Archive for January, 2012
Amazon Kindle: Publish or Perish!
How important is it to publish your ebook for e-readers like Amazon Kindle and Nook, and tablets like iPad or Android devices?
According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, “tablet and e-book reader ownership nearly doubled over the holiday gift-giving period.” That means, almost 1 out of every 3 Americans now owns at least 1 tablet or e-reader device. With both Amazon and Barnes and Noble offering e-readers below the $100 mark, this upward ownership trend is expected to continue. What makes this even more exciting is that the group with the largest percentage of ownership also had the highest income level at $75,000+ per year.
In non-scientific terms, here’s what those stats mean for people who publish and sell ebooks (or those who want to).
Money To Spend On eBooks:
The people who own the highest percentage of e-readers and tablets also make the most money and, presumably, have the most disposable income. This means they have credit and can afford to buy virtually all the ebooks they want without hesitation. They bought their tablets and e-readers and now they want to use them, which means buying ebooks from Amazon Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble, and Apple iBooks (among others).
Ebooks Are Now Mainstream:
One in 3 people has an e-reader or tablet. Getting to one out of 2 shouldn’t take much time at all because everyone sees everyone else using one. It’s cool to use one and be seen as everything from “green” (no paper, tree-killing books for me) to high-tech (is that the latest iPad?) to cool (wow, neat Bluetooth keyboard with your iPad)! Reading an ebook is now just as “normal” as reading a paperback. This also means less resistance to never getting something physical in the mail and understanding that all you’ll every receive is a file on your e-reader or tablet (a real point of confusion and resistance for many consumers just a few short years ago).
Wider, More Diverse Audience:
“Everyone” means everyone! Heck, my mom even has an iPad now AND a Kindle e-reader. This means markets previously closed to most ebook authors (fiction in particular) are now ripe for the picking. If you’ve got a quality ebook aimed at a specific target audience, your chances of making consistent, significant sales rate better than ever (especially without a traditional publisher).
Consumption Will Increase:
More people with ebook readers means more demand for ebooks, which leads to more ebook consumption. Think about it! Devices like Amazon’s Kindle, Kindle Fire, Apple’s iPad, and the Barnes & Noble Nook are, at their core, content consumption devices. People buy them to read books, watch movies, download content and use apps. Some of the content will obviously be free, but much of it will cost from $.99 up to $14.99. And it doesn’t take long for the billions to pile up with millions of people spending a few bucks on digital goods every single day.
Less Resistance = Easier eBook Sales
It takes FAR less education or explanation to make the sale of an ebook now. People just log on to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Apple’s App Store, pick out what they want, click a couple of buttons, download, and start reading. It’s now as natural as buying a regular book, only without the drive, traffic, gas, or hassle at the counter. Ebooks now make for instant gratification and the ultimate impulse purchases.
So, let’s answer that question, shall we: How important is it to publish your ebook for e-readers like Kindle and Nook, and tablets like iPad or Android devices?
Bottom line: it’s now CRITICAL to publish your ebooks for all of these devices because they will shortly represent the majority of all ebook sales worldwide (if they don’t already). And the importance of using all of these ebook distribution channels to get your ebook (or a version of your ebook) out there into the ebook marketplace will only increase. The age of the ebook is upon us along with the age of the ebook megastore. So, if you want to make it in the world of ebooks, you’d better get your ebook onto the virtual bookstore shelves the majority of the world’s consumers are browsing.
By the way, here’s what the smartest authors do to get their Kindle ebooks written, formatted, published, and selling in less than 7 days. Check it out, but only if you’re serious about making money and building fame as a published ebook author: http://7DayeBook.com/kindle-ebook-in-7-days/
Will your Amazon Kindle Account get cancelled too?
The Amazon Kindle “Riches” Lie
“Your Amazon Kindle Account has been Terminated!”
A subject line like that is what a lot of Amazon Kindle sellers will see in the not-too-distant future if they continue to follow the get-rich-quick-on-Amazon-Kindle con-men out in the market… and that’s a promise!
This new Free Report I just published details exactly how and why I believe it’s already happening:
Special Report: The Amazon Kindle “Riches” Lie
=> http://www.brandedfreereports.com/jump/t
Do NOT make the mistake of following these people because all you’ll do is get your account shut down or worse… you will start making money, put in a ton of time and effort, and THEN have your account shut down when you’ve come to depend on the income stream that Amazon brings to a screeching halt!
This FREE report gives you my uncensored thoughts and comments on what I see as a REAL, immediate problem for anyone who is serious about making money on Kindle.
Special Report: The Amazon Kindle “Riches” Lie
=> http://www.brandedfreereports.com/jump/t
Enjoy the report. And if you know someone who wants to make money on Kindle (or is trying to already), please do them a favor and pass this report along to them.
They’ll thank you for it!
Jim
PS – “7 Day eBook V2.0″ is now available! You can get a sneak preview here on my website (and grab a copy of the new classic against which all other ebook courses are measured)… check it out:
How much money can you actually make if you write an ebook?
That’s really the $64,000 Dollar Question isn’t it?
How much money can you actually make if you write an ebook?
The answer is: it depends!
The two things you need to look at are:
1. How much will you make per sale?
2. How many will you sell?
The answer to the first question is easy. List price less advertising cost, delivery, credit card fees, etc. If you sell on Amazon Kindle at a price between $2.99 and $9.99 (or your currency’s equivalent), Amazon pays you 70% of the list price, less a few cents for digital delivery (bandwidth) cost. If you sell for more than $9.99 and less than $2.99, they only pay you 30%. That translates into about $3.50 profit for you on a $4.99 ebook (which is virtually the exact same royalty you’d get from selling a $12 ebook). If you sell 100 books in a month, you make $350.00 – not bad, but certainly not getting rich! This is, however, a LOT more than you would make through a book publishing deal on the same number of sales in a month.
The reason Amazon Kindle structures its payout this way is simple: they are in the business of moving a LOT of ebooks at bargain prices to their Kindle owners. If YOU want to make money with Amazon Kindle, you need to make a lot of sales and you need to publish a lot of books. That sounds hard, but Amazon Kindle makes it easy and they help you out a lot if you structure your titles and descriptions correctly AND you’re willing to do some basic marketing of your ebook.
On the flip side, if you sell ebooks from your own website, that’s where you stand to make the most money AND have the most control over merchandising and sales. Selling from your own website however, also puts the vast majority of responsibility for success or failure squarely on your shoulders.
From your own website, let’s say you sell your ebook for $20 (just to keep the math easy).
Now, let’s take a timeout! For those of you about to freak out over ebook pricing, you can, by the way, sell an ebook for $20 and have a “Kindle” version of the same ebook sell for $4.99 without any problem. How? Have a LOT MORE content in the version on your website and make it plain what they get in the website version vs. the Kindle book. This can include bonuses, videos, charts, process maps, interviews and just about any extra you could imagine to differentiate the two offers.
Ok? Less stress now? Ok. Let’s get back to the example.
So you’re selling your ebook for $20 on your own website and let’s assume you have an advertising cost that averages out to 40% of the ebook’s cover price (this assumes you do NOT have your own list of subscribers, where your advertising cost is basically zero). That means after credit card and other expenses, you’ll probably net around $10 per ebook. So now when you sell 100 ebooks from your own website you stand to make $1,000 net profit. Not bad, but you’re still not rich yet (though this is one helluva part-time income). Between Amazon and your website you make about $1,350 off 200 sales.
How do you make it great? Easy! You want to do 3 things:
1. Sell more of the ebooks you’ve already written
2. Build up your buyer subscriber list through making more ebook sales
3. Publish more ebooks and sell them directly to your past customers (who love you and want more of your stuff)
So now let’s say next month you publish another ebook and sell it for $20 from your site as well as an Amazon version for $4.99. 20 people who bought the first book on Amazon buy your second book immediately because Amazon sends them an email announcing it. You also sell 100 copies of your first book AND 100 copies of your new book this month. That’s a total of 220 books at $3.50 profit totaling approximately $770 profit from Amazon.
On your own site you email the people who bought directly from you previously and sell 20 copies of your new book. You also advertise like you did last month and sell 100 copies of the first book AND 100 copies of the new book. Since the 20 copies to your own list didn’t have any advertising cost, you make about $18 per sale, or $360. Add in the 200 other sales at $10 net each and you’re up to $2,560 in profit from your own website. Combine that with the $770 from Amazon and you’re over $3,000 for the month net profit.
Now, a question for you: where would you be if you did this every month for just 6 months in a row? I’ll tell you! You’d be in a damn fine place! You’d have 12 different sources of revenue (6 Kindle, 6 your own site). You’d have a nice email list of subscribers you could make affiliate offers to and maybe even start a membership site to get you recurring revenue that was basically all gravy.
But the reality is, most people will never publish an ebook. Most that actually do it will then wonder why they aren’t rich off that one ebook, give up, and never realize how close they were to their dreams. And a few, just a few, smart and enterprising authors will publish and market consistently and create their own little ebook empires that will bring them profits, satisfaction, and happiness for years to come!
If you want to join the smart and enterprising author group, check this out. Truth is, a lot of ebook authors (or those who want to be) have asked “Can you still make money with ebooks in today’s market?” This Free Report I just published answers that question and a whole LOT more! You can grab it FREE here: http://7dayebook.com/free-report/
Is Amazon getting ready to SLAP Kindle authors?
Jim Edwards here with a new article I just published on HubPages. It’s about what I believe is a BIG SLAP that Amazon is going to deliver on some bulk ebook publishers in the not-too-distant future. You can read it here:
Amazon Kindle: How are some people able to publish so many ebooks to Amazon Kindle so fast?
How to write and publish a how to book – 7 Steps To Success!
How do you write a “how to” ebook?
Writing a “how to” ebook is actually really simple and it’s one of the best ways anyone can get started writing an ebook. If you’re curious about getting started writing ebooks, or you’ve already self-published an ebook or two, this article will lay it all out for you here in a few simple steps.
http://ebookcoach.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-write-and-publish-a-how-to-book-7-Steps-To-Success
Write Ebooks: Is it possible to write an ebook based on notes from other books?
This is a sticky area for a number of reasons. If you take notes on another book and then write an ebook based on what you learned, you run the risk of everything from alienating the author to opening yourself up to a lawsuit for violating “fair use.” (Side note: it’s interesting that use and sue have the exact same 3 letters). Though I’m not an attorney, this is not legal advice, and you should proceed with this information at your own risk, here is my take on this thorny question of whether you can use notes from other books to write your own ebook.
Option #1 – Don’t do it!
Don’t use notes from other books to write your ebook… then you have nothing to worry about.
Option #2 – Document and Cite
Treat the ebook like a giant research paper where the biggest, meanest, most sadistic English teacher on the face of the planet is poised to kill you with her ruler if you make a single mistake. Over-document as to all the sources you use, and have more footnotes than actual text in the ebook. Despite all that, you still might not pass the “fair use” test.
Option #3 – Write From Experience
If you’re writing a “how to” book, here’s what you do. Read, research and investigate to your heart’s content. Then actually go DO what you want to write an ebook about. Do it as fully and to the best of your ability as you can. Make all the mistakes, discover all the pitfalls and figure out what REALLY works in the real world. Then, and only then, write an ebook on your direct experiences and the results you produced through taking action.
When you write an ebook this way, citing the books you first read as your original research is easy because your action and results put you on par with those original authors. You can say which books you liked, which books you agree with and, through experience, which ones you found missing some key ingredients or steps. You’ll also feel a high level of confidence in your material and that will be reflected in your marketing and promotion of the ebook because you’re not worried about being perceived as a copy-cat!
Overall, I’d say that writing an ebook strictly from notes you’ve taken from a single book or a handful of books carries more potential risk than reward. At best, you’ll be viewed as a “me too” author and, at worst, you could get into a pot of hot water that no amount of sales could compensate for. If you’re going to write an ebook, create something original and personal you can be proud of and KNOW adds value to the world instead of leeching off the intellectual property of others!
By the way, if you’ve ever wondered “Can you really hire someone to write a good ebook for you?” this Free Mini-Report “How do I hire someone to write my ebook for me? (How to hire a ghostwriter)” has the answer you need. Click Here Now for more: http://www.brandedfreereports.com/jump/r
I’m writing an ebook and want to prevent people from ripping me off. What’s the best way?
eBook Security: How do I secure and protect PDF files with a lock or other ebook / PDF security protection software?