Phase 2 of Publishing A Kindle Ebook: Plus Making a Newsletter For My Email List

Well, I'm almost done with my rough draft of my kindle ebook, and that means that I've been thinking ahead to the next steps. After thinking about it a little I realized that I have quite a bit of prep work to get through and that phase 2 is going to take me  a bit longer than I anticipated to start. Still, if I put in the work now, upfront, then it will pay off in the long run and I won't have to do it later.

I'm considering Phase 2 to be the first editing of my book and the formatting. See, although you can write your book in a word document there is still some formatting that must be done to make it compatible with the Kindle platform. Things like adding links to chapters so that people can use the bookmark function, and if you have any links within the book you must make those workable, and I'm sure more that I just can't think of right now. Luckily, KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) released a free little ebook that you can download that walks you through the basic formatting that you have to do. It's called "Building Your Book For Kindle" and again it's free, and it walks through what you need to do. I'm going at this first book with a ZERO budget, meaning I'm not paying for a thing. Not editing, cover art, or formatting. So this little ebook should save me a little heartache, time and frustration since I have their official instructions for formatting.

Of course there is the fact that on top of formatting my ebook I'll also need to edit. I'll admit that editing is NOT my strong suit, and down the road I do intend to start paying someone to do this for me, but that's the future, this is now. For now the budget is 0, so I'll have to do it myself. When I do finish the rough draft I'll step away from the book for at least 2 or 3 days. During that time I'll read up on some monetizatioin strategies, and work on my email newsletter (we'll get to that in a minute), and maybe even start to brainstorm more my next ebook. Okay, so that's a lot for a couple days, and no I will probably not do all that, but the point is to step away from what I've done and do something different. This way when I go to edit I'll be going in with fresh eyes that are more likely to catch mistakes.

Lastly, I'm going to build a newsletter for my future email list that I will grow through this, and other, ebooks. I've been looking into monetization strategies for ebooks and having a solid email list, that you can share deals and new book releases with is key to continued selling. Any business person will tell you that it's easier to keep a customer than to get a new one. Your email list is your ticket to repeat sales. There are also extra ways you can monetize your email list, like affiliate sales, but those I will use sparingly, as I want the main focus to be my book(s). As you can see this is a long term strategy. I plan on releasing at least 3-6 books in the next year, and they will all be related in some way. This means that customers who were interested in one book will likely be interested in another I'll publish. Hence, the email list that will allow me to update those customers when I release a new book, or perhaps run a sale on one I previously launched.

Now, people aren't just going to sign up for my email list for nothing, and if I don't keep in touch with them they'll likely forget me and my book before I publish another. Meaning when I do send the email announcing a new book launch they'll probably just trash it without reading it. So I need a way to keep these customers engaged, give them something of value in return for their email address, and ideally it needs to be something fairly automated. A lot of the experts and gurus will tell you to have a blog or website, and that's a great idea. I have a blog already, but unfortunately this blog doesn't really "go" with my subject matter (couponing). This isn't a deal blog, or coupon blog, or even a money saving blog. It's a blog about making money, which is somewhat related, but enough that I want to link it to my ebooks. So what does that leave?

A newsletter. It's been a couple years, but on another blog (sorry can't remember which one) the author talked about how they built their newsletter to be automated so they didn't have to constantly work at it. In a nutshell he signed up for an email service, and typed out his first 2 or 3 months of newsletters, then set it so that when a new person signed up they automatically began receiving those initial emails on a set schedule. So the emails that I received a couple years after he started his blog, where probably the same one's as someone who had signed up a year ago. A few hours work on the back end saved him a ton of time and work down the road. The plus is that when he wants to send a special email, say for a promotion, or contest, he still can and it doesn't mess with his scheduled emails at all. How awesome!

Now, I don't have the time, nor do I want, to start a coupon or deal or money saving website at this moment. This is the only blog I have time for, and the only one I want to focus on for awhile. So having an email attached to my blog or website isn't going to work, not with this one or with a new one. Then I remembered that recently I stumbled across two different people that had done something slightly different with their email list. Through an article on a blog the writer had recommended checking out a website of someone that helped them. So I clicked through to check it out, and all I found was a one page website dedicated to having you sign up for the email list. You received some little ebooklet for free for signing up. I signed up thinking I would be redirected to a website, but no, just the email page, that was it. Sure enough I started receiving emails from this person, some where like a blog post in that they contain information for me, some are reviews and such for items that I can buy related to the subject matter, etc. I bet his is automated as well ;)

Somehow my poor brain managed to cough up the idea that I could combine these two things, into one and make it work like a charm for my author email list. So the plan is to have people opt into my email list through my kindle book, not 100% sure HOW to do this yet, but I will find out as I know others are doing it. Next, there will already be at least 2 months worth of emails pre-typed and ready to go for when they sign up for them to receive. I plan on sending one email a week scheduled, and that will allow for special emails announcing future releases, sales and any affiliate emails I may (or may not) include. These emails will be full of helpful tips and tricks for couponing and tips for saving money on food in general, along with budget friendly recipes.

These types of emails will have a two-fold benefit. First, they will give my reader a ton of useful information on a topic I already know their interested in, saving money on groceries. Secondly, these topics are all tied to into future ebooks that I would like to create. By showing them little tid bits it establishes to them my authority on the subject, and makes them more likely to purchase those future titles when they are finished. It's a win-win for everybody, my favorite.

Okay the explanation was long, and hopefully it made sense, but the reason we went through all this is so you can understand why I want a newsletter ready to go before I release my book. That's why the last part of Phase 2 is going to be setting up my email list, and pre-writing at least 2 months worth of emails to be sent out. Since I am doing the formatting in this Phase it makes sense that I will be adding whatever is needed to make my sign up page, so it just makes sense to have the emails ready to go. In a couple months time this semester will be finished and during that time I can focus on getting a much larger chunk done, that way the focus can be on writing more books, not emails.

For a recap of Phase 2:

1. Formatting
2. Editing
3. Setting Up Email List and Newsletter

All this is going to take time, and I realize that I'll be lucky to have this book published by mid October, but I'll keep pushing and see where I get. The good thing is that the email work only has to be done once. So on my future books this is a step that I won't have to take again, and hopefully as I get more books under my belt formatting will become easier for me as well. As soon as I can afford to have someone else edit my books believe me I will. This all adds up to a lot of time and effort now, so that I can save that time and effort over and over again down the road. When I finish my rough draft and start Phase 2 I will write another post and keep you all updated. 

Don't Compare Your Success With Others, Here's Why!

I've been recently thinking a lot about all the numbers I've found floating around the internet. All the time I see people bragging that they've made XX amount of dollars in XX amount of time. How they quit their job in three month, one year, or just do this online stuff part time and work full time. It's hard sometimes to not have your head spinning with the numbers you'll see. On blogs, on facebook groups, in books you read, youtube videos, the list goes on and on. However, it's a good thing to remember that there is a danger in comparing numbers, and getting to hung up on how "other" sellers are doing.

Don't get me wrong, it's inspiring to me when I see a post or comment from someone talking about how they make (insert large sum of money) a month, or how they just started 4 months ago and already quit their job. I'm talking mainly Amazon FBA and ebay sellers here. Things like that are what spur me to keep moving forward with my FBA plan and give it all a go. The knowledge that the potential is there is like the carrot dangled in front of the donkey, it keeps me plodding along. Sometimes though, well sometimes it just has the opposite effect on me. Sometimes it intimidates me, or it makes me feel like a failure because I can't show numbers that impressive yet myself. Then I remember, don't compare myself to them because I don't know their whole story.

Here are some things to bear in mind when you come across those profit posts. Some questions that you should ask yourself of the poster.

• How long have they been doing it - If someone has had a blog for 10 years, or been blogging, then yeah, they are probably making thousands every month. Someone selling on FBA or Ebay for more than a year or so has a lot of money and inventory invested in their business, so yeah, they're making a lot of money.
• How much money do they have in it? - How much money have they spent to get to this point. If they are selling $100,000 worth of stuff, how much did they spend on inventory? $30,000, $40,000, more or less, because you take that out of their sales to get profits. How much money are they spending on web domains, hosting and email services for their blog? It's all relative, and sales are not the same thing as profit.
• Is that gross or net? It's easy to be wowed by those big numbers, but stop and ask yourself, is that profit (net) or is that sales (gross). There's  big difference between the two that you should keep in mind. If it's sales numbers then yes it's still impressive, but it doesn't reflect their personal costs incurred. The money spent on the inventory, overhead costs like shipping, fees deducted from the sales, etc. Profit on the other hand is the number you get when you take your sales and deduct all those things from it to get to your profit number.
• How much did they have to invest to start with? I'm working with a shoestring budget, no credit cards, cash only operation for right now. So when I see that someone just started 4 months ago and quit their job already, or has sent in 10 shipments in their first two weeks it kind of makes me feel like I'm lacking. Like I'm doing something wrong that I'm not there too. Then I remember, I don't know their story, how much they had to spend on inventory right out the gate, how much they spent on ebooks and courses and everything else to shorten their learning curve, I don't know where they live and what kind of sourcing they have available around them. 

Really there are so many things that go into starting your own business, whether online or offline that to compare your story with another persons story is a risky thing. We're all different and because of that we'll all do things slightly different than the next person. Now, I'm not telling you to never read another "Monthly Income" report, or a post where a person is celebrating their success and sharing their numbers. I personally read The Smart Passive Income Blog's monthly income reports all the time, and have for the last couple years.

Why? Because they continue to inspire me. I love his reports too because he goes into a lot of those pesky details like expenses, things that affected his business, what went right, and what went wrong. He also clearly states he's been in the blogging business for a long time and it took him years to get to where he is. Knowing all that I still read his reports, and they still inspire that one day down the road I'll pull in even a third of what he does a month. Sometimes I just fantasize, what would I do with money like that? Buy a home, investments, pay off debt, and there's nothing wrong with that. If I didn't indulge myself every once in a while it would be easy to burn out and forget why I'm trying to do all of this. So don't avoid posts like this, but remember to let them inspire you only.

As long as you remember to take everything you read or hear with a grain of salt and take away only the inspiration the you'll be fine. Remember to question it if you start to feel bad about your progress and you'll likely realize you don't have the whole story. Lastly, use those numbers to help push yourself, dream a little, and have fun. You don't want to burn out early in the game and give up. You want to be in it for the long haul, you're ready to improve your life and your families life (if you have one) and gain the freedom of self employment! Or at least the freedom of an easy secondary income to help ease financial stresses. Whatever your reason don't let the numbers game get in your head, and you'll be fine.

Writing a Kindle Ebook (Part 2)

Photo Credit: 365::115 - write

So it's been a couple weeks I think since my last post on writing a Kindle Ebook. In my last post about it (Writing A Non-Fiction Ebook Part 1) mostly I talked about some general information on publishing, pay outs, platform, etc. We also discussed a little bit about my general idea for a launch plan. Much like you write an outline before you begin writing, it was a kind of outline for getting this book written and moving on. So, since I wrote the last post I mentioned that I would love to have this published by October, Well, I doubt I'm going to make that, but I'm pushing myself as much as possible to get close to that. 

So I mentioned in my last post that I was reading an Ebook on publishing in 21 days, and following the general plan of that book. Since then I've also started reading another book by S.J. Scott called "Writing Mastery - How to Write 2,000 Words In A Day". I'll admit that I haven't finished it, I've been to busy writing! However, I read the first 1/3 of it, and plan to read the rest, and it already has helped me write more. Today we'll go over a couple of tips that helped, what I'm doing to get around my schedule handicap, and how far along I am into the book.

First thing that I took away from the book was something I knew, but had forgotten about. Write your rough draft edit free. That means you don't stop to think while you're writing. You let the words flow from your brain to your paper, or keyboard, or whatever. You continue to do this until the book is done. If you think of something you want to add, or edit down the road, go back to that section, put in a quick note to yourself, and let it go. If you want to add graphics, or pictures, or anything that's not writing related, insert a note to yourself in that spot and move on. If you misspell a word, move on. Are you catching the theme here? Just write, get it out there. It really is freeing, and after all you're not going to publish this first rough draft. 

That's why it's called a rough draft, not a final draft. Likely you'll go through at least two more edits and rewrites before you can call it a final draft, so don't worry about your mistakes. You're the only one who's going to see them. In the past I was terrible about doing this, but I decided to try my hardest this time, and you know what, it's really working. I've already wrote around 8,000+ words, and it's also helped me better format the book. Because as I've been writing I've realized that how I thought I was going to arrange it to begin with just didn't work, and there was a more natural way to do it. A quick change to my outline, a few notes to myself in previously typed chapters, and I continued on. Still, if I had been plodding along, writing a chapter, then editing it, then writing a little more, then editing it, I don't know that I would have caught the flow issue like I did. So, just get it out there, no worries on the rough draft just get it written.

Another tip that is great, but unrealistic for me, is to set aside a consistent time everyday to write. You know what, I think that's a grand idea, and if I could I would. However, I've mentioned before that I have two schedules. When I'm working, I work 12 hour shift all night, then sleep, then a small amount of time with family and cook supper, then it's off to work for another 12 hours. When I'm off I'm up all day and I sleep all night so I can be with my family, and feel like a normal person. This means there is not a single hour in the day that I can say for sure I will be up and available to write every single day. So, I'm trying something different, and so far it's working. When I can schedule the time I just write as many words as I can for as long as I can. So far this has gotten me past the 8,000 word mark, and probably around half way through my rough draft. Not to shabby considering. Still, if you can do it, the way of scheduling a time and writing a certain amount everyday really is the best way to do it.

Despite my lovely schedule I'm about halfway through my rough draft as I mentioned. Each time I've sat down to write I've managed to do at least one chapter if not two. The rough draft will go the fastest since I'm not editing or stopping, but hopefully I'll have it completed within the next two weeks, if not sooner. That leaves me about half a week in October, so I'm not likely to make my early October launch date with this, but mid-October is doable I think. I figure two more weeks for editing after the initial rough draft, and a day or two for converting it to Kindle and make it live (hopefully it won't take that long, but it'll be my first time so it'll take longer than usual I'm sure). So, mid October is realistic. 

When I get to the editing stage I will take small 2 or 3 day breaks in between editing. This allows you to go back to your work with clear eyes to spot mistakes. Often if we read something we just wrote we miss mistakes because we "know" what we were typing and automatically fill it in. So, be sure to step away for at least a day or two before you begin to edit. I plan to spend this time further researching and learning about Kindle publishing of course. I found a book about copy writing that I would like to read, and I also have another Steve Scott ebook that is about selling more Kindle non-fiction books. A good way to spend my "off" time I think.

So, that's pretty much it for now. Nothing to glamorous, just focusing on writing right now. Really, that is where the focus should be too. A book isn't a book without words, and this rough draft is all that matters right now. It is the cornerstone of the polished little ebook I hope to put out, and as such it's getting the attention it deserves. If you're starting your own book try to remember to just write that rough draft without editing, schedule time to write everyday (or almost everyday), don't let stuff get in your way and find a way to get around it. If you want to read the book I mentioned above it's a good read so far, and I can't imagine it gets worse! It does have a 4 1/2 stars out of five rating, so it must stay good. In fact, I'll list all the books I've read or am reading currently for you, maybe you'll find one or two helpful yourself. Plus, if you have Kindle Unlimited everyone of these books is eligible for free download :)

• Writing Habit Master - S.J. Scott
• Why Authors Fail: 17 Mistakes Self Published Authors Make That Sabotage Their Success - Derek Doepker
• How To Write A Non-Fiction eBook In 21 Days That Readers Will Love - Steve Scott
• 
  

My Amazon FBA Strategy

If you've followed the blog at all you know that I've been talking about selling through Amazon's FBA program for a few months now, at least over the summer. I haven't really gotten started on it though because frankly it takes an initial investment, and I just haven't had the extra income to invest. However, I'm actually glad that I didn't jump right in, because being forced to wait has made me research and read about this far more than I would've to start with. Doing all this research, and finding all these great groups and blogs has made me realize that I'm going to switch my strategy from what I initially thought I would.

Initially I planned on focusing on retail arbitrage, if you're not sure what I'm talking about you can read my post What Is Retail Arbitrage? here. The basic concept of it is to buy low and sell high. Generally walking into a retail store, like Walmart, and finding an item that sells for more online than they are selling it in store. Usually it's clearence and/or sales prices in the store, and you can make money with this strategy, and good money as well. Still, it takes a higher investment up front, because you're still needing to buy items in store and pay semi retail cost. The return on investment (ROI), which is how much you'll make off your initial investment, seems to be pretty low for this category. Most people shoot for at least 50% ROI, and that's still a good profit, but it means you dig a lot more for those hidden gems. Again, this is not a bad strategy, and many sellers seem to do very well doing this. Down the road I intend to try this out myself, but that's down the road, I needed a plan for what I'm going to do now.

So what I'm going to focus on to begin with is selling books through Amazon FBA. I'll admit that at first I had written off selling books, and let this be a lesson to never hastily write off a potential income stream, but I found a great blog called FBA Mastery that I highly suggest you take the time to read through and dig around in. This blog is by a guy named Peter Valley, and he makes a substantial (six figures a year) income selling books and media (mainly books) through Amazon FBA. It's through reading his articles that I've come to realize that there is a great market for these items, and as long as you know what you're doing the potential to make money is huge.

So why books? Well here's why:

• The initial investment is low - Ever been to a library sale, yard sale, estate sale etc. and seen books that are selling anywhere from .25 to $3 each? If you haven't than you should go into a thrift store or garage sale in your area sometime and just look at the prices they have their books. It's cheap, cheap, cheap. These are highly donated, throw away type items, that many places and people are just trying to get rid of. Ten or $20 can easily get you the same amount of items that you spent, if not more.
• The ROI Is Fantastic - Because you're spending so little to purchase these items upfront your profit margin is just that much better. For example, I just spent $2 on 4 books at my library, after researching I'll make around $20 on these books, after fees, shipping, etc. That's 20X my initial investment. That same $2 in a retail store will likely only net me $5 or $10 through retail arbitrage, if I'm lucky. 
• They are everywhere - Like I said, books are a common throwaway for most households. They take up space, most people only use or read them once or for one semester and then they don't want them anymore. So they donate by the boxes, or sell dirt cheap just to get rid of them. 
• There are NO long-term storage fees - Amazon charges storage fees for holding your items in their warehouse, and a more heftier fee for something that's been there a long time. They don't want a bunch of widgets sitting in their warehouse taking up space forever, so they discourage this through long-term storage fees. There is one exception, and that is long-tail items. That means it's a one off kind of product, that will take that special buyer to find it, and they realize that it may take more time for that buyer to come along. A single book will not incur this fee, but if you have multiples of that book it will. 

My reasoning, based on the above factors, is that with a small amount of money upfront I can double or triple my money if not even more. I've seen examples of books that were bought for $1 selling $25, or bought for $20 selling for $200. It's an easy to find product for me to find, considering I live in a fairly rural location and sourcing will likely be one of the hardest parts of my business. So a minimul effort and investment that gives me a greater return. Yep, that's what I'm all about with this business ;)

There are two main drawbacks that I see with books though. They are heavy, and will likely cost me more in shipping than most retail items. Secondly, most are not going to be quick sellers, it's likely that you will have a majority of your books in the warehouse for at least a month if not more. This isn't a quick way to make money, at least in the beginning. Building up a full inventory will be key to this strategy, and the way to daily sales I think. Personally I'm okay with both these things. Shipping is always going to be a cost, and there's really little I can do about that, and with the higher profit margin on books I'm comfortable knowing I'll spend more sending them in. I'm also prepared to be patient with this, I'm in it for the long haul, and knowing that I spent little to start with makes it easier to wait on sales. If I walked into a store and spent $100 or more on items then I would be much more concerned about how quickly I recouped my money and made some to boot. 

With all that being said I still can't get started until October, and there is a reason. October is when my family will be receiving a small amount of extra money, and with part of that money I'm going to invest in my family and get my business started. Now, that's not to say someone couldn't start without getting "extra" money, because they could, and I could too. It's merely that this makes it far easier for me to start and allows me to hit the ground running. So I'm taking $500, and I've already mapped out what I will be spending that money on.

1. Smartphone - This is the main reason I'm waiting on this money. I do not have a smartphone at this time, and you need one for the scouting apps that are available. Having a good scouting app is key to finding profitable books to sell. It allows me to scan the barcode and see the rank of an item, what it's selling for, and if other FBA sellers are offering the same item. 
2. 3 Month Unlimited Phone Plan - I am not getting a contract with a company as I think they're a waste of money. Straight talk lets you get unlimited text, minutes, and web browsing for only $45 a month, or $130 for three months. The plan is that by the time the three months is up profits will be coming in to the point that they can pay for the phone plan after that.
3. Book Sourcing Secrets Ebook - This is written by Peter Valley and is the most comprehensive guide to sourcing books for FBA out there. It's only $47, at this time, and I was honestly surprised it's that little compared to prices I've seen on other FBA books. Well worth the investment I hope.
4. Profit Bandit Ap - This is a scouting app, and at this point is the most recommended one at that.
5. Barcode Scanner - These are relatively inexpensive, around $25 - $30 and simply allow me to enter items into my Amazon FBA inventory quicker. Rather than entering in each ISBN by hand I can just scan the barcode and it'll populate it into the inventory for me. This isn't really a necessity to start with, but I've got the money, and the more time I can save the more time I have to find books!
6. Friends of the Library Membership - There is at least one library around me that offers a special sneak preview of their books sales (and their having one at the end of Oct) to FOL members. It's only $20 for a year, and the advantage of being able to get in early to find books is worth more than that.
7. Sourcing and Inventory Items - It's likely I'll only have around $200 left of the $500 for sourcing products, but that's okay, because we're talking items that are a couple bucks or less, so that's a lot of inventory that I can find. Really there's no reason, other than finding the items, that I can't get around 200 or more items to add to my inventory with that amount of money. 

As you can see the bulk of my initial investment is going to tools, ebooks, and apps, less than half is going towards sourcing. Again, if I was going the retail arbitrage route I would be way more concerned about that, but with books it's a little safer to do. Since January will be right around the corner when I do I would love to find a good selection of textbooks to add to my inventory as well. These will cost me more money, but the ROI on them is even better than average books most of the time. It also means that at a time, post Christmas, that many sellers see a slump in sales I will see a boost as the winter semester starts in January. 

Will I ever sell retail arbitrage? Probably, and it's likely that I'll use RA to scout out some books, think the clearence isle at a bookstore. While books are great, I hope, and seem the most promising I'm a big proponent of having multiple revenue streams. So while my items will all be through the same seller avenue, Amazon, I feel it's smarter and safer to offer a wider range of products than just one thing. Not to mention I like to change things up, I don't like to become bored with one thing or product. Bundling, retail arbitrage, "thrifting for profit" all these things intrigue me, and I'd love to try them out down the road. Of course when I do I'll share my experience with all of you so you can decide which route you would like to go.

So for now that's my game plan, and I feel pretty comfortable with it. Other than the suspense of waiting of course! I think in between I will try to take $10 or so every payday and pick up a few books. The nice thing about my library sale is it's ongoing, it's a room that's always open I can go into. That means that I could go in, find some interestig titles, write down the name and ISBN and then go home and research them on Amazon. Not the most efficient way to source inventory, hence my need for a smartphone and scouting app, but it'll work short term to try and build up a little inventory. Whether or not you can start right away with what you want to do it's a good idea to have a plan.

Writing A Non-Fiction Ebook On Kindle Direct Publishing (Part I)

Photo Credit: Jain Basil Aliyas

If you read my earlier posts on teaching a class locally for money you'll know that I'm hoping to launch a complimentary ebook to go with it on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform. Even thought I'm doing the two together, in a sense, it is a completely different process and platform for each. So I'm splitting my posts, one set will follow the class aspect, and this set of posts will follow publishing on KDP.

As I covered in my old post (Can I Teach A Class For Money) I've wanted to self publish for quite awhile. Of course I thought fiction, and I still plan to fulfill that dream someday, but when thinking about my class idea I realized that it wouldn't be that much harder to take my class material and turn it into a non-fiction, how-to type book. A couple months ago, completely by random searches, I discovered a free ebook by Kindle Direct Publish on how to publish using their platform. I downloaded it, since I knew I was interested, but I hadn't read it. Still, I thinking finding that little ebook had planted the seed once again in my subconscious. So I made my decision to dive in, but of course I need to do some research, and that's what this post will cover. These were the first questions I had, and I would think that they are probably common questions asked. 

Mainly I was looking at a few different things: How hard was it to publish, what are the royalties, pricing, payments, etc like, some general tips and tricks on how to write the book and get it out there, and pricing my book when I was ready to go live with it. A couple days of some google searches, and a few ebooks (3 to be exact) later and I have a better idea of what to do and where to go. 

Publishing

• After reading their small ebook, Publish on Amazon Kindle with Kindle Direct Publishing, it really hit home that it can be a very simple process. Basically a person writes the book in a word document, there are other programs that are compatible but Word is what I have, and then you transfer the document to KDP, and they turn it into an ebook. Simple, yes. Will it really work that way? We'll see, I'm sure there will be formatting issues when the document gets changed from word document to an ebook. For this reason I'm going to keep my document VERY SIMPLE. Minimal pictures, basic text and font, and easy style designs like bullets and asterisk. Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of hiccups during the transformation process.
• Publishing with KDP does come with some limitations on the part of the author. For one they have strict rules on pricing and royalties. Above a certain price gets a higher royalty, below that price gets a lower one. You also are not allowed to offer your book free forever, or even as often as you want. I'll cover these two things further in the post. Overall though the advantages of using KDP far outweigh the few concessions you make so I'm going to use them. 
• They also have another ebook that I just found,  Building Your Book For Kindle, again put out by the KDP people. I haven't had the chance to read yet, but it's suppose to walk you through creating your word document to be converted to a Kindle Ebook. This should help with those formatting concerns I had. It's already downloaded to my Kindle library and it's next on my reading list. 

Pricing and Pay

• Obviously I want to make money off this. I don't know if I'll make a lot, a little, or nothing (hopefully I'll do better than nothing though) but money in the bank is the end goal here. If I were just writing for the joy of writing I would be starting with one of my fiction ideas. So one of the first things I looked at was their royalty structure and payment system.
• If you price your ebook $2.99 or LESS than you are ONLY eligible for a 35% royalty on sales. If you price your book at $2.99 or ABOVE you are eligible to receive a 70% royalty. I don't know what the standard royalties are like for authors who are published traditionally, but to me these seem like fair numbers. That means that if your book is priced at $2.99 and you choose the 70% royalty you'll make $2.09 off each sale. Amazon only takes .90 of that sale. I like those numbers.
• If you are NOT enrolled in the KDP program than you can not price your ebook below $2.99
• The payment system is pretty straightforward and easy to understand, just don't think you'll be getting that bank deposit or check within a week or two. Amazon has a wait time on paying you the money, and it's because they wait for refunds and returns. The wait time is 60 days after the end of the month that you hit their payment threshold.
• If you have a bank account linked to your KDP account then you are eligible for payment when you reach $10 in sales. 
• If you do not have a bank account linked to your KDP account then you must reach $100 in sales. I highly recommend you have a savings/checking account linked to your KDP account.

• It credits the money to your KDP account every 30 days, unless you have not reached the threshold and then it will credit it 30 days after you do hit the minimum payout threshold.
• So that means that if you reach your payment threshold in the month of October, you would be issued your payment 60 days later, or around early December.

Writing and Launch Strategy

• I found a really interesting ebook called "How To Write A Non-Fiction Book in 21 Days" by author Steve Scott. Since my goal is to have this book published by October they title caught my eye and I decided to get the book. I've read through the beginning and kind of skimmed through his 21 day plan. I like what I see, and he seems to have solid advice, so I'm going to try and follow his plan as much as possible. I may take longer than 21 days though as I don't have a "traditional" schedule. Really, I have no schedule, when I'm working I'm up all night and sleep through most of the day (I work in a hospital) and when I'm off I flip my schedule over to being up during the day and sleeping at night so I can be with my family. This makes it hard to carve out a specific block of time everyday to dedicate just to writing, which is what he advocates, but I will do my darndest to follow it as much as possible. 
• Some might consider it putting the cart before the horse, but I like to have a full plan, or at least idea of what, when and how I'm going to do something. That meant that I wanted a plan in place for my book launch, and pricing my product. Again, I found another Steve Scoot booklet called "Is .99 the New Free? The Truth About Launching and Pricing Your Kindle Books". It's a pretty small booklet, and I read it in around an hour or so. Still, the information was good, and enough that I have a plan in mind. 
• I will launch my book free for 5 days, this will hopefully garnish me some exposure, recommendations, and good reviews. After that I will price it at .99 for a short time, not sure how long yet, and hopefully that will get me some legit sales. After that I will go to my regular price of $2.99. I'm hoping the reviews from the free period, and the sales from the .99 period will be enough for Amazon to recommend my book and bump it higher in the search results. 

So there's the "grand plan" of my future non-fiction ebook. It's a pretty basic roadmap, but I don't want to get bogged down in to many details before I've even written the thing! My goal with this is to get it done, get it published, and see where it all goes. While I plan to create a quality ebook with quality content it's an experiment as far as a revenue stream. This is the initial testing of the waters, and I fully plan to take what I learn from this quick run through and apply it to my next title, and the next, and the next and so on. Of course I'll be posting regular posts on the process and progress and maybe I'll help someone else down the road launch their title. How cool would that be!

Teaching A Class For Money (Part 1)

I've toyed with the idea of teaching a coupon class for a the last couple years, but it wasn't until recently that I finally decided to take the plunge and start getting the ball rolling. The thought behind this blog post, and the ones that will follow, is to outline the process and how well it does. If you think about it I bet there's something that your friends and family are always coming to you to ask questions about. Or there's something you can do that they constantly ask you do for them, like change their oil or knit them a hat. If you can't think of something, because it's often harder for us to think of what we're good at, than ask your friends and family. The answer may surprise you, but once you have it, start to think about how you could make that into a "class" you could teach.

I already have that step covered, I know my skill that everyone wants, it's coupons and how to use them. It's not that surprising really, any skill that helps people save money is huge at the moment. So if your skill has money saving potential then be sure to highlight that! The next step is to start brainstorming your class, what do you need to teach? What are the steps they should follow? Will you have handouts, examples, etc.? Here is where you just let your brain mull things over and spit random information and thoughts at you and you write them down, or type them, whatever you like to do. Get it all down, don't worry about order, or if it "goes", just free flow it. Again, I've already done this step. I kept my notebook next to me for a day and everytime I thought of something I just wrote it down and went on.


Then you should take all those random thoughts and make a nice tidy outline of your class with them. This is where you put items and steps in the right order. Weed out the information that is irrelevant, decide what handouts and such you want to use. Below is a handy link to an article about Outlines, it's an English article, but I've found outlines to be useful in much more than the english classroom. There's really nothing better for organizing your thoughts, it's a short article so take a second and check it out.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/544/2/

Why should you bother with an outline? Well, as mentioned above they are one of the best ways to organize your thoughts into something that makes sense. It also provides you wiith something you can take to class with you and use as a reference as you teach. Make sure to save it too, when you are done with your class you can just pull it out every time you want to teach the class again. This can make this a recurring income, which is my end goal with this class, to teach it a couple times a year for a small income boost. Especially during holiday and birthday time it would be a very nice little bit of extra cash!

Currently I need to work on my outline. I have all my random thoughts and such down, now I just need to get them in order and move on. Here I'm also going to suggest doing a little bit of extra research. The reason for suggesting you research something you already know is because sometimes when we KNOW how to do something we forget how to explain it to other people. We miss those obvious and newbie questions that people have. Ever read a ____ For Dummies book? They literally include every. little. tiny. step! But there is a reason they are such well sold books, and they're attention to detail is part of it. In fact, if you can find a For Dummies book on your topic I suggest checking it out of your local library and giving it a quick scan. Likely you'll find a few things that you do automatically and wouldn't have thought of including in your class. If you don't have a for dummies book to read, just google (insert your thing) for beginners and read through the results. You're looking for all those FAQs that newbies ask so that you can include them in your class.

From there is nothing to do but make out your class. Really a well done outline should be all that you need to teach. You just need something to remind you of the highlights and steps of what you are covering, the rest of the information is in your brain. Make your supporting materials and have it all ready. Now comes finding a place to teach your class.

Every area is going to be different as to what they have to offer, so you'll have to do a little research. Ask around, make some phone calls, talk to friends and neighbors. Chances are good you'll find out some places you could hold your class. You may have to pay to "rent" the space for the duration of your class, so keep that in mind when looking into your options. Personally I know I can get the community building, senior center, and I think I can hold a class at our local library. I just need to research some prices and whether or not I can at the library. Personally I feel that the library would be the best place as it lends a certain credibility to me just because of where it is. That's me though.

Once you have the class made, decided on a place to have it you need to set a date and time to have it.You should also decide how much are you going to charge for the class. Take into consideration how much time you spent making the class, materials used, money spent on the venue and advertising and go from there. Once you have the date and time, you've rented your class space, and all your materials are ready (and so are you) start advertising. There's facebook buy/sell/trade groups for your area you can advertise on (for free), craigslist (for free), word of mouth of course is always free, and you can invest in a small ad in your local paper if you want to, and can afford to, as well.

Then nothing to do but teach it when the time comes. It may be small the first time, but just push through and learn from it. Have a Q&A at the end, get an idea for questions that you didn't already answer in your class and mark them. Ask the people that attended if you did well, what suggestions for improvement they may have, etc. A quick and small survey for them to fill out at the end of class would fulfill this function well. Then just take what you learned, tweak your class accordingly, rinse and repeat.

Short Term and Long Term Goals

Photo Credit: Dana Lookadoo

So I felt like it was time to set some definite goals down. Not weekly goals, but bigger goals. I call them short term and long term, but the truth is those are relative terms. I basically will have two goals, one at 6 months and one at a year. At first I hesitated over if I would post this, but then I realized that a large part of me hesitating was fear. Fear of failure, because if I put these goals out there, then there is the real possibility that I will not make them. By putting them out on internet I've announced to the world (at least any who read this blog) my intentions, and if I fail then that many people know of it. 

This made me realize that I was thinking wrong. One, I shouldn't automatically assume failure on my part. If I do then I am making my own self fulfilling prophecy, essentially setting myself up to fail. Really, that's not how I feel at all. I feel confident with my goals, and ready. I've tried a few different things over the past couple years, and I've read a lot of books, blogs, articles, you name it. I feel good, with where I'm at, the work I'm putting into this, and with my plan.

Secondly, failure in and of itself isn't a terrible thing. I've failed quite a lot over the last two or three years actually. You know what, it's okay that I have. I've learned so much from each of those failures. About myself, my work ethic, and different business models. It's because of those failures that I feel like I'm on better footing now. So it's from a place of failure that I feel the most confident to move forward. From this place I've decided on my financial goals.

• In 6 months I fully intend on making $150 a week with my online and offline ventures. Where do I get this number? Simple, $20 * 365 (days in a year)= $7300. $7300/12 (months)= $608 month. That divided by 4 (weeks) is around $150 a week. So it's my $20 a day goal basically, I'm just giving myself a very definite timeline to achieve this goal. Here's how I plan to meet this short term goal.
• Amazon FBA - Although I've moved slowly on this one I fully plan to move forward and start making money with this. I've even outlines a rough sketch of HOW I plan to move my FBA business forward, but that's a post for another day.
• Kindle Ebooks - I've already got an outline and idea for my first book, and I've thought of a couple others. I would really like to try and crank out 3 books over the next six months. A bit ambitious of me perhaps, but I'm really pushing myself.
• That was the short term, here is my long term goals. In one year I would like to completely replace my income with outside revenue sources. As in, if I wanted to I could quit my job income. I currently make around $22,000 a year so that's my goal. $22,000 in a year. Doesn't mean I will actually quit my job, doesn't mean I won't, it just means that I prove to myself that I can replace my income. Here's my potential income sources:
• Amazon FBA - Although I want to make the bulk of my "$20 a day" through FBA it doesn't mean that I'm going to keep much of that money. In fact I plan on rolling most of my initial profits straight back into buying more inventory. More inventory equals more money, so that's going to be my focus.
• Kindle Ebooks - Once my initial 3 book burst is over I'll have to stop and re evaluate how to proceed from there. Depending on a few different factors I'll decide if I'm going to continue with non-fiction, or branch into fiction like I would like to. Revenue wise non-fiction is likely to make me more money, but personally, being a published fiction author is a cherished dream, so I'll have to decide. Regardless, I would like to publish 2 more books on top of the initial 3 I published. I'll also test some different pricing strategies to try and boost sales of the titles that have been out for awhile.
• Offline Classes - Not sure on this one, but I would like to try and pull in a few extra hundred dollars a year this way. Teaching some informative local classes a few times a year might just be a nice little revenue boost per year.
• This Blog - At the moment of me writing this, this blog has no monetization at all. I have no affiliate links, I'm not selling my own products, and I have one single ad from adsense. I don't plan on changing any time soon, but eventually I will begin to monetize. Probably through referring different products (mostly ebooks I'm sure lol) I've used/read and recommending them (or not) to my readers. They will always be honest, and I'll never fudge just to make a dollar. 
• Offline Sales - I like refurbing old furniture, and painted furniture is HOT right now. I'm going to start keeping my eyes open while I'm scouting FBA inventory for good quality but cheap pieces I can easily fix up a little and paint. The plan is to improve them with minimal effort and money and turn around and resell for a decent profit.

So there are my goals, and my rough idea of how I will accomplish them. It's going to take a lot of hard work and determination on my part, but I'm ready. As of now I'm motivated and moving forward full steam. The beginning is always the easiest though, it's going to be in a month or two that I'll start to slow down. Hopefully when that happens I can just come back to this post and remind myself what my goals were and what I'm working towards. A rough plan of how much, when and how for your own business is not a bad idea. You need those definite goals to work towards, and don't fear failure, embrace it. Learn from it, and grow from it.