The REAL Facts of KDP Publishing.
I am so fed up with liars and facts that are so WRONG!
I’ve known of this website called Kboards.com for many years.
Early in my ghostwriting career, I went there and was teased BECAUSE I was a ghostwriter.
Let me tell you right now — it hurt.
Then something hit me.
Those people — all of them — are WANNABES compared to myself.
Why? Well because they write as a hobby and HOPE to make money.
Me on the other hand? I write to MAKE money.
So instead of digging into a worthless forum of people who are just plain evil and care only about their own work — let’s talk about the business of KDP publishing.
First — think business.
You are writing because you ENJOY writing but you don’t have to 100% enjoy the trope you are writing.
Who cares what you write?! Your buyer! That’s who cares.
When I say think because focus only on what will sell! Use these tools to find what will sell and use that to drive what you will write.
I must say for a few months I was hard into romance then I learned one thing:
If I feel like this trope will be difficult for me to maintain after book 3 or 4 then it’s NOT worth my time of writing.
You MUST … I repeat MUST think long term. When you review your competitor and see that they have 20 to 40 books in the same trope over the last 4 years you have to think to yourself — can I write this same trope for the next 5 years like my competitor?
If the answer is no … you need to decide if you can PLOT that trope for the next 5 years and hire a writer to do the writing for you.
If the answer is no … you need to consider a NEW trope with that topic as a subplot … IF it works.
I.E hate romance? But love thrillers? Creating thrillers with a subplot of romance can be JUST right.
Second … think about the return on your investment.
Writing a book is time invested AND money invested. You have to think beyond just your time but also the money you place into the elements of the book.
These elements include:
Cover design — premade or custom
Editing — even buying Grammarly is $30/month!
Proofreading — having your best friend or husband is OKAY but not better than a pro.
Formatting, description and so many other elements.
Even when I write a book myself and use a premade cover from a great supplier, I can pay as much as $300 PER book.
Now if I price that book at $2.99 with unlimited free I need to determine how many book sales I will need in order to earn my investment back.
From there I need to determine how long those sales will take to achieve. I normally use my competitor’s numbers to gauge how long it might take.
I do this by taking their mid selling ranked book and determine just how many sales they have had over 3 to 6 weeks.
Third … forget the haters.
I mentioned that forum because it is covered with people who are jealous of success because they hold a hobby based idea of publishing.
Forget about them. You must stay focused on your own success and drive yourself where you want to go.
People will be jealous even if you are making $500 a month from your book — they will be jealous.
Fourth — your books are ASSETS.
One time I asked my mother to guess where I was going to spend $1000 on for my business. She instantly said marketing.
NO! Don’t buy marketing until you have a CATALOG of assets for buyers to eat ASAP.
Your books are the foundation of your business. You want to build a home with three floors, not just a landscape!
The more books you write — — CORRECTION the more quality books you write the more assets you have.
I learned there are authors who only write Christmas books and create a catalog of 20 to 30 books.
And THEN when they are done with that number of books they only release one a year from there.
Why? Because in Quarter 4, they can slam their book ads ALL over KDP and make bank! Yes… it’s that easy!
Fifth … turn hard into easy
I find that people often overthink the act of book writing. They assume it’s this complicated thing that will take years to write and kill the joy of writing.
NO!
Once you know the trope you want to write ( BASED ON DATA!) — read 5 books from 5 different authors of that trope.
From those readings you will 100% learn the structure of that trope.
From that structure, you write it down onto a file and EVERY book you write MUST have the same structure.
This means you always have a skeleton of your book and all you need is to add the organs, the fat, and the skin.
Easy right?
Once you know what is needed … you just need to match it together.
Plots DON’T change… the characters, the actions of those characters, and the scenery DO.
Once you have this skeleton you can EASILY hire people to help you write many more books.
Keep things simple when you are hiring people by giving them a guideline on just what you need so they have NO problem writing it.
We’re finally at the end.
Okay, I know this article has been kind of mean and of course very direct. And I’m sorry if I hurt the feelings of anyone who is active on http://Kboards.com writer’s cafe. ( No I’m not.)
Honestly, that website can kill the life of a wannabe publisher in a few minutes. And it’s not fair.
We all have the ability to create dozens and dozens of assets on KDP and other sources that people will love.
The last thing we need is a jealous person saying how horrible our cover is, how dumb an idea is, or telling us that we need to spend hundreds of dollars on crap because they did … yet they are making $100 a month. Um no.
You are a writer because you LOVE writing. You are a publisher because you love MONEY.
My very last tip to share with you…
Wanna make money? Write for your buyers — not for yourself.
You don’t matter. You are the supplier. You are the source of happiness and entertainment for your readers.
Laundry detergent companies care about the customers who use their products — they want HAPPY customers. They aim to make them happy. Do they put their own needs first? Hell no. They do this because they want MONEY. Not friends.
You as a writer are made to entertain and help your readers relax, learn, or just plain have fun.
Aim for that. And you WILL earn money.
I’m off to write a cyberpunk SciFi book because the market says so!
