I haven’t been posting regularly to my blog recently. My excuse is that I have had (and still have) so many ” making money online from home” things going on that writing blog posts has had to take a back seat for a while.
I have been trying to get my new squeeze funnel together, getting new sales copy for my detox ebook, getting a Kindle book created, working on my Green Organics business and organizing a party for my big ?O birthday. (No, I am not telling you which one., a woman has to have some secrets!)
I know that’s far too many things to be doing at one time but for various reasons too boring to go into here, that’s the way it worked out. One project that I have at last finished is to publish an ebook on Kindle. It’s called
“How To Thin Legs: Get Thinner Thighs And Slim Calves Fast”
There has been so much about making money on the internet with Kindle books in the past few months that I got bitten by the bug. Now, I am wondering if it was such a good idea because so many people have jumped on this bandwagon that there is very fierce competition.
At one time marketers were saying that the great thing about Amazon was that they did all the SEO and marketing for you. Now, they are saying that because of the competition you need to be promoting your book yourself if you want your sales to take off.
Keyword Research
After doing some initial research I decided on the keyword “How To Thin Legs”. Originally I got the idea from a topic in a Women’s magazine.
I went straight over to Google’s Keyword tool and discovered there were 60,000 searches for that particular keyword and also a good number of searches for related keywords like thin thighs, thin ankles and thin/slim calves.
There were only a couple of other books on the subject but I was not sure if I had discovered an untapped niche or that it was not a good one.
I decided that I had to give it a go. Nothing ventured nothing gained as they say. It would be good experience if nothing else.
Outsourcing
I outsourced the creation of the book, the cover design, and the conversion to the mobi file that you need for Kindle.
I posted the job to Guru, oDesk and vWorkers ( formerly Rentacoder). I had heard a lot of marketers say that you get better writers on Elance and Guru but I have used oDesk a lot and am familiar with the way it works so posted there as well. I didn’t find vWorker very user friendly.
I chose an ebook writer on Guru in the end but was not happy with the result. She came from an English speaking country and had good feedback for similar projects but there was a lot of peculiar language and padding in the book she produced.
I have heard that some writers outsource the jobs they take so I did wonder if she outsourced it.It took me some time to go through it all and highlight the areas that needed editing.
Even after she made the changes I still had to do a lot more editing to make it read well. It took up a lot of my time. Perhaps I should have rejected it. You learn these things by experience.
I decided to publish this book under a pen name as I am already known for my detox ebook and I want to keep my own name for publishing books related to detox, cleansing and health.
Marketing my Kindle book
By all accounts the creation and publication was the easy part. The marketing is the difficult part.
I have bought a few WSO’s on Kindle, joined a few Kindle Forums, a Kindle Facebook group and a Kindle publishing membership site called Apex Authors run by Kindle authors John S. Rhodes and Jay Boyer.
I am soaking up and implementing stuff I am learning to get this book off the ground before getting the next one created.
I have priced it very low to start with to get some sales and hopefully some good reviews. One of the advantages of belonging to a forum or group is that you can ask people to review your book.
Some authors have enrolled their books in the Kindle Select Program where they give Amazon the rights for a period of 90 days to sell their book and offer it in their lending library for which they get a small payback.
I have read various opinions on this and have decided not to enroll my book in KDP Select.
If I do it means I cannot upload my book to any other publishing platform for the 90 days and that is what I want to do next.
It’s all a bit of a learning curve but I hope it will pay off in the end. Now I must finish my other making money online from home projects!
Do you have any books on Kindle? Do you have any marketing tips you would like to share? If so, please leave them in the comments.
That is an awesome post. We know it is not easy to create an ebook.You have really layed out your points in great detail. Very easy to follow with good content.
I just wonder to see your blog site banner! its was amazing 🙂
Hi Nancy,
Yes, my designer did a great job on that.
Thanks for dropping by.
Sandy
Hey, good luck with your ebook! I’ve just buy a kindle and I will buy some books in future 😀
I have to say this is an impressive post. I have been a Ghostwriter for a few years now and thinking of getting into Kindle publishing for a while now. I like the way you have broke down the whole process into small steps. Thanks for the great information on Kindle Publishing.
Hi Sid,
If you can write you are half way there. Perhaps I should contact you for my next book! 🙂
Sandy
Hello
Time ago if you want something you buy magazines or go to see it for yourself … But now everything is on the blogs
Now, all science is
Have you thought about marketing moves with the help of social media? Facebook? Twitter? let people know about your book via these resources.
Hi Kristina,
Yes, I am doing all that. I intend to use Pinterest too.
Sandy
Hi, Sandy!
Congratulations on the eBook! I also took the first steps into the Kindle publishing a few months ago now. I received my first royalty check a month ago. It’s quite a feeling!
As a book coach, I wanted the personal experience of the challenges and benefits of eBook publishing, and have managed to find quite a few of them, which helps me better serve my clients.
It just so happens that the eBook I wrote is a DIY guide to marketing and promoting your book online called “The Plan that Launched a Thousand Books.” If you or your readers are interested, you can check it out at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0085QGP46.
Congratulations once again!
Hi Tara,
Good to see you here. Thanks for letting me and my readers know about your Kindle book. I will certainly check it out.
Sandy
Congratulations for writing the book and publishing it. They say there’s a book in everyone but not everyone has it in them to get one published!
Well done on publishing. I have often thought about it but to be honest, struggling for time at the moment. I hesitate to outsource for the reasons you mention. I love the banner design of your blog and what you are doing. Just shows it is never too late to learn something.
Hi Natalie,
I am always struggling for time too. If you really want to do something you will find the time. Sometimes it means letting something else go. It’s a fact that it can take time to find a good outsource worker but once you find one you are good to go.
Thanks for the compliment about the header.
Sandy
Thanks for sharing your experiences with ebook.
I followed similar steps for my eBook “A Child Lost in Flight”
The next hard task after publishing is getting quality reviews. Do you review books?
Hi Mohan
I have only reviewed one book for an event on a Facebook group I belong to. We were trying to help each other out.
Good luck with your book.
Sandy
Hi Nancy, Congratulations!
I have had similar difficulty with ODesk. I am sorry to hear that your ebook was not edited properly, but I am glad you got it working.
I had an ebook on Kindle, but was unhappy with the returns and decided to just go paperback (through Createspace).
For marketing, also try selling directly on Ebay. I have had success. You would be shocked what people search for on Ebay. And a short youtube video has worked for me also.
Good luck and keep us updated on the sales!
Hi sandy,
first, congratulation!
second thanks for explaining how you did it
finally i am thinking of creating my own kindle as well, so gonna bookmark your page to check it later when it is time to taking action 🙂
Thanks again
Thanks Ali. Kindle is growing popularity with marketers now so strike while the iron is hot. It’s getting very competitive there now.
Sandy
Very impressive! You have done very well in promoting your ebook. Thank you for giving me an insight about Kindle. Will try it very soon. Thanks for sharing this.