Selling My First Book via Amazon

Charlie thanks for the post, interesting stuff. I was wondering about your focus on the launch rather than just getting the book out there and promoting it.

Are there stats to back up a high percentage of sales coming from a big launch or are you pinning your hopes on getting it straight to the bestsellers list and gaining enough traction from that to make regular sales for a while?

It just seems a painfully long time from start to where you are now when others have churned out multiple books in that space of time.
 


Time for another quick update: decided to delay the launch of my book so as to focus on something which makes me more money. Realistically speaking, I doubt the book will end up becoming a huge income source for me, it's more of a way of making money by doing something I really love. But putting food on the table comes first, so I have to prioritize.

I'd rather not launch the book at all than do a shitty job, I worked waaaaay too hard on it to accept compromises, so waiting a bit longer makes sense.

In the meantime, I've launched an economics-related YouTube channel which might eventually turn into something awesome.

I called it "One Minute Economics" (I also own the domain OneMinuteEconomics.com and turned it into a simple site with a newsletter form + paypal donation button + bitcoin donation button) and through it, I want to gradually explain important concepts through catchy one-minute animations.

Right now, the channel doesn't provide that much value, I only have two videos at this point: one about inflation and one about deflation.

As time passes and videos start piling up though, I think the channel will become genuinely useful, I hope it will one day have 100+ videos. Most people don't know what moral hazard is, how central banking policies affect them and stuff like that, a shame IMO.

The YouTube channel can be found HERE.

I have zero YouTube experience, so any advice/help would be welcome. I honestly think this channel could end up helping a lot of people and if I at the very least break even, I'd be happy. It's more of a hobby for me, so breaking even would enable me to publish more videos without the cheap bastard in me complaining :)
 
charlie.simm said:
The YouTube channel can be found HERE.

I have zero YouTube experience, so any advice/help would be welcome. I honestly think this channel could end up helping a lot of people and if I at the very least break even, I'd be happy. It's more of a hobby for me, so breaking even would enable me to publish more videos without the cheap bastard in me complaining :)
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Look forward to seeing how this goes for you. Are you doing the animation and voice over yourself or outsourcing?
 
JakeStratham said:
Charlie, I have no idea what your long-term Amazon goals are, so I'll shoot from the hip and hope something hits.

My assumption: you want to generate long-term revenue (LTR) via the Kindle platform.

First, very few debuts hit it big. Most remain obscure. Generating LTR means building a catalog. So be prolific and get to work on your 2nd, 3rd, and 10th books.

Second, sales are driven by your audience. That means your audience should already be in place before you release your book. Release, post on blog, email list, etc. to send your fans to buy. It sounds like you're doing it the other way around. If so, the battle for recognition, sales, and revenue is uphill.

Third, going free used to be a slam dunk sales generator. That's no longer the case. Part of the reason is because Amazon has changed its algo to lower the rankings of free books in its "also bought" list. It also makes you click to see the Top 100 Free; Amazon used to display them by default. Another part of the reason is that free is becoming the trailer park of indie authors. There's a lot of trash out there and readers' trust has waned.

Having said the third point, free can still work in the context of a debut if you approach it with the right expectations. Consider: readers who don't know you want to taste your stuff before they buy. Let them taste it for free by setting your first book on permafree (chuck the idea of making money with your first release). Get them to like your material. They'll end up buying your other books down the road (hence, the need for a catalog (see 1st point)).

The old way (circa 2011) to leverage free was to publish via KDP and work the 5 free days per quarter. That's fine if you already have an audience. The "new" way (it's not actually new, but authors are getting more traction with it) is to pub outside of KDP, set your price at $2.99 or more on Amazon, list it for free on other platforms, then get some folks to hit the "tell us about a lower price" link on Amazon. Give it a few weeks, and Amazon should lower the price of your book to free. Voila! Permafree.

Publish your 2nd, 3rd, and 10th books on KDP to take advantage of the countdown deals. Once you have a rep for producing good material, you can light a fire under fans and potential readers by running a countdown. These are great because Amazon lists the normal price, the special price, and a countdown time (including seconds!) to expiration. Very good for spurring purchases.

Fourth, create a kickass cover. Seriously. Spend a few hundred bucks to hire a designer.

Fifth, if you're doing fiction, get to know other authors in your niche and organize a collection for $.99. It's becoming a popular way for readers to get a taste of several authors for cheap. Good exposure.

One last note: the big lists that promote Kindle books (BookBub, etc.) are much harder to make work today than was the case in 2012 and 2013. They're too expensive and readers are more discriminating today (see 3rd point above). But new lists are coming out every month, and are worth testing.

Disclaimer: I have not yet published my material on Amazon, so take the above with a grain of salt. Hopefully, I have a reputation in your mind of keeping my mouth shut on topics about which I'm ignorant.
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If you're finding a place to advertise your book, you can check the self-serve platform of Bluagile.
 
Quick update, I've published my third video a few minutes ago, it's about hyperinflation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-PNlhhVhZ8

I started with inflation and deflation, then moved on to hyperinflation and as time passes, I want to start covering more complex topics.

Taking things one step at a time.

Entrep said:
Look forward to seeing how this goes for you. Are you doing the animation and voice over yourself or outsourcing?
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I write all of the scripts and provide detailed explanations as to what I'm interested in when it comes to each scene but don't handle the vo + animation part myself. Outsourcing ftw!

newsbrand said:
charlie did you ever get around to doing any guest posting?
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That would depend on how we define "doing" :)

I've written lots of really good guest posts but since the book isn't ready, it's still going to be a while until they see the light of day.
 
I've published my 4th video, this time about fractional reserve banking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-09ap6zIB6I

The previous three (inflation, deflation and hyperinflation) have been about terms which are relatively easy to explain/understand. Fractional reserve banking is a much tougher nut to crack, explaining the concept in one minute has been a bit of a challenge :)
 
charlie.simm said:
I've published my 4th video, this time about fractional reserve banking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-09ap6zIB6I

The previous three (inflation, deflation and hyperinflation) have been about terms which are relatively easy to explain/understand. Fractional reserve banking is a much tougher nut to crack, explaining the concept in one minute has been a bit of a challenge :)
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Nice, add me on skype "dreamache"
 
Get some people to review it by giving it out for free also. You can also try buying reviews but that's also a bit riskier.
 
dreamache said:
Nice, add me on skype "dreamache"
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Sure thing Gary :)

Tyrant666 said:
Get some people to review it by giving it out for free also. You can also try buying reviews but that's also a bit riskier.
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I'll offer free copies to top Amazon reviewers but I'm pretty sure they're swamped with requests. Never did this before, no idea what to expect but I'm not holding my breath as far as this strategy is concerned.

If some of you guys are reasonably active on Amazon and want to help with a review, PM me your email address and I'll send you a free copy as soon as the book goes live.

A quick update about my YouTube channel: I've added a new video, this time about supply and demand. I think it's a bit more entertaining /funny than the others, I'm trying to find the right balance between providing information and providing entertainment... not easy to do in a minute haha.

The deflation video already has 1k+ views and that's pretty awesome in light of the fact that I haven't even started promoting the channel properly. I only have 5 videos atm and don't feel the channel provides enough value just yet.

If you can, please help me out by liking/commenting/subscribing on YouTube.

Right now, my only goal is publishing good videos. I really hope One Minute Economics will gain traction but if it doesn't, at least I did my best. Even if I don't make any money, I'm willing to invest in at least let's say 25 videos. If I at the very least break even (YouTube revenue, PayPal/bitcoin donations via OneMinuteEconomics.com, book sales generated by the channel, etc.), I'm willing to publish a lot more.
 
I've published video #6, this time about how money works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwSAuNb44lU

It isn’t the most complex topic in the world, definitely considerably less complex than let’s say my fractional reserve banking video but not all videos have to be about something difficult to understand.

The next one will be about a more challenging topic, about the Global Domestic Product, I’m trying to find the right balance between accessible topics and complex ones.
 
... and here's the GDP video I mentioned last time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAio7vk6XU4

It's the first time I covered two topics in one video (GDP and government revenue) but people confuse one with the other so frequently that I just had to. I always thought it was a shame that people hear the term "Gross Domestic Product" on tv so frequently (I mean come on, just watch the news 2-3 days in a row - lose a few IQ points for the sake of this experiment - and you're bound to hear it at least once and I'm referring to non-financial news programs) but most of them have no idea what the GDP actually is.
 
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It's been a while since I've updated this thread, so here it goes :)

I've published three new One Minute Economics videos.

One about investing in stocks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkSL9UC-aMU

One about the Great Depression of 1929:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sv7IP2qL0gg

... and one about the Dot Com Bubble:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ksVshqVuiM

Next, I'll be publishing a video about the Great Recession of '07-'08, a video about Austrian Economics vs. Keynesianism and one about the difference between the unemployment rate and the labor force participation rate.

The channel is chugging along nicely.

My deflation video has 4k+ views, my fractional reserve banking one has 1.5k+ views and I have two more with 1k+, the inflation one and the hyperinflation one.

These results aren't epic by any means but I didn't start promoting the channel aggressively yet, waiting until I have 20-25 videos. Perhaps more.

Most of the views are organic, just people searching on YouTube.

That's it for now.

My book is finished but I don't want to launch it without having a proper platform and without all of the pieces being put in place, so I'm in no hurry to set things in motion.

I've created a special mailing list for gay webmasters, you can sign up using the link below:

Gay Webmasters | Domaining Tips

If you want me to keep you updated about my journey, my epic fail moments and all that, subscribe.

I'll do my best to also update this thread.
 
Time for another progress update.

I've published three new videos: one about the Great Recession (the 2007-2008 GFC), an Austrian Economics vs. Keynesianism comparison and an Unemployment Rate vs. Labor Force Participation Rate comparison that I published earlier today.

Currently at 13 videos and 231 subscribers. I'm not exactly breaking YouTube's servers here but the channel is growing and I see some really strong potential.

Here are some random thoughts based on my limited experience:

1) Your channel can grow 100% organically (without you actively promoting it) if your content is good. However, the growth probably won't be spectacular. In my case, I haven't done anything promotion-wise with the channel for several months but still had a video with ~4k views, some comments and the subscriber base was (slowly, as in 1 sub per day) growing

2) Social media works. About 2 weeks or so ago, I decided to finally start doing a bit of promotion, so I submitted some of my videos on Reddit. It really made a difference because over the course of the past two weeks, I got as much traffic as over the entire previous 9 or so months combined. And this just from Reddit. I haven't tried anything else yet, maybe some of you guys can help with suggestions

3) Some viewers will be supportive, some won't (some people encouraged me, showed my channel to others and were genuinely awesome; others told me I suck, heh - gotta love the Internet); all in all though, my experience was overall quite positive. When submitting on Reddit, I thought people would maybe not exactly give me a warm welcome but they kind of did. None of my videos went amazingly viral, I still only have ~231 subscribers but the channel is growing, some videos reached the main page of some reasonably popular subreddits and so on; not bad at all, better than expected for sure

4) Making money via your channel will most likely prove to be very very hard. In the description of each video, I invite people to support the channel by visiting my website, OneMinuteEconomics.com. On the site, I have a PayPal donation button, a Bitcoin donation button and a signup form for my newsletter, through which I'll be announcing the launch of my book. I got $0 in donations thus far and 3 newsletter subscribers... so, yeah :)

This pretty much sums up my YT experience.

Any feedback/advice would help, especially when it comes to:

1) Promotion suggestions, I've only promoted via Reddit thus far

2) Suggestions to improve newsletter signups; I might remove the donation buttons from OneMinuteEconomics altogether and just focus on building a subscriber base
 
bluechinagroup said:
Is the kindle launch of your book still delayed?
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Yes.

The thing is, I could launch the book next week. The audiobook is finally finished, the designer still needs the final print page count to figure out the size of the spiral but that's a piece of cake. So I'm pretty much ready to launch all versions: Kindle + print + audiobook.

Unfortunately, I just don't have a proper platform yet.

My goal is pretty bold, hitting one of the 3 bestseller lists. To do this, I'd need ~10k sales over a period of one week.

The Kindle version will cost $4.88-ish, out of which Amazon takes 30%.

My advertising budget can be $20,000-ish.

My platform consists of DomainingTips.com which I've been running for ~8 years and the YouTube channel which is still in its infancy. It's not bad but not enough either.

In theory or let's say on paper, the situation doesn't seem that bad.

Realistically speaking though, 10k sales in one week is easier said than done.

Yes, DomainingTips is reasonably popular but the domaining industry is really small. Plus, you know how it is. People love you when you're churning out quality free content but when the time comes when you need their help, how many will actually support you by buying the book, by leaving you a review or by sharing it with their FB friends?

A very small percentage most likely.

So how many sales will DomainingTips ultimately help me generate, realistically speaking? 500? Probably something along those lines.

What about the YouTube channel? I dunno, 10-20 sales at this stage, if that?

So I have let's say 520 sales generated by my platform.

Since I need ~10k sales to reach my objective, I'd have to generate an additional 9.5k sales using my $20k budget.

Doesn't seem impossible but my paid marketing skills aren't what they used to be.

Now ok, there are also things like guest posts and what not, as mentioned in this thread. Some friends will also help me out but how many sales will that amount to?

Even assuming that I'd generate 1,500 sales via non-paid methods during launch week, using $20k to generate 8.5k sales as a noob author will be ridiculously hard.

Therefore, I'd need a bigger budget and/or a bigger platform. Preferably both. Until I'm happy with my "worst case scenario" projections, the launch will have to wait. I like to be pessimistic when making plans, so I operate based on a "worst case scenario" paradigm.
 
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