Writing the book is only half the battle
I recently launched my first-ever e-book and if you think I won’t be inserting links to it throughout this entire article then you have another thing coming.
But why am I plugging the e-book so much? Because marketing, of course!
You can get your own copy of “50 Stay-At-Home Side Hustles.”
During my time writing the e-book, I learned a lot about the self-publishing process and how some “authors” make full-time livings using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Writing an e-book is one of the best ways to become an online entrepreneur.
I used quotation marks around authors because many writers you see publishing books on Amazon aren’t even writing the books themselves.
Here’s what I learned. Also, here’s a preview of the book you can read.
Low content vs. High content
The reason I say many successful KDP authors don’t write their own stories is that they publish low content books.
A low content book has less content and material in it than most books you read. Examples include:
- Day planners
- Coloring books
- Diaries
- Journals
Low content books aren’t the traditional books we think about when an author says they self-published a book on Amazon. But many authors make thousands of dollars each month from the cartoon coloring books they sell.
They do it by outsourcing the entire design process of the coloring book to freelancers. Some of these freelancers can be found on platforms like Fiverr, but they aren’t the ones that only cost $5. They’re the expensive ones with great reviews because visual quality is everything when it comes to a low content book.
These authors do keyword research to help identify competitive niches/themes they can surround their low content books around. Competitive niches just means there are fewer books published on a topic.
From the layout of a planner or coloring book to the cover art, authors make tons of money and earn high Amazon Best Seller Ratings (BSR) just from having someone else write low content books.
Also, while we’re on the topic of cover art…
Readers actually judge books by their covers
Your parents might — or might not have — taught you not to judge a book by its cover when it comes to human beings. The same doesn’t apply to actual books.
A solid book cover can make or break the number of sales an e-book gets.
Readers judge the cover of every book, HARD. If the cover looks too dull, unprofessional, or confusing, you can kiss your masterpiece goodbye.
I outsourced the cover design to a freelancer on Fiverr who I let have complete creative control. The only instructions I included when I paid were screenshots of book covers for other e-books I knew were already topping the charts in my book’s genre, which is side hustles.
I only had to send the cover back for revisions once and I was really happy with how it turned out.
Marketing mania
Marketing an e-book is the real reason why writing it is only half the battle. A poorly marketed e-book will result in very few sales.
How does one market an e-book?
I found a few methods that seemed to work well for me:
- Sign up for free promo websites
- Use paid promo websites
- Promote it in your e-mail list
- Send it to your friends and family
- Ask for reviews
- Use Amazon Ads
- Partner with a larger entity
You might not have access to all of the previously mentioned marketing resources. That’s more than okay.
So far for my e-book, I really only found a lot of success promoting it to The Side Hustle Club’s newsletter because the members of this publication rock and it’s a book that fits well in this niche.
Still, I’ve been reaching out to other side hustle online platforms, paying for promos, signing up for free promos, and even plan on using Amazon Ads soon.
It’s all part of a marketing plan that involves showing Amazon’s algorithm that your book gets consistent sales and reviews. The more sales and reviews an e-book gets, the more Amazon promotes it to readers and raises its “Best Seller” ranking.
The goal is to get on the algorithm’s good side so you can watch your Best Seller ranking rise and get promoted for free by Amazon itself.
If I wrote another book…
It would probably be a coloring book in a specific niche that was desirable on Amazon.
I would:
- Outsource it completely
- Find a niche that was regularly searched but had few books published in it
- Outsource a really high-quality book cover
- Fund a detailed marketing/ad campaign
It sounds like a lot of money, probably around $500 or more, but e-books last forever and can be a great source of passive income as long as they’re relevant.
If done correctly, you could easily see your investment quickly turn into profit.
Want to see how my finished product looks?
Get it for free while you can: “50 Stay-At-Home Side Hustles”