How to Self-Publish a Book on Amazon: 23 Steps to Launching a Kindle Ebook That Earns More Than $100 a Day

What if I told you that even if you don't have an audience or email list you could learn how to self-publish a book on Amazon and make it a best seller?

A short time ago, I launched my first self-published Kindle ebook.It is now a best-selling book in 3 different categories.

I'm going to show you how.

The book was published under a new pen name (as part of my project on the authority's website).We did all this with virtually no audience, no email list, and no previous experience selling books as a self-published author on Amazon and of course with traditional publishers.

No joke.

What you are about to read are step by step details about how we were able to learn how to independently publish a book on the Amazon Kindle store (KDP) and how it managed to get 5,895 free downloads in the first 5 days and now sells very well at $2.99.

To clarify, I HAVE a large following on NichePursuits.com.However, I kept this side project of selling my first book through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) a secret.I didn't exploit my audience or my name on Amazon.

I launched my book from scratch, the same point from which some of you would start.If you already have an existing audience, I'll share how you can take advantage of it.

The best part about this business is that you can literally have something for sale and sell on the Amazon Kindle store in a relatively short period of time.

I'll show you how with the 23 detail steps below.

We take this big niche business idea seriously .

THE SHORTCUT

This post contains everything you need to know about publishing a book on Amazon.But if you want a direct tutor to show you the ropes and give you more personal guidance, there is an option.

Chandler Bolt was one of the first people I heard about, who did well with self-publishing. You can check out his podcast interview here.

He started a course to take you from 0 to 100 on publishing a Kindle book.It's a no-frills guide to success through self-publishing.

You can click here to sign up for a free webinar where he reveals his course.

SCHOOL OF SELF-PUBLISHING

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I wish I had met a mentor who could guide me through the self-publishing process.Chandler Bolt can be your mentor.His course teaches you how to:

  • Learn how to go from idea to run in 90 days
  • Write the bestseller you know is inside you
  • Get the scoop on how to publish and how to make sales with your book

Click here to learn more about Self Publishing School and start your legacy

FIND YOUR BOOK MENTOR WITH SELF PUBLISHING SCHOOL

THE BEST-SELLING SELF-PUBLISHED BOOK ON AMAZON

You can publish a book yourself on Amazon by following these steps:

  • Choose your niche and plan your book
  • Determine if there's a market for your book
  • Start the Process with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)
  • Write your book
  • Name your book
  • Hire an editor/proofreader
  • Get a designed cover
  • Set the description and keywords for your book
  • Choose a price and upload your book

What I'm going to share is specifically about how to independently publish a book on Amazon, through their Kindle platform.There are many self-publishing services and self-publishing companies that can help in this process… But this is a step by step guide on how to do it yourself.

This is for independent authors who do not want to go through a traditional publishing house.Read on if you're more interested in selling your book online instead of seeing a book printed on Barnes and Noble's shelves from day one.

Before we move on to the detailed steps below, I want to share some results with you that show the success of the book.

Also, please note that I will NOT reveal the actual book on Amazon in order to prevent cat copies or other negative consequences I have seen from previous projects that I have shared publicly.

I would make more sales if I publicly shared the book on my blog here, but I think this case study is more valuable if kept secret for now.

OVERALL, HERE ARE SOME QUICK HIGHLIGHTS OF THE RESULTS OF OUR BEST-SELLING KINDLE EBOOK:

  • 5,895 free downloads in the first 5 days
  • Best Selling Book in 3 Different Kindle eBook Categories
  • Amazon Best Seller Ranking of 2,511
  • Earn about $40/day during the $0.99 period (7 days)
  • Currently making $100+/day – priced at $2.99

Here's the chart showing the 5 free days of the kindle book (more details on this strategy below):

kindlefreeGetting 5,895 free downloads is fantastic and I believe it was critical to the success of our self-published book; however, you only earn after listing it for sale.

Here's what happened when we listed the book for $0.99 (learn more about pricing strategy below):

kindle99cents This is the kind of chart you want to see!When you get 60 to 70 units sold per day, even at $0.99 is very good.KU/KOLL units come from the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Lending Library programs.I've been told they're worth about $1.31 a piece.

Overall, even with a 35% royalty rate on a Kindle book of $0.99; We were earning $40+ per day over the past few days in the table above.

Not bad at all.

I'll just say that things got even BETTER in terms of earnings once I raised the price of my book to 0.99.

kindlesalesThe "Paid Units" (red line) are sales at $2.99, of which I get a 70% royalty share (about $2.07).KU/KOLL units (blue line) are worth about $1.31 each.You can do the math yourself, but our best-selling book now consistently earns $80-$100+ per day. Sweet!

And here is the official screenshot showing books on Amazon and Best Seller status in 3 different categories:

amazonbestseller (Yes, I blocked the categories where the book is located… I'm just much more cautious about copy cats).

Thanks to these people …

Before moving on to the step-by-step procedure, I must share that I did not understand this process on my own!In my podcast I interviewed both 2 different self-published authors who are experts in publishing: Jonny Andrews and Steve Scott.

I was able to ask Jonny and Steve direct questions about how to build a successful self-publishing business on Amazon before I even considered writing my first book.

In addition, Steve continued to write on his blog several excellent blog posts that he created with a WordPress theme and was willing to answer some private questions via email.One of Steve's blog posts is actually a guest post by Nick Loper's SideHustleNation.com on how he launched a Kindle eBook and got 20,000 downloads in the first week.

Perrin and I followed the steps of Nick Loper's launch process from that guest post quite closely.In addition, Nick also created a more in-depth Kindle launch course on Udemy that we purchased and followed.(Nick offers the course with a 75% discount right here if interested).

So while many of the steps below take our own turn, I would say that Jonny, Steve, and Nick didn't provide valuable wisdom in shaping our launch process.

Okay, let's move on to how to really do all this!

HOW TO WRITE AND SELL A BOOK ON AMAZON KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING (KDP)

1. CHOOSE A WIDE NICHE

To choose a niche, I have only a couple of simple rules.First, you need to make sure that people actually buy books in this niche.

In other words, try not to choose such an obscure niche that there are not already books on the subject.You can see some of the best-selling books by browsing all Amazon categories.

Secondly, you want to choose a market large enough that at least some titles can be written in the niche.A perfect example of a larger market is the market where Steve Scott chose "Habits". Steve has chosen the niche of habit development and has now written various titles in that niche ranging from habit stacking to developing a walking habit.

Finally, I would choose a niche that really interests you. Whether it's parenting, camping or business management; Choose a niche that you like and that has a fairly large audience.

Update: Since I wrote this post, I have found a great software tool that can help you choose the best niches for Kindle books.That software tool is Publisher Rocket.I highly recommend going to see the demo video here, it is very powerful.

2. PLAN FOR FUTURE SUCCESS

If you're looking to build long-term self-publishing success, you don't want to be a unique wonder.According to self-published bestselling authors like Steve Scott and Jonny Andrews, you'll eventually want to build your own library of book titles.

Once you have a few titles all in the same niche, buyers of a book will browse through other titles you own and buy many times if they liked your first book.

This is really just a classic example of researching your target market and selling additional items to them.If, for example, all your books are about fishing, a person interested in catching the bass may also be interested in catching rainbow trout; So if you wrote both of these books you can get 2 sales instead of just one.

However, if you've written a book about Bass Fishing and another book about Sewing, the chances of the bass player being interested in a book about sewing are very slim.

You can use the same general strategy with a children's book or fiction book.

So, you absolutely need to plan your future success while staying in your niche!So before you settle for a niche, think about whether you can see many other book titles in the same market that will appeal to a similar audience.

3. DETERMINE IF BOOKS SELL WELL IN YOUR NICHE

If you want to make more than a couple of dollars a month self-publishing a book, you need to make sure that the target category has enough buyers.One way to see how books are selling in your chosen category is to look at the "Amazon Best Seller ranking" of some of the best books in your niche.

This step is so important.Either it will solidify your decisions made in steps 1 and 2, or it may tell you to completely eliminate the niche you chose and try something else.

In short, I want to see the best sellers in my chosen category with an Amazon bestseller ranking of at least 10,000; And finding stocks under 5,000 is much better.A lower level indicates that the book sells more copies.

If a book is ranked 5,000 in the Kindle store, that means it probably sells anywhere between 20 and 40 copies a day (this is not an exact science but just a best guess based on my book).A book with an Amazon bestseller ranking of 10,000 or higher likely sells less than 10 copies per day (and perhaps much less just depending on where it ranks).

I don't know you, but I don't want to write a book that sells only 1 copy a day.I want something that can potentially make 4 digits per month!By looking at Amazon's bestseller rankings, you can tell if your chosen niche/category has any chance of selling so many copies.

HOW TO SELECT YOUR AMAZON PUBLISHING NICHE

First, go to the Kindle Store on Amazon here.

kindlemenuNow you need to scroll down to your category by clicking on "Kindle eBooks" or "Kindle Short Reads".I suggest clicking on "Kindle eBooks" to get the best idea of the overall size of the market.

Going to Kindle Short Reads you will only see books that sell well that are of a certain length.This can be an interesting category to compare what other kindle books are doing on Amazon; however, for research purposes, it is sufficient to examine the general section of eBooks.

For example, let's click on Kindle books, then on "Science and Math":

ebookscience Now under Science and Math, there are many subcategories.I want to find the subcategory that comes closest to the book I'm going to write.So, let's dig a little deeper:

RiverbestsellerIf I wanted to write a book about Rivers… This is the category you would like to see.The number 1 bestseller in this subcategory is "Blue Mind".

After clicking on the book, you can see Amazon's current bestseller ranking by scrolling just below the "Product Details" section.

river1This book is the No. 1 best seller in the Rivers category, but it only has an Amazon Best Seller ranking of 27,888 in the Kindle store.This is far above the threshold of 10,000 I mentioned earlier.I also checked several other titles in this category and all of them are well above 10,000.

As a result, I would NOT consider writing a book about Rivers or one that falls into this subcategory.There is not enough interest from buyers on this topic.

A better example

Now we find a category that would be worth pursuing.

If we go to the category "Crafts, hobbies and home" and then "Care of animals and pets" this is what we see:

dog1 I clicked on the Dogs subcategory and I can see that "How Dogs Love Us" is the No. 1 best seller.How does Amazon's best seller rank?

absdogsThis book is ranked #849 in total!It's selling really well.

As I look at this book and others in the "dogs" category, many of them are well below the #10,000 seller rank.This category would give you great potential to sell a lot of books.

Using this search method, you will know if a category is a good market to enter or not.

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4. BRAINSTORM BOOK KINDLE PUBLISHING TOPICS

Now that you've chosen a niche that has a lot of potential for future success and you've found a category that sells well, it's time to start brainstorming the topic of your first book!

My process for brainstorming book topics is to write down about 10 different potential topics in my niche (from the steps above).So, if I were to get into the Dogs category, I could see that any book related to how dogs and humans think and communicate is something that people buy.

I'm sure I could find some random titles for this category…

  • How to communicate with your dog
  • How to organize your home with a dog at home
  • Relationships between children and dogs
  • and so on.

I'm just making it all up at this point, but you get it.Just do some free-flowing brainstorming on your specific topic and you're sure to start coming across some topics that might work well.

Using your intuition and seeing which books on similar topics are selling well, you can quickly narrow down what your book's actual topic should be.Unfortunately there is no software where you can enter the title of your potential book and see how many copies it will sell.

However, you can use real-world data on Amazon to help you get as close to an accurate estimate as possible.

5. CREATE A GREAT TITLE FOR THE KDP BOOK

There are tons of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) books out there with horrible titles.You can tell that someone just thought of something and slapped it on the cover.There was no thought process, they didn't ask their friends and they didn't get feedback.But the title of a book is so critical.I know the old saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover."

However, the reality is that people make sudden judgments not only about the cover, but also about the title and the overall feeling they get when they read it and the description of the book.

The title is your chance to capture the attention of a potential buyer and intrigue them enough to buy the book.

The principles for writing a great book title are very similar to writing a great blog post title or email subject.If you study what great writers have recommended to you, you are sure to increase your chances of creating a winning book title.

This isn't an exact science, but here are some tips I've picked up along the way.And to clarify, these are tips primarily for nonfiction books.Although I'm sure most of these principles can be applied to fiction books as well.

A.STATUS PROMISE IN THE MAIN TITLE

Try to clarify right away what the reader will get from the book.For example, Dave Ramsey's best-selling book is called " Total Money Makeover ".The promise is clear.Read this book and get a total makeover.

Another example is Steve Scott's book, " Wake Up Successful ".It is clear that that book will teach you how to be more successful in the morning.

However, the subtitles of these books really close the sale… as we will see in a second.

B.MAKE THE MAIN TITLE CATCHY OR MEMORABLE

Not every book will have a clear promise in the first words of its title.It's okay IF you can make the title unique, catchy, or memorable.

If you can make both a promise and "catchy," that's ideal.Dave Ramsey's book "Total Money Makeover" nails both the promise and the beautiful.

For example, another book by Steve Scott is "Habit Stacking".This doesn't give a clear promise, but it hits a run home on a captivating and memorable scale.

And as we will see below, Steve uses subtitles with great effectiveness.I believe its title and subtitles are a big reason why it has been a successful book for quite some time now.

C.SUBTITLES FOR SUPPORT BENEFITS

People want to know what they will get after reading your book.The subtitle can help you more clearly indicate what they will get, how long it will take, or other benefits you want to highlight.

If you want to sell your book, you need to use some marketing tactics… And the subtitle is a great opportunity to do so.

For example, Steve Scott's book is "Habit Stacking" has a full title and a subtitle of "Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take 5 Minutes Less" This is a winner!

See what Steve did there?In the subtitle he made it seem attainable, "small life changes" in "5 minutes or less".The reader is now intrigued by what small habits are but also knows that they are easily accessible.

Another example?Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover also has an excellent subtitle."Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness"

The benefits to support it are clear!This is not just a random plan… This is a "proven" plan to get you into financial form.(The plan on "makeover" and "fitness" is also brilliant).

No wonder its Amazon bestseller ranking is 451!

Okay, there's a lot more to it than just a title… But the title is part of it.

d.NUMBERS CAN WORK WELL

Numbers in the title or subtitles can work very well.  Hubspot published a blog post with 74 compelling headline formulas.

Of these 74 options, over 50 of them had numbers in the title.

People are attracted to facts and figures.If you can include a number in your subtitle, it can be a great way to go.

(Note that I did the same thing with the title of this same blog post.)

And.SEE WHAT WORKS FOR COMPETITORS

If you want to know which book titles sell well, why not just go to Amazon and start browsing through best sellers in various categories?

I'm not advising to copy anyone; Rather you can see the types of titles that work well.This kind of research can really help solidify your ideas as you search for the best possible title for your book.

F.FOLLOW THE EXPERTS

As much as has been written by copywriting experts on writing great book titles, blog post titles, and more.Here are some great resources where you can improve your education on writing great book titles.

6. DESCRIBE YOUR BOOK

Gosh!Now that you've done your research and finally got a good title, it's time to start writing your book!

That's right, I think you should create the title before writing the book.At least for me, this guides me in writing if I know what end benefit I have already promised to readers.

Writing a draft will help to further emphasize the content of your book.You should write an outline so that you know the content that will be contained in each chapter.

The outline is not meant to be deepened, but rather only the general ideas and main points to be included in each chapter.

Once this scheme is completed, the actual writing of the book will be much easier.

7. WRITE THE BOOK

Once you've created a great title with a promise and outlined the main points of the book, the rest are simply filling in all the details.

That doesn't mean it's easy to write a book, it just means it's much better than staring at a blank page.I want to emphasize that it is VERY important that you create a valuable book!We don't churn out books that nobody wants to read.

If you create an extremely valuable book that people want to read AND follow the marketing tactics listed here, then you'll be much more likely to have a winning combination.In addition, Amazon knows how much time people spend reading your book and how many pages are actually viewed.I strongly suspect (as others do) that Amazon uses this time spent reading a book and pages viewed as a ranking factor in Amazon.

For our first book on Amazon (which is currently a best seller), we followed a fairly simple format to write the book.

At the beginning of each chapter we have mentioned the main point or the most practical tips in the foreground.So we used the rest of the chapter to provide evidence to support why that suggestion works well.

Also, if you can provide personal stories from your life or others to support those main points, your book will be much more interesting.

People love stories.So, don't just tell them that they should brush their teeth for 2 minutes to avoid plaque buildup.Tell them how after brushing your teeth for 2 minutes every day you met the love of your life after noticing how white (and plaque-free) your teeth were.

You get the idea … do not give only dry facts; Make it real for people.

As for the length, you have complete control.However, if you're targeting the asylum market (as I am) you'll probably want to write a book that's between 10 and 25,000 words long.

However, the length of the book really depends on the overall goals and strategy.

8. HIRE A PROOFREADER OR EDITOR BEFORE PUBLISHING YOURSELF TO AMAZON KDP

I cannot stress that enough.A large portion of self-published books on Amazon run without a proofreader or publisher.Authors "auto edit".

The human brain is an amazing machine for recognizing energy-saving patterns.He spares himself any undue stress and when he thinks a pattern is in place, he can ignore the evidence to the contrary.This is why I-Spy books are difficult and why people are still looking for Wally.Once the brain detects a pattern, it's hard for your brain to see anything else.

Auto editing is the final model.Your brain is familiar with the way you write and will skip mistakes that shouldn't be there.Self-editing will leave mistakes in the book that your brain jumps around in the name of saving energy.

So, after completing your book, you should hire someone to re-read it.

For our book, we just went to Upwork.com and found someone for about $50 to read our book and make minor changes.

You could also work with a family member or friend who you think has the skills you need.But this is not recommended.It's best to find someone who doesn't love you.That person will be a little more critical, but it will help your bit improve overall.

9. PLACE AN OFFER TO COLLECT EMAILS FROM YOUR BOOK

Did you know that your Kindle eBook can also act as a lead generation tool?Unfortunately, Amazon does not allow you to have the email addresses of everyone who buys your book; However, you can put a free offer on the front of your book.

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CREATE BETTER INTERNAL LINKS WITH LINK WHISPER

If someone is interested in your free offer, they will click on the link, go to the activation page and provide you with their email address.

Here's an example of a free offer on the front of Nick Loper's Kindle "Work Smarter" eBook: worksmarterofferClicking the link will take you to an opt-in page where Nick is collecting email addresses.

This is really smart!Here's what it looks like:

worksmarteroptinIf you want another example, I have that for you too!

Here's the offer on the front of Steve Scott's Habit Stacking Book:IMG_2353 (2)When a reader decides to click on the link, they are taken to a LeadPages capture form.

It's pretty simple, but effective.Here's what it looks like:

leadpagehabitBeing able to build leads and make sales is one of the great things about this business.If you don't have an audience for your first book, you can have an audience when the second and third books arrive.

So, if you're acquiring these leads and following the other marketing steps I'm going to cover, your additional books should be easier than your first ones.

If you don't have a free opt-in to give away, you can consider visiting master-resale-rights.com where you can buy e-books with private label rights at very affordable prices.Not all of them can be given for free, but many of them are.

The best option is to write something yourself or create another type of free gift (video, course or anything else appealing to your audience).

10. GET A PROFESSIONAL EBOOK COVER DESIGN FOR AMAZON SELF PUBLISHING

People choose books based on their covers sometimes, so you need to make sure yours is professional.Fortunately, you don't need to learn Photoshop and do everything yourself.

With so many talented freelance graphic designers, it's very easy to find someone who will create a cool ebook cover for you relatively cheap.

For our book, we just went to Upwork and hired someone for $150 to create a great-looking cover.Done!

I don't have any specific advice other than to say, look at what the other best-selling books are doing and decide what you like.If you can provide some examples of styles that you like to your designer, I'm sure you'll get something you're happy with.

11. FORMAT YOUR KINDLE EBOOK FOR KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING (KDP)

Unfortunately, you can't just upload a Word document or PDF to Amazon.Your book must be in the special Kindle format.

You could go out and learn how to format the book yourself; however, there are many quirks and it is very simple to hire someone at Upwork to do it for you.

We hired someone for $50 on Upwork to get our book in the correct format to upload to Kindle.It's that easyHowever, if you really want to learn the steps to format your book in Kindle format, you can go to the official guide to Amazon Kindle simplified formatting here.

12. WRITE AND FORMAT YOUR BOOK DESCRIPTION

Now it's time to really go to Amazon and start preparing your book for sale! You will list your book on kdp.Amazon.com.

I think it's important to take some time and thought into the title and description of the book before you start uploading something.The "Book Description" is your best chance after the title and subtitles to close the sale.

In fact, you have up to 4000 characters to give both a more in-depth description of your book and to attract the potential reader with the benefits they will receive after reading your book.

bookdescriptionUnfortunately, when I look at some books on Amazon, many of them only have a sentence or two below their book description.And often they are not very good!You need to focus this message on the reader, how will this book benefit them?

This is your chance to put your writing skills to good use!

For more tips on writing sales copies, read these articles:

FORMATTING FOR THE KDP DESCRIPTION

You'll also need to format your book's description so that it looks good.Amazon has a good resource on which HTML is supported right here.

And here's another great blog post that shows what the different formatting options look like and how to apply them.

I personally recommend using H2 tags for headers, rather than the larger H1 header.

13. CHOOSE CATEGORIES AND COLLABORATORS

You now have the option to add "Collaborators".This is the author or authors of the book.This could be your real name or a pen name.I used a pen name on my first book.

CategoriesNext, you'll need to select the categories where your book fits most accurately.This may take a bit of a hunt around to find the perfect solution, but you should find a category that works well for your book.

You can select 2 categories in total.

The only strategy here is to choose as much as possible the category that has as its subject your books.

14. HOW TO SELL BOOKS ON AMAZON: AMAZON KEYWORD RESEARCH

Amazon allows you to enter up to 7 keywords or keyword phrases for which your book will be shown.Your book will naturally also appear for other keyword searches based on your book's performance and other factors.

The keywords in your book's title and description will already appear on Amazon, so you don't need to repeat these keywords.Although for the keywords you really want to show yourself for, you should probably have them in your description and as a selected keyword.

But which keywords do you target?Luckily, you can change your keywords at any time, so you're not "stuck" with initial selections.

It can take some time to learn all the details, but a great way to get started is to use the autocomplete feature on Amazon, as suggested by this great article on GoodReads.com.

So, let's say you're writing a book about saving money.You can think of a few phrases people might type to find a book about saving money.One of them is likely to be "How to Save Money."

Here's a picture of suggested searches on Amazon:

saveAs a result of these tips, you may want to select "how to save money for groceries" or "how to save money at home" as a couple of keywords.

To get more ideas for keywords you can use Long Tail Pro (I created Long Tail Pro).Long Tail Pro is easy to use and helps you organize your data.

Using Long Tail Pro, you are able to generate up to 800 keywords related to your seed keyword ("how to save money").Here are some of the suggested terms:

LTPAMAZONLong Tail Pro shows search volume in "local searches" for how many times each month people search for these terms on Google.Obviously the search volume is different on Amazon, but it can give you an idea of which terms are searched for more than others.

My quick test on Long Tail Pro gave me some good terms that I would consider entering as keywords if I were writing a budget book; such as "tips to save" and "better ways to save".

As you advance further, you can go a step further and actually understand how competitive these keywords are on Amazon.After all, just because you show up for a key phrase doesn't mean people will find you.If all the keywords you select are extremely competitive, you could end up on page 50 or 60 because the first page results are dominated by best-selling books with hundreds of reviews.

Therefore, it might be worth taking the time to research which books are displayed for potential keywords to see if "weak" books are displayed.If you see books with a lower Amazon Best Seller ranking, it's probably a good sign that your chosen keywords are less competitive.

This can be a lot to accept, I know.

But take a deep breath and remember: you can change your keywords at any time.So if your book doesn't work as you hoped at first, you can always change your keywords and try again.

For my Kindle book, I used Publisher Rocket to understand my keywords and rank better on Amazon.Click here to try Publisher Rocket.

TRY THE PUBLISHER ROCKET TO INCREASE YOUR SALES ON AMAZON

15. HOW TO PUBLISH YOURSELF ON AMAZON: CHOOSE A PRICING STRATEGY AND UPLOAD THE BOOK

Now it's time to choose a pricing strategy and list your book for sale!

If you don't have an audience, I highly recommend listing your book for free the first 5 days.If you register your book in the Amazon Kindle select program (which you probably should), you will be granted up to 5 free days every 90 days.

This is the strategy recommended by Steve Scott and Nick Loper.In fact, we followed Nick Loper's launch strategy VERY closely throughout the entire process.So if you want more details, I highly recommend checking out Nick's course right here which is currently discounted by 75%.

Here's the pricing strategy we followed when we launched our book and it worked very well:

  • Free – first 5 days
  • $0.99 – 3 to 7 days after free days
  • $2.99 – after the period of $0.99

Listing your book for free should help you climb to the top of certain categories within Amazon.People love things for free, so your book will be downloaded.And if you do the additional marketing that I suggest below, you should get LOTS of downloads.

After the first 5 days, your book should work well if everything goes according to plan (again, see below).So when you put your book on sale for $0.99, it's really the first time you can get a market validation for your book!

Are people actually willing to take out their credit cards and hit the "buy" button?A price tag of $0.99 will earn you a 35% royalty percentage from Amazon, which is pretty terrible, so you won't want to leave it here permanently.

However, this discount period can cause your book to be listed not only in special sections of Amazon, but also on other third-party listing listing book books priced at $0.99 (like BuckBooks.net).So when you finally pass your book at the price of $2.99, sales will continue to rise since you've accumulated.

LEVERAGING KDP SELECT

The reason for the $2.99 price is that it's the 70% royalty threshold.You can enter KDP Select and you'll get a bigger piece of the pie when you list your book at $2.99 or higher.

Here's a quick look at downloads and purchases during my free books, $0.99, and $2.99 periods:

kindlefree As you can see, our free period went very well.And thankfully that continued for our $0.99 and $2.99 periods:

amazonpricing The $0.99 period solidified the fact that people were willing to buy the book.And even though we ordered between 60 and 70 units for a few days, we didn't make tons of money on those days.Each unit at $0.99 is only worth about 35 cents.

The blue line is Kindle Unlimited, and Kindle borrows.These are worth about $1.31 each.So, I'll let you do the math if you want to know how much we were doing every day!

Once we changed the price to $2.99, the units ordered dropped dramatically.This was my first kindle book, so I wasn't sure what to expect.I knew it would fall, but I didn't know if it would be so much.However, I have been told that it is very normal.

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So even though our unit orders are much lower, our overall earnings are MUCH more than the $0.99 cent period thanks to the 70% royalty.Again, I'll let you do the math, but some of the days in the table above are above the 0 sign per day.

16. PUBLISHING YOUR BOOK ON AMAZON: START THE LIST FIRST

The next steps in the process are all about how to launch your book during that free time to ensure you gather the momentum you need to perform well when your price goes up.I want to repeat once again that much of what I'm about to share in the next few steps is taken directly from Nick Loper's suggestion from this blog post and its course.

The first step is very simple.If you have an audience on an email list, talk about your book!This will be the best way to get initial downloads and reviews.

If you don't have a list of "businesses," you can let friends and family know about your book to get some downloads.

17. GET REVIEWS DURING THE FREE PERIOD

Reviews are so important to your book that they do well.A large part of Amazon's algorithm is determined by the number and rating of reviews of your books.You get more reviews and your book should perform better.Get higher ratings, and your book should perform better.

Conversely, if your book starts getting a lot of negative reviews, your book won't work either.

Also, a Verified Purchase review is more valuable than a review from an unverified buyer.That's why getting reviews during the free period can be so beneficial.

Someone who drops by and downloads your book during the free period is still considered a verified buyer!

Here's the deal, you should really try to get 10 to 15 reviews during the free period.This will be the easiest time to ask people for reviews because it's free.Getting up to 20 reviews during the free period would be excellent!The more the better.

HOW TO PUBLISH AN EBOOK ON AMAZON AND GET EASY REVIEWS

You should have 10 to 15 friends or family members you can ask to download and review your book.When Perrin and I launched our book, here's what we did (and you can do the same):

  • Email about 30 people
  • I asked them to download the book
  • I asked them to read it.
  • I asked them to give an honest review

About 50% of the family and friends we emailed actually gave a review.So, in the first days we already had 15 reviews!Perrin's aunt only gave us 4 stars, but we made it.🙂

We also collected a couple of other "natural" reviews during the first week or so.

18. CONTACT RELEVANT GROUPS AND BLOGS

Reaching both relevant Facebook groups and blogs can be a good way to quickly start downloading your book.

During your days off, here's a list of the 5 Facebook groups we've also sent (and the one Nick recommends):

These are all groups that promote free books, so they welcome your comments.
Some niches might have a good success by emailing bloggers relevant to your book.Ideally, you can do this early before launch to make maximum impact.
I must admit that Perrin and I tried to contact several bloggers, but we were almost unsuccessful in getting mentions.Fortunately, that didn't seem to matter, as we still ranked very well naturally in Amazon's ecosystem with the other marketing efforts we made.

19. EASY SELLING FOR AMAZON SELF-PUBLISHING: PUBLISH TO FREE EBOOK SITES

Did you know that there are websites out there that do nothing but list and promote free Kindle eBooks?Websites accept submissions from people, so you should let them know that your book is free!

Sarah on SarkEmedia.com gives you 72 places where you can promote your Kindle book when it's free.Below I've just included Sarah's 35 free eBook sites.

Here is a list of 35 free eBook sites:

  1. http://www.pixelofink.com/sfkb/
  2. http://bargainebookhunter.com/feature-your-book/
  3. http://ereadernewstoday.com/category/free-kindle-books/
  4. http://www.freebookdude.com/p/list-your-free-book.html
  5. http://authormarketingclub.com/members/submit-your-book/ (you must be a member, but membership is free)
  6. http://blog.booksontheknob.org/p/about-this-blog-and-contact-info.html
  7. http://www.freebooksy.com/editorial-submissions
  8. http://www.thatbookplace.com/free-promo-submissions/
  9. http://snickslist.com/books/place-ad/
  10. http://addictedtoebooks.com/submission
  11. http://www.kindleboards.com/free-book-promo/
  12. http://indiebookoftheday.com/authors/free-on-kindle-listing/
  13. http://www.ebooklister.net/submit.php
  14. http://digitalbooktoday.com/12-top-100-submit-your-free-book-to-be-included-on-this-list/
  15. http://thedigitalinkspot.blogspot.com.es/p/contact-us.html
  16. http://freekindlefiction.blogspot.co.uk/p/tell-us-about-free-books.html
  17. http://www.freeebooksdaily.com/
  18. http://www.freebookshub.com/authors/
  19. http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,97167.0/
  20. http://www.frugal-freebies.com/
  21. http://www.ereaderiq.com/about/
  22. http://freekindlefiction.blogspot.co.uk/
  23. http://www.mobileread.com/forums/ (registration required)
  24. http://flurriesofwords.blogspot.co.uk/
  25. http://askdavid.com/free-book-promotion
  26. http://digitalbooktoday.com/join-our-team/
  27. http://ebookshabit.com/about-us/
  28. http://www.ereaderperks.com/about/
  29. http://thefrugalereader.wufoo.com/forms/frugal-freebie-submissions/
  30. http://www.goodkindles.net/p/why-should-i-submit-my-book-here.html
  31. http://www.blackcaviar-bookclub.com/free-book-promotion.html#.UXFB27XYeOc
  32. http://www.totallyfreestuff.com/
  33. http://www.icravefreebies.com/contact/
  34. http://uk.hundredzeros.com/
  35. http://freedigitalreads.com/
  36. http://readingdeals.com/

You can ask the questions yourself, or you can hire someone to FancyHands.com like Nick Loper did.We used FancyHands, it worked very well.

Finally, there are also tools out there that can help you send even faster and to more sites.BookMarketingTools.com has a submission tool to free up Kindle sites right here.

This free period is your chance to really get on the map!You need to use all the marketing avenues you can to help give your book the best chance of ranking well in Amazon naturally.Once you start ranking naturally on Amazon and if you really book it's valuable to readers, you should continue to sell well once you go from free to paid.

20. SHARE YOUR LOVE OF POSTING ON AMAZON KINDLE: ASK OTHERS TO EMAIL YOU

If you don't have an email list, why not ask others who have an email list to spread the word about your book?

This can be a little harder to do if you don't already have relationships with people in your niche, but it's possible.

For example, Perrin and I were able to contact someone in our niche who we knew had a large email list and simply asked them if they would tell their audience about our free Kindle book.They agreed.

We asked this person to send an email to their list when there were only 24 hours left before our book came in at $0.99.This was done to increase last day's free downloads, but also to get some sales for those people on the email list who missed the deadline for the free download.

We were clearly getting a lot of free downloads before this email was published, but the last day was definitely our biggest day off. I kindleemailblastthink our book would have been great without that email explosion (we had over 1500 free downloads the day before); however, it certainly didn't hurt.

21. GET MORE REVIEWS

I know I've already mentioned it, but getting reviews is so important if you're hoping to gain traction in Amazon's huge marketplace.As a result, you shouldn't stop trying to get reviews when your book is no longer free.

Once our book went to $0.99 we were able to reach out to friends and family and get a couple more reviews.

While we haven't tried it yet, you can also reach out to top reviewers on Amazon to see if they're willing to read and review your book.Here is a list of the best reviewers on Amazon.

22. HOW TO PUBLISH A BOOK ON AMAZON, PRINTABLE VERSION: CREATE A PRINTED VERSION ON CREATESPACE ESTORE

Some people want their books in digital format and others want the physical printed book.Luckily, it's easy to turn your Kindle book into a printed copy using Amazon's e-store CreateSpace.com.

This is an on-demand print service owned by Amazon… So don't worry about storing and shipping physical books yourself.

The printed version can also create a good price to help your kindle version look like a better deal.

Printing priceWhen people see the price of $6.99, this increases the value of the book in their minds.This is an age-old marketing tactic.People will feel like they're getting a $7 book for just $2.99… What a bargain!

So, the sole purpose of creating a print version of your book isn't just selling printed copies.One big reason is to make your Kindle price a better deal and sell more copies of the Kindle version.

As you go along, you should test and modify the prices in both print and kindle versions.The final price does not have to be $ 2.99.If you can sell as many copies for $4.99, you'll earn a lot more.

I haven't had a chance to test different pricing strategies with my book yet, but it's certainly on the to-do list.

23. LAUNCH ANOTHER BOOK!

I've been told by many successful publishers that the true scope of this business comes when you start publishing additional books.Readers of your first book will start browsing the author's page and the titles of additional books.

The more quality books you have, the more likely it is that your current buyers will also be interested in something else you've written.Steve Scott attributes much of his success (earning over $40,000 a month from Kindle books ) to building an audience and having multiple books in the same niche.

So now that you've had some success with your first Kindle eBook, it's time to leverage that success by creating more and more books in your niche.This can take a year or two to build a meaningful library; However, the commercial potential is very real.

Perrin and I have already sat down and brainstormed our next book.We chose a topic, a title and started the structure.We expect to launch our second book in the next 30 days.

DO YOU WANT TO DO IT THE EASIEST WAY?

Publishing an ebook on Kindle is one of the hardest things I've ever done, but it's been 100% worth it.

The steps I outlined above are 100% of what I did to sell my book.But looking back, I wish I had known someone who could have mentored me more.Even though it went well in the end, I could have done much better if I had known someone like that.

Chandler Bolt was one of the first people I heard about, who did well with self-publishing. You can check out his podcast interview here.

He started a course to take you from 0 to 100 on publishing a Kindle book. It's a no-frills guide to success through self-publishing.

You can click here to sign up for a free webinar where he reveals his course.

SCHOOL OF SELF-PUBLISHING

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FIND YOUR BOOK MENTOR WITH SELF PUBLISHING SCHOOL

MY AMAZON SELF PUBLISHING SUCCESS STORY: A QUICK UPDATE

Now I have a book that has been selling on Amazon for over 2 years.I followed the 23 steps described above to publish and promote this book.However, since that time, I have done nothing to promote it.In fact, I moved on to other projects and basically forgot about them.

I was surprised to log into the KDP Select platform and see that my self-published book is still making sales!Here's a quick screenshot to show that he's still making some sales per day:

LET'S DISCUSS IT…

Overall, Perrin and I are extremely happy with the success of our best-selling Kindle eBook.My only real disappointment is that I didn't start earlier!

In fact, when I see the huge success and now the huge commercial potential when we add more titles, I can honestly say that I haven't been so enthusiastic about a new business venture in a long time.Is the success of our first book out of the ordinary? Absolutely.

But did we follow some very specific steps (as stated above) to try to get exactly what we did? Absolutely.

The business potential of becoming a self-published author on Amazon is very real, and I hope some of you are able to achieve the same kind of success we are currently seeing.

I'd love to hear any comments or questions you might have below.We discuss some of the finer points of the process in the comments section and hope we can all learn from each other.

HOW TO WRITE AND SELL A BOOK ON AMAZON: YOUR BOOK

If you want to write and sell your book on Amazon, I have a recommendation for you above all others. 

You should start. 

It is not an easy process.Our total investment for the book was a few hundred dollars plus the time it took to write it.

But the profit was huge! This book allowed me to better understand myself, what is possible to do business ($100 passive every day) and we made a lot more money than we spent.If you have a dream of writing a book or starting a business that can provide you with passive income, the publishing niche is good. 

There are also boys and girls out there who publish full-time on Amazon KDP.My friend Steve publishes books about habits and earns over $40,000 a month with Amazon KDP.The opportunity is there, you just have to seize it.

When I researched for my book, I used Publisher Rocket.This tool helped me find popular keywords with low competition.Once the book was published, Rocket helped me define keywords for the description, so I showed even more in the search results.Without it, I would never have achieved my goal.

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