With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you can self-publish your book on Amazon and start making money in as little as 24 hours. Sounds a whole lot better than waiting months or even years to find an agent, get a book deal, and go through all the rigmarole of working with a publisher, right? And thatâs not even the best partâ¦
In short: Kindle publishing makes it so that anyone self-publish a book and sell it on Amazon. The only problem? If you want your book to be a hit, if you want it to make real money, you canât simply âpublish and pray.â You need a strategy. Thatâs why I created this comprehensive, step-by-step guide. Iâll show you how to validate your book idea before you begin writing, how to set set up a pre-launch sequence, how to properly price your book, how to promote it, and more. Letâs jump in⦠Table of Contents
How to Validate Your Book Idea (Before Youâve Written a Single Word)If you want your powerful words to be read by millions, you need to make sure thereâs an existing audience of millions waiting to read them. No one wants to waste their time writing a book nobody will want to read. Thatâs why itâs important to validate your book idea by sizing up the competition. You do that by answering three questions:
You can find the answers to these questions in three steps: Step #1: Find Your Category On AmazonFirst, youâll need to find a suitable category for your book idea on Amazon. Hereâs how: Go to amazon.com and navigate to Departments > Kindle E-Readers & Books > Kindle Books. Next, click Best Sellers & More in the menu. Scroll down until you see the menu below and click Kindle Best Sellers. Select Kindle eBooks from the menu. Pick a category and subcategory that fit closest to your book idea. For my book, I chose the category Self-Help and the subcategory Personal Transformation. Once youâve picked a subcategory, itâs time to investigate your potential competitors. Step #2: Check Your Categoryâs Top 20 Books For Similar TopicsThe premise for my book was self-reinvention. I didnât need to find a book with the exact word âreinventionâ in the title, but I did need to find books with similar themes like behavior change, personality change, and life change. I found some books that were similar to mine (#3 and #5 below explicitly state theyâre about change, while #4 is a book about improving your life in general). At the end of this step, youâve answered the first question. You know whether there are similar books to your idea. If you canât find any similar books, you need to go back to the beginning. Go through your list of book ideas and try again. However, if there are similar books to yours, you can proceed to the next step. It will answer the final two questions:
Step #3: Check The Best Seller Rank Of The Top Books In Your CategoryIf you want to know whether you can compete in a category and whether there are enough buyers, you need to know how well the books in your category sell. You wonât find any actual sales numbers on Amazon, but through their âBest Sellerâ rank you can get a decent estimate. You can find a bookâs Best Seller rank by scrolling down its product page. The rank will be listed under Product Details. The higher the rank (with #1 being the highest), the more copies it sells â but also, the harder it will be to beat. You have to look for categories where the average best seller rank is neither too low nor too high. Hereâs how it generally breaks down:
As you can see, the sweet spot is in the middle. You donât want a category thatâs too competitive, and you donât want a category with low sales numbers. Aim for categories where you think you can crack the top three books. If you follow the strategies laid out in this post, you should be able to reach the top three in categories with medium competition. And if you can get your book featured in the top three when you launch, the chances your book will be featured highly in the Hot New Releases list will skyrocket. If you appear high enough in that list, your book will get lots of exposure. Amazon will feature your book in a highlighted section above other books that are similar to yours, like this: People browse for books by categories, but they tend to skim through the category pages. The higher you are in a category, the higher the chance that someone will click through to buy your book. Thatâs why picking the right category is crucial. If you donât think you can crack the top three books in your initial category, see if you can feature your book in an alternative category where the competition is less heavy.
Final Note: Even if you think you have a great book idea, itâs important to validate before getting to work. Donât skip this step.
How to Package Your Book Like a BestsellerYou can write the most amazing book on earth, but if you donât package it in an appealing way, few people will read it. In this section, weâll cover four important steps to packaging your book:
Step #1: Create a Memorable, Descriptive Book TitleAccording to bestselling author Tucker Max:
What you title your book is the most important book marketing decision youâll make, period.â
Or, to put it another way:
A good title wonât make your book do well. But a bad title will almost certainly prevent it from doing well.
In short, itâs imperative you nail your title. And to do that, youâll need to spend considerable time brainstorming the two components of your title: the main title and the subtitle. Your main title should be punchy and memorable. It should hint at the bookâs topic, and it should resonate with your audience. Your subtitle is a bit different. You want it to clarify how your book will help your reader. So, ask yourself:
For my book, I brainstormed 50 different main titles and 25 subtitles. They werenât all fantastic, but thatâs the point. When brainstorming titles, write down whatever comes to mind. Then review, crossing out the options you donât like (or donât like as well). Your favorites will remain. To give you a glimpse of some ideas I had, here were some contenders for my main title:
And these were some favorites for my subtitle:
The final title became: You 2.0: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You â Master the Art of Personal Transformation.
Note: If you already have an email list, I suggest you poll your readers on which are their favorite titles and subtitles. If you donât have an email list, you can use a polling site like Pickfu.
Step #2: Get a Cover That Grabs AttentionI cannot stress the importance of this step enough. You need a good cover for your book, or it wonât sell. The cover gives potential buyers their first impression of your book. If it looks cheap and sloppy, theyâll assume itâs not worth their money. A good book cover has, at the very least, the following characteristics:
Now, if youâre tempted to design your own cover, I have one word of advice: Donât. Unless youâre a professional cover designer, youâre better off handing this responsibility over to someone else. This is not something you want to pinch pennies on. Personally, I hired Happy Self Publishing to create my cover. Their name kept coming up in writing communities, so I gave them a try. I was not disappointed. They struck a good balance of professionalism, quality, and price.
Editorâs Note: Author and illustrator Jaime Buckley is another great option. If youâre on a super-tight budget, you might also try Fiverr. Just be sure to check the designersâ samples. You want your book to look professional, not amateurish.
When I hired Happy Self Publishing, they sent me a questionnaire to gather my book information (title, subtitle, description, etc.) and my preferences for the cover design (preferred colors, fonts, etc.): I filled out the questionnaire, gave the designer my directions, and submitted samples of covers I liked. Within days, he came back with several mock-ups. We went through several rounds where I told him what I liked and disliked, and heâd send me new mock-ups based on my (and my audienceâs) feedback. Eventually, we settled on my final cover. Hereâs how my cover evolved over time: Step #3: Make Your Book Look Pretty InsideIn addition to your cover, you also need to make the inside of your book look good. If all the text is mushed together, itâs full of syntax errors, or itâs written in a terrible font, people wonât want to read your book. To prevent this, you need to format your book â specifically, you need to format and save your book in a Kindle-friendly file-type like .mobi or .epub. Now, you can do this yourself, or you can hire a professional to do it for you. I formatted my book myself using an easy-to-use piece of software called Vellum, which uses a simple WYSIWYG (âWhat You See Is What You Getâ) editor. You just copy and paste your chapters into it, change the formatting as desired, and export. The only problem? Vellum is only available on Mac. If youâre on a PC, you have alternative options like Reedsy and Book Design Templates. A do-it-yourself approach will save you some money, but if youâre not very tech-savvy and want to make sure the book is formatted properly, hire someone. Happy Self Publishing, the company I used for my cover, also provides an affordable formatting service, or you can find hundreds of freelancers on Upwork who can do it for you. When the formatting is done, donât forget to proofread the book with a Kindle or on the Kindle app. Make sure there are no formatting bugs that need to be fixed. Step #4: Write a Description That Sells Your Book for YouAfter your title and cover have lured someone to your Amazon sales page, the next thing theyâll do is read your book description. Readers will want to know exactly what your book is about and how itâll benefit them. If your description is flabby and packed with weak writing, it wonât be compelling enough for readers to click the buy button. Now, the key thing to understand when writing your book description is that you shouldnât treat it like a summary of your book; rather, you should treat it like a sales letter. Your description shouldnât inform potential buyers of the contents of your book â it should persuade them to buy. Hereâs mine, for example: See how I focus the description on benefits to the reader? See how I use the bullet points to foster curiosity rather than give away the main points of the book? These are basic sales letter techniques you should use in your description. Imagine if the second bullet had read, âGoal setting doesnât work because [reason].â Giving the reason away would defeat the need for the reader to purchase the book. Instead, I trigger curiosity by leaving it open. If you want to learn more about writing persuasive descriptions, the following resources helped me a lot while writing mine:
Before Your Book Launch: How to Create a Rock-Solid PlanYour launch makes or breaks your book. So, you shouldnât wait until the week of your launch before you start planning it. Instead, you want to have a plan in place and have your marketing materials prepared weeks before you hit publish. Here are a few things you should do to prepare for the launch of your book. Step #1: Create Your âStreet Teamâ (Launch Minus 6+ Weeks)Before your launch, you should assemble a so-called âstreet teamâ to help write reviews for your book and promote it during launch week. I reached out to people in my network â fellow authors and bloggers Iâd met over the years since I started my blog â and asked them to join. If you donât have a well-established network, you can leverage your email list, like Kevin Kruse (a New York Times bestselling author) explains in this video: When you reach out to people in your network, explain whatâs expected of them. Ensure they understand what it means to be a member of your street team:
For the number of reviews you want, double that number of people on your street team, because chances are only half of them will actually review your book. At minimum, aim for 25 reviews. This means having 50 people on your launch team. Step #2: Start Teasing Your Book to Your List (Launch Minus 6+ Weeks)Once youâve written your book and you can see your launch on the horizon, you want to gently tease your subscribers so they know itâs coming. You need to build anticipation. Up to this point, I had been keeping my list engaged by sending Monday Motivation emails every week, as well as an update every time I published a new blog post. As I was preparing for launch, I added teasers at the end of my emails, like this:
Example:
P.S. Iâm finished with my new book, You 2.0.: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You. It details everything Iâve learned in the process of transforming my life from broke, addicted, and depressed to finding my passion, tripling my income, and succeeding. Iâm really excited about it. Stay tuned. You donât have to sell it hard at this point. Just make them aware the book is coming. Step #3: Map Out Your Launch Plan and Prepare Promotional Materials (Launch Minus 6+ Weeks)You should never be winging it when you launch a book. If youâre smart, youâll plan every single step youâll take leading up to the launch, as well as the days and weeks afterward. You need to create a schedule so you know exactly which promotion happens when, and what actions you should take each day. (Iâll share my own promotion timeline in the next section, which you can emulate.) Once you have planned everything, the next step is to prepare everything. In the weeks leading up to my launch, I prepared:
For the promotional articles, I also prepared a few new incentives geared toward promoting the book: When you donât prepare for your launch beforehand, you will feel frazzled and frustrated throughout the launch. Youâll be scrambling to promote the book instead of having a strategy that makes you feel confident the book will sell. Plan ahead, and youâll launch with a bang. Book Launch: Step-by-Step Guide (with Examples)Now we get to the good stuff. You may think your launch happens when you publish your book on Amazon and put it up for sale. And youâre not wrong. Technically, that is when you officially launch your book. But the launch process is a bit more involved than just clicking a publish button, and it starts much earlier than your official launch. It starts with your first big promotion. Thatâs when you start selling your book. Below, youâll find the timeline I used when launching my book. Feel free to copy it, tweak it, and use it as your own. Step #1: Send âFree Sampleâ Emails (Launch Minus 4 Weeks)Four weeks ahead of your official launch, you want to send your subscribers free samples. Send them one free sample each week. This will give them a taste of whatâs inside your book. I sent my own subscribers the introduction to my book, Chapter One, and Chapter Two. Of course, you donât have to use your first chapters. You can choose to share any chapter you wish. Share the ones you think will make your readers hungry for more.
Hereâs an example of one of my âFree Sampleâ emails:
Hey friend, The launch date for my new book, You 2.0: Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, is just around the corner. I put my heart and soul into writing this book and I wanted to share some of it with you today because Iâm confident reading some of it will inspire you to want to read the whole thing to transform your life. As follows is the introduction to the book: [Book Intro Goes Here] In the next week or so, Iâll share even more sections of the book. Why? Because my primary goal is to get you to read the book and use it to change your life. That matters to me more than money. Keep an eye on your inbox ? Step #2: Publish Your Book on Kindle Direct Publishing [And Set Your Price] (Launch Minus 1 Week)You should never wait until your official launch date to publish your book on Amazon. You should publish it one week in advance. This way, you can ask your street team to write early reviews. These early reviews are important â youâll need to have at least 10 reviews if you want to use book promotion sites during launch week. (And you do, as they can give you a huge surge in early sales. Weâll discuss them later.) To publish your book on Amazon, you need to create an account on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Then follow these steps to publish your book: #1. GO TO âCREATE A NEW TITLEâ AND CLICK â+ KINDLE EBOOKâ#2. ENTER BOOK INFORMATION (LANGUAGE, TITLE, SUBTITLE, ETC.)#3. ENTER YOUR BOOK DESCRIPTIONNote: You can use HTML tags to change the way the content appears on your book page. #4. CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORDSAmazon allows you to use up to seven keywords to help readers find your books. You want to match your keywords with the terms readers will typically type into the search box. To find good keywords, you can:
#5. CHOOSE YOUR CATEGORIESInitially, youâre only allowed to choose two category/subcategory combinations from the list Amazon provides. Strangely, their list doesnât include all their categories. Youâll find a lot of the more niche categories are missing. (Youâll have a hard time trying to crack the top three in most of the broader categories.) For now though, just pick two categories/subcategories that your book fits into: After you publish your book, browse books that are similar to yours and see which categories they are in. Then contact Amazon and request to have your book added to those categories. In fact, if youâre smart, you can follow this process to be added to TEN categories, rather than just two. Hereâs a video from Kindlepreneurâs Dave Chesson that explains how to approach this: #6. UPLOAD YOUR COVER AND MANUSCRIPT FILES#7. ENTER PRICING INFORMATIONHow should you price your book? Before we get into that, you need to understand Amazonâs pricing and royalty model:
Now, you might think that pricing your book somewhere between $2.99 and $9.99 is the obvious way to go, as that will get you the most royalties. But to start, I priced my book at $0.99. I suggest you do the same. Hereâs why: The point of this isnât to make a lot of money early, but to get a lot of sales early. Amazon doesnât look at the price of your book to determine how well itâs selling. It looks at the number of copies sold. If you can sell a ton of 99-cent copies in the beginning, youâll benefit from some algorithmic momentum even after you raise the price. Plus, when you price the book at $0.99, you can use promotional sites to get your book in front of massive audiences during launch. (You can also give your subscribers an incentive to purchase early â before you raise the price). #8. SCROLL DOWN AND CLICK PUBLISH YOUR KINDLE EBOOKOnce youâve clicked to publish your book, it will appear on Amazon in 24 to 48 hours. Step #3: Ask Your Street Team for Reviews (Launch Minus 6 Days)When youâre self-publishing books on Amazon, whether theyâre written by you or a trusted ghostwriter, those first few days are critical. If you donât have anybody buying your book or leaving reviews as soon as you publish, the chances of it taking off are slim to none. This is where your street team comes into play. The moment your book goes live, you should send an email to your street team asking them to leave their reviews. And this is important: You should ask them to download the book from Amazon first, and then write their reviews. If they donât do it in this order, their reviews wonât be verified. They will still show up, but Amazon wonât give them as much weight. If youâd rather not ask them to pay $0.99 in order to leave a review, you can enroll in âKDP Selectâ and run a free promotion for 72 hours. That way, they can âpurchaseâ the book for free, and Amazon should still mark their reviews as verified. Step #4: Schedule Promotions (Launch Minus 5 Days)I mentioned book promotion sites earlier. So what are they, exactly? Basically, theyâre sites that promote books while theyâre free or priced at $0.99. These sites have massive lists of subscribers who love reading books, and theyâll all receive an email that links to your book. These readers can give you a gigantic boost in early sales. Here are the sites I used myself, along with the cost to use each:
I found these sites from a list compiled by Dave Chesson at Kindlepreneur. Now, considering youâll only make $0.35 per sale on a $0.99 book, you wonât make much profit from the use of these promotional sites. You might even lose some money. So why use them at all? Because you want to create a track record of sales success. Amazon will promote your book for you if it sees you have sales of your own. When authors make money, Amazon makes money, but like any good business, it wonât recommend products without profit potential. You donât have to use five services like I did. But use at least three. Step #5: Launch Your Book With a Bang (7-Day Plan)Alright, this is the moment youâve been waiting for. Itâs time to officially launch your book to the public. During launch week, you should promote your book hard. Hopefully, youâve done the work to prepare yourself so youâre not overwhelmed. You should promote your book by:
Hereâs how I scheduled these activities during launch week: Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Here are some examples of each email in my sales sequence:
Example #1 â Announcement Email:
Do you wish life came with a âdo overâ button? We all make mistakes. Time can pass quickly and we can come to a point where we ask ourselves, âHow the hell did I end up here?â If youâve ever felt this way, my new book, You 2.0 â Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, might provide the answers youâve been looking for. And itâs only 99 cents, a special price Iâm revealing to subscribers only for the next 5 days. Iâm setting the price so low because I want you to read the book. At this point, I care about getting the book in as many hands as possible over making money. Click here to learn more about the book. Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #2 â Soft-Sell Email:
Hey friend, For the past few weeks, Iâve told you about my new book, You 2.0 â Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You, which is available for 99 cents for the next few days. (To those who have bought already, thank you SO MUCH â the book is now #1 in its category!) The book tells the story of how I transformed my life and how you can too. It doesnât tell theories, it shows what Iâve actually done. See, before I reached my dream of becoming an author, my life was headed in the wrong direction. I was addicted to drugs and alcohol, working a dead-end job, and had no hope in sight. Then, I decided I didnât want to live my life that way and went through a ton of trial and error to become who I am today. Iâve more than doubled my income, gotten rid of bad habits, and have done many of the things I used to only dream of doing. In the book, youâll learn:
I try my best to share the message without the typical theme of most self-help books that are often judgmental and critical. See, I donât think youâre âtoo lazy to succeedâ or âmediocre.â Life sucks sometimes, and weâre all doing what we can to cope with it. I wrote this book to share ideas to inspire you to change, not to shove inspiration down your throat. So, Iâm inviting you to check out the book at the price of 99 cents because I care about the message and want to spread it far and wide. Click here to learn more about the book. Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #3 â Hard-Sell Email:
Hey friend, For the past few days Iâve been telling you about my new book, You 2.0 â Stop Feeling Stuck, Reinvent Yourself, and Become a Brand New You. Today, I wanted to share a few reasons why Iâm promoting the book and why I think you should invest in yourself by purchasing it. I think you should invest in the book because:
Click here to learn more about the book. Thatâs it! Talk soon, Ayodeji
Example #4 â Price Change Email:
Hey friend, Todayâs the last day you can get my new book, You 2.0, for the low price of 99 cents. After that, the price goes up to $2.99 and itâll only go higher from there. Why the low price and continued promotion? To get the message out there. Iâm guessing youâre a part of this community because youâre looking for a change in your life and if Iâm able to help you do that, itâs worth all the effort I put into writing the book. Click here to learn more about the book. Until next time, Ayodeji After Kindle Publishing Your Book: Keep the Sales Going and the Royalties Coming InTo make money writing, your book canât be a flash in the pan. You have to continue promoting the book to keep the sales rolling in. Like I mentioned earlier, you want to give the book a good start with a boost of early sales to benefit from Amazonâs algorithms. But you should keep your momentum going longer than the first week. During the weeks following the launch, you should continue engaging your list and keep spreading the message about your book to new readers. Here are a few things you can do: Step #1: Raise Your Price Once Per Week (and Let Your Subscribers Know)As mentioned earlier, I set the price for my book at $0.99 for the first week. If I kept sales going at this price, my royalties would continue to stay low. So, after the first week, I raised the price to $2.99, then to $3.99, and finally to $4.99. Every time I was about to raise the price, I sent my subscribers a price change email. This not only reminded casual readers to buy the book, but gave them an incentive to do so. If they didnât get in on the low price that day, theyâd miss out forever, and nobody likes missing out on a good deal. Step #2: Keep Publishing Posts to Get People on Your ListAfter publishing your book, you should continue publishing articles with links back to your sign-up form. Every new subscriber is a new potential buyer. Set up a welcoming autoresponder sequence that gives subscribers your incentive (and then pitch your book to them). You can use the same (or a similar) sales sequence that you used for your launch. I wrote a total of 30 posts for 30 days on Medium to promote the book, and this added 150 more sales during the first month of my launch. Step #3: Create An Amazon Ad Campaign for Sales on AutoPilotAmazon Marketing Services provides a âpay per clickâ advertising program for authors. I highly recommend you use it. Hereâs how you can create your own ads: Sign up for AMS through your Kindle dashboard by clicking Ad Campaigns in the top menu. Click new campaign: Next, choose Sponsored Product Ads. Select the book you wish to advertise. (If youâve only published one book, youâll only have one option.) Set your campaign name, budget, and select Manual Targeting. Initially, $3â$5 per day is a good budget because you can get useful data without breaking the bank. Less than $3 wonât give you enough data, and more than $5 can cause you to lose money if youâre not careful. Scroll down to the Add Keywords section and click Add Your Own Keywords. Next, find relevant keywords. Youâll need a lot more keywords for your ad campaign than you did earlier when you published your book. But you can use similar techniques to find them:
Set the bid price for your keywords: A bid price is the largest amount youâre willing to spend if someone clicks on your ad. I added 1,000 keywords â the maximum amount allowed per ad â and set the bid at 10 cents. I didnât want to spend too much money until I knew the type of results Iâd get. If the ads worked well, I planned on increasing both my daily budget and keyword bids. Once youâve set your bid price, youâre ready to enter your adâs marketing message: Finally, itâs time to preview your ad. If you like what you see, click Submit Campaign for Review. After 24â48 hours, your ad will be live (if itâs approved, of course). Step #4: Boost Your Winning Ads and Drop Your LosersAfter publishing your ad, let it run for two weeks. Then itâs time to analyze the data. Hereâs a screenshot of my ad dashboard: The key metrics you want to look at are:
Important note: You must keep your royalty rate in mind when factoring ACOS and ad spend. For Kindle books, you pay 30% in royalties, which means only 70% of every dollar you make lands in your pocket. That means if your ACOS is 70%, your ad is breaking even.
You can click into the campaign itself to see these same metrics for individual keywords. Use those metrics to adjust your campaign. For instance, when you see a specific keyword is costing you more than it earns, you can pause that keyword. Once you see how your keywords are performing, you can expand your campaign reach in the following ways:
Common Questions (Not Covered Elsewhere)Alright, weâve covered a lot here. And yet, thereâs much more we could discuss. Letâs try to go over a few common questions some of you may still have: Do I Need an Established Audience Before I Can Self-Publish on Amazon?Not at all. I only had 250 subscribers when I launched my first book. And even though I took a relatively passive role in promoting the book â I did a few promotions during launch to give me an early bump and then mostly counted on Amazonâs algorithm to drive sales â it earned its first $1,000 within five months. Thatâs not a result worth bragging about, but it was enough to inspire me to write a second book and do much better. So, for my second book, I was much more strategic, grew my audience larger, and promoted the book a lot more. And this time around, I got to $1,000 within the first month. Even better: The book went on to make over $10K in its first year, which was a big improvement from the first book, which made $2K in that same time span. The lesson? You can make money writing even if you have a tiny list, and even if you take a somewhat passive role in promotion. But that said⦠What Can I do to Grow My Audience Before I Dive Into Kindle Publishing?Hereâs what I did to grow my audience larger for my second book: Step #1: Create an Alluring Incentive For People to JoinPeople rarely part with their email addresses for nothing in return, so you need to offer them an incentive to join your email list. To be honest, I cheated a bit here, because I offered something that I already had available. I offered my first book, The Destiny Formula. Ideally, you want to offer an incentive thatâs a perfect complement to the book youâre writing. For example, if you were writing a book about the Paleo diet, you might offer one of these incentives:
Step #2: Set Up a Landing Page for Collecting Email AddressesIf you want to build your email list, you need two things: an email marketing platform to store your list and a landing page where people can sign up to your list. Now, you have a number of choices when it comes to email marketing platforms, but these are three popular ones: Personally, I opted for ConvertKit because they built it specifically for professional bloggers. It comes with easy segmentation features that let you promote your book in a more targeted way. I highly recommend it, but any of these platforms will work. Once youâve set up your email marketing platform, you can create a landing page to capture peopleâs email addresses. I used Leadpages to do so, which makes it simple to create landing pages. It comes with ready-made templates that you can modify with its drag-and-drop builder. You can choose one of their templates and customize it to your wishes. Hereâs a screenshot of the landing page I created: Once you have everything in place, all you need to do is send traffic to your landing page. Step #3: Drive Traffic to Your Landing PageMy personal goal was to hit 3,000 subscribers before I published my book. My main strategy for reaching that number was publishing articles on Medium, each with a link back to my landing page. Every article I published on Medium would include this offer at the end: But I didnât stop there. I also guest posted on Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Addicted2Success, Thought Catalog, The Pursuit, and more. While I got most of my traffic from Medium, publishing on these sites still grew my subscriber base by a significant chunk. Between publishing on Medium and guest posting on these sites, I reached my goal of 3,000 subscribers within six months. You donât need to hit that same number of subscribers, but I do recommend you build your list to at least 1,000 before launching your book. Itâll make things a lot easier.
Editorâs Note: For more tips on building your email list, check out 9 Irresistible Incentives Thatâll Grow Your Email List Like Crazy and How to Run a Simple Contest and Add 500 New Subscribers to Your List.
How Can I Come Up With Ideas For My Own Book?One of the worst mistakes you can make when self-publishing is picking a topic you know little about. If you donât have a concrete idea in mind yet, donât fret. Hereâs an exercise to help you generate ideas. Grab a pen and paper and answer the following questions:
Once you complete your inventory, review it to look for patterns. Maybe youâre a great communicator. Maybe you have excellent financial habits. Or maybe you have a knack for motivating others. The traits, knowledge, and skills you possess can be translated into topics for books. Review the list and use your answers to come up with a few book ideas. Are You Ready to Dive Into Kindle Direct Publishing?Iâm working on my next book right now. With an even larger audience than I had when I launched my last book, my goal is to sell at least 10,000 copies of my third book within the first year. How about you? You now know how to validate your book ideas, package your book, create a pre-launch sequence, launch your book, and promote it. You now know what to do and when to do it. In short: You now have a proven blueprint you can follow for writing a bestselling book. So, there are no more excuses. Itâs time for you to join the ranks of bestselling authors. Itâs time for you to make some real, tangible income as an author. Itâs time for you to stop dreaming and start doing. Are you ready?
About the Author: Ayodeji is an author, writing coach, and the Digital Marketing director at MLT Group, a Minneapolis SEO company.
The post Kindle Direct Publishing: How to Make Real Money on Amazon appeared first on Smart Blogger. from https://smartblogger.com/kindle-publishing/
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AuthorHello everyone I am Julia Dillon 20 years old living in Los Angeles with my parents. I just finished my high school and started social media marketing. I have been reading about it for 3 years and finally decided to become social media expert. ArchivesNo Archives Categories |