Questions for Copywriters and Marketers.

Hello Everyone,

I have read this forum for many years and finally thought I'd join the conversation. Here is a bit about myself:

• I have sold 8 digits doing e-commerce on eBay and Amazon over the years.
• I suffer from depression.

I'm not sure if it's just because of my health condition that I find e-commerce of physical goods to be a total drain of energy. The picking, packing, shipping, and customer service tends to take quite a bit out of you. In order to manage my depression over the years I would wind up a website to sell products but eventually I didn't have the strength to keep up with it. Managing the site's as they grew bigger just required so much attention that I felt I was totally attached at the hip to it. I had a couple of 20k per day sale days on eBay and hit 250k in a month a few times in sales. It might sound great but it took a pile of energy to do that.


Perhaps I think the grass is greener here on the other side of the fence selling digital products and that may be just my fantasy. Perhaps there is just as much customer interaction and effort that goes into digital sales as does physical goods. So I'm here to ask you guys with all your experience to possibly share with me. I'm open to do the same with you if you have any e-commerce questions.


Before I ask these questions I would like to share with you my goal. I would like to make 2-5k per month within 6-8 months of work selling Kindle eBooks. I don't think I can compile an "Act Now" or "But Wait There's More" type of product by myself.


I know this isn't terribly original but my thoughts were to hire ghostwriters and publish Kindle ebooks acting like a contractor. I was hoping over 2 years time to be able to publish around 100-200 of these books and to build relationships with some writers to make this happen. Here are my questions:


1. Is it against Amazon Terms to have multiple publisher accounts? I suppose you could do like 5-10 cookbooks under 1 name but for smaller niches maybe like 1-3 e-books would seem reasonable under 1 pen name.



2. If all of the content was well written would I just lose credibility if I were all over the map with different topics? Is it possible to manage this all under 1 account and 1 pen name?


3. If I must manage under different accounts do I have to do crazy things like VPN connections to the my other publisher accounts? What do you recommend for managing a kindle library of 100 titles on a variety of topics in regards to pen names?



4. What would be a reasonable budget per book from let's say 22-40 pages? If you would kindly quote a range that would be great. Also do the copywriters charge for images separate if there are any illustrations that need to be included? Is it possible to have a library of 100 books with little or no illustration at all?



5. If all your writings are original from ghostwriters and you pass CopyScape what are the chances that Amazon will flag your book? Is there anything in their criteria like the range of topics you are covering, the voice and tone of the writing, that would tip them off and have you being labeled as a marketer?


6. Do you think that you can build a library of 100 books for between 5-10k to achieve a minimum income of 2k monthly? What would you recommend in order to achieve this?


7. From your experience do you believe I should limit my ghostwriting efforts to non-fiction or fiction exclusively? Should I concentrate on one or would a mixture be acceptable?



My biggest concern is as the library grows that I would have problems publishing additional titles and passing Amazon's review process. I suppose my angle would be to create good relationships with good ghostwriters/copywriters and selecting topics and outlines. I was planning on using PLR to get general ideas on outlines and editing them. After the eBook was returned from the ghostwriter/copywriter I would add/edit them as I saw fit.


I suppose I'd really be like acting like a contractor in order to achieve all of this. Since you guys here are Warrior Forum are in the heat of the battle I was hoping for your thoughts and suggestions. I read about squeeze pages, funnels, email marketing, maintaining a blog etc and don't think I have it in my to create such things. I would like my Kindle eBooks to bring some value to the reader and was wondering if you would share your honest thoughts about the approach I would like to take.


I suppose I'm going to get alot of 'it's all in my ebook' responses but perhaps someone could answer these questions more specifically. My first book I would like to write would be an info book on suppliers for eBay and Amazon where I have the most knowledge and I believe would be useful to others. I suppose I could do a small series on this myself but I think I would run out of material on that eventually and would like to employ other writers to put together content for me.


Thank you all for your input and time in helping me to address these questions. My depression is cyclical and managing my energy can be difficult. It affects my relationships and my life overall but I have learned to live with this crutch and e-commerce and online selling has helped me since I don't think I could deal with a boss and a 9-5 job. I really feel stuck with e-commerce and tied to it and feel that digital goods if properly done might offer some sort of residual income for a good initial effort. But if I put together a 'Best Crockpot Recipes' book that is truly original I don't want to have to wrestle with if Amazon will take it or not. Amazon steals already 15% or more of my total energy and God knows I would not be happy if I employed a real ghostwriter and put all this work into 1 title only to get smacked down by the Amazon Gods. They once put a hold on 45k from me and almost put me in my grave so I prefer less stress if I can achieve it.


Thank you again for reading this post and I really look forward to your honest commenting and what you have to say. You may be brutally honest and if you do offer quality ghostwriting services I would like to start building some relationships and I ask that you send me a PM.


Thanks everyone.


Sincerely,


TdJames