RE: Kindle earnings - Who makes some decent earnings with kindle?
(02-16-2014 12:17 PM)rickdayle12 Wrote: Been pokin' around Kindle for a couple of years now. Only part time as I have full time J.O.B. for the time being.
Have been investigating various niches, and have so many "kindle programs" on my hard drive it's just silly.
The vast majority are junk, repeated crap without any knowledge of the actual Kindle platform. Most of them seem to be copies of previously published programs. Just to prove a point, I posted a WSO about kindle, and had a very specific error embedded in the PDF. Within 3 months, there were several other WSOs with much the same content as mine, and THE VERY SAME EMBEDDED ERROR. Some of them from very well respected Warriors. [sigh]
The big problem I see with Kindle is the arrival of the "IM Crowd". You know, the ones that want to make a zillion-billion dollars with no effort or thought. I've watched the "magic bullet" for Kindle move from PLR, to Recipes, to outsourcing "articles" to be combined into non-fiction books (and even outsourced chapters for fiction. (Who'da thunk would work? For the most part, it doesn't.) Article spinners used to create "unique content" that gets past the Amazon filters (Which are pure crap, for the most part.) It goes on and on. Very few of the Kindle programs out there have anything do with the reality of publishing on Kindle. By the way, I found out that telling the truth in a WSO doesn't get you any sales either. If you don't promote the quick and easy, bazillion dollars for no effort, you don't get many sales there. Frankly, if I had a lapse of conscience, I'd publish a new WSO promising the world (very long format sales page) and delivering a rehash of the crap I know doesn't work, just to send the true believers of the IM crowd off away from actually making any money on Kindle. Of course, I full well realize less than 10% of the WSOs ever do anything but take up drive space. You know, some days it's a b***** owning a functioning conscience.
Bottom line: I've got over a dozen titles, (mostly non-fiction published.) Each niche has it's own pseudonym. Some make reasonable money. Some were a waste of time (not counting my personal education as to what I need to do better next time.)
I'm not going to be replacing my current job income for at least another 6 months, unless I manage to have one of my fiction series go viral.
From my perspective, the keys to Kindle success are:
-- Write it yourself. Kindle isn't IM, it's the writer's world. You can't bundle a bunch of cheaply written articles and call them a book and expect it to make money.
-- Edit, wait awhile (like a month), then edit again. Have someone else edit if you have to.
-- If you can't spell, or don't know what words mean, have someone that was an English major review your book before you publish it. Buy a book on Homophones. I swear, if I see "breath" used when it should be "breathe" I'll probably have an aneurism or something. By the way, if you text extensively, you really probably don't remember how to spell any more.
-- Make sure the formatting is correct. I can't tell you how many books I've returned because they were nearly unreadable because the author didn't pay any attention to formatting. If you publish it and it doesn't look right, republish it. If you don't know how to format for Kindle, either learn, or find someone to format for you (same as editing).
-- Buy a Kindle, if you don't already have one. The apps (pc, mac, android, etc) don't show kindle books the same way a real Kindle does. They're pretty cheap, and quite handy once you get use to them. I have several, and find that they are pretty consistent when it comes to how they display the Kindle books. (Generation two Keyboard, , touch, paperwhite. I have a friend that has a Kindle Fire that reviews my books for formatting for me, even if she doesn't actually read them.)
-- Series' are king. Fiction and non-fiction. A series of related titles (related niches or sub niches) in non-fiction will help boost sales. A series in fiction will build readership and give you the opportunity to branch into related genres.
-- Build your brand (for each pseudonym). The only IM thing I really support or follow is building a list. Each of my pseudonyms has it's own list, but I'm not obnoxious about trying to get people into the list. Most of my list members come from a link at the back of my books, not from outside efforts or squeeze pages.
-- Pay attention to your reviews. If you get a bad one, figure out what the complaint was. Sometimes, it's just unmet expectation. (Remember, Kindle isn't IM, you can't hype something to the moon and not deliver.) I've had more negative reviews from freebies than regular sales. Seems a freebie should give you the world, even if a paid version doesn't. Anyway, RESPOND to the reviews. Don't get into a flaming war with them, but re-edit the work and release a new version, then respond with an appropriate comment that a new version correcting the problem is available. As an example, I had one review that bitched about poor spelling. I re-edited, found _two_ words that were misspelled, an a couple more words that were apparently above the reading level of the complainer. Corrected two words, reworded three sentences to be more easily understood. Republished as a new version, responded to the bad review with "re-edited to fix all errors" and the complainer retracted his previous review and posted a 4 star in it's place. Don't buy reviews, they are nearly always 5 star and real people tend to ignore most of the gushing 5-star reviews. By far, they read the negative ones first. Strangely, one of my best selling non-fiction books has a single 3-star review that essentially says "not my cup of tea, but if you want to learn about xxxxx, you may find this interesting" while another with several 5-star reviews gets nearly no sales (under 5 a month).
-- Nothing in Kindle is "fast" or "overnight." As mentioned in previous posts, it can take time for a sale to appear as income. The rule I've observed is 15 days after the end of the second month since the sale... Thus, a sale any time in January gets paid around 15 March. If you're focused in getting money fast, Kindle is NOT for you. Kindle is a long, slow build, but can be quite lucrative in the long term if you're willing to put in the work. As someone in a former lifetime in high-tech put it "duty now, for the future."
-- You need to promote your titles. Don't go overboard at first with web sites, social media and the lot. Get the series out there and available first. Then get up a basic wordpress site and ease into the social scene, and set up an autoresponder for an email list. Once these are up and ready, put links in your existing books (republish as an updated version) and any future titles from the same pseudonym.
-- Don't commit to a schedule unless you don't do anything but write full time. If you're planning to put out a short story a week, get a couple of months of titles published before you make a big deal about it. By then, you'll know if your series has legs, and if you can keep up the pace. If so, great. Unfortunately, there are tons of "series" out there that have only one or two titles before they peter out. Same for books that were promoted as a trilogy, but only the first book ever gets published.
-- writing is hard work, You can make a living at if you are halfway decent (and have a good editor). It's not a quick win, but a long term commitment.
-- Don't believe half of what you read about what people make. Yes,
there are some that make really good living on Kindle, but most authors
aren't. Yes, you can make enough money to quit your day job, but it's going to take some time to ramp up to that sort of level.
-RD
I think If you are reading much, this will also help. BTW this is why I will not publish in English, because I am not an native english speaker. And for this I will also not outsource to english Ghostwriters, because at minimal you should be able to control there work ;) Only my 2 Cents
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