What hidden traps are there in Kindle publishing for passive income?

Two important ideas come to mind, both in regards to my own experience inside a company that does this as well as based on our clients' experience.

Not understanding you need a marketing strategy and it's not just about selling books. Unless you make it really big, the income you'll have from publishing alone, even with a dozen of books under your name, it's not going to be enough.
You need to bring leads to a list, customers to another list and monetize those lists with a good plan.

Quality is very, very, very important. Everything from cover design, impeccable proofreading, great formatting, even book description on the page, everything needs to look good, read nicely.

Kindle publishing is great, and it can be one of the more passive business models once you've put in the initial sacrifice but here's my response to a similar thread:

This probably isn't the answer you want to hear but...

It usually takes a lot of investment (work or money) to see substantial results, like anything else.

Don't get me wrong, some people see good results from the start but most successful Kindle publishers had to put in a LOT of effort (or money) to get where they are today - the "passive" part only happens after the initial effort.

I'm not saying this to discourage you; on the contrary, I think Kindle publishing is fantastic.

But most people underestimate the kind of sacrifice it takes to build a real business with it.

Just giving you a heads-up.



Here's my take; it's easier to focus on creating multiples books in ONE market/niche.

And one of the best ways to do that is focus on creating fiction.

Non-fiction can be great, but you can't create unlimited books in one category like you could with fiction (where the only limit is your imagination).

So by all means, do non-fiction but also build a fiction business under a single pen name, serving a single market.

That's my biased opinion and advice.



Here's my response on a similar thread, where someone asked about specific returns on investment and effort:

Be careful with this kind of thinking.

It's practically impossible to track this kind of return because of the fact that businesses just don't scale that way (including Kindle).

Let me give you a hypothetical example:

You're promoting a Weight Loss book (we'll use a large and broad market) on Pinterest, as you very well know that the site has a primarily female demographic (who buy weight loss products even more than men).

You know your book is high quality, it has an eye-catching cover, and the description is irresistible enough to get anyone to "look inside" your book.

After putting in 2 hours of work a day for a month, royalties from your book increase from $300/month to $500/month.

You do the math; 2 hours per day by a month of work is 60 hours.

Yet you only made an extra $200... or $3.33 for every hour you put in.

Let's assume you keep going for another month, and this time your book earns you $850.

Month 3 you earn $1500.

Month 4 you earn $2500.

And so forth.

At this point, you don't even need to put in 2 hours of work a day to maintain those earnings.

Why does that happen?

Well, growth and exposure does not happen in a linear way, it occurs geometrically (exponentially).

Once your book started getting that initial exposure and extra sales, Amazon started showcasing your book more to relevant customers.

And because your book was in a competitive market (Weight Loss), the hardest part was standing out in the first place.

When those extra sales started coming in, and you got more positive reviews, that allowed your book to get exposure in a large market where the earning potential is huge, hence you're now making $2500/month from your book as a top seller.

If you based whether or not it's worth your time promoting your book on your first month, you would have never continued and gotten your book the exposure it needed.

^^^

That's a bit of an extreme example but it's how growing a business on Kindle works (and most other businesses).



Regards,
Daniel

P.S. In summary, Kindle publishing is great but you still need to put in a lot of time/effort/money to see results. (This will depend on whether or not you outsource, and if you do it correctly - most people don't.)

There are no businesses out there that will give you ABSOLUTE freedom over your time forever.

You always have to put a certain amount of effort for it to work. Even if you have to work 5-6 hours per week, this is not ABSOLUTE FREEDOM.

Kindle publishing is the fastest and easiest way to get started online by far. This is how I started, and this is how hundreds of people in my program started as well.

It works.

It works but you WILL have to put effort into it and you WILL have to invest some time into it. Even if you outsource everything, you will still need to put a few hours per month in your business.

effort and time - what most people will shy away

The biggest traps are niche selection and finding reviews

If you get your reviews from the wrong place, your whole Kindle account might be in jeopardy.

Real talk.

Amazon isn't dumb.

Focus on getting organic reviews.

The words "passive income". You still have to work to sell the books -- and then stay ahead of the competition.

The best way to build passive income is by building multiple streams of income. This way even if one stream doesn't work you still have other streams to keep on generating you cash flow.

Here's a suggestion that can build you multiple streams of income from one source...EMAIL LIST

Instead of just publishing on Kindle and only earning a few dollars for each book that you publish and having no way to communicate with customers. You can set up a one page website(OPT-IN PAGE) and offer a sample of your book(s) for free in return for an email address. This way those people can try out your book, and purchase your full book (put a link at the end of the book). Then you have a way to communicate with them to send them offers to buy your other books and/or anything you want to send them

Depending on what type of book you decide to publish, you can make an online course with audio and videos and sell for much higher than you would on Amazon. Best part is that you can keep 100% profit. You can even outsource the whole project if you want using freelancing websites like upwork, guru, fivver, etc. You can even start your own internet business doing this and become an internet millionaire. It's called DIGITAL PUBLISHING and it's great especially with Video (most people find it easier to learn from and they sell for higher price).
For example; Let's say your Written/PDF is $7, Audio is $30, Video is $47. But when you make it a full course you have multiple options together and the total price now becomes $84, which can be the course price.

If you go to online college or edx.org you can see how people do this. This has been what makes people the most money over the long term that can be easily made when you break it down into an outline.

I hope this helps.

Goodluck