I’ve written 4 Kindle books in the past few months, 3 of which have been in the past month or so. They’re a lot of fun, and I made a couple hundred dollars from them last month. I’m now ready to kick it up a notch.
The plan is to write one Kindle book a week for the next 6 weeks. 6 books in 6 weeks. I’m really excited!
What will I be writing about? Well, they’re pretty much going to cover my main interests of rock climbing, languages, and Internet business. The plan is to write one climbing book (in addition to my first one), one book about a certain aspect of learning Chinese (my second language book, after my Spanish book), and then 4 books about various aspects of digital publishing and Internet business (which will join 101 Blogging Tips), the first of which will be about managing multiple blogs. As for what the other ones will be about, you’ll just have to wait and see.
That’s the tentative plan and it is obiously subject to change. It might happen that I don’t feel like writing one or more of the ones I currently have in mind, but I’m not too worried about that. I have a list of about 30 things that I want to write about and a couple more that are mostly done that I could complete in a few hours. Who knows, I might come out with more than 6…
So yeah, it’s going to be a fun 6 weeks. Let me know if you have any questions that you’d like me to answer about my plans or about Kindle publishing in general.
While we’re at it, what are YOUR goals for the next 6 weeks?
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I had a similar thought just recently that was much like this Tristan.
I was thinking about taking a short hiatus to really knock down some projects – especially one that I’ve neglected for years that has great domain age and backlinks.
What I’m thinking is maybe 6 new article packs for my PLR site – this may also include 6 ebooks for each of the subjects. Lots of writing but I’m up to the challenge. Finals are going on next week so this may pose as a challenge but bring it!
Murray, that sounds like a great idea. And yeah, it sounds like both of our goals involve lots of writing but hey, that’s what we do, right? Writing’s fun!
How do you market your PLR stuff? Via Murlu? SEO (via your PLR blog?)? Something else?
I’m holding out to read a sequel to the zombie kid’s book!
How long/short are your books? I think about writing something myself, but I wonder about the guidelines for length and price I should use. If I write 20 pages, is that worth $3 or less?
A bit related, O’Reilly’s has released a free eBook about publishing with Apple’s iBook Author that may be of interest to some: http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025597.do
I’m aiming for around 10,000 words per book, and I’m planning on charging $2.99 for each one. $2.99 is the lowest price you can charge and still get 70% royalties on each sale. Below that you get 35%. I don’t want to charge more than $2.99 because I think it’s a fair price both for me as the author and for the people buying it. (I do have two ebooks in mind that I’d probably ask $4.99 for, but I don’t think either one will be included in the 6-in-6-weeks lineup.)
The climbing one will have fewer words but a lot more photos. The language one will likely have fewer words, but it will be pretty specialized information.
I think it depends a lot on subject matter and what your goals are for your book. My zombie book was just for fun and is a super short children’s book, so I felt uncomfortable charging more than 99 cents. And I wanted to get it in as many people’s hands as possible. But for most of us who aren’t bestselling authors already, you’re not going to make very much money on 99 cent ebooks. And as I just alluded to, I think that if information is harder to come by, is intrinsically more valuable, or if you have some clout in your niche, you can charge more for it.
Oh, and a new children’s zombie book is indeed in the works. It’ll be called My Little Zombie. Stay tuned.
Hey Tristan,
I recently started getting your RSS and I’m diggin how you’re able to crank out the ebooks. I wrote my first and it took me forever (5 months). I just published it as a pdf but want to learn how to put it on kindle and others. Do you have any resources you can point out to help me learn the process? I’ve Google it but the info is all over the place and not always current.
- Manny
When it comes to Kindle book formatting, this is a good place to start: http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf
It’s a PDF ebook of Amazon’s official publishing guidelines.
Thanks!
Sounds really interesting…Exited to see what you come up with!
PS LOVE your Zombie Book!
Thanks Grace! I’m glad you liked the zombie book :)
Hi Tristan,
That’s really impressive. I’m looking forward to learn more about the publishing process on amazon. But first, how long does it take for your book to be available in the store from the time you publish it?
Not very long at all. It usually takes around 6 hours, but can take up to 12. For the non-American Kindle stores, it can take up to 24 hours.
I would be interested in the ebooks on rock climbing and Internet business. I find rock climbing a challenge but enjoyable at the same time. I have been trying to make a go in the internet business world withoug a lot of success. But I keep working at it. Maybe your ebook can help me.
I already have a Kindle book about rock climbing and it’s here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007G2VSBK
6 kindle books in 6 weeks? wow, you’re a machine working, Tristan
It’s amazing how much you can get done when you just sit down and write instead of worrying about traffic, social media, and all that jazz.
Just. Wow. I couldn’t fill six 10,000 word books with gibberish, let alone good content that someone would buy!
Good luck, and I’m looking forward to getting inspired!
Thanks Kat! I’m a little bit behind schedule right now but hopefully I’ll finish all 6 by the end of the 6th week.
how did u publish the books? im a writer myself and im almost 12. i want to publish one of my recent works. i need to know how u published the books. thanks!
Check out Amazon’s Kindle publishing guidelines: http://kindlegen.s3.amazonaws.com/AmazonKindlePublishingGuidelines.pdf
I you can achieve this goal… I will buy you a beer :) You can pay for my airfare though! Nah, in all seriousness… congratulations on making yourself accountable and I hope that you get there… I will meditate for you and send you some positive vibes!
Sounds good :D Thanks!
Wow. Right now you’re probably the most productive person I know :)
I am still not ready to publish my first Kindle eBook, but I’m writing and I hope that I’ll be ready in about a week. I am having a hard time finishing it, as I want it to be the best I can possibly do.
When you’re writing that many books, how much time do you spend on other things, like research (and commenting on other blogs, do social media etc..)? I usually don’t have many extra hours a day for writing, but I guess it’s all about how you prioritize your tasks. And to me, starting my own business has been a real eye-opener, because now I need to focus on the money as well :)
I don’t spend much time doing research. For most of the things I write about, it’s all based on my own experience. The content comes straight from my head.
I spend no time commenting on other blogs. I spend very little time on social media. I write blog posts and write ebooks. That’s pretty much it. Most of my time is spent writing ebooks.
I’ll start promoting The Backlight a bit more once I have a couple more Kindle books to sell here, but my ebooks are already selling quite well at the current level of blog traffic that I have.
HI Tristan, congrats on your Kindling!! I actually wrote on under a pen name last month. I sold a few copies… not enough to throw a party and rent a hall for ((yet)).. sold about 6 at the higher end. $8.97. It’s a ‘self help’ sort of topic and it seems to have decent demand.
I am currently working on another… and I’ll probably keep writing as I enjoy it (even if I’m not the worlds best author). I find it nice in the way you can get everything off your chest about a topic and organize it so it flows.
How are you marketing your books Tristan? Would you be willing to share some advice… please? :-) I think marketing plays a big part in sales even though to date I have done nothing.
good luck with your hefty goal. I am sure you will crush it!!
Jayne
Jayne, have you considered lowering the price and seeing what happens? You might sell enough at $2.99 that you’re actually making more money than you are now at $8.97. When you can buy the Kindle versions of New York Times bestsellers for $9 or less, it can be hard for people to justify buying something from a relatively unknown author.
As far as marketing my ebooks goes, I do a couple things. My blogs are my big marketing channels. I have blogs that relate to each of my ebooks, and the blogs send eyeballs to
I also have the Kindle books enrolled in KDP Select, which means that I can promote the ebooks for free from time to time. There are a bunch of websites that highlight the free Kindle books (my own site, fkb.me, being one of them).
And that’s pretty much it. Blogs and Amazon.
I am writing an ebook now (I’ve written a self-help paperback that is also in Kindle version). The blogging experts say that if you don’t have a big blog following yet (I don’t), you need to give your ebook away. I understand that, but my ebook isn’t going to be short. It’s a book I think could actually sell. My question is, should I make it free for a limited time? Should I sell it on Amazon, but give it free to subscribers? Can I even do that? Thanks for any thoughts.
Melanie, I don’t think you need to give your book away. You can definitely have a small blog and still charge for your book.
Do you plan on enrolling your ebook in Amazon’s KDP Select program? This means that the book is exclusive to Amazon (you can’t sell it anywhere else), but it also means that you can give it away for free for up to 5 days in a 90-day period. I would recommend it, because you can get a lot of exposure for your book that way. It’s a great way to get the word out and get some reviews.
If it is not enrolled in KDP Select then yes, you can give it away on your blog but sell it on Amazon. You wouldn’t be able to give it away for free on Amazon, though. And I’ve heard that if Amazon finds out that you’re giving it away for free somewhere other than Amazon, they lower the price of the Kindle book to $0. I’m not sure exactly how that works or how common it is, but it’s something you should look into.
But yeah, there’s no reason to give away your book for free just because the “blogging experts” (and how many of them have actually built a successful blog about something other than blogging?) say your blog has to be big first. In fact, I think the opposite is often true. If you’re advertising/selling your product on your blog, blogging suddenly becomes a lot more fun because you’re actually making money with your blog.
Tristan, I really appreciate your comments. I have a book in KDP now. I’m still not sure how I’m going to go about it, but you’ve given me something to think about. I might sell the book and give away a related PDF. We’ll see. Thanks again.
Hi Tristan,
Those are some really fantastic goals! I have some questions for you.
The first question is if we can take a book off the KDP Select after the 90 days or does Amazon hold the rights to your book forever? I am working on some novels and I like the idea of being able to offer them for free to gain some exposure but I also like the freedom of going another route later if I choose.
My second question is how long is a short story considered? I’m planning on publishing some short stories to get them out there before I publish a full-blown novel. Also on a similar note, how do the pages in Word compare to Kindle pages?
Thank you so much!
Stacy
Sorry it’s taken me so long to get to your comment, Stacy.
Yes, you can pull the book from KDP Select after 90 days. You can also re-enlist your book for another 90-day term at anytime.
As for the length of a short story, it really just depends. I’ve seen some Kindle books that were as short as 800 words. As long as you say in the product description on Amazon that it’s a short story of X,XXX words (so that people don’t think they’re buying or downloading a full blown novel), the length really doesn’t matter. There is no minimum length limit.
How do Kindle pages compare to Word pages? It depends on too many factors (Word page size, fonts, margins and Kindle font size, etc.) to be able to say. But a 10,000-word Word document will be about 35-40 Kindle pages.
Tristan,
You really got my brain clicking away on this concept.
I have ideas for eBooks and I even have a survey going right now to see what kind of responses I get about the ebook I want to get out first. I forgot about the opportunity to place it on Amazon as a Kindle book. I was looking over at e-Junkie to be able to sell my ebooks. The benefit there is that I can have affiliates but the exposure is not so great. On Amazon the exposure would be way better. Can you have affiliates there? Or can people sell your books?
Do you have any experience from a seller’s point of view about ejunkie?
Thanks!
~Allie
You can have affiliates for your Kindle book, too, though the percentages they get are really low.
I currently use e-Junkie for some of my ebooks that just wouldn’t work in the Kindle format. e-Junkie is great but like you said, you’ll get essentially no extra exposure by selling with the. If you want to sell a higher-priced ebook, use e-Junkie. If you want to sell more lower-priced ebooks, use Amazon.
Thanks for your advice. Have a great week.
Hey Tristan,
You’ve inspired me to get cracking on my book writing. I have several “on the go” with no end in sight. Now, with your timeframe goals in mind, I’m going to launch into them with more gusto.
Well done.
Geoff
Do it! Let me know if you have any questions.
Hi Tristan,
Can’t imagine how you can complete an entire ebook in just a week as it took me 3 months to finish mine! I’m ready to sell it in Amazon so I’m lurking to find out the best way how. Anyway, good luck with your ebook ventures. My Little Zombie sounds like a must-read for my baby boy who enjoys everything scary.
My ebooks generally aren’t very long. About 10,000 words.
If you need help with formatting your book for Kindle, this free ebook by Amazon is great: http://amzn.to/L9TWhY
I recently started getting your RSS and I’m diggin how you’re able to crank out the ebooks. I wrote my first and it took me forever (5 months). I just published it as a pdf but want to learn how to put it on kindle and others. Do you have any resources you can point out to help me learn the process? I’ve Google it but the info is all over the place and not always current.
Mike, this free ebook (written by Amazon) is a great tutorial on how to format your book for the Kindle: http://amzn.to/L9TWhY
You can read it online using Amazon’s Cloud Reader (http://read.amazon.com) if you don’t have a Kindle or device with a Kindle app.
Wow you’re genius! I can’t even finish mine within a month, I need to get a little more inspiration on my ebook. I just can’t seem to finish it though, but as soon as I am done with this I’ll try to sell it on Amazon.
Whoa, that’s pretty ambitious; how many words?
A couple of hundred bucks? Sounds like I better check this out; I can always use some beer money……:).
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