I Wrote a Book and It Is Killing Me -Thank You All

I either didn't see the topic of the book or you didn't say that.

What is this book about? I believe it takes lot of effort to become good selling writer, you might be a good writer one of the best, but you need to know how to sell it. I don't know if you understand what I'm saying, but being a good writer is not enough. I suggest you to hire a person who is good at books marketing and can teach you how to advertise your book. As well I would like to read it

May have missed it but I didn't catch what the book was about...but it shouldn't really matter as the process would be the same....

What you may want to do to help get some traffic to your site would be to search the 'niche + forum' for your book. This will help you find some forums where people who are interested in what your book is about are hanging out. You can then post what your book is about or explain the problem your book solves is, then post a link to the sales site.

Another thought would be to go to Facebook and search for groups for whatever the niche of the book is. These would also be people interested in what your book is about. Join the group and do the same thing as above, post what your book is about or the problem it solves along with a link to the sales site.

Both are great and free ways to generate a ton of potential traffic and will hopefully get you some sales as well

I hope that helps and best of luck to you!

What's the book about? You could do some guest blog posts. Just look for popular blogs in your niche and submit a guest blog post. If you could write a book with that many pages, you should be able to write a guest blog post with ease. If you can write at least one a day with it linking to your site or where ever you're selling that book, you will get some conversions. Just search for blogs in your niche that accepts guest blog posts and contact the owner. This strategy is free and highly effective.I do highly recommend however you build a list while going through this process. It's a critical step if you want to create long lasting results.

You need reviews

That's one of the KEYS to Amazon Kindle success

Reach out to diet / lifestyle bloggers

Reach out to influence leaders in that niche on Twitter

You don't have to have MUCH MONEY to do these but the RESULTS can be AMAZING

My advice to you is to do whatever it takes to keeps the lights on and the baby fed. Once you have money coming in you can regroup and try it again.

Seth Godin's first book didn't sell well at all, but he did whatever it took to make ends meet so he could try again. Very rarely will you come up with a book, business, product or whatever that will make enough money to be significant the first time you try.


But you can't give up no matter what. I would keep the book and start the next one. You need to have multiple ways to make money that are within your writing skills. Bob Bly the great copywriter just came out with his 88th book this week. He writes books, white papers. info products, copywriting, brochures, etc.

You do not have the luxury to sit around and worry about why something isn't working or selling. Try to market it as best you can and start the next project.

By the way, how did you research the niche for your book?

God Bless!

Elmo

Having developed 14 digital products that have sold very well, along with several others that have not :-) and helped many others along the way...the critical factors in how well an ebook sell are:

1. How well you have targeted and then communicated how YOUR book will transform someone from a state they are in today to where they desperately want to be in the future. If you do not have that hook right, all the marketing in the world will not work. It sounds like you are close, but haven't really nailed it. You have written a book that you believe people need rather than a book people are urgently looking for. For example, if your ebook targeted helping women from binge eating, now that is a topic that is well searched, where the people desperately want to stop and will pay nearly any amount of money if they believe you can help them get there. Now, part of the solution may certainly be helping them get over boredom, get them busier and help them replace binge eating with other, non-eating, fun activities.

2. Your eBook as a system or series of steps/course. Ebooks that sell a "technology", "system" or "solution" are much simpler to market and tend to far outsell ebooks that are just informational in nature - if you haven't structured your ebook that way - then could you? In most cases, it is easy to tweak the material into a 4-5 step system.

3. Market It Like Crazy...to do this, you need the hook we talked about above, the system we talked about in #2 (ideally with some "beta" testers giving you testimonials and you need 110% belief and certainty in the effectiveness of your book - that comes across in the market. At that point, you need to be everywhere...give away reviews to bloggers, on social, collect testimonials and case studies and get them on social (they will sell far better than features or even benefits)

Hope this helps,

Jeff

My advice is to setup your website - maybe you've already done this, not too sure. Create a few articles related to your book and publish them on the site. Add a bunch of free resources and videos about several of the suggestions in your book - maybe someone on fiverr can help you create basic whiteboard videos for $5 each. Now promote the first chapter for free as a download on your site. Encourage your visitors to enter their email in exchange for a freebie.

Now once you've built your list send them more freebies, insights into new chapters. Then I would start promoting your book. If its $47 then provide a 50% discount offer only for those subscribed to your list.

Now to drive traffic, I'd use Facebook ads through boosting posts off your fan page for maximum exposure at the quickest time. Promote one of your free articles with a eye catching photo.

If you think your book has potential then I'd recommend signing up for Clickbank and offering a 75% commission on affiliates to push your product to their sites, lists.

Good luck.

When people goes broke, it is not about the income, it is about expenses. Check that, and you won't need any help from us.

Good luck

Hey Tracie,

As for your marketing budget, you could check out the folks at Fiverr.com for a $5 gig to create marketing copy for you.

Regarding the price of your book, because you are not widely known at the present, you might consider lowering your price from $10 to $4.99 which will give you a $3.49 royalty per book.

While $3.49 may not seem like much, it does add up (ONLY) if people will purchase it. $3.49 per book is certainly better than $0. Your book is downloaded so you have no overhead and the $3.49 (.70% of list price) is easy sleep money.

My wife wrote a book titled "How to stop binge eating a few years ago. Then she came across the Udemy.com site and turn her book into a class and earn approximately $4000 her first month but it has since dropped dramatically.

Consider writing a post or two for different sites that your book touches on. For instance, you wrote something about "Partner Play - Fun With Your Mate". You might write an article for a marriage, family matters or housewife website about fun things to do with your mate. You can either say a few things from the book or not (I wouldn't). The draw line would read something like this in part...
"...Nonetheless, there are many, many things you can do for fun with your mate."

Now, the words "fun with you mate" would be a hyperlink back to your book on amazon (with the website owner permission to include a link back to your book for the content you've added to their site)

Of course the link back to your book should be an Amazon affiliate link so you can receive a referral fee from amazon in addition to your Amazon royalty fee. My wife wrote a book about our courtship via emails called "A True Love Story Through Emails". She referred visitors to her web site to the book via an Amazon affiliate link and I believe she receives about .15 cents per book in addition to her 70 percent royalty for the purchase of the download.

Then repeat the process for other websites you think your book would be a nice fit for.

Don't forget that when people click on your link that sends them to Amazon, you will be entitled to a percentage of whatever they purchase from Amazon for the next 24 hours providing they click on your link first.

I used my Amazon affiliate link this way when my wife promoted our Love Story book and I earned about $70 in affiliate referral fees for doing nothing. Multiply this on several website and you might be able to draw a nice piece of change to help somewhat until you can create a better performing platform.

We are family here and I am a firm believer that there is enough money out there to support us all.

Now have at it.

Iron Mike

Hi Tracie,

Let me share a wonderful article that will give you a clear direction of what all things you need to do to get your ebook floating all across the place.

7 Great Ways to Promote Your eBook

Thanks,
Chintan

I'm going to keep this short so that you really focus on this. It's THE MOST IMPORTANT thing about any book.

The Title.

You need a kick ass, sexy, I-gotta-read-it title.

It is telling to me that you haven't mentioned the title of your book. (There are lots of posts here now so it might be buried in there, but still, it's BURIED.)

Put your title out here and let us weigh in on it and help you get a better one if it doesn't measure up.

Next, a great cover that supports the title. Very professional.

Do you write for a living? Did anyone edit it? Proofread it? There are some great marketing minds on this forum so if anyone offers to look at it, make sure you follow through ASAP.

I could say a lot more but I don't want to dilute my message. People DO judge a book by its cover.

Time for some brutal honesty.

I don't say this to discourage. Those of you who know me are aware I am about getting to the core of problems and moving on with positive solutions.

Tracie,

Let's start with the general stuff.

Relying on a single product for your revenue is a bad idea.

Relying on a single $10 product for all the money you need is a really bad idea.

You're trying to make all the cash you need to pay your bills from this one low budget product, and the truth is it's never going to happen.

Now I know you're saying, "Well WTH am I supposed to do then, Jason?" I said this would be brutal, and I said I give solutions. But the first step in getting out of this prison you've created for yourself is realizing success under the circumstances you have set up right now is impossible.

How many $10 sales would you need to make your rent? Let's not even concern ourselves with any other amount.

Kindle isn't going to pay you until far too many days down the line. So not only is it too hard to make the amount of money you need to survive, you don't get it until a month from now.

Now, to get to the total number of sales you need to reach your money target, how much traffic would you require? We're talking bare minimum $500 = $10/sale X 50 sales = how much traffic? How many people need to see your book offer before one of them buys it? 1 in 100? 2 in 100? Generously, that's 50 views per sale X 50 sales = 2500 views.

I'd call that an absolute bare minimum...and that's just for $500. Plus, we know KDP doesn't actually work that way--you don't get 100% commission, for instance. But let's look at the facts here: you need at least 2500 views a month just to reach something like that $500 minimum amount of money you need.

Do you have a plan for getting those 2500 views? Because as great as the Amazon search engine is, it is not going to serve them up for you.

Can you direct that many views with your own marketing activity? My guess is you'd be hard pressed to reach 200.

Can you see how this plan is flawed from the beginning, just in the general case because of the math?


Now let's get specific.

This niche you've chosen...it's a weird one.

Who's your target market? How would they go about finding your book? Who types in "I am eating too much because I'm bored and I need distractions"?

Nobody.

So in addition to your numbers problem you have a marketing problem.

I just went to Amazon and tried typing in some search queries related to what I understand your book's topic to be.

"I overeat" -- didn't autocomplete, offer any suggestions.

"what to do about overeating" -- didn't autocomplete, but did give some related results.

"overeat", "help I overeat" -- gave a few simple autocomplete suggestions, some of which could be useful to you.

"need distractions from eating" -- didn't autocomplete or give results that were any good.

"what to do I eat too much", "why you eat so much" -- didn't autocomplete, but did give physical diet pills results.

"what to do when you eat too much" -- didn't autocompete; gave Guitar Hero in mixed results (whaa?)

What we learned here is people are not searching for these terms. Otherwise, Amazon would have jumped to autocomplete relevant search terms. It's not.

This means you need to do something about the title of your book and how it's perceived.

You jumped into this with an idea. Doing things is good. However, you have to look at marketing, which in this case especially, because you're using someone else's search engine, is "How are people going to find my book?"

They are not going to find it by typing in things like I tried above.

Now those are obviously not the only search terms, and I may have missed some good ones in my 5-minute exploration. But the evidence tells me:

1 - you're never going to get enough traffic the way you're doing it to make any money--for ANY book you write

and

2 - you don't have enough things for people to buy at the right levels to ensure you earn enough money to survive.


Now let's move on to solutions.

So far people have tried to give you solutions on optimizing what you've got. I hope I've impressed up on you that doing so at this point is akin to putting a Band-Aid on a deep stab wound. It just isn't going to work.

Broke people try to "make as much as I can." This stinks. It's no target at all and nobody ever gets there.

The first thing you have to do is set a realistic money target.

What amount of money do you need every month to get by? Ignore how you're going to get there right now. What number do you really need?

Once you've calculated this number (and you can always raise it later, as you begin to do better), then you can begin to figure out how you're going to get there.

And we know that relying entirely upon $10 sales of an ebook no one is looking for is not the answer.

One of the post powerful lessons a newbie can learn is how a front and back end to product sales work.

You said you lost your website. OK. Free hosting is available (google the term). And it can be 'clean', no advertising, not a .wix or whatever subdomain. So that problem can be solved.

Your monitor. You say it's kinda broken. All right--go to Goodwill and get a really cheap one. It doesn't matter if it's ugly right now. Look on Craigslist for deals. They're there. Put a request on Freecycle or CL asking for one as a donation.

At the worst you could use your local library's computer for short periods. Or maybe you have a friend you could impose upon for the short term. At any rate, these are solvable problems.

Back to the front and back end sales issue.

You can accelerate your progress towards your money target with back end products.

Let's say everything is somehow going great. A miracle! People are buying your $10 product. Great! Let's say 20 buy this month.

Now what?

What can they do next?

What else can they get from you?

Right this instant...nuthin'!

That's kind of a problem, wouldn't you say?

This is just my opinion, and my opinion is that a Kindle book should NEVER be the 100% cash cow money maker your business relies on. It's just not big enough. It should be a "nice if it works," occasional path into your other products & services (read: back end) people can find and use.

So what else could you offer for people to buy once they have bought the book and gotten a little more familiar with you?

Writing services?

Affordable group coaching to make sure they remember and DO the activities to stop themselves from eating due to boredom?

More expensive individual coaching for the same?

Start planning these out.

How many customers, conservatively, do you think you can generate a month?

See how these start chopping down that total money requirement? They really accelerate you getting to your money target.

2 copywriting clients at $500 apiece = an additional $1000/month.

5 group coaching clients at $25 (don't you DARE charge any less, or they won't have any commitment to it--in fact, you should charge more) apiece = $125

1 individual client at $250 = $250

Already we're at $1375 in new-to-you income...and these are very conservative figures for an active marketer.


Now let's move on to the Marketing problem.

This, once you get past your math problem (the one we just covered in super depth), is your main problem.

Earlier I said you picked a weird niche.

In my experience, though, it has one REALLY BIG thing going for it.

Although people are not searching for those specific terms, or even know distracting yourself to avoid eating due to boredom is a solution, loads of people have the overeating problem.

In fact, the overeating/shame/weight loss thing is a total crossover success-in-waiting providing you get into the right marketing channel where people are listening.

I hope you are ready to talk because the place a hungry market is waiting for your help is through PODCASTS AND RADIO TALK SHOWS.

It's so general interest that I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want to pick the story up.

Self-help.

Motivation.

Weight loss.

Morning zoo.

Exercise.

Stay-At-Home.


Do you think if you appear as a guest on 6-8 podcasts and radio shows this coming month that will have an effect on driving traffic?

Do you think those numbers will be significant and really help you get closer to that 2500 we were talking about earlier? That they'll add up fast?

Much faster than trying to pick up onesies and twosies through sig marketing or hoping people accidentally fall into your website?

THIS IS A TOPIC PEOPLE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT.

They just don't know what to call it. We saw the evidence of that above.


Get out of the victim mentality.

Get yourself a monitor that works--barter, beg, borrow, buy (super cheap).

Get yourself a free hosting account.

I guarantee you can have this stuff done by tomorrow afternoon.

Google podcasts and radio shows and apply to them as a guest interviewee. They NEED content. Their business is a little monster with a never-ending appetite for new content and that's you.

Write 6 or 7 standard questions about your target market, what happens to them, who they are and what they do, and your solution, and put them into a pdf to include with a headshot pic attached to your interview requests.

Practice your answers. The hosts are so lazy--especially the radio hosts--they will literally read them out in the order you provide. This is your opportunity to set the stage however you like. And at the end of each appearance, they will all ask, "So, how can people get in touch with you? Learn more about you?"...

...and now you have your answer.

Not just the book.

But your coaching.

Your writing.

Your other services.


Get your plan together. Understand your numbers. Get your marketing aligned with HOW PEOPLE ACTUALLY BUY what you're selling. Develop a back end for your funnel.

It doesn't have to take long to implement this stuff. You can easily sell a 6-week coaching program without knowing exactly what you're going to put inside it--heck, asking your buyers what they want from you after they buy is perfectly acceptable and a great way to ensure customer satisfaction.

But get out of that narrative about "two years" and how you got here. Move on. Move into the new plan, the one that works for you.

Tracie,
In case you haven't done this yet, after you get a great title and cover, put together a great email and send a free copy of the book to a bunch of bloggers who write about that niche. Say you Enjoy their blog, and since we're interested in the same issues, I wanted to send you one of the first copies of my new book, TITLE. It's about blah blah blah. Which as you know, is a big problem for so many people. Offer them a free copy to one of their readers, and offer to do a guest post about the topic on their blog (if they do that). If you don't want to write the post, say you think their readers might be interested in some of the topics you cover and give her a link to share with them about how to get it. If it's free on Amazon say it will be free for the next XX days so they'll hopefully share it sooner than later.

Just some thoughts.

Good luck.

I would love to read your book!

This is the best advice you've received thus far.

I have at least three that still work, in my junk shed...I can't give them away.

I suggest you take Kay's advice above.

Next time do what the Martian guy did put it for free so as you write the 2 years you can see if people like it not keep it secret for 2 years. Most people finish a book in less then 3 months fiction and 1 to 3 weeks non fiction then figure out if it's a looser so they can move on

Some great ideas on book launching here, thanks all for their useful advice. I am launching my kindle soon.

I understand your situation now. Like the whole world turning back to you no matter how hard you tried. But please don't lose hope, hope like the light at the end of the cave can lead you go through the dark.
I wish best thing will come to you soon.


Jack Ma

@Tracie

Did you get your free hosting set up?

Did you get a monitor? If you didn't, and money is an issue, PM me where you are and I will find something local to you thru Craigslist for you to pick up or solve the problem another way (like you find one at Goodwill and I will call to pay them for it.) We're not going to let a $15-25 problem stand in the way!

I would like suggest you to plan things up quickly - As you have put so much hard work completing your goal and its time to promote.

Now Promotion is the Key? Make People Aware About the Book and Value which Book is going to Give a Person who will buy that book.

Until people will able to gain some confidence about your product - How They Can Buy a Book?

Things are changed now you need to pick out some portions of your book and create an awesome contents and start a YouTube Channel and Build Audience and setup your platform from where they can buy that book easily hassel free...

There are lots of way you can get floods of Traffic naturally its important believe in you and your work - Let me know if you need any support in YouTube Promotions? I will be happy to Assist You

Best of Luck

Joy Banerjee

Hi Tracie, your book needs re-branding. Different title, different cover = different book? Actually, yes, too some - inc those sites you had trouble with. I'd love to read it. Please PM me for more. Best, H.

When ever I buy a kindle book I read reviews. And since books can also be listed by avarage customer reviews this is important to get a good listing so did your friends who read and liked the book post a review? If not, maybe ask them to?

If you want money right away, sell something on eBay or Amazon. Or use your writing skills to write articles, blog posts, etc. for others online.

Regarding publishing and making money via KDP, you will have to "go to school" and it will take time (2-3 months perhaps to get a good start). A good place to start is with this new book by Chris Fox: Robot Check

I will PM you with additional, helpful information.

Lots of good advice here, but let me help you prioritize and help teach you HOW to do some of the things you're being told to do.

1. Get a job, or income, any legal way necessary immediately, and THEN work on the book. Every solution for the book challenges will take time you may not have if BILL is knocking on the door.
2. Here's a cover artist on Fiverr that I recommend highly, as I've used her for several projects: https://www.fiverr.com/pro_ebookcovers
3. Your Title should be based upon keywords AND pack a punch. You can do this by having a two or three word title with a subtitle that uses keywords. For example: "Kick-It! Six Ways to Have Fun and Stop Stuffing Your Face" (of course, this is off the top of my head, and not based upon research.)
4. If you have a smartphone, sign up for Periscope, and get on there at least daily and read a little bit of your book, and talk to people. Your passion will come through, and they'll get to know your work. It is FREE to do this audience building. If you get your replacement monitor, and have a camera, do the same thing on Blab.
5. Sign up for Twitter and Social Jukebox (https://www.socialjukebox.com) and create a list of at least 24 Tweets, with your new book cover image in some of them, and home-made memes in others to highlight bits of your book.
6. Get WordSwag app and create your own memes. These can be plugged into your social jukebox.
7. Relaunch your recreated book on Amazon, and take it off all other platforms. Sign up for KDP select and promote the living daylights out of the book launch for at least two MONTHS before the relaunch to build buzz. Offer the book for FREE for 5 days. This is how folks create a best seller.
8. When you relaunch your book, put it in a category without a ton of competition. Diet is too much competition, but happiness is a niche category that will serve you better for visibility.
9. Join author groups and learn all you can for the next 2-3 months what other are doing.
10. Create a tiny "report" or cheat sheet that highlights things you cover in your book, and give it away as a readers email list opt-in. This is where people type in their email and get the report for free in exchange. That becomes your money maker ---- that email list. Without it, you will not make it as an author in today's climate.

I hope that helps, and if you want to see my work and what I've built in the last 10 months following these things you can look up MsMelEdwards.com or look for my books on Amazon as Mel Edwards. I'm still new, too, and not paying my bills with my half-dozen books, but I'm growing it, and have a small non-promoted list of about 300 people.

I also highly recommend my coach, Shelley Hitz of ShelleyHitz.com for learning from. Almost everything I know I've learned from her.

Good luck.
-Mel.

It's always a good idea to model someone who has succeeded in your niche. Here's one such success story, Susan Peirce, who used Jeff Walker's Product Launch Formula to go from zero to six figures:


Hope it helps!

I have had issues with stress and boredom eating , so in theory, I am a serious potential reader ... however, right this second, it does not appeal to me, I have no temptation to ask ... "Gee that's awesome where do I get it?"

Three things:
1. Writing a book is never about the primary money: I am a technical writer, in a high paying industry, with a major publisher my first book was listed #1 on the Library of Computer and Information Sciences when it launched. I figured I made a total of about $3.50 per hour or so on it. However, it did establish me as an expert in my field and resulted in a lot of secondary money.... THEREFORE ... you must be in this for the long haul, and look at follow up income. I understand being short on funds, but the book is not necessarily the best way to get them fast.

2. Your blog, twitter feed, facebook page (and any groups you are in) must show you having the fun you are having ... use the techniques in your book to demo results... "This is what I do now rather than having a cup-cake" ... "Isn't this better than chocolate?"

3. You're going to need do do some paid advertising.

I do think the idea about pulling it and relaunching with a marketing plan is a good one.

What is the URL for your book on Amazon? I'll check on it and perhaps do some free advertising for you. OK?

Loy Banks