Today I want to talk about an easy way to
make money from Kindle that helps writers earn not just from selling their work
but also from giving it away free of charge on Kindle.
Why give your work free of charge on
Amazon? Several reasons, really,
including:
- Free
copies create a feel-good factor that tempts readers to leave reviews that are
almost always more favourable than reviews from paying customers. Reviews, especially good reviews, are essential
to attracting paid for sales.
-
Despite what I’ve heard so many times to the contrary, it seems you can
use Kindle eBooks, even preview samples and free downloads to promote affiliate
products and/or grow a mailing list for promoting your own and other people’s
goods for the indefinite future.
As far as I can see Amazon don’t allow their
own affiliate offers to feature inside Kindle eBooks but they’ve done little -
I reckon nothing - to stop top contributors growing mailing lists and promoting
affiliate products inside thousands of sales and free downloads each week. And that’s where many writers and publishers
seem to be making a good part of their income.
And knowing how they make money giving their
work free of charge is the reason I’ve spent the last month researching other
people selling on Kindle and reading comments by top research companies and
compiling tips to help total newbies begin making a good living promoting
eBooks on Kindle, both paid for and offered as free downloads.
Here are ten tips to help you get started:
#1- Find a niche to write about. Choose
a niche that’s popular on Kindle and has lots of searches each month but with
few suitable titles available. This
takes time as well as being a tad monotonous but well worth the effort once you
find a subject almost guaranteed to make money for you.
One way
to find a potentially very lucrative title for your eBook is to type niche
market keywords into the search box at Amazon, then choose ‘Kindle Store’ from
the dropdown menu. Look for words
returning less than twenty titles, then click inside a few of those titles
looking for any with double number reader reviews, preferably from people
who’ve actually bought the book. You’ll
find reviews from actual buyers marked ‘Amazon Verified Purchase’. Reviews from paying buyers reveal titles that
are popular and lucrative for other people to write about.
Next
you jump in and ‘reverse engineer’ those best-selling titles. In this case, reverse engineering simply
means studying other people’s products looking for reasons for their success:
noting whether longer works tend to outsell shorter, spotting similar keywords
in several best-selling titles, studying contents pages and checking sample
downloads, and so on. When you think you
know what makes one title super successful and another a hopeless flop you model
your own title on the best of the bunch - but make yours better, of course.
#2 - Create
peripherals like book illustration, title, chapter headings, book description
and promotional pieces before starting work on researching and writing your
book. Doing as much work as possible in
advance of writing helps keep you focused and your work concise and to the
point.
#3 -
Create an attractive book illustration and compelling title. Your image and title should be eye-catching
and say what your book is about and how it benefits readers.
Your
title must include words and phrases commonly searched for on Amazon and outside
search engines. You’ll find high
frequency search terms for your titles by keying words relating to your niche
subject into the search box at: https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
Using
high frequency keywords in title and description gets your eBook noticed by
search engines and spotted by potential buyers and freebie seekers on and
outside of Amazon.
Conversely,
choose a title based on words no one keys into search engines, provide a book
illustration that never gets noticed, and even the best researched, most
professionally written eBook may never attract buyers.
#4 - A week
or two before your product is ready to launch, write reviews for it on
appropriate blogs; get bloggers and website owners to write reviews for you in
exchange for payment or free content for their sites. Ask for reviews to be published as soon as
possible after your eBook launch, preferably on the actual day of publication.
Achieving
early reviews helps your eBook rise in Amazon’s best seller lists - even if
it’s only been downloaded free of charge.
#5 - Browsers
get to sample the first ten per cent of a book and it’s important to make that
ten per cent compelling and interesting and packed with benefits and solutions
to problems, etc. One way to achieve
your aim is by replacing copyright notices, disclaimers and other pre-reading
matter normally found on the first two pages, with a preface or author’s
introduction. Make your preface or
author’s introduction, or both, more like sales letters than basic
information. Include cryptic clues about
the contents of your book, hint about benefits found in certain chapters but
don’t tell the whole story. The idea is
to make readers curious and keen to buy or download your freebie eBook right
away.
#6 - Grow your profits by getting readers
to perform some money-making action from inside your eBook, such as by clicking
on a link through to an affiliate product or signing up to your mailing list
for more information about the subject of your Kindle eBook.
But be
careful because Amazon does not want writers and publishers using Kindle purely
as a marketing tool and will remove blatant advertising products.
You
have to be unobtrusive and make it appear you are doing readers a big favour
when you suggest they visit your website or sign up to your mailing list or
click on some link in your eBook that takes them through to a money-making
page. Offering something like one-to-one
email advice should work well, as will the offer of a free report to help
readers grow knowledge gained from your Kindle book as long as that knowledge
is additional to promises made in sales material for your book.
#7 - Your book description is a vital part of
the selling process and, like your sample preview, it must be interesting and
make readers keen to buy or download your work.
Answer these questions in a non-fiction eBook
description:
- What
problem, task, subject does your book tackle?
- How do
you address the problem, issue, need, passion on which your book is based?
- What
benefits will readers achieve from your book?
- What
problem will readers encounter if they don’t read your book?
- What
can you reveal to readers that they don’t know already and which they won’t
find from any other book on a similar subject?
- Why are
you qualified to write about your chosen topic?
- Do you
have any examples of people using your technique or ideas?
- Do you
have complimentary quotes or testimonials?
#8 - Readers like to know
non-fiction books, especially ‘how to’ titles and others containing website
addresses, are up-to-date and in usable condition before deciding to buy. There’s a tendency to be suspicious of
information products published two or three years ago with no obvious sign of
having been updated. Solve the problem
by actually making regular updates and overprinting the image of your book with
something like ‘2015 Update’ or ‘7th REVISION’.
Add the same details to your title and description.
#9 - It’s
one thing having a great book that’s ranking high on Amazon, but quite another
to actually make money from all your hard work.
One way to make money is to write for people with money to spend and
avoid creating titles for people who can’t afford to buy your eBook or products
recommended inside.
Learn
whether people are spending on the subject you are writing about by keying the
main search terms for your book into Google’s search box. If no AdWords appear from your search, it’s
safe to say your subject is not currently attracting advertisers. And no AdWords promotions generally suggests
your chosen keywords are not worth writing about.
#10 - You
can write under several different pen names inside one Amazon Kindle publishing
account and it’s a good idea to choose pen names to match your chosen niche
subject. Two reasons: one being that
some subjects are more appropriately written by men than women, and vice versa;
the second being the same author name on eBooks in very different niches will
make you look like a jack of all trades and master of none.
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