Selling Kindle books on Amazon

10 years ago

Hi Oatslimes

There are many people doing well with Kindle books. You need to get shoulder to shoulder with the author community by joining kindle forums and facebook groups. You will find that your experience is quite normal - lots of free downloads and then nothing in terms of sales. There are ways to launch books on Kindle that will improve your sales.

I recommend 2 sources of training.

The Warrior Book Club

and

Geoff Shaw's Kindling Training

Good Luck with your books

KenJ

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artflair 10 years ago

What I'd recommend you is to get some more good reviews, that should help you out with the ratings. Asking for reviews is against Amazon Terms and Conditions but the reality is that almost everyone is doing it and/or exchanging reviews and/or buying them on Fiverr.
A great strategy is to create a book series and price the first one $0.99 with occasional Free Promotions with the rest of the books in the series priced at $2.99-$4.99.
If people will like your book, they will be keen to buy the rest of the titles in the series.
If that could apply to you then great!
Good luck
Art
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- JohnMcCabe 10 years ago
  
  There was a time when pricing something at $0.99 would generate lots of sales simply because you could go for the impulse buy. Since then, $0.99 has become something of a red flag, a warning of junk to come, simply because so many people counted on dumping any old POS on the Kindle marketplace and pricing it under a buck to get rich.
  
  The novelty has worn off. Now you need a good reason to price at $0.99.
  
  The good news is that you have such a reason - you need reviews. Try adding your 'reason why' to your description.
  
  When I initially published the book in my sig, I priced it at 99 cents, and sold a few. After some tweaks, I raised the price to $1.99 and sold more. Tried $2.99 and sales actually went down a bit. I'm guessing that there were too many books at that price point. Instead of going back to $1.99, I went up to $3.99, where it is now. Sales are steady but not spectacular, and I make more per sale than I did at $1.99.
  
  If your title, cover and description are good, experiment with pricing slightly above the median price point in your category. You might be pleasantly surprised. Besides, if things are as bad as you say, what do you have to lose?
  
  [Note to OP: You may want to review your opening post. First you claim 900 downloads, then say you're stuck at 666.]
  
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travlinguy

10 years ago

Originally Posted by oatslimes

I am curious if anyone would like to chat about selling Kindle e-books on Amazon. I put a few e-books up and was very excited to see almost 900 downloads within a few days (running a free promotion, giving the e-books away). It was a roller coaster excitement that now has crashed. I thought sales would start overnight but I didn't even get one sale. I lowered the ebooks to 99 cents.
What is extremely strange is that the downloads just stopped at "666".
I don't know if that's some sort of bad luck omen, it's been continuously growing but now my downloads are stopped at 666, no one will buy the book. However in new age philosophy, 6's aren't bad signs at all but mean balance your interests between above and the earth.
I lowered the prices to 99 cents, rather than $2.99 and feel the trick to really get sales is to find a lot of reviewers. Maybe no one is buying the book, if there aren't any reviews. Anyone will download something free but when it comes to buying something, maybe the reviews are the key. I had one grump just write some horrendously rude review.
My book was on the 2nd page, and now 3rd page (which is very good because there are 500 books on this topic) with the keywords for the book. No one's buying I have no idea why. I am trying to find lots of reviewers to post reviews on the book. This is all on Amazon Kindle.

Also there's no one even to call if you have questions, they might call you but there's no way to call them back if you miss the message, it's like a main phone number. The only way is to message them online. It's frustrating and impersonal.
My goal is to sell them for at least $2.99 because they take too much commission if you sell it for under $3. I have the price at 99 cents and if I get more sales and more reviews, I'm going to change the price back to $2.99

Any success stories, failures or thoughts appreciated! Is anyone working on Kindle books?

Thanks.

First you say you were excited to see "almost 900 downloads within a few days" and then you say the downloads stopped at bad omen 666. What am I missing?

Thanks
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oatslimes 10 years ago

These are some great tips thank you!
That is excellent advice on the pricing, thanks so much.
I'm going to change the prices to 2.99 or 3.99 plus then you get more commission, the 70% not the 30%. People will stop for a snack of potato chips on a road trip for $3.99 or a latte, I don't think people are looking for ultra bargains.

I meant that I have 2 books that had 900 downloads together. It was really my mistake to get so emotionally involved too fast during this free promotion. I thought if 900 people downloaded the book, I can count on about 50 sales per month when it goes on for sale. Will see how it goes!
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oatslimes

10 years ago

There are Kindle marketers on fiverr.com
Does anyone know any freelancers who can be hired to promote Kindle books? I also have them listed on my own website as digital downloads.
It seems I'm at a dead end, don't know how to market the books.
It is too bad people don't just find the books on Amazon through their search terms.

Thanks

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clever7

10 years ago

I abandoned the Kindle marketplace when my first Kindle ebook was bombarded by unfair negative reviews based on the reviewers’ imagination. Amazon doesn’t protect its authors from competitors or people bribed by their competitors and anonymous aggressors.

They prefer to force all authors to get positive reviews, and cover the negative ones. Amazon makes more money this way. All authors have to beg their friends to buy their books and write positive reviews, when they get negative ones…

Of course, not all books are attacked. Only the books that are really good and can beat many others.

You should write short and simple books to avoid this problem.

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oniram

10 years ago

I did the free KDP promotion thing every time I published a new book with few sales following. Then to my surprise I started to see some "random" sales over time. I tried pricing my book at .99, 1.99, 3.50 and 4.00 the 3.50 and 4.00 sold the best. All are short stories so I wonder why folks would pay 3.50 for it.

Thanks

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LilBlackDress

10 years ago

Amazon is awesome. But you really can't expect to just put your Kindle book on there and expect it to do well on its own. You need to get the ball rolling. The better the book does the greater its visibility on Amazon. Amazon starts to promote it more.

First of all have more than one book in a series or on a related topic, each one promotes the next.

Take advantage of KDP Select to promote your book and list it on free sites to increase visibility.

Most important dont get caught up in 666 downloads and think it has some meaning. It just means you have 666 downloads. It is not preventing anyone from downloading your book!

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dadhere

10 years ago

Just using KDP is not the only marketing you should be doing. The Facebook author sites can also help your book(s) achieve a better ranking and using good tags as well. I am making on of my books in a 12 part series free by posting it on Smashwords. This way I can have it free permanently (if I want to, I can switch it back to paid later) and use it as a lead to the other books in the series. I keep a tally of monthly sales and see if giving up a few sales for one book is balanced by the extra sales I get in the rest of the series.

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flyingdutch

10 years ago

I launched my 1st book about end of March. Got 1400 downloads in a 4 day free period. Followed by 45 sales. No idea if that was a lucky shot. Just launched the 2nd one. Will keep you posted. Prepare for your next 10 titles and things will go better...

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Black Prince 10 years ago

I make low four figures each month with Amazon. That's with eight books. I have a friend who is making more than I do with just two books. A few thoughts:

1. The only way you will make a lot of money from a single title is if it captures your target readership's imagination. Quite honestly, that is like catching lightning in a bottle. Do that and they will leave glowing feedback and spread the gospel at their social networks.

2. It obviously helps if you have an inbuilt audience. If you have a blog with several hundred+ visitors per day, then it becomes much easier to make strong residual sales. You just advertise the book front and centre.

3. Don't be too precious about your books. Pick a niche quickly, write the book fast, get it on the shelf, repeat. The more books you publish, the more money you will make. You never know which ones will take off or flop. Just get them out there at an industrial rate.

4. I know others will disagree with me, but I don't spend too much time on promotion. A couple of weeks of spending an hour or two a day posting at relevant forums, submitting the books to reading sites, that sort of thing. It's not hard to give your book an initial boost ... whether it takes or not is in the lap of the gods.

Give it a go. Kindle is one of the few bona fide residual income methods out there. Good luck!
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- oatslimes 10 years ago
  
  This is wonderful, thanks.
  What topic or niche did you write your books? If you'd like to share.
  Mine are food recipes & health.
  
  Thanks
  
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rr1958

10 years ago

Originally Posted by flyingdutch

I launched my 1st book about end of March. Got 1400 downloads in a 4 day free period. Followed by 45 sales. No idea if that was a lucky shot. Just launched the 2nd one. Will keep you posted. Prepare for your next 10 titles and things will go better...

That's pretty good Flyingdutch. Looks like you have a good formula for your ebooks.

Thanks

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fergab

10 years ago

in my opinion, you have to offer free download to the right crowd of people who are crazy about every new book to pickup and read, i mean there are some facebook groups and many blogs out there, they will be more willing to send an email to their list about your new book for free downloading they will download it, read it and if there was good contents in your book they will leave positive reviews on your book so more positive reviews more people will like it and you will make more sales

but first you have to content the blog owners and facebook groups and tell them in an impressing way about your book and tell them if your subscribers on list will like that then please say them to leave comments

Thanks

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fergab

10 years ago

i think the books that are written on "romance" that will get more sales, try to write very very interesting so romantic love story and a nice cover on it i hope that will sale like crazy

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HelpingYouBeAnExpert

10 years ago

I just launched my first fiction book which is in a series once I get half a dozen done then marketing and I'll see how it goes. My main goal is to build a following and I don't expect money to come from the books but other products I can offer after the book. At least that is my general thinking. For now I'm focused on developing the universe and characters in the stories.

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nandhugp

10 years ago

Can we sell ebooks on this section?

Thanks
1 reply

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JohnMcCabe 10 years ago

Originally Posted by nandhugp

Can we sell ebooks on this section?

No. If you want to sell ebooks on the WF, your choices are Warrior Special Offers and Warrior Classifieds. This section is for discussion. Read the stickies at the top of the forum.
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- Jason Stewart 10 years ago
  
  I've written a few kindle books. A few were complete flops and one took off pretty well. Kindle books usually sell very well when they first catch on (After your first KDP promotion), then tend to taper off over time. My successful book still nets me around $60/mo.
  
  My advice, is make sure that it's good, original content, not too short, and take advantage of the KDP promotions. If you have good content, people will post positive reviews, and you'll get more sales.
  
  Good luck!
  
  Thanks
  
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  Beat the competition with better long tail keywords:
  
  http://keywordstreamer.com
  
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Sgt Kraut

10 years ago

.......................

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JohnMcCabe

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Sgt Kraut

My advice: translate a well-performing Kindle ebook from English to other languages. A lot of authors seem to forget other markets while these are growing and growing and growing...

Of course, that's assuming you have the relevant rights and permissions, right?

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Jason Stewart

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Sgt Kraut

My advice: translate a well-performing Kindle ebook from English to other languages. A lot of authors seem to forget other markets while these are growing and growing and growing...

Interesting idea! Do you have a group of regular people who translate your books, or do you find someone from fiverr? It's going to be very hard to tell if they do a good job, especially if you don't understand the target language.

Thanks

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Sgt Kraut

10 years ago

Oh you got me wrong. I obviously mean YOUR OWN book and not the book of someone else which would be stealing.

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Sgt Kraut

10 years ago

.......................

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oatslimes

10 years ago

Interesting about the prices. Thanks for posting all your advice on this!!

I know someone who writes ebooks on health, and they are very good, probably one of the best sources of advice in the world, he sells them for $9 to $10 plus.

Thanks

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Selling Kindle books on Amazon

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