Can Authors Try Publishing Again With a Different Book

24 things I learned cocky publishing 3 books in but six months

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After I published my kickoff book, it took six years before I published my second volume. Today, only six months after publishing my second book, I'yard publishing my 4th book.

I've self published three books in the by six months. What triggered such a change? Information technology started when Seth Godin told me this on my podcast:

"If you're publishing yourself, you take the most committed publisher in the world…. Yous're withal going to exist the caput of marketing for your book. And then how practice y'all learn that? Well, you lot acquire information technology past doing. And the easiest way to do it…is to come out with a volume a calendar week on the Kindle…. It costs nothing to do this. It costs less than information technology price me to mail service my proposals to book publishers. So what are you waiting for!?" — Seth Godin

Seth was right. I've learned so much more past doing — by self publishing three books in six months — than I learned past traditionally publishing one book, and waiting six years to publish the side by side one.

Here'due south what I've learned publishing three books in six months:

1. Ego will hold you back from self publishing. Information technology's tempting to think of your volume as beingness a "large deal." We're used to hearing about books taking years to publish. We assume all of that time is spent writing, merely much of it is just because traditional publishing moves slowly. Instead, ego gets in the way. As I said in The Middle to Starting time, "your ego fears your art." I put too much pressure on myself—to follow upwards ane success with a bigger success. It cost me years of my publishing career.
2. Your volume doesn't have to kill y'all. Some people say that if yous're going to write a volume, it had improve be the most amazing volume you can possibly write. They'll say yous'll be committing career suicide if you lot don't put every fiber of your beingness into every book. People who say this are unremarkably in bed somehow with the dying traditionally-published industry. Information technology's in their best interests to care for book publishing as some sacred human activity—if fewer people write their kickoff books, publishing tin can keep its mystique. Writing my first book was a miserable process. Writing my second volume was fun. My second book turned out better than my kickoff book.
3. A book is non a book. There are old ideas about what a book is. Much of these ideas are smoke and mirrors from the v-hundred-year-one-time publishing industry. Or they're only ideas that have gotten dried because few accept questioned what a "book" is in today's world. A book is not a volume. Books are being reinvented.
4. A book does not take to be a certain length. In that location's a reason why many books today are a blog post with two hundred pages of filler. For instance, a thick spine serves as a bold advertisement on a bookstore shelf (credit to Joanna Penn for telling me this). Nevertheless not many books are being sold on bookstore shelves these days. No matter what the length of your volume, information technology gets the same real-estate on Amazon as War and Peace. A book does not accept to exist a certain length.
5. A book can be short and to the signal. In that location used to be a thriving "pamphlet" market. Pamphlets fueled the English language, French, and American Revolutions. They not merely helped ideas spread, but they made coin for their authors. Blogs were supposed to be the new pamphlet. In some means blogs are the new pamphlet, but the economics of running a weblog suck. How to Write a Book is bachelor as a free blog post, likewise called How to Write a Book. How much accept I fabricated from that blog postal service? Nothing. Less than nothing — it cost me money to publish information technology. Yet equally a book, it'south fabricated me about $700, and it's only been out for a few months. You lot can publish a book that is short and to the betoken, and you can become paid for it.
6. Each volume is a learning feel. Before you publish a book, there is so much you don't know, and fifty-fifty more than that you don't know you lot don't know. Information technology's better to publish a bunch of books, learning a little more than each time, than to dice with your showtime book notwithstanding inside you, just because you were trying to make it perfect.
7. Kindle will get you the king of beasts's share. Kindle sales lone account for 82% of the English-linguistic communication ebook marketplace. It's much more complex to publish formats aside from Kindle, and to publish on other distributors. So, make the 20% endeavor that will get you lot 80% of the results. You don't demand to worry about making your first book available everywhere. Showtime with Kindle.
8. You don't take to launch all formats at once. Traditional publishing has the resource to launch every format at one time: ebook, paperback, and audiobook, for example. That'due south a lot of extra work for your first book. Instead, you can do one at a fourth dimension. I launched with only the Kindle version of my starting time self-published volume. A couple weeks subsequently, I published the paperback. A few weeks later on that, I published the audiobook. I played the long game. I got reviews, and built up organic Amazon sales. It'southward merely with this latest book that I'm launching with all three formats at once. But subsequently a book has been out for a twelvemonth have I bothered launching a hardcover.
9. A Kindle book is just an HTML certificate. Technically, a Kindle book is no dissimilar from a weblog post. It'southward some HTML, with some CSS for formatting. You lot don't take to know HTML to publish a Kindle volume, simply if you do, you take an advantage.
10. The Kindle is a paid web browser. Many people don't read on the internet. It's full of click bait, popovers, and abrasive ads. Instead, they read books they buy on their Kindles. (I'm one of these people.) Or, they subscribe to Kindle Unlimited, so they can read many books for costless. Amazon is their search engine. Don't believe me? Bank check out the book How to Add together a Device to my Amazon Account. People are paying $2.99 for that book, considering that'southward what they discover when they search for a help doc on Amazon. Okay, it's a little sneaky, but it shows you a very important idea: The Kindle is a paid web browser. Readers become a great reading experience, writers become paid for their work.
11. Y'all tin publish a book as easily as y'all can publish a web log post. Once you figure out how to make an HTML document, you've got yourself a volume! (You tin can apply a free program like Sigil, or something more sophisticated like Vellum.) It only takes a few minutes to publish, and it will be for sale on Amazon within hours.
12. Yous can publish under whatsoever name y'all desire. When you publish your book, yous can put whatsoever proper noun y'all desire in the "writer" field. As Seth Godin told me, "practice it under another proper noun if you want." If your ego is getting in the way, endeavour a pen proper noun.
13. You tin publish your first book today. If you're procrastinating on publishing a book, write 500 words on literally anything, go to Amazon's Kindle Directly Publishing, and publish it under a fabricated-up proper name. You'll acquire a lot just going through the process. You tin can delete your book from Amazon when yous're washed.
14. You can publish a paperback edition of your book for free. It costs nothing to publish a paperback edition of your book. You can practise it on KDP, Createspace, or even sell straight to bookstores around the earth with Ingram Spark. Your book just gets printed when somebody buys it. You have no inventory lying around and no upwards-front expense — just instant profit.
15. You lot can only be in Kindle Unlimited if your ebook is exclusive to Amazon. Kindle Unlimited is like a Netflix for books. As the author, you get paid by the number of pages read of your books. Information technology's non a not bad royalty charge per unit, but in some genres — such every bit romance, science fiction, or erotica — there are a ton of readers in KU, and some read a ton of books. The catch is that to be enrolled in the program, your ebook can just be on Amazon.
16. Amazon forces your mitt on pricing. You lot can't simply listing your book on Amazon for free — though there is a rather complicated way to do a perma-free book, and Kindle Unlimited allows yous to offer your book for gratuitous for limited periods. The minimum cost is 99¢. You keep 35% of the sale up to $2.98. You lot continue seventy% of the sale from $2.99 to $ix.99. Since the royalty rate drops back to 35% if y'all price in a higher place $9.99, it makes no sense to cost your book college than that (there are rare exceptions). This is why you'll run into lots of books priced at 99¢, and lots of books priced at $2.99. They're the cheapest toll possible for the client, so they're the all-time price betoken for the given royalty charge per unit.
17. Amazon is getting too powerful. Build an email list. It'due south amazing that you tin can publish to millions of active readers on Kindle. But as Amazon gains market share, they are tightening their grip on authors. You're seeing it with their pricing terms, and their exclusivity requirement for existence in KU. Authors need to do whatever they tin to retain some ability in the market. All authors should build an email list so they tin sell direct to their biggest fans. I've written many email marketing platform reviews, and ConvertKit (affiliate) is the all-time email service for authors, though I personally use ActiveCampaign (affiliate). If you're curious about why, I've written a detailed ConvertKit vs. ActiveCampaign comparison, and an ActiveCampaign Review.
18. Categories—or genres—matter. Information technology's tempting to attempt to write a volume that can't be categorized, but you'd be setting yourself up for failure. Each genre of book already has a market place of customers who are buying and reading books from that genre. Before you write your book, spend some time browsing the various categories on Amazon to meet which categories are relevant to your volume.
19. Know your book'southward sales potential before you write information technology. As you lot browse through categories, you can become a feel for the revenue potential within that category. Go to the top volume in that category, and come across how it ranks overall on Amazon. So you tin can use a sales rank calculator to estimate how many copies it is selling. Do the same with the 1-hundredth-ranked book in that category, and at present you have an thought of the sales volume in that category. (KDP Rocket — I'one thousand an affiliate — tin estimate the monthly revenue).
20. Books sell by keywords, or by discussion-of-mouth. In that location are two main strategies for nonfiction books: You can endeavor to invent an idea that spreads throughout the commonage consciousness (Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The War of Art), or you lot tin solve a specific problem (Design for Hackers, How to Incorporate). The quondam strategy has the widest market potential, but is harder to do. It'due south easier to sell a smaller amount of books with the latter strategy, just it's harder to sell a ton of books. Cull your strategy, or mix them upward.
21. You can use up to 200 characters in your title and subtitle. Amazon is a search engine, and buyers are looking for books on a topic. Each discussion in your championship or subtitle is an opportunity to help a reader find your book. If yous're trying to solve a specific problem, get alee and use as many of those 200 characters as you can, as I did with How to Write a Volume: An 11-Pace Process to Build Habits, Stop Procrastinating, Fuel Self-Motivation, Quiet Your Inner Critic, Bust Through Writer's Block, & Let Your Creative Juices Menses (Short Read), or as the inspirational Chuck Tingle did with Domald Tromp Pounded In The Barrel By The Handsome Russian T-Rex Who Also Peed On His Butt So Blackmailed Him With The Videos Of His Butt Getting Peed On.
22. Yous tin have seven keyphrases associated with your book. Bated from your book's title and subtitle, your backend keyphrases also impact the Amazon SEO of your book. You can associate up to vii keyphrases for your book. You lot want keyphrases that are relevant to your book, that take enough volume to sell some copies, and that don't have and so much volume that information technology's difficult to compete. Run AMS Ads, play effectually with machine-suggest, or purchase KDP Rocket (affiliate) to optimize your keywords.
23. You can have up to ten categories or browse paths associated with your volume. When y'all publish your volume on KDP, they just let yous cull ii scan paths (a.thousand.a categories). What they don't tell yous, is you can choose upwards to 10! Cull ten relevant categories, contact KDP support, and they'll set it up. This helps more readers find your book. Categories are dissimilar for Kindle and print books, so if you accept a paperback, you lot need to do this separately for that edition.
24. It's easy to accept a best-seller. Considering y'all can choose upwards to 10 categories for your volume, and because some categories are not that competitive, it'southward pretty easy to have a best-seller (one guy did it with a picture of his foot). This puts a "best-seller" tag next to your book that attracts more sales. It also makes yous a acknowledged author. The publishing establishment will complain that yous aren't a "real" best-seller, but they're wrong.

There's no doubt that I still have a lot to larn about publishing and marketing books. But I've learned infinitely more than in the past six months than I learned in the six years before that.

If you get out of your ain mode, and rethink books with the current market and technology, you can start publishing today, learning more than every 24-hour interval.

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