5k for Kindle project, need some guideline

by bwh1
16 replies
I'm in the works to start finally my project to publish on Kindle.
It would be a serious of books, some like 7 to 10.

As I'm not English I would need to outsource all the writing. I have kontakt
with a fellow Warrior which write books for 500 a piece, looking good so far.

The goal is to make this a recurring long term income source as I'm
not getting any retirement support.

So my question is, would you go into fiction or non fiction and
is it a good idea to create a fake profile - pen name for Kindle.

I've heard all kind of stories about people with 15 titles in fiction not selling a piece, others in non-fiction going steady.

Personally I'm non-fiction guy as I can relate more to it, on the other hand I know that IF your books get momentum, you sell way more in the fiction-romance niche.

Last, would you recommend the Kindle Forum from Bryan to help me with those issues?

I have a lot of courses incl. the good ones but anyhow, above questions are
unanswered.

Thanks
#guideline #kindle #project
  • Profile picture of the author alexandersmith
    Why don't your trial it out, try writing a fiction & non fiction book to start off with, and see how you do. You could also try trialing 4 books - 1 non fiction with your real name, 1 non fiction with a fake profile and 1 fiction with your real name and 1 fiction with a fake profile.

    Trial and error is often one of the best ways of working out what method is most suitable for bringing new products / services to market.

    Hope this helps,

    Alex
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    • Profile picture of the author bwh1
      Originally Posted by alexandersmith View Post

      Why don't your trial it out, try writing a fiction & non fiction book to start off with, and see how you do. You could also try trialing 4 books - 1 non fiction with your real name, 1 non fiction with a fake profile and 1 fiction with your real name and 1 fiction with a fake profile.

      Trial and error is often one of the best ways of working out what method is most suitable for bringing new products / services to market.

      Hope this helps,

      Alex
      Well thanks for the feedback but this look's a lot like a " throw spaghetti at the wall and look what sticks" strategy to me.

      I have limited resources so would like to avoid some trial and error - if possible.

      G.
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      • Profile picture of the author Martin Avis
        If you have limited resources, then Alex's suggestion of using a trial and error method makes the most sense.

        At least that way you would - hopefully - find what works for you. Note the 'for you' part of that statement because following what works for other people is often the quickest route to failure.

        If you pick one method, no matter how much research and due diligence you do, it may turn out to not suit your style and you could easily find yourself down several thousand dollars before you have even got started.

        Martin
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      • Profile picture of the author AdamJ85
        Having limited resources only makes it more important to test and see what works. Otherwise, you're putting your limited supply of eggs into one dangerously untested basket!

        Apologies to sound negative, but I just want to sound a note of caution: what makes you think this will be profitable?

        You've not published on Kindle before, it's very competitive and difficult to make significant amounts, you don't know what you're going to write about yet, you're committing a significant amount of money (to me at least, it's all relative of course) to not just one book but to a series...

        Can you really be confident that they'll sell? How do you know?

        Will the books be high quality? Are you sure when you're outsourcing them?

        Do you have the marketing skills (and budget) to promote them? What's your plan (you don't actually have to tell me, just be sure that you know!)

        Don't misunderstand me - you may know that these books will be high quality, have great fiction and non-fiction ideas, have a marketing plan ready to go and budget to fund it, and have enough money that losing 5k wouldn't be the end of the world to you...

        ...but if you don't then please tread very, very carefully.
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      • Profile picture of the author thefoxsay
        Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

        Well thanks for the feedback but this look's a lot like a " throw spaghetti at the wall and look what sticks" strategy to me.

        I have limited resources so would like to avoid some trial and error - if possible.

        G.
        In general to get a hit you must throw many pai's. In the business world, in science and other this is just the way to do it and hopefully one of the trials results in something that can be duplicated.
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  • Profile picture of the author bwh1
    I see guy's, make sense.

    So from this point of view, non fiction is actually better as we can research the Kindle marketplace first to see what sells and then go after those keywords with less competition just as in traditional IM.

    Doing this in fiction or romance is somehow impossible and a real "hit and miss" endevour.

    I think the only thing we can research in fiction-romance is to look at what buyers are purchasing the most and what they consumer the most to get a product tailored to their "likes" - I don't say needs as it's not a need to buy a book at Kindle in that genre.

    G.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sue Calhoun
      However - the vast majority of buyers are buying fiction. Yes it's supercompetitive, and you have to market right. Something like 75-80% of sales are fiction ebooks. Do you subscribe to the selfpublishingpodcast.com guys, they discuss all the time how their "spaghetti" approach is working for them. (and they do both) Also this pin page might be helpful:

      eBook & eReader Stats and Charts on Pinterest

      Most successful Kindle writers say you need more than 1 book, more than 2 even, and it looks like you're on top of that. Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    If am to pick one, i would go for the fiction.

    However, what really matters is the topic/niche/content of the book.

    Quite frankly, Kindle is a great way to make cool money and royalty if done correctly.

    Don't mess with the grammar or your pen name. As for the pen name, you should stick with just one which should be consolidated upon to stand out from the crowd.

    There are many books i pick and read just because i know the author is trusted with quality work without any recommendation.

    Another thing you can do to boost your sales are:

    Pick keywords relevant to your niche and optimize your kdl with it.
    Make trailer videos to promote it
    Refer one or two of your books at the end of each book.
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    • Profile picture of the author bwh1
      Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

      If am to pick one, i would go for the fiction.
      If I look at the opportunity yes, on the other hand you need a realy top quality marketing to get noticed as there are many publishing companies around with budgets to boost their book sales.

      Another thing you can do to boost your sales are:

      Pick keywords relevant to your niche and optimize your kdl with it.
      Well that's the point - what keywords you are talking about in respect to a fiction book? Are there people using the Amazon search engine for a specific content like "teenager romance on mars in the year 2200". Guess not.

      Make trailer videos to promote it
      That's actually a cool idea and could be used BEFORE the title is published, making people hot on the topic.

      Refer one or two of your books at the end of each book.
      This one is a must, as in every product you should promote your other products if those are related.

      Now you mentioned to NOT mess with the pen name - good point.

      I think in Romance, woman's sell better BUT imagine J.K Rawling was the pen name of a man .

      I'm a bit paranoid to think about faking all about the author as I hate to lie. I used that in the past for Squidoo lenses etc. for different niches but never felt cool about it.

      G.
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  • Profile picture of the author mialove
    With fiction you need to invest much more in to promotion (at-list at the beginning),then with non fiction.
    If you will make your pen name "popular" , in this case your fiction book has bigger potential in sells, much bigger...but , it's all trial and error, unfortunately, there is no other way around.

    Also, some books can make good sells, and some won't make anything.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    I strongly recommend you buy "Kindle Day Job Killer" by Martin Kerrigan,
    it contains all the basics and more to help you start your kindle business on
    a wet ground.

    You will also get to learn how to use the keywords to your advantage by obtaining the book.
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  • Profile picture of the author tma
    I will advise you do a thorough research and then give the book in chapters rather than as a whole project you pay less if you go this way.

    Allen
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    • Profile picture of the author John Krone
      Myself, I'll be publishing one soon myself-non fiction. A comment on here stated non-fiction is 75-80% of sales. I see Amazon kindle has more non-fiction books for sale. 1,500,000. So I'm not sure fiction does sell more. (no offense meant).

      I will use my real name. The advantage is trust. I'll facebook market my ebook, and run a WSO. In addition the blog, which will be a critical piece of the funnel.
      For ghost writer, I'd check out fiver too.
      jmho
      John
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    Originally Posted by bwh1 View Post

    I'm in the works to start finally my project to publish on Kindle.
    It would be a serious of books, some like 7 to 10.

    As I'm not English I would need to outsource all the writing. I have kontakt
    with a fellow Warrior which write books for 500 a piece, looking good so far.

    The goal is to make this a recurring long term income source as I'm
    not getting any retirement support.

    So my question is, would you go into fiction or non fiction and
    is it a good idea to create a fake profile - pen name for Kindle.

    I've heard all kind of stories about people with 15 titles in fiction not selling a piece, others in non-fiction going steady.

    Personally I'm non-fiction guy as I can relate more to it, on the other hand I know that IF your books get momentum, you sell way more in the fiction-romance niche.

    Last, would you recommend the Kindle Forum from Bryan to help me with those issues?

    I have a lot of courses incl. the good ones but anyhow, above questions are
    unanswered.

    Thanks
    Since you are outsourcing it is not a good idea to start with fiction. Fiction must be well-written. There are many writing techniques you must know. I used to be a literature writer when I was young (I'm from Brazil like you, but I live in Europe) and I tried to write fiction for Kindle now, with my English.

    I speak and write well, but it is not my first language... I asked for feedback at kboards, the best Kindle forum you can find especially for fiction authors, and many friends there told me that my English is not good enough and they didn't like my style... So, be careful with fiction. I prefer nonfiction now that I'm older and I care about other matters. It was a temptation to write fiction because fiction sells a lot more, but this is hard.

    Non-fiction books are easier for beginners, and you will be able to evaluate the work you will get. You won't be able to evaluate the quality of the work a writer may write for you if it will be a fiction book because you ignore many things about the English language.

    Bryan's methods in the Warrior Book Club and his forum are very good for beginners. The best part is that you are helped by the forum members.

    If you want to have advanced lessons about the Kindle marketplace you have to buy ebooks about this matter, or you have to constantly visit kboards. The authors there know everything about Kindle books and Amazon. They are not good marketers, though. Some of them are, but this is rare.

    The Kindle marketplace is very competitive. It's not easy to have a good ranking, and you are attacked by competitors with negative reviews. Before giving away your Kindle book in a free promotion, you should first of all get a few good reviews from friends and review exchanges.






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    • Profile picture of the author ChristinaT
      Please heed everyone's warning here and don't throw all of your hard earned money into a series without testing it first. With kindle, you will quickly learn that you need to experiment, experiment, experiment. I started with three books and one of my books became a #1 bestselling book on amazon so I've been heavily promoting that book and have invested my time and money into turning that book into a series with two additional spinoffs from that series. That wasn't my original plan. And please remember that you will need to budget money for marketing and promoting your books. Keyword selection isn't enough for them to get exposure on amazon. You can't just simply write the books, put them up on amazon and hope that people will find them. You have to promote. And that costs money. And again, you have to experiment, experiment, experiment.

      And you can use your real name or your pen name, it doesn't matter. Just use a different name for each type of genre/category. So if you're going to experiment with one fiction and one nonfiction, use two different names. It looks strange to a consumer when they go to your author page and see that you're writing smorgasbord of books all under a single name. You lose credibility.

      As for fiction or nonfiction, do you have an idea about what you'd like to write about? Have you done your research to determine what buyers are hungry for, what categories you can rank in, etc? Check out amazon's lists of top 100 in the categories that you're interested in. It helps to do your due diligence and check out the works of your competitors. I like to purchase and read the books of my competitors. This is especially important if you're writing fiction so that you can get a feel for the writing style. But I still do the same for nonfiction. I want to see what my competitor is doing so I can see how I can make my book(s) better. You can also gauge this by looking at customers' complaints.

      You're planning on spending a lot of money on outsourcing. Just make sure you've done sufficient research prior to making a hasty decision.

      Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author mialove
    In general to get a hit you must throw many pai's. In the business world, in science and other this is just the way to do it and hopefully one of the trials results in something that can be duplicated.
    100% agree on that.
    Everyone want to avoid trial and error, but it's not that simple.
    I am over 10 years in online marketing, and still...i have some project that i can spend
    20 000$ and never make it back.
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