Something great like I had made well over $1,000 in my first month or that my book has been downloaded over 10,000 times.
Well …
… unfortunately that’s not how it’s gone at all.
As you may already know, last month I released my first eBook.
Though I’m very proud of what I’ve created, I will say that in all honesty this new venture is proving to be more challenging then I originally thought!
But that’s how these things go. Developing a true passive income stream is a business, and sometimes you got to try more than one thing in order to make a business really work out!
So in this post I’m going to share with you the brutal truth of how the first month of my eBook sales have gone and what I plan to do going forward with this income generating effort.
Things I Got Right with eBook Publishing:
Not to toot my own horn, but there were a few things that I believe I did somewhat correctly in order to give this eBook venture at chance at being successful.
The eBook Itself:
For starters I can tell you that I’m very happy with the book I created.
Although it was not a quite as long as I wanted it to be, I still feel like it was more than adequate length for what an eBook should be.
On top of that I feel like there was a tremendous amount of value packed inside each and every chapter. I tried very hard to make the advice actionable!
Research:
Like all new ventures, I did a fair amount of reading success stories before even started a lick of content.
Three resources that really seemed to help me out were:
- A post on Niche Pursuits by Spencer Haws about how to make $100 per day with Kindle.
- An eBook by Chandler Bolt called Book Launch.
- A podcast on Smart Passive Income with Steve Scott. Steve Scott is a self-published author who makes well into five-figures per month with his collection of Kindle books.
Much of the strategy that I used (and some of the other things I’ll try) were from these sources.
Amazon Reviews:
Positive reviews are gold on Amazon!
The more of them you have, the better your chances of moving up in the Amazon placement ranks.
Before the release of my eBook I reached out to several friends, family, and other bloggers to try to gain some early support.
Thankfully a number of them came to my support – and I very much appreciate it! Angry Retail Banker even wrote a phenomenal review of the book!
Price:
Look around on Amazon and you can find a lot of eBooks that are strong competition for less than the price of a cup of coffee!
So at the strong recommendation of the resources I mentioned above, I decided right off the bat that I was going to play ball and offer my book at the incredibly low price of $2.99.
Kindle Direct Publishing Select:
When you publish a book on Amazon, right away they start pushing this thing called “KDP Select” on you.
And you should do it!
KDP Select allows you to promote your eBook for free for five days.
I know you’re probably wondering …
… I just spent an incredible amount of time and effort creating this eBook. Why in the world would I want to give it away for free?
Believe it or not, this is a very popular strategy suggested by lots of eBook publishers. What it does is to get your book in the hands of as many people as possible.
If those people leave a positive review, it will count as a verified review since they actually bought it from Amazon.
That’s good news for you!
On top of that it also increases the chances that they will tell people they know about the book and promote it for you.
In other words, though you won’t make any money, there are plenty of residual benefits that you potentially derive if this part of the strategy is successful.
So How Has My eBook Done So Far?
Unfortunately my eBook has only generated less than $50.
At a price of $2.99, Amazon gives you a 70% royalty. That means I’ve had just over 20 paid downloads.
I will be completely honest in saying that that is far, far below what my expectations were.
Now the free period was a different story. During the five days that my book was free I had several hundred downloads.
I’ve heard that this is not uncommon because people constantly look on Amazon to hoard free stuff, especially when it comes to free ebook publishing.
My only hope is that some of those people who downloaded my eBook for free will come back later and leave a positive review and or tell their friends about it.
Things I Realize Now I Should Have Done Differently:
Since releasing my eBook I’ve read a couple of other eBooks about eBooks (… try to follow that …) as well as numerous blog articles from successful self-publishers.
More Promotion During the Free Period:
One of the things I realize now I should have done better: Promoting the book during the free period.
Like I mentioned, more downloads increases your potential for getting more verified reviews. That in turn can help you get in the Top 100 or even Amazon’s Recommended Books.
Kindle Select allows you to make your book free every 90 days. So in another month or two, I may retry this strategy doing more up-front promotion.
ANY Guest Post Promotion:
Why I didn’t line up a number of guest posts on other personal finance blogs aiming to promote my new book, I have no idea. But its something I should have definitely done.
Not Appealing to a Worldwide Audience:
Seeing just how many countries Amazon works with, I now realize it would have been smart of me to make the book a little more appealing to a worldwide audience.
Most of the principles I outlined in “Save Better!” would actually work anywhere. However all of my examples were perhaps a little too specific to just U.S. tax-sheltered retirement accounts like 401k’s and IRA’s. Our friends in other parts of the country like Canada, the U.K., Australia, and other places probably would have loved to see examples of how this could work for them too.
Low Price Strategies:
One strategy I might try to use is to lower the price of my book to $0.99 and then work it back up again if/when it gains more momentum.
Again I realize that may seem insane, but similar to the free strategy a super-low price may attract a higher volume of verified readers. That could in turn increase my chances of more positive reviews.
Though it doesn’t seem like it, there are a lot of self-publishers who will argue that people are far more likely to download your book at $0.99 rather than if it is $2.99.
Too Competitive of a Niche?
Another thing that is worth mentioning is that probably one of my biggest mistakes was to write a book about personal finance in the first place.
The personal finance niche is completely saturated!
One of the strategies that a lot of self-publishers promote is to seek out topics where there aren’t so many eBooks or publications about them. In other words find a low-competition market to rule!
Unfortunately you can’t say that about the personal-finance niche.
Search any money related keyword on Amazon and you’re bound to find a monotony of eBooks as well as electronic versions of the big-name authors that you would regularly find at a traditional bookstore.
Whether or not that’s true, I don’t really care!
Personal finance is a subject that I am very passionate about. And I believe that I have a lot to offer anyone who’s willing to listen (or in this case “read”).
So even though the money-book market may be saturated, I do feel in many ways that I have a better mousetrap to offer my customers.
And hopefully over time they agree with me!
Next Steps Going Forward:
All in all, if we take this first month of $50 and project it over 12 months, that’s a return of approximately $600 for the year.
Though that’s not as much money as I had hoped to make from this effort, that is still more than my initial investment. Plus I’ll take $600 extra this year to help out my savings goals any day!
So with that said I’m still going to continue to research and look further into how I can get better at promoting my eBook so that this effort turns into a success.
I’ll be trying some of the things I’ve already mentioned here as well as looking for new and creative ideas from those who have found success.
Another eBook?
How about write another one!
You heard me right.
I have already went ahead and drafted a +10,000 word first-draft for my second eBook.
Immediately following the publication of my first eBook, I was very excited about the whole process and quickly came up with about three other ideas for future publications.
I got a little overly ambitious and immediately went straight ahead with writing one of them. I guess I had a lot on my mind to get out!
Though this new eBook I’m writing right now was originally going to be a leader magnet, once it got close to the 10,000 word mark, I decided it might be more appropriate to use it as my second Kindle publication.
(I will probably end up creating a different lead magnet such as a shorter eBook. Having a lead magnet is definitely another thing I want to have ready to go before I publish anything further.)
I’ll soon be beginning the first round of editing. Based on how things went during the last eBook, I found this part of the process to be the lengthiest and most intense.
I’m tempted to believe that with the second book I may be able to avoid some of the mistakes I made with the first one. Plus I feel like this will give me the opportunity to experiment with some of the more refined techniques that I’m coming to learn about eBook promotion.
Success or failure, I would like to see three eBooks to my name available on Amazon before the year is over.
Even though that is a very ambitious goal, I do believe it is something that could take my passive income pursuits to a whole new level.
Readers – How many of you have published an eBook on Amazon Kindle or elsewhere? What kind of strategies do you feel contributed to your success? What would you do-over?
Images courtesy Anita Hart | Flickr, leiris202 | Flickr.
MMD, I am one of those people who gave your ebook a positive review on Amazon. I actually liked it very much. Publishing a second ebook sounds a good idea! Good luck, MMD!
Were you “Sean”? Thanks a bunch Jayson for the positive review. It certainly helps me out! If you liked the first book, then I’m sure you’re really going to enjoy this second one.
I have never publish an e-book, but have considered it. Have you looking into have some printed? To send out for reviews, etc to try and generate a little press, buzz?
I had not considered getting any printed. Have you heard of any eBook authors who said that helped?
There are several websites like wattpad that if you gain a huge number of viewership will lead you to a transition from online publishing to hard copies. There are quite a number of novels there that was turned into movies and dramas already. But to be honest, the quality of the stories there are quite EH. The question here is would you sacrifice substance over profit?
I know Amazon has a service also that will sell your book in printed copy form but for a bigger price. I’m not sure however if it would help sales any. I think I need more demand first 🙂
On the site I mentioned, I think there are several factors they have to consider in order for your work to be converted to another format:
– the audience likes it
– the website tallies the readership of the work
– I think even social media shares and mentions are a big factor too.
-The website will fund it and will have copyright once it’s released (which can hit two sides of the coin depending on the writer)
And it’s usually free. I think wattpad was made by some guy from Canada.
MMD,
I had nearly the exact same experience. All in total, my eBook on investing (it is about 160 pages) has only made $100 total over the past year 🙁 I dropped the price to $0.99 and it still isn’t selling!
The biggest thing I can do now is just use the sections as separate blog posts on my website. I also considered paying to get a cover made, but it seems unlikely that I would reclaim the $20 cost in sales unless something magical happens 🙂
Good luck with the upcoming months of sales – the cover of your book looks great!
Oh, no! Even at $0.99 your book still isn’t moving? That’s not very encouraging.
Nice work creating a 160-page eBook! That had to have been quite an undertaking.
Yea, I heard from a friend that getting ebooks out is not that easy. So $50, probably isn’t that bad. You’re on the right track with creating another ebook. My friend was telling me about how he would sell another ebook within a month and that it would synergize sales with the other ebook.
I have noticed that a lot of the successful eBook publishers seem to credit their success to an offering to a whole portfolio of books rather than just 1 or 2 titles. I’d imagine that similar to niche sites you probably learn a new trick or two with each new release, and that can only help improve sales.
Alright, who here hasn’t bought the book yet? Let’s go, come on, go over to Amazon and buy it. The book is full of good content, easy to read, and is pretty cheap.
Come on, people, let’s go, buy that book! What are we waiting for?
In all seriousness, it IS a very good book. It DOES have good, easy to read content and is very cheap. It only costs $2.99. There’s literally no reason not to buy it. The information in there can save you thousands of dollars in taxes, and it’s definitely worth the less-than-$3 to get said information.
Don’t worry, MMD, I’m sure sales will pick up soon. I’m sure there are many eBook publishers who don’t make $50 in their first year, so I bet this is nothing to sneeze at. If nothing else, it’s a little bit of spending money.
Sincerely,
ARB–Angry Retail Banker
ARB – Thanks! I should hire you to be my “hype man” for the next book release. 🙂
I think $50 is not a bad month and hopefully momentum will pick up. I promise to leave a review when I get around to reading the book. Sorry I’m so slow!
No worries! I hope you do enjoy it when you finally do read it.
The common wisdom we indoctrinate into our youth is “build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a part to your door.”
If there’s one thing business had taught me it’s that a good product without distribution will due a quiet death. So online publishing is a great leveler but now we see the benefit a publishing house brings – immediate credibility and massive promotion and distribution.
I’m not in the publishing business, so I don’t have any solutions, but focus on your distribution even more than your product. Reviews, giveaways, advertising, social media, discounts, email marketing, the works.
Good luck with your next book!
I can completely agree with that. I’ve often seen print authors make the claim that they are not necessarily “best writing authors” but “best selling authors” – meaning that they put more emphasis on marketing than on the book itself.
I’d take $50 a month any day for my first eBook. Congrats!
If we can just cross the $150 mark before the year is over, then I’ll have made back my total investment.
Good to know you’re near to breaking even. Congratulations and I hope you publish more e-books.
It was a good book and looking forward to your next book.
I greatly appreciate it! Hopefully the next one delivers just as much value.
I do not know anything about publishing books. I have thought about writing one, but never really found the time. I have a few questions.
What is the rationale behind offering the book for free? Just for reviews?
How did you determine what price to charge?
In addition, from a pure business perspective and given the amount of time it would have taken, would it have been better to just publish those blog posts online and earn more revenues that way?
And last, is there an option to publish that book to print? It is probably more expensive, though some readers like me are biased and prefer to read a print book. Not sure why, but I find it more enjoyable with a physical book than scrolling on a screen.
Either way, I hope your second book is a success. The publishing industry is fiercely competitive. When Jacob from ERE published his book, he calculated that his hourly wage was below minimum wage. And he is the founder of ERE movement 🙂
The strategy behind offering the eBook for free is to get more downloads and (hopefully) more positive, verified reviews. My initial price point of $2.99 was based on the minimum price you could charge to get a 70% royalty and the fact that pretty much EVERY other book was already at this price. Being a new book from an unknown author, it would not have made sense to charge $10 for my eBook when to the common viewer there is so much competition at a lower price.
Should I have published this information as blog post(s)? That’s an interesting question:
1) Actually this book started as a collection of 10 of my favorite blog posts from the last few years. Though each chapter was heavily re-written from its original form, the main ideas still exist within my blog articles. Although randomly placed, they are there if you know where to find them.
Part of this eBook experiment was to see if “structuring” this information in a more concise and outlined way would produce higher sales and returns. I’ve often read that when people design eCourses, its really nothing more than just a syllabus of information that they’ve already published in other places. BUT because you’re organizing it all for someone else in a way where they don’t have to go digging for it, that’s where you create perceived value for the customer.
2) I actually wrote an eBook last year but decided to publish it as a mega blog post. Although the post has generated a little revenue, it still ranks terrible on Google despite my efforts to promote it / create backlinks.
So this eBook is a little bit like trying things the other way: To see if actually publishing an eBook rather than a blog post produces better residual income over time.
Amazon does give you the option to offer the book in print, but I really haven’t looked into it much. I suppose I may test that strategy out at some point.
Despite my attempt, I am somewhat optimistic that eBooks could be a helpful contribution to my passive income streams. Looking at the sales figures for a lot of writers, its pretty amazing to see them post four and five figure months.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I didn’t really think about leveraging existing content to create another informational product for others (even if you had to rewrite it several times). That is pretty smart.
The other smart idea is to organize information in a way that readers can easily digest. It is hard for new readers to be up to speed on items – hence an organized layout might help them immensely. I think you can probably use the content from those long blog posts, and possible turn that into another ebook at some point in the future.
Thanks, and I definitely plan to use that strategy in the near future.
Good Job on actually becoming an author even though its not selling to your standards. The experience you learned will help you in the future. That’s a good line you mentioned, best selling author is the name of the game, with so many authors becoming published everyday.
Thanks EL! Hopefully I start to get the hang of it and make some more sales!