Hey all,
After silently reading in this forum for a couple of months, I feel it is time for my own Execution Thread. So here I go.
ABOUT ME
I went the typical slow lane so far. Went to university, got a marketing degree, did a traineeship (ridiculous pay) and stayed with the same company afterward for five years in total (salary still was ridiculous after the traineeship). Actually, it was rather a sidewalk than a slow lane job.
In summer 2017, I was approached by a headhunter and took another job abroad. Still slow lane, but -because of a much higher salary and lower tax rates- at a higher speed limit. That was a big boost to my self-esteem, but it also opened some doors to invest in myself and my idea.
Besides the new job, I started thinking about a way out of the slow lane. I must admit that I am not a big innovator or idea-machine. But I believe in the concept of digital products. Also, I always liked writing and especially connecting dots to create a bigger picture (with words), and so I decided to bring my talent together with my beliefs, and I started writing a non-fiction book/ebook.
MY IDEA/NICHE
I hate it when people tell about their progress and hide their ideas (although I admit there might be good reasons to do so). So I want to disclose mine.
I was and still am working in mobile (app) marketing. This includes user acquisition, retention marketing, and in my last job also social marketing, monetization, and some game design tasks. And the book I am writing is about one specific aspect of user acquisition: App Store Optimization (ASO).
So why ASO?
First of all, I know ASO. It is my daily job for 7 years now. And while trying to figure out this job myself, I have learned two things:
On the one hand, there is a decent amount of content available. But most of it is crap: One-pagers, whitepapers, blog posts and the like. Most content pieces only scratch the surface of a topic and leave readers with very general advice like “research your keywords” or “optimize your screenshots”. But they fail to tell people how.
On the other hand, there is a big demand and some decent money to be made. Even the most basic articles get thousands of likes. On Udemy and similar platforms, I found video courses with 10,000+ enrolled students. But just from the titles and lengths of videos, I can tell that they don’t go into detail either.
So I want to create something that does not exist in this form in the market: A book which tells readers what to do, but also how and why. I want to take readers by the hand and guide them step-by-step through their ASO process.
Is it clear to me that I won’t re-invent the wheel. As said, I am good at connecting the dots, not at creating new dots. So I take information from the few good articles, blog posts, and white papers, and embed them in an underlying concept, that makes it easier for readers to understand the big picture.
WHAT DID I ACHIEVE SO FAR?
In late 2017, I started collecting valuable content. I organized it roughly with Trello (not quite the purpose of the platform, but I like using the columns as my chapters and the cards as text sections and move them around to outline my book).
During my vacations in summer 2018, I finally started writing, and since then I wrote continuously in my leisure time. It has been a messy process so far, and I learned a couple of things that I want to share:
However, I finished the third draft yesterday. I consider it good by now. And I am a bit proud.
Right now, the book has:
- 68,500 Words
- 14 tables
- 127 figures (incl. diagrams, screenshots with examples from the app stores, etc.)
- 402 Endnotes / Citations
WHAT DID I INVEST?
Besides the time and work, I invested
- 199 USD for the word processing program "Papyrus", Lifetime License.
- 139 USD for Grammarly, 1 Year Subscription.
- 96 USD for Whimsical, 1 Year Subscription. The original purpose of whimsical is to create UI mockups for apps and flowcharts. But it turned out it is great to design diagrams as well.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?
To complete the book, I need to:
Besides, I need to decide about the PRICE and DISTRIBUTION.
I will go for a price in the range of 34.90 to 39.90 USD. Sounds very expensive, yes. But I believe it is reasonable. There is only one comparable ebook of my niche online, and it is priced at 39 USD. As it has the same problems like the other content about ASO has (rather general advice, 8 different authors, no underlying concept), I consider my book better and thus do not want to get much lower.
Distribution is more complicated. My first idea was to sell only on Amazon in Kindle-Format (it is called MOBI I guess). But now, I think that is a bad idea for three reasons:
Regarding PROMOTION, I have not done anything yet.
My plan is to create a free version of the book with 5 to 10 sample pages. Give it away for email in exchange for email addresses, starting about four weeks before the release of the book.
I will build the email list primarily via LinkedIn (and its German counterpart Xing). I have about 700 contacts on LinkedIn. Most of them are representatives of ad networks, agencies, tracking providers and other B2B companies in the mobile industry. So they are not really my target audience. But most of their contacts (so my 2nd level contacts) are. As I know many people for years and have a great relationship with them, I am confident some of them will share my posts and help me to promote my emails list (and later my book).
In addition, I plan to find some affiliates who help me to sell the book in exchange for a commission. Payhip has a great feature for this purpose. I will approach especially on people who live in emerging countries, so they can promote the ebook to their peers.
I also will talk to some contacts who own a blog (or work for a company that owns a blog). I will offer to write a blog post or two for them that provides value to readers and encourages them to check out my ebook.
Long story short, these are my To Do’s regarding the distribution:
After silently reading in this forum for a couple of months, I feel it is time for my own Execution Thread. So here I go.
ABOUT ME
I went the typical slow lane so far. Went to university, got a marketing degree, did a traineeship (ridiculous pay) and stayed with the same company afterward for five years in total (salary still was ridiculous after the traineeship). Actually, it was rather a sidewalk than a slow lane job.
In summer 2017, I was approached by a headhunter and took another job abroad. Still slow lane, but -because of a much higher salary and lower tax rates- at a higher speed limit. That was a big boost to my self-esteem, but it also opened some doors to invest in myself and my idea.
Besides the new job, I started thinking about a way out of the slow lane. I must admit that I am not a big innovator or idea-machine. But I believe in the concept of digital products. Also, I always liked writing and especially connecting dots to create a bigger picture (with words), and so I decided to bring my talent together with my beliefs, and I started writing a non-fiction book/ebook.
MY IDEA/NICHE
I hate it when people tell about their progress and hide their ideas (although I admit there might be good reasons to do so). So I want to disclose mine.
I was and still am working in mobile (app) marketing. This includes user acquisition, retention marketing, and in my last job also social marketing, monetization, and some game design tasks. And the book I am writing is about one specific aspect of user acquisition: App Store Optimization (ASO).
So why ASO?
First of all, I know ASO. It is my daily job for 7 years now. And while trying to figure out this job myself, I have learned two things:
On the one hand, there is a decent amount of content available. But most of it is crap: One-pagers, whitepapers, blog posts and the like. Most content pieces only scratch the surface of a topic and leave readers with very general advice like “research your keywords” or “optimize your screenshots”. But they fail to tell people how.
On the other hand, there is a big demand and some decent money to be made. Even the most basic articles get thousands of likes. On Udemy and similar platforms, I found video courses with 10,000+ enrolled students. But just from the titles and lengths of videos, I can tell that they don’t go into detail either.
So I want to create something that does not exist in this form in the market: A book which tells readers what to do, but also how and why. I want to take readers by the hand and guide them step-by-step through their ASO process.
Is it clear to me that I won’t re-invent the wheel. As said, I am good at connecting the dots, not at creating new dots. So I take information from the few good articles, blog posts, and white papers, and embed them in an underlying concept, that makes it easier for readers to understand the big picture.
WHAT DID I ACHIEVE SO FAR?
In late 2017, I started collecting valuable content. I organized it roughly with Trello (not quite the purpose of the platform, but I like using the columns as my chapters and the cards as text sections and move them around to outline my book).
During my vacations in summer 2018, I finally started writing, and since then I wrote continuously in my leisure time. It has been a messy process so far, and I learned a couple of things that I want to share:
- Decide on tools before you start working. With 100 pages written, I decided to switch from MS Word to another. Transferring my text was not possible without losing its structure and formatting, so it came with a lot of extra work. Although working is more comfortable now, this extra work could have been avoided.
- Quality is not free. Besides the new word processing program, I use an online tool for editing. First, I used the free version. But then I decided to give the Premium version a shot, and boy, that really was an incredible upgrade. I would have missed a lot of errors if I used just the free program.
- Decide on format and style before you start. For citations, I used footnotes first. But I only put the URLs in the footnotes, not the complete citations (incl. author, date, etc.), because I wanted to do this when the text is done. When I started implementing the complete citations, I realized that footnotes look terrible, especially when multiple citations appear on the same page. So I switched to endnotes instead. Again, a lot of extra work.
- Go for “very good”, but not for “perfect”. I wasted hours thinking about the proper phrasing of single paragraphs. Just to realize that I can delete them without destroying one iota of value.
However, I finished the third draft yesterday. I consider it good by now. And I am a bit proud.
Right now, the book has:
- 68,500 Words
- 14 tables
- 127 figures (incl. diagrams, screenshots with examples from the app stores, etc.)
- 402 Endnotes / Citations
WHAT DID I INVEST?
Besides the time and work, I invested
- 199 USD for the word processing program "Papyrus", Lifetime License.
- 139 USD for Grammarly, 1 Year Subscription.
- 96 USD for Whimsical, 1 Year Subscription. The original purpose of whimsical is to create UI mockups for apps and flowcharts. But it turned out it is great to design diagrams as well.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?
To complete the book, I need to:
- Find a professional editor and let him/her edit it. Not sure where to find that person though. I thought about Fiverr, but several people I spoke to were not enthusiastic about the quality of services there.
- Do a final round of editing myself.
- Design a cover for the book. Probably will start a contest on 99designs.com.
- Create the first page (the one with copyrights, disclaimers and stuff)
- Create the last section (Final words and thank you page). I will do this one after the final editing.
Besides, I need to decide about the PRICE and DISTRIBUTION.
I will go for a price in the range of 34.90 to 39.90 USD. Sounds very expensive, yes. But I believe it is reasonable. There is only one comparable ebook of my niche online, and it is priced at 39 USD. As it has the same problems like the other content about ASO has (rather general advice, 8 different authors, no underlying concept), I consider my book better and thus do not want to get much lower.
Distribution is more complicated. My first idea was to sell only on Amazon in Kindle-Format (it is called MOBI I guess). But now, I think that is a bad idea for three reasons:
- Amazon takes 65% of the revenue for an ebook that expensive. Ridiculous.
- From all I have read, it seems Amazon can reset the price. I prefer to control my ebook’s price myself.
- In the mobile industry, it is usual to distribute content in PDF format. Even the comparable ebook is only available as PDF on the authors’ website. So it does not make much sense to invest extra time to make my ebook kindle-friendly.
Regarding PROMOTION, I have not done anything yet.
My plan is to create a free version of the book with 5 to 10 sample pages. Give it away for email in exchange for email addresses, starting about four weeks before the release of the book.
I will build the email list primarily via LinkedIn (and its German counterpart Xing). I have about 700 contacts on LinkedIn. Most of them are representatives of ad networks, agencies, tracking providers and other B2B companies in the mobile industry. So they are not really my target audience. But most of their contacts (so my 2nd level contacts) are. As I know many people for years and have a great relationship with them, I am confident some of them will share my posts and help me to promote my emails list (and later my book).
In addition, I plan to find some affiliates who help me to sell the book in exchange for a commission. Payhip has a great feature for this purpose. I will approach especially on people who live in emerging countries, so they can promote the ebook to their peers.
I also will talk to some contacts who own a blog (or work for a company that owns a blog). I will offer to write a blog post or two for them that provides value to readers and encourages them to check out my ebook.
Long story short, these are my To Do’s regarding the distribution:
- Buy a domain
- Create a WordPress site (or let someone create it)
- Set up Payhip and implement it into the website
- Build the email list
- Reach out to contacts to find promoters and affiliates
- Check some legal stuff (f.e. taxes)
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