Filed Under: Work at Home Jobs
Filed Under: Work at Home Jobs
By Angie Nelson
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Of all of the passive income avenues out there, this is one of my favorites. And it is easy and inexpensive to publish a book on Kindle.
Breaking Down the Barriers
Self-Publishing on Kindle is Free (or really cheap)
Unlike traditional publishing, getting a book on Kindle is cheap. It usually runs me about $15 to get a book ready. I write it then I hire people from Fiverr to proofread, create a cover and format the final draft. If you are a little more tech and graphic savvy, you may be able to get your work published free.
Kindle publishing is even more affordable that some of the avenues we bloggers previously used such as Clickbank and e-junkie. You do not have to pay Amazon upfront or on a monthly subscription. If your book is priced $2.99 to $9.99 they simply keep 30% of each sale, if your book is priced outside of this range they keep 70%.
Build Credibility and Gain New Followers
The benefits of Kindle publishing are many. Not only are you going to create instant credibility within your niche with self-publishing, you will also have the opportunity to reach more potential followers. As people discover and download your eBook on Amazon, you can make them a life-long customer. Remember to include links to your website, blog and social networks within your book.
Kindle Publishing is an Easy Passive Income Opportunity
I love publishing on Amazon because they do a lot of the work. Even during the months where I do not promote my books at all, I can usually count on receiving royalty checks regardless. It’s a superstore! I do not have to get people to my site to buy anymore. I don’t need to have a personal connection with a shopper to get a sale. This sales avenue requires far less work than many of us are used to.
This isn’t War and Peace
People are not downloading reference manuals on Kindle. At least I am not. Most Kindle shoppers want something short and sweet. If you are already blogging on a regular basis, I am confident that you can put together at least 50 pages.
Not Just for Kindle Owners
There is a common misconception that Kindle books are only available to Kindle owners. This is not true. You will not be leaving anyone out by publishing through this avenue. With Amazon’s Cloud Reader, almost anyone can enjoy your offering.
Launch Your Book with a Giveaway
An easy way to get your latest eBook off the ground is with a free giveaway. You can promote the giveaway on your own, reach out to those in your community or hire someone from Fiverr to market your promotion. This is a great way to gain publicity and possibly reviews. As people download your book it boosts your rank on Amazon making it even more visible within the site. You do need to enroll your book in the KDP Select program and there are a few drawbacks of course.
It can be a little scary watching hundreds, if not thousands, of copies of your eBook being downloaded for free. But remember, these are people you may not have ever reached on your own. You may be connecting with some long-term followers. You may also notice an upswing in returns immediately following your giveaway days. This is common. It totally stinks, but there are a lot of thieves out there. Don’t worry about them. That is their bad karma. But on the plus side, you may experience a good upswing in sales in the month following a giveaway.
Ignore the Haters
I think there is a lot of apprehension and fear of Kindle publishing because it is such a public platform. You are going to be reaching people who are outside of your community. They don’t “know” you. Amazon solicits reader reviews and it is a lot easier to bash on someone you don’t know. And some people out there will complain about anything. Sometimes about things that have nothing to do with your book, they just feel the need to randomly share their bad experiences with whatever you are talking about. It happens. But it’s worth it in the end!
Get Started
Your first step in self-publishing on Kindle is research. Start brainstorming topics. If you are currently a blogger, it may be easiest to start with a book related to your industry. Do a little keyword research.
Do a little market research. Take advantage of those KDP Select giveaways. Start reading books in your preferred category. And read the reviews. What do you like and dislike? What do the readers in that niche want?
Start writing. Write one page a day if that’s what it takes. That is equivalent to a blog post per day. You can make time for that.
Tell me about your journey to publish a book on Kindle? Have you started? Have you had success?
About Angie Nelson
Angie Nelson began working from home in 2007 when she figured out how to take her future into her own hands and escape the corporate cubicle farm. Angie’s goal is sharing her passion for home business, personal finance, telecommuting, and entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on Recruiter, FlexJobs and Business News Daily..
About Angie Nelson
Angie Nelson began working from home in 2007 when she figured out how to take her future into her own hands and escape the corporate cubicle farm. Angie’s goal is sharing her passion for home business, personal finance, telecommuting, and entrepreneurship, and her work has been featured on Recruiter, FlexJobs and Business News Daily.
Reader Interactions
Comments
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Thanks for the information! Like you said, just one page a day 🙂 I think the hardest part is actually getting started.
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Angie Nelson says Once you get the outline done Anna, it’s smooth sailing. 🙂
- Richie David says
Hey Angie,
You’ve really given out a wonderful insights to upcoming publishers.or anyone who wants to publish on kindle.
I totally agree with what you said here. Getting started is just the first step. Anyone wants to publish on Kindle should follow the tips here. Researching your niche and the topic you want to write about is the first and most important step. Don’t just go write a book and then you head over to kindle to publish it. No, it doesn’t work that way. You must first of all browse through the list of books in your category on kindle. Read book reviews just like Angie said, browse to see what people really want. When you figure this out, you can go and do a research on that and start writing a book on the topic. Just write a page a day just like Angie said. But if you hate writing or you are too busy to write, then you can outsource the job to a Ghost writer.
Remember that you have to give him or her your ideas that you want to be included in the book. And make sure your the Ghost writer you hire is the perfect one for it.
The book cover design, proof reading and every other thing can be done by outsourcing.
So get up and go do some researching on your first book.Thanks so much Angie.
You’re a Genius.- Angie Nelson says
Thanks for your insight, Richie!
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- tinarazzell says
18 months ago I wrote a Kindle book “just to see if I could”. It is 6,000 words long and sells for $2.99. Then I took a number of articles I had previously posted online and put them together in a second book. This book is over 20,000 words and is in paperback and Kindle. But Amazon didn’t like that the articles had been previously published online and questioned me as to whether or not they were my own work. They are, but Amazon don’t like the fact that some of the chapters are available for free online.
So I’ve spent the last two months writing another book, none of which will appear on the Internet, all chapters are unique to Amazon. This book is 30,000 words long. It took me a year of planning and putting off the writing, but once I started and did nothing else, it took 2 months. The book will be published by the end of March, 2013.
I’m not writing fiction and I’m not producing bestsellers. But I would say, so far the effort has been worth the reward. The scariest thing is that I have spent the last 2 months in something and I’ve no guarantee how well it will sell.
Formatting the books was not easy, but there are instructions you can find. Each time I formatted a book, it got easier.
I don’t want to put a link on someone else’s blog, but my name is Tina Razzell, go to Amazon and see what I have written.
- Angie Nelson says
The guidelines have changed over the past year. There was a time you could use PLR, previously published works and public domain information. That has changed as Amazon is trying to create a better user experience.
Follow through, Tina! You are so close. Get it published and start marketing. You’ll do great. 🙂
- tinarazzell says
I’m just waiting for the book cover to be finished and the book will be published.
- Angie Nelson says
Awesome! Best of luck.
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- Jill Dusza says
What does KDP mean? I’m new to kindle publishing. Thanks. =)
- Angie Nelson says
Hi, Jill. KDP stands for Kindle Direct Publishing, https://kdp.amazon.com.
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- Ed says
I’m writing a book and I do think that the traditional way of publishing may be the route I wish to go down, but I’m not sure yet until I’ve explored all the options. Thanks for bringing this one to light for me.
- Angie Nelson says
Best of luck, Ed!
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- kadebe71 says
I have a little over 10 books up on the Kindle now but only a few actually sell on a regular basis. I don’t make all that much and would love to make more but I haven’t really spent any time marketing either. I do enjoy it though and am presently brainstorming for new ideas to make one for this year since most of my books were published in 2011 and 2012. You have to keep up to date to keep bringing people back. I too write tutorials and not fiction although, I do have some of those in the works too. Can you tell us what marketing methods have worked the best for you?
- Angie Nelson says
1. I usually run one 3-day free giveaway when the ebook first launches. Only that one time though! I know some do it every few months and I think that gets people into the habit of waiting until the next time. Do it once in order to get some reviews and publicity and then leave it for paying customers only.
2. So far, I have only created short guides. The 2.99 price point has worked out really well for me. I haven’t done well when I tried to price them over that. Under $3 also opens up some further promotion opportunities as their are some sites out there that offer pub for “bargain books.”
3. I use HootSuite to schedule 3 or 4 tweets to be send throughout the month. I don’t have to worry about it and yet it stays in the public eye.
I haven’t done much more than that at this point other than always having a designated page for my relevant books on their related website. There are things like online book tours and author interview opportunities that you can do.
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- Faye says
I know that this is an old post, but I’m just finding it. This is great information! To me, writing an ebook has always seemed so overwhelming and intimidating, even though I consistently write 2-5 blog posts daily for myself and others. Love the advice of writing one page a day! Also, great idea about Fiverr marketing – I didn’t even think of that! How does that actually work?
- Angie Nelson says
I haven’t done any book promoting in awhile, but there used to be a lot of benefit to offering your eBook free for a limited time. And there were several sites that would share those free eBooks on their blogs and newsletters. At that time, there were a lot of Fiverr Sellers offering to submit free ebooks to those sites.
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- Christina Lawrence says
Any tips on writing under a pseudonym ?
- Angie Nelson says
Hi, Christina. I don’t have any personal experience or tips, but maybe Writing World can help http://www.writing-world.com/business/pseudonym.shtml.
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