Making Money from Ebooks ?

[Pooperman]

Has anyone completed their book since posting on here? I know JustaJane is wrapping up and iamlambo published his about 6 months ago.

1 book done, second book nearly done, slated for a September release I would imagine.

[justajane]

also, has anyone completed their book since posting on here? I know JustaJane is wrapping up and iamlambo published his about 6 months ago.

I finished my first draft but have been revising since March. I'm not in a hurry, though I work on it almost every day. It started at 65K, dropped to 55K during revisions, and is now up to 75K with the addition of new chapters. I have to say revisions are very, very hard but super rewarding. So far I've cut one chapter wholesale, carved two or three up, and am planning (even though -- waaaah-- I don't want to) to cut one more based on reader feedback. After revising this manuscript, I can't imagine hitting publish sooner. I have no doubt that others can write 4-6 books a year, but I can't. 

While revising, I've started Book 2 and have about 100 pages. I intend this to be a three part series and will likely do draft 1 of book 3 during Nanowrimo this year. Then back to revising. Sigh. But first drafts are just the scaffolding; IMO the good stuff comes with the revisions. So, I won't be done until the middle of 2017. In some respects, I'm still getting to know my characters and have been lucky to find a good group of critique partners online through one of the many sites that cater to that. It sucks to have your work put under a microscope, but I do believe it is necessary for that first book. Some of the problems I myself couldn't see, and I've found by critiquing other peoples' work, I've gotten better a seeing the problems in my own.

I have to also say that based on traditional standards, this really is just one novel with three parts. It's just that these days people market it as three shorter works. Back in the nineteenth century, 200k words would be a normal sized novel :).

After all this, I've realized that I care more about the writing and the way it has enriched me personally than I care about making money. When push came to shove, I realized that I had to write from the heart and block out all the noise. That doesn't mean I don't take into account peoples' suggestions, but ultimately I'm not worried about the market or the tropes and all that. In essence, this has become an artistic pursuit for me rather than a side income. That's my own personal journey -- no value judgement for others who choose a different path.

[stashing_it]

Following
also, has anyone completed their book since posting on here?

Original poster here.   I have published 7 non-fiction ebooks on Amazon since starting this thread, with 1 more coming out next Friday.   All told that is probably around 40,000 words.    I would say that 1 of those books is fairly successful, 3 more sell a copy or two a day and the other 3 don't really move.

I find it a lot easier to write non-fiction than fiction.   From my limited success the key to successful publishing this type of book on Amazon is
-  Find a niche that is somewhat searched but not a lot of competition
-  write an extremely targeted book on that
-  Get reviews


Getting reviews is key.    My books have gotten maybe 20 reviews across them, and every positive review I have gotten has seemed to be beneficial to my sales rankings.

Speaking of if anyone would be willing to leave a positive review for my upcoming book which is on a topic in big data, I would appreciate it.   Please PM me if that is the case, I'll send you a free PDF copy.

[Warlord1986]

I've published a few short stories for 99 cents. They've sold a couple of copies each. Not big money, but I still like selling my stuff and getting creative. It's fun and fulfilling. My pen name is Anna Muir, if anyone is interested. Here's a link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01AZZTCOE#navbar

Then I sold out and wrote some poly-amorous BDSM novellas. They feature spanking, praise-kink, bondage, etc. My pen name for these is Candy Pop. I'm just gonna leave the link here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ILGZ1C6#navbar

Guess which has sold better?

[CanuckExpat]

I find it a lot easier to write non-fiction than fiction.   From my limited success the key to successful publishing this type of book on Amazon is
-  Find a niche that is somewhat searched but not a lot of competition
-  write an extremely targeted book on that
-  Get reviews

How do you do that first step: finding the niche?

[stashing_it]

I find it a lot easier to write non-fiction than fiction.   From my limited success the key to successful publishing this type of book on Amazon is
-  Find a niche that is somewhat searched but not a lot of competition
-  write an extremely targeted book on that
-  Get reviews

How do you do that first step: finding the niche?

Bearing in mind that I have only had 1 real success out of 7  (although I have some hopes for #8)  I am far from an expert, but I believe these things to be true

-  Amazon rankings are very much like search engines used to be in the past.  Very keyword centric.   At least for non-fiction if you have a matching title or subtitle or a particular keyword you are likely to rank highly for that.
-  This is more true if you also have some good reviews

-  If you look and you see a bunch of books all with titles that have those keywords in the title, it is probably pretty competitive

-  I don't know how to get a figure for how many searches something has on Amazon.  You can get that data out of Google which might be a relative proxy.    However if you do start typing in a phrase into Amazon, it will give suggestions.  Presumably the suggestions that it pops up are more searched.

For instance, when I type "Early Ret" into Amazon, it suggests
- Early Retirement
- Early Retirement Extreme
- Early Retirement Strategies

However I'm not sure that any of those are heavily searched, since all the books that come in those searches have sales ranks > 100,000 which means they are selling less than ~1 per day according to this tool

https://kindlepreneur.com/amazon-kdp-sales-rank-calculator/

By contrast, when I search for  "building a house" on Amazon the top couple books returned have rankings <20,000, which means at least ~15 sales a day which is enough to be real money.   If I had particular knowledge in that area I might look for a more targeted niche to write.  "Building a house" is pretty broad.   Something like "plumbing your own house" might be narrow enough that I would want to target it.    ( I mean, I wouldn't because I don't know how to plumb house, nor have a researched that particular keyword, but theoretically that is a narrow, addressable niche)


More than that I don't really know.   I'm personally planning on dropping $50 to purchase some software that claims to be able to help you easily determine the level of competition for a keyword, and how heavily it is searched when it is released next week.   However I'm not affiliated with that tool other than planning to try it out, and since I haven't done that yet and can't vouch for it I'm not posting a link.   If I try it and love it I will.

[MandalayVA]

Has anyone completed their book since posting on here? I know JustaJane is wrapping up and iamlambo published his about 6 months ago.

1 book done, second book nearly done, slated for a September release I would imagine.

One book up in a Kindle Scout campaign, editing the second book.

[Butterfingers]

I'm personally planning on dropping $50 to purchase some software that claims to be able to help you easily determine the level of competition for a keyword, and how heavily it is searched when it is released next week.   However I'm not affiliated with that tool other than planning to try it out, and since I haven't done that yet and can't vouch for it I'm not posting a link.   If I try it and love it I will.

So, have you tried it yet? Loved it? I think I've found a good niche for an e-book series, but it would be nice to have some hard numbers to provide reassurance before I invest.

[eostache]

it is only 99 cents.  Though to Mr Mustachians that is 99 cents too much!

I'm not much help. I only collect free Kindle books.

I'm building myself a digital library, all for free.
I subscribe to email lists that say what books are free that day, like Bookbub and fkb.me, and have been collecting free ebooks for a few years now. If I see a title that seems interesting I grab it. I have a few thousand by now. I also have a large collection of epub books.

I have an Amazon account but I don't keep my credit info on file in the account, so I can't just click and buy. I only actually buy something from Amazon about once a year, if that.

[justajane]

it is only 99 cents.  Though to Mr Mustachians that is 99 cents too much!

I'm not much help. I only collect free Kindle books.

I'm building myself a digital library, all for free.
I subscribe to email lists that say what books are free that day, like Bookbub and fkb.me, and have been collecting free ebooks for a few years now. If I see a title that seems interesting I grab it. I have a few thousand by now. I also have a large collection of epub books.

I have an Amazon account but I don't keep my credit info on file in the account, so I can't just click and buy. I only actually buy something from Amazon about once a year, if that.

I'm totally the same way. Basically a cheap bastard. I check most things out from the library or buy cheap classics that are in public domain.

The past year I've subscribed to Kindle Unlimited so I feel like I'm supporting indie authors that way.

But no, I don't pay even $2.99 for a book very often, if ever.

[stashing_it]

I'm personally planning on dropping $50 to purchase some software that claims to be able to help you easily determine the level of competition for a keyword, and how heavily it is searched when it is released next week.   However I'm not affiliated with that tool other than planning to try it out, and since I haven't done that yet and can't vouch for it I'm not posting a link.   If I try it and love it I will.

So, have you tried it yet? Loved it? I think I've found a good niche for an e-book series, but it would be nice to have some hard numbers to provide reassurance before I invest.

The software that I purchase was KDP rocket  https://kdprocket.com/     I like it OK,  I don't love it.      It is a time saving tool but basically doesn't really have any data that you can't get from your internet browser.    What it is doing is

• getting google search numbers from adwords
• getting Amazon suggested searches
• mostly assuming the amazon searches are 15% of the google searches, although there is something else going on too

for me, it was worth the money I think since I have Kindle income and a small increase in it will help the tool pay for itself.  I used it on my already published books and put a few into keywords that they can rank for.   

I should caveat that I think the tool developer,  the https://kindlepreneur.com/  guy is legit.   I've gotten a couple of tips from him I think will increase my sales, specifically in the near term

• Focus on getting some reviews on the Canada, U.K., Australia, and India sites since the are all English speaking but have Amazon sites independent of the U.S. ones.   (Any Mustachians from those countries willing to give a review to one of my math or big data books ?)
• Make the create space paper copy of my best selling book.  Right now it is kindle only

With respect to KDP rocket, if you are trying to write non-fiction books like I am, and you have a limited budget you want to devote to it to start, it would not be the first money that I spent.    I would recommend spending the money on

• getting a website,  I have a wordpress site and spend ~80 dollars a year to host it
• getting an email list building system,  I am using Optimize Press which cost ~80 one time fee and I do love this

Building an email list is critical to long term large success  (so I have been told by people more successful at this than me, and my experience leads me to believe them).    I should note that you need to legitimately build your list not buy it.    I have started one by having bonus content for my books behind a signup wall (Optimize Press) and have found that ~50-60% of people who get my books get the bonus content, and of those  ~25% actually complete the double opt-in to sign up.  (you need to enter an email address on my site to get the bonus content, but you can get it without completing the double opt in.  So i'm assuming the other 75% get the content but don't finish signing up, which is OK because I don't really want people on my email list who don't want to be on it and think of my emails as spam)

[Channel-Z]

I wrote a couple of fiction books as part of National Novel Writing Month many years ago. That was a challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days (November). I tried converting one of them to Kindle format, but it ended up double-spaced, and I could not figure out how to fix it. Otherwise I would have uploaded it as a test novel. If I didn't have a job where I stare at a computer and type all day, I would probably write more.

If you can find an hour, you should be able to type 1,500 words in that time. Save the editing for later.

[Balkins]

I have a friend who doesn't write books, he just reviews books on Amazon. He's a WW2 and Vietnam historian. Book writers send him review copies and he gets paid 300-2500, depending on how much work is involved.

Good thread!

[stashing_it]

I have a friend who doesn't write books, he just reviews books on Amazon. He's a WW2 and Vietnam historian. Book writers send him review copies and he gets paid 300-2500, depending on how much work is involved.

Good thread!

This is surprising to me because theoretically Amazon reviews are supposed to be unpaid.    However if he is getting paid for editing the book or marketing it or something like that it totally makes sense

[stashing_it]

One interesting thing that I have found is that Amazon has separate pages for different countries.  For instance, there is an Amazon.com, but there is also an Amazon.co.uk,  Amazon.ca,   Amazon.in, Amazon.com.au

which I think are the sites for the big English speaking countries, and a host of other sites in other languages.   I'm not entirely sure how large the relative markets are.   My guess would be U.S. is ~50% of the english speaking ebook market, and the other countries are the other half.    This is based on ~300 million U.S. population, and a combined U.K., Canada, Australia population of ~130 million, and probably another 130 million English speakers in India

Each of those sites all have their own sales rankings, search results,  reviews, etc, and some of them have their own Amazon Author page.    So even if you #1 for "Retire Early" on Amazon.com and selling 50 books a day there, you could be #100 on Amazon.co.uk and not selling any books there.   

Based on what I've seen from U.S. book sales, I think the key would be to get reviews from people who live in those countries.  Probably a few reviews would go a long way.   Actually getting those reviews,  I'm not sure how to do.

[screwit]

I live in Germany and therefore have amazon.de. When buying a book I always have to go to the amazon.com site to find enough reviews to form an opinion. I really wish reviewers would set up accounts on all the sites and post their reviews there also.

[Pooperman]

I live in Germany and therefore have amazon.de. When buying a book I always have to go to the amazon.com site to find enough reviews to form an opinion. I really wish reviewers would set up accounts on all the sites and post their reviews there also.

I won't stop you from reviewing on .de and .com :).

[screwit]

I live in Germany and therefore have amazon.de. When buying a book I always have to go to the amazon.com site to find enough reviews to form an opinion. I really wish reviewers would set up accounts on all the sites and post their reviews there also.

I won't stop you from reviewing on .de and .com :).

I'm afraid I'm one of the lazy ones who doesn't leave reviews. I usually don't put enough thought into a book I've read to formulate a useful review. I read very fast (can easily do 3 average sized novels a week when on form) and am just there for light entertainment rather than earth shattering revelations wrapped up in heart-breakingly beautiful prose. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;)

[Pooperman]

I live in Germany and therefore have amazon.de. When buying a book I always have to go to the amazon.com site to find enough reviews to form an opinion. I really wish reviewers would set up accounts on all the sites and post their reviews there also.

I won't stop you from reviewing on .de and .com :).

I'm afraid I'm one of the lazy ones who doesn't leave reviews. I usually don't put enough thought into a book I've read to formulate a useful review. I read very fast (can easily do 3 average sized novels a week when on form) and am just there for light entertainment rather than earth shattering revelations wrapped up in heart-breakingly beautiful prose. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it ;)

Username checks out haha. I write erotica, so not really beautiful prose ;).

[Tom Bri]

I live in Germany and therefore have amazon.de. When buying a book I always have to go to the amazon.com site to find enough reviews to form an opinion. I really wish reviewers would set up accounts on all the sites and post their reviews there also.

In my very limited experience (one novel on Amazon), Brits leave accurate reviews (pointing out my admitted flaws as an author!!), Americans leave odd ones (skewed by political views having nothing to do with the story), Canadians and Aussies leave no reviews. DE I have only sold a few copies and gotten no reviews.

[frugalmaybe]

this thread is amazing! thanks for the o-post an all the replies.

[Cottonswab]

Following.  Hoping to eventually have content worth publishing. 

[LadyStache in Baja]

Eek! Feeling totally inspired to write all the books! I can see myself starting and petering out when it gets hard.  In fact I started months ago after a different e-book thread on the forums, wrote about 80 words, and never came back to it.  So I just reread what I had written and it was compelling. 

I want to give it another go.  I want to do nonfiction and a romance. I know I'd be better at nonfiction because I have no experience with character development and they certainly don't live with me for years as one of you has suggested.

[havregryn]

Posting just to follow, very inspiring.

[StarBright]

Not a writer myself but have lots of writer friends so I thought I'd post this thought:

I have a friend who has started writing continuity/anthology novels with a group of friends and they self publish (historic fiction). They are doing pretty well and just released their 3rd book this week.

What I think they've done very cleverly from a business perspective is get a good mix of male and female and adult and YA authors for each novel so they cross pollinate their audiences.

Maybe a similar project could happen for a group of mustachian writers? I'd probably buy it to support the team :)

[MVal]

Does anyone have information on how one could market oneself as a proofreader of e-books? I have a BA in English and could certainly assist those who struggle with spelling and punctuation to make cleaner copy. Is there a common type of software other than Word that most e-book authors use I would need to get so I could edit their work?

[Torran]

Posting to follow.

[Megma]

Ok y'all are energizing me. Book 1 has been in progress over a year and I have almost 17,000 words. So a lot left to do!

[iamlindoro]

Does anyone have information on how one could market oneself as a proofreader of e-books? I have a BA in English and could certainly assist those who struggle with spelling and punctuation to make cleaner copy. Is there a common type of software other than Word that most e-book authors use I would need to get so I could edit their work?

Though I wrote my book using Scrivener, I exported to Word to take advantage of change tracking when sending it to beta readers. It seemed from my cursory research at that time that this is the common way of doing it.

[Pooperman]

Does anyone have information on how one could market oneself as a proofreader of e-books? I have a BA in English and could certainly assist those who struggle with spelling and punctuation to make cleaner copy. Is there a common type of software other than Word that most e-book authors use I would need to get so I could edit their work?

Though I wrote my book using Scrivener, I exported to Word to take advantage of change tracking when sending it to beta readers. It seemed from my cursory research at that time that this is the common way of doing it.

I use google docs because I like being able to work on it from anywhere. Also really easy to share.

[stashing_it]

Eek! Feeling totally inspired to write all the books! I can see myself starting and petering out when it gets hard.  In fact I started months ago after a different e-book thread on the forums, wrote about 80 words, and never came back to it.  So I just reread what I had written and it was compelling. 

I want to give it another go.  I want to do nonfiction and a romance. I know I'd be better at nonfiction because I have no experience with character development and they certainly don't live with me for years as one of you has suggested.

I did non fiction because I know I can do good non fiction.  I can write it, review it, edit it, and publish it.   

With fiction I get writers block, wondering what to do

[Megma]

Does anyone allow their books to be "borrowed" for free in Amazon's kindle owners lending library? When I looked at this Amazon paid you a small amount anytime it was borrowed (I believe about $2.30). Just wondering if anyone did this and if they got any borrows and earned anything from this.

[Pooperman]

Does anyone allow their books to be "borrowed" for free in Amazon's kindle owners lending library? When I looked at this Amazon paid you a small amount anytime it was borrowed (I believe about $2.30). Just wondering if anyone did this and if they got any borrows and earned anything from this.

It's no longer "borrows", it's per page read instead... about half a cent per page. The shorts I write bring in a few dollars a month on the pages read, but generally, much more is made per actual purchase.

[SisterX]

Really late to following but doing so, because I need the advice you guys are giving out.

Things to do to market my books better:
1) Actually pay for covers. I think that would help a lot, particularly with a few of my first attempts at making covers.
2) Send my books off to reviewers and trying to build an actual readership, rather than counting on people to stumble across my work and take a chance on it. One of my books has 4-5 reviews, all five stars, so I know it's good. That should probably be the one I send off for reviews, oui?
3) Since I'm part of the same writing group Pooperman is, I need to finish my edits for that one.
4) Work on my next book(s). So far I have these and these. Need to prioritize the erotica, since I'm quite close to finishing that series and have an idea for two other series.

Finding time for this, though. Blech. Wish I could write on the bus, the way MJ did on the subway. I'm too weirded out by people looking over my shoulder, though. Plus, that's my daily reading time.

Does anyone else have silly goals for themselves? Like, I decided that if I was going to be a romance author then I was going to cover ALL the sub-genres. Scottish, medieval, contemporary, fantasy, pirate, Western, etc. So far so good. Working on my medieval Scottish story currently.

[MVal]

A friend of mine has just started out trying with ebooks.  If anyone is willing to give it a read here is the link - it is only 99 cents.  Though to Mr Mustachians that is 99 cents too much!

US edition https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01I8UNB5O
CAD https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01I8UNB5O

Beauty and the Beast

"Emerging from the shadows, the fearsome creature approached her and began to sniff her neck, like a hound picking up the scent of some unfortunate doe. His claws strayed irreverently through her golden hair as the beastly figure encircled his prey, his growling ferocity striking fear into her heart, as all at once Beauty wondered if she was not to be eaten there and then..."

Moving beyond the traditional fairy tale, "Beauty and the Beast" blends gothic thriller with chivalric romance in a haunting narrative that reveals the transcendent and redemptive power of love.

Feel free to send me comments and I will pass on.  Be kind if you post reviews on amazon please!!

I love Beauty and the Beast; it's so Phantom of the Opera. Maybe I'll have to check out your work.

[woopwoop]

Really late to following but doing so, because I need the advice you guys are giving out.

That cursive font is illegible. Try Great Vibes instead, or something noncursive.
You aren't going to carry fans over if you switch subgenres. It'll be starting from scratch each time to build a fanbase and you'll aggravate existing fans. There won't be the exponetntial growth you get from a long, tightly focused back catalog. I would highly recommend you pick one and stick to it.

[CarrieWillard]

This is my first post in this thread. I make most of my online income from my Kindle ebooks. Here is my author page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Carrie-Willard/e/B00EH0TJ0Q/

I wrote a how-to guide on my blog: http://carriewillard.com/how-to-publish-an-ebook-for-amazon-kindle/

Quick tips:
- pay someone to create a great cover. They totally make the difference in catching people's attention.
- have someone else proofread, or AT LEAST print the book out and read it - you will catch errors this way better than you will reading on the computer
(I hire people on Fiverr to do the previous.)

- because many people will get a free sample of your book without buying it, have some sort of freebie you can dangle in front of them so you can capture their email - for example, my latest ebook is called The Temporary Tightwad. In the first couple of pages I link to a page on my blog with free bonus printables. Once there, they have to opt in to my newsletter before being redirected into the freebies page. Now I'll have thousands more people to market to forever. Some people make their book free over and over just to use it as a lead gathering tool

- if you have a built-in audience with your blog or other platform, offer them the book at a reduced price first. If you launch the ebook and your peeps buy it at full price, then you drop the price shortly after, they'll email you angry that they overpaid. (Ask me how I know)

- There are many websites and newsletters that list free and cheap Kindle deals. Google search - you can submit your title for free on many of them.

- Amazon doesn't allow you to use THEIR affiliate links in your ebooks, but you CAN use other affiliate programs, and this is a way of increasing revenue of your book that goes beyond sales. Relevant for non-fiction of course.

Feel free to ask any questions!

[SisterX]

Really late to following but doing so, because I need the advice you guys are giving out.

That cursive font is illegible. Try Great Vibes instead, or something noncursive.
You aren't going to carry fans over if you switch subgenres. It'll be starting from scratch each time to build a fanbase and you'll aggravate existing fans. There won't be the exponetntial growth you get from a long, tightly focused back catalog. I would highly recommend you pick one and stick to it.

Thanks.
And, people are really that married to their subgenres? I tend to follow great writers, regardless of genre, and assumed that most people did the same. Weird. How boring does it get to write/read about secret babies all the time? Or werewolves? Or whatever? I'm doing things this way in part because it's so damn easy for me to come up with all of these plots. I'm not recycling anything either, the way authors who stick to one subgenre tend to do. "Oh look, it's that same character/plot device again that they used in X book." Although, I guess most people who read romance aren't exactly doing it in the name of Great Literature, so maybe it doesn't matter to other people as much as it does to me. (If I'm going to read books for fun, or smutty books, I still want them to be worth the read!)

[Villanelle]

Yes, people are that married to their genres and sub-genres (probably more so the former, but plenty of people are married to even the latter, especially within romance IMO).  This is especially true when reading a new author.  One really good book is probably not enough to make a regency romance reader check out a contemporary.  If that reader has fallen in love with half a dozen regencies, then s/he *may* follow you to a paranormal romance.  Maybe.  But it's unlikely unless they are also into that sub-genre already, that they are going to read outside their preferences based on one book, no matter how much they like it.  Established authors can genre hop and pull much of their audience with them, but that's only because they have cemented the relationship with those fans though sustained superior reading experiences.   

[CarrieWillard]

Also following, this is something I'm quite interested in doing. For those who make money from e-books, how much marketing do you have to do? I've gotten the impression from some that it takes some ongoing work to keep people buying, but it seems like some people also just set and forget. Also, do you hire someone to put it together, or do you find it easy enough to do it yourself?

For me, it has totally depended on the topic. I have one ebook that continues to make great sales with no promotion from me. I just hit pay dirt with it. Others, that I thought had superior content, struggle, even though I promote them more.

Luck/circumstance/timing that can't truly be predicted has something to do with it, which is frustrating.

But overall, yes I would say that having a platform, such as a blog, is big. My first big push of sales and reviews always comes from my blog/newsletter readers. Also, if you have a platform already, you can survey your readers to see what problems they have, answer them and have an instant ebook.

As for formatting, mine are simple with no images or graphs, tables... so I can easily format them myself.

[CarrieWillard]

Following

I have a book about a third of the way done but got discouraged once i started reading about how much you (don't) make. Seems like it is a big chore just to market it and comes out to less than minimum wage. I guess you could not market your work but then even if you are writing for the joy of it, not many people are reading and getting anything from it. Anyways...

I think I could write it pretty quick(less than a month), it is non fiction and I have an outline pretty well established. oh, and don't worry I write much better when I set my mind to it than my jumble of thoughts i usually splatter on the forum.

also, has anyone completed their book since posting on here? I know JustaJane is wrapping up and iamlambo published his about 6 months ago.

It depends! I made $10,000 in a few months on my first ebook. It was less than 50 pages and took me a couple of weeks to write. And it has made sales every month since.

Honestly it depends on many factors. I think I just hit a hot topic with that ebook, because my others didn't earn as much. But still, it can be a source of passive income. Creating price drops and promotions in KDP also helps bump sales. In fact, when I drop the price of ONE book, the sales on the others also goes up because Amazon likes to cross-promote you when it sees more sales.

[rachael talcott]

Great thread.

Can someone elaborate on how much Amazon currently pays the author when someone reads a book through Kindle Unlimited?  A quick google came up with a lot of different answers. 

RT

[Pooperman]

Great thread.

Can someone elaborate on how much Amazon currently pays the author when someone reads a book through Kindle Unlimited?  A quick google came up with a lot of different answers. 

RT

~$0.005/page

[rachael talcott]

~$0.005/page

Thanks.  If someone reads with a large font so that there are fewer words per page, do you get more for the same book?  Or is there a standard number of words per page?

[Pooperman]

~$0.005/page

Thanks.  If someone reads with a large font so that there are fewer words per page, do you get more for the same book?  Or is there a standard number of words per page?

One page is ~210 words. This is different than a paperback page (~310 words). Font size does not matter since it's standardized.

[rachael talcott]

One page is ~210 words. This is different than a paperback page (~310 words). Font size does not matter since it's standardized.

Thanks again.

[woopwoop]

And, people are really that married to their subgenres?

yes.

How boring does it get to write/read about secret babies all the time? Or werewolves? Or whatever?

Really boring. At least for me. But look at someone like Celia Kyle. She's written tons of shifter books and the plots and characters are wildly different, but she manages to hit the tropes that her readers are looking for again and again.

[SisterX]

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. I'll be shifting my focus some to be more in line with what I've already put out there and save the genre shifting for later, for funsies. Or just work on it when I'm blocked for everything else and finish it slowly, then put it out there during a slow writing period.

[screwit]

Okay. Thanks for the feedback. I'll be shifting my focus some to be more in line with what I've already put out there and save the genre shifting for later, for funsies. Or just work on it when I'm blocked for everything else and finish it slowly, then put it out there during a slow writing period.

you could also start other genres under different pen names. There are a number of people out there who do that. It would reduce the output for each of your pen names, but that might not be so important if you can find dedicated audiences for each genre.

I'm very much a genre reader and once I've found an author I like, I buy everything they put out. They'd have to really decrease in quality for me to stop buying them. But it takes me several books before I'm that commited and I won't follow them into other genres. In fact, if I grab another of their books and its a different genre entirely, I'd probably completely stop following them rather than risk that happening again. I'm a "super-reader" and will often read a trilogy in a weekend, so making me hunt around a website or read through amazon comments to work out if this book is in my field of interest is a waste of time where I could be reading something else.

[hoping2retire35]

Wife has four kids books written.

Normally we can read a book to the kids several times before they get tired of it but it seems like after reading these once it does not hold their attention. I think we need to get some accompanying pictures.

Is this something where she could just pay someone or is the only way to go is to have them also tied to the book like "Author; Mrs H2R35, and illustrated by Painter McDrawer?"