I think it's less that beginners are not willing to invest - I think most beginners are genuinely poor, low-income, and have been told KDP is "easy money" and these people - if they have money, they're saving it to put gas in the car to get back to work. They have valid reasons that they cannot invest. "Can you afford NOT to though?" - When you have to choose between investing in KDP and making a house payment or buying groceries to feed your kids, you tell me what's more important.
One author in the UK who I have followed is a very successful self published author. He has said you must treat your self publishing as a business and be serious about it- if you don't, you're setting yourself up to fail. That means studying marketing strategy, learning about Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, Google Ads and how to structure them to be most effective etc - be willing to invest SOME money into a marketing plan, invest in a decent cover design for your books etc. He stresses the most crucial tool in a self published author's kit is getting a mailing list set up, with a website. "Put the effort in, and prepare yourself to succeed. Take yourself and your craft seriously." He said you have to put the effort into the 'business' side of your writing. I did a comparison between him and another author I follow, but both took very different routes. The traditional published author has a decent readership base and loads of books written over 15 years or so - but the self published one has already made a good £7 million or so from his writing in half the time. Being in the UK, I can take a look at his publishing company accounts so its easy to see how much money he makes in any given year and such. Its made my mind up - with the changing to publishing being what it is, and even more authors having to put the effort in with marketing etc even if you go the 'traditional' route.......its self publishing for me!! At least then I have a decent chance to earn more, and I'm willing to put serious effort in. Hopefully we can all quit the 9-5 one day 😁
I speak from experience. LOL I published 250 low content books in my first 90 days. Even though in 140 days I have profited a couple grand and I'm ready to focus on high content. Luckily, my low content can help pay for the high content process.
You're already failing by having it sit there. May as well publish it and either it continues to fail and you learn what worked so your next book can be better...or...maybe it does well. You just never know, but you have to try, or you'll always be left never knowing. And thats much worse.
Go for it. You can't lose. The book may fail but if you are wise you will learn from your mistakes and do better. It all boils down to a simple question: do you want to realize your dream or not? If you don't...I think you will never forgive yourself for stopping short. I was reading something a while back about a published writer who was invited to dinner by a couple he knew. As they ate, the husband was telling the writer that he, the husband had written several books, himself. The wife said nothing but by her mannerisms, the writer could tell that she was not impressed with her husband's statement. As it turned out, the husband had indeed written "several books"_ and all of them were sitting in the closet gathering dust. He never tried to publish any of them. If you don't try, you can stay in the land of daydreams. The Rocky Horror Picture Show says it best: "don't dream it, be it."
I think being in too many niches for one book, if you advertise - you will be collecting impressions (and thus paying!) for fans of those other niches, who might actually NOT be looking for the book. It's only worth paying for advertising when a reliable percentage of impressions become conversions. To me, this means trying to exclude EVERYONE from seeing the book, except for "The best potential customer", and that requires the right SEO.
Interesting 🌎 Greetings from Colombia. The Venezuelan immigrant writer 🇻🇪 I became a writer at age 61 in Bogotá, Colombia. It has been my way to overcome my reality as immigrant. It has been my way to protest elegantly and reach the World 🌍 The Venezuelan immigrant writer 🇻🇪
I expected this to be about keywords, title, and cover it was mostly about keywords and was accurate, had a few other tidbits but bottom line is: focus on making a good quality book. So I subscribed. Well done.
Hi Dane, Thanks for the video. After watching your video, It helps me to get ready for the worst. I am a beginner, I look forward to improve in later time so thank you again for all your information about avoiding mistakes.
At what point do you recommend authors to create the 2nd book after the first one. I’m about 3 wks after my first but haven’t recouped all my initial funds so I don’t know when to jumo in for the 2nd? Please advise
I love your videos but I don't really agree that going for 'generic' books instead of 'specialized' ones is always a bad idea. As a programming author, I have four books on Amazon, two generic (18 books in 1, 14 books in 1), and two specialized (ECMAScript, React). About 99% of my sales are from the two generic books. It is just that there aren't too many all-in-one books on programming, but many books on ECMAScript and React alone, which kind of drowns my books. Also, I think writers from non-native-English countries must work extra hard to gain credibility for their books. What do you think? For my first book, I hired many many writers but I have stopped doing that since then. I am publishing my 5th book (30+ books in 1) and I will try Booksprout for the first time. Wish me success.
Have you published any books or audiobooks yet? If so show all the checks you got from them and how much money you made. A lot of scammers on youtube right now are you one of them.
Hey Dane, I have been following u for a long time and I have four books published on amazon with zero results, I don't know how disheartened I should be but I actually am because I am even unable to make 100 bucks from amazon and its heartening, please help because there r so many scammers out there promising results but no results aint coming and feels like my hard work is drowned somewhere in the sea of books
What videos would you like to see from me next? Let me know below! 👇🏼
Fiction Publishing - correct e-book setup/format/typeset in InDesign.
Add to it - any overlapping skills in self-publishing Fiction vs Low Content.
Hi. Please, where's the link to the Facebook group? I'd really love to join 💯
good video: accurate, honest, well voiced. A+
How to... A+ Content. Thank you!
I think it's less that beginners are not willing to invest - I think most beginners are genuinely poor, low-income, and have been told KDP is "easy money" and these people - if they have money, they're saving it to put gas in the car to get back to work. They have valid reasons that they cannot invest. "Can you afford NOT to though?" - When you have to choose between investing in KDP and making a house payment or buying groceries to feed your kids, you tell me what's more important.
One author in the UK who I have followed is a very successful self published author. He has said you must treat your self publishing as a business and be serious about it- if you don't, you're setting yourself up to fail. That means studying marketing strategy, learning about Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, Google Ads and how to structure them to be most effective etc - be willing to invest SOME money into a marketing plan, invest in a decent cover design for your books etc. He stresses the most crucial tool in a self published author's kit is getting a mailing list set up, with a website. "Put the effort in, and prepare yourself to succeed. Take yourself and your craft seriously." He said you have to put the effort into the 'business' side of your writing.
I did a comparison between him and another author I follow, but both took very different routes. The traditional published author has a decent readership base and loads of books written over 15 years or so - but the self published one has already made a good £7 million or so from his writing in half the time. Being in the UK, I can take a look at his publishing company accounts so its easy to see how much money he makes in any given year and such. Its made my mind up - with the changing to publishing being what it is, and even more authors having to put the effort in with marketing etc even if you go the 'traditional' route.......its self publishing for me!! At least then I have a decent chance to earn more, and I'm willing to put serious effort in. Hopefully we can all quit the 9-5 one day
😁
Right! "You've got to spend some to make some." :)
@@bobpage6597
I speak from experience. LOL I published 250 low content books in my first 90 days. Even though in 140 days I have profited a couple grand and I'm ready to focus on high content. Luckily, my low content can help pay for the high content process.
Haha awesome
My biggest issue is launching the book! My first book has been ready for over a month and I’m yet to launch it due to fear of failure.
You're already failing by having it sit there. May as well publish it and either it continues to fail and you learn what worked so your next book can be better...or...maybe it does well. You just never know, but you have to try, or you'll always be left never knowing. And thats much worse.
Go for it. You can't lose. The book may fail but if you are wise you will learn from your mistakes and do better. It all boils down to a simple question: do you want to realize your dream or not? If you don't...I think you will never forgive yourself for stopping short.
I was reading something a while back about a published writer who was invited to dinner by a couple he knew. As they ate, the husband was telling the writer that he, the husband had written several books, himself. The wife said nothing but by her mannerisms, the writer could tell that she was not impressed with her husband's statement. As it turned out, the husband had indeed written "several books"_ and all of them were sitting in the closet gathering dust. He never tried to publish any of them. If you don't try, you can stay in the land of daydreams.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show says it best: "don't dream it, be it."
I think being in too many niches for one book, if you advertise - you will be collecting impressions (and thus paying!) for fans of those other niches, who might actually NOT be looking for the book. It's only worth paying for advertising when a reliable percentage of impressions become conversions. To me, this means trying to exclude EVERYONE from seeing the book, except for "The best potential customer", and that requires the right SEO.
Interesting 🌎 Greetings from Colombia. The Venezuelan immigrant writer 🇻🇪 I became a writer at age 61 in Bogotá, Colombia. It has been my way to overcome my reality as immigrant. It has been my way to protest elegantly and reach the World 🌍 The Venezuelan immigrant writer 🇻🇪
I expected this to be about keywords, title, and cover it was mostly about keywords and was accurate, had a few other tidbits but bottom line is: focus on making a good quality book.
So I subscribed. Well done.
Hi Dane, Thanks for the video. After watching your video, It helps me to get ready for the worst. I am a beginner, I look forward to improve in later time so thank you again for all your information about avoiding mistakes.
Thanks Dane 🌎 very nice video.
At what point do you recommend authors to create the 2nd book after the first one. I’m about 3 wks after my first but haven’t recouped all my initial funds so I don’t know when to jumo in for the 2nd? Please advise
I love your videos but I don't really agree that going for 'generic' books instead of 'specialized' ones is always a bad idea. As a programming author, I have four books on Amazon, two generic (18 books in 1, 14 books in 1), and two specialized (ECMAScript, React). About 99% of my sales are from the two generic books. It is just that there aren't too many all-in-one books on programming, but many books on ECMAScript and React alone, which kind of drowns my books. Also, I think writers from non-native-English countries must work extra hard to gain credibility for their books. What do you think? For my first book, I hired many many writers but I have stopped doing that since then. I am publishing my 5th book (30+ books in 1) and I will try Booksprout for the first time. Wish me success.
Thanks for the tips Dane! You teach us so much! 👍🏼
When I started out I made about £3000 in my first three months but also spent £3000 in ads. ☹️
love the video thanks Dane!
Thank you Dane, this is so helpful!
Loving your channel. Thanks for sharing so much! Can you talk about children’s books? Low word count - are these considered low
Content?
Kids books are kind of a happy medium between long form and DIY in my opinion
unfortunately I have 7 months with 160 books with very low sales ... need help
Thanks Dane 🌎
Your videos have really help me I already have ghost writer my book should be ready few days and this first one please adds me to Facebook
Have you published any books or audiobooks yet? If so show all the checks you got from them and how much money you made. A lot of scammers on youtube right now are you one of them.
Thank you for this!
No problem :)
Hey Dane, I have been following u for a long time and I have four books published on amazon with zero results, I don't know how disheartened I should be but I actually am because I am even unable to make 100 bucks from amazon and its heartening, please help because there r so many scammers out there promising results but no results aint coming and feels like my hard work is drowned somewhere in the sea of books
Send me the link to your books and I will tell you my opinion. I'm good at figuring out these things.
Ads please! Especially at launch. Thank you!
What is a low content book?
A journal or a word search book would be considered no/low content
I guess I am going to fail because I got not have $500 for ads