Tips on selling ebooks for the Amazon Kindle

There has been a lot of interest on the Warrior Forum in regards to the Amazon Kindle lately. I have followed several threads including WSO's about selling ebooks on the Amazon Kindle. I have not purchased any WSO's from anyone. I wouldn't mind reading the WSO's to see the author's point of view. I may purchase some in the future. However, I have been selling Ebooks on Amazon for some time and have gone through the majority of the learning curve on my own. In fact I think that I have been selling ebooks on the DTP platform longer than the author's of the WSO's. No offense to any of them.

I will offer a couple of tips here to questions that seem prevalent in the Kindle related threads. They are quite basic and probably seem obvious to most people.

Don't sell crap
Why anyone would think that selling crap is acceptable is beyond me. PLR, poorly written or poorly formatted crap does not sell very well. If an ebook is crap all it takes is a couple of bad reviews and your ebook will stop selling permanently. Too many complaints from your customers to Amazon can result in having your book removed.

Sales Do Not Happen Overnight
I often hear people complain about not selling any of their titles. Usually their book has been online for a week or less. From my experience book sales peak around six months after they go online. Some faster and some slower. Once your sales hit their peak they seem to still make more sales than the previous month, but the increases are much more insignificant. I have a book that has increased its sales over the previous month, every month for more than 15 months now.

Amazon Will Do All of My Advertising for Me
While Amazon does list your book on their site, they do very little advertising for you. The best free advertising for your ebook will come from reviews and recommendations from those who have read it. One good review on the many Kindle related forums out there can increase your book sales exponentially. Obviously marketing your book yourself will help. However, I had one ebook last month that sold about 600 copies and I have done zero marketing for it. I too often let Amazon do all of the marketing.

Would you buy the Hardcover
If your book has few to zero sales it might be your niche. However, most of the time when someone asks me why their book is not selling, the answer is obvious. Their book looks like crap. The information that Amazon provides a potential customer is practically identical for ebooks vs. a hard or softcover. It blows my mind that the Amazon page for ebooks often look like a preschooler created them. You must have a professional sales page to get any type of sales.

Don't Scam People
The first reason is obvious, your customers can receive a refund, no questions asked. If you are creating ebooks to make yourself a few bucks, your sales will reflect it. If you create a quality product your sales will reflect it as well. Why waste time creating crap when you could use that same time to create a source of long term residual income. Once again one poor review may cost you every future sale possible.

There is Real Work Involved
It takes a lot of time to understand everything necessary to get your ebook live. When people learn about selling ebooks for the Kindle, they often see a goldmine. It really is one. There are also no publishers to deal with. However, that only means that A, your book will be published, and B, you have to do the formatting, editing and other work of the publisher yourself. If anything there is more work involved in publishing your own book than having someone else do it for you.

Is it Possible to Make a Living from your Kindle Ebook Sales?
Absolutely. If you do it right there are very few things more reliable than an Amazon payment. My check comes like clockwork. I do not have to answer emails, fix problems, or anything like that on my ebooks. In fact I have ebooks that I have not done anything with in well over a year, and I have had consistent sales every single month. The Kindle is a great platform