and they will get you $1000+/month minimum (with a course priced at $47-$57).

Of course all depends on what you create and the pricing. I will definitely have something there later on to try it, for money, for more leads, but most importantly for fun of doing it

 

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[Funke]

Assuming that Amazon will pay $0.006 per page, and getbookreport works okay...

My total income for July is approximately $3043,75 !

Which is way better than expected

• Books Sales $2725,82 (Createspace + KDP)
• Amazon Associates $154.01 (US) + $4.57 (UK)
• JVZoo $104.25
• Clickbank $30.38
• Payoneer Referal Bonus $25

But... because I have my entity in Poland, Amazon will withhold 10% from USD income, which will probably be around $280. I haven't figured out, if I could get this back or have it reduced to 0% by moving the business to another country.


This month I want to increase the income by doing the following:

• Publish 2 more books targeted at my niche.
• Publish 1 permanently free book to drive more traffic (I will have to take time to figure out other platforms).
• (Publish 5 of my books on Ingram Spark.)
• Write more e-mails for autoresponder with included Clickbank offer, finish Autoresponder Madness course, create more value and reciprocity.
• Improve landing page, choose a theme for blog and create 1-2 blog posts (+page with books, +sign up pop ups).
• Create one "viral" giveaway and one goodreads giveaway.
• Research competition and potential partners, write it all down and analyze.
• Set up membership with Wishlist Member + Clickbank.
• Continue free promotions on older books.
• Continue publishing content on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram.

 

[Paulina]

Fingers crossed, you know you have my support

 

[Polarbeans]

All of those books have been outsourced for $1-$1.25 per 100 words. Same for covers $5-$15 each.

• Can you give some advice on your outsourcing?
• Where do you look for ghostwriters?
• How is the quality of what you receive?
• How do you plan and outline your book?
• Do you outsource the whole book to 1 writer or do you spread the chapters onto different writers?
• How long is your book which earns the most in terms of revenue?
• How long is your book which earns the least in terms of revenue?
• What is your estimated ROI/book?
• How do you determine a niche to write in?
• How did you decide on non-fiction?

Hopefully I will manage to do it all before book business dies

It wont die. But the market, as it is now, will probably not last. As already pointed out it is a bit like google when people started creating niche-sites. Now the same people create 1 or 2 authority sites. Same is for books.

It is new and hip but when the dust settles readers will be more inclined to buy quality books.

With that in mind you should only write books that offers a long lasting advice or high quality content.

 

[Rawr]

400 books? You're working hard not smart.

 

[doncruz]

Wow! Is that what you are using! Can't thank you enough, !
I have been looking for something like this all over the internet.

 

[Polarbeans]

If you spend lets say 10000 dollars today to create more books, When is reasonable to get your return on investment with your method?

I believe you want an answer from @Funke in specific. But I can try to answer you with a generic answer.

Just because you INVEST (not spend) $10,000 you will see results. If you did, everyone would be a publisher.

But anyway. If you can get Funke's rates and all:

$1-1.25 / 100 words ... say $1.50 to make a safety margin.
$5-15 / cover ... say $20 for same reason as above.

He had $1162.77/21 books = 55.37 / book

So if you write a book that is 12,000 words + a book cover =$170

Funke had $770 in revenue in February for 21 books. In March he had $1162,77 for 21 books.

That is an increase of 51.01 %.

So for $10,000 usd:

Number of books: 59
Revenue in March: $3,266.83

There is your outline

 

[Funke]

@EricZ Just checked it, looks like one of the buy now buttons doesn't work, the one higher up works. I haven't been a tester, I found it on one of the groups, but I helped in reporting a few bugs before. They are updating it constantly adding new features like every two weeks.

I am using the software for a few months now, I run multiple promotions daily with it. HUGE time saver for me as I have been doing it manually before, or I paid for this on Fiverr. Now if someone wants to earn extra money you can make a Fiverr gig yourself and it pays the subscription fee. It can be run in a seperate tab in a browser. Worth it if someone has many books like me.

I haven't checked the niche selection tool tho, I'm using KindleSpy for that, which I bought earlier.

 

[mws87]

Still I am worried, restless and anxious every day. I fear that suddenly something happens and I will have 0 sales, even though I adapted very well in the past to different changes and problems. I have no idea when it's gonna end, hopefully when the debt will be paid and I will have solid income diversification in place. It's very hard to be grateful for what I have, I am living in the future all the time...

First off - great job on your progress. I wish to get to where you are! Second - forgive me if this has been answered already, but are you only using one platform for sales? As long as you keep your customers engaged and happy, I don't think you'll have to worry about everything just going awry and being down to 0 sales. Sounds like you're off to a good start, figure out what you're doing right and keep doing it. Also, figure out what has been done "wrong" and stop doing it/fix it. Keep people happy and they will keep you happy.

 

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