Making money on the internet can be kind of difficult at times, especially with no guidance or, even worse, following the wrong guidance. This article will teach you how to make money on Amazon as an author, specifically with the Amazon Kindle.
Publishing a book does two benefits. It can bring extra passive income, and second, it creates authority and a strong personal brand. Ebrima Sawaneh, the founder of this website, published it on Amazon and became a bestseller. You also make money from ebooks, and this article will help your journey.
What is Amazon Kindle?
Amazon Kindle is an online eBook publishing platform from the online book and retail giants Amazon. People visit the Amazon Kindle Store to purchase ebooks that they can read instantly on their tablet, laptop, e-reader or other platforms.
Amazon Kindle is a very good platform to make tons of money on. Amazon Kindle market and distribute your book on its website, and you receive money if your book sells. It could not be any simpler. It is very easy to get started on Amazon Kindle.
Getting Started
The first thing you would need to do is register an account on the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) website, this would involve registering your personal details as well as entering a bank account in which Amazon can pay you. Once you have your account set up, you are good to go, and you will be able to publish mind-blowing books.
There are many advantages to selling ebooks on Amazon Kindle, the first one being it is very simple to use and its even easier to upload your content on. You get to keep full control of the book and just with one click you can publish your book globally, and it will reach readers worldwide.
You choose between two options for royalty payments. The first option is that you receive a 70% royalty fee if your book is priced between $2.99 and $9.99. The second option is if your book is priced between $0.99 and $200, then you receive a 35% royalty fee.
I would recommend using the 35% option at the start and pricing your book at $0.99. This is because your book is relatively new, and it will bring people in as $0.99 is not much of a financial investment as a higher price such as $3.99. More people will buy your book, and thus you will get more reviews and more profit.
Once your book is more established, you can raise your price up to $2.99 or higher to receive the 70% royalty fee.
Reviews are very important when it comes to establishing your book and making it successful. Reviews help customers decide whether they want to buy the book.
Enrolling your book into the KDP Select programme is a good way to receive good reviews. The KDP Select programme is a promotion that Amazon designed which is basically Amazon letting users download your book for free for a selected period of time. If you enrol your book into the programme you will get more people to download your book.
This means if your book is good, (which it will be), people will want to share it with their friends and recommend it. They will share it on social network websites like Facebook and Twitter. That means more positive words about your book, and you receive free advertising. Enrolling your book in the programme will also mean more people will have the chance to post positive reviews about the book.
Finding a Profitable Niche
You might be thinking, what shall I write about? Write about your passion. Something you are passionate about helps because you will enjoy writing about it, and you’ll be knowledgeable about it (if not research about it on the internet). Your passion can be anything from cats and dogs to football or cars. You can teach people how to look after their dog properly or how to play golf properly. You can even write about fiction books and create the next Harry Potter. You could write children’s books, romance novels, thrillers, or anything that you want.
You also have to make sure the niche you have chosen is profitable, there is demand for it, and it has low competition in the chosen niche. To see what is popular, browse the Amazon Kindle Most Popular section or go on eZineArticles for inspiration.
If you don’t want to write your book yourself, then you can always hire someone to write it for you. You can find someone on freelancing websites such as Upwork and get them to write for around $30-$40 for a 60-page book.
All you have to do is make an account and post a job, which are both free of charge. Make sure you specify all the details you want to include in your instructions to your freelancer.
Make sure the book you write or get written for you is of high quality. This is very important as you do not want to receive a negative review for your book. Remember, feedback and reviews are very important, and you do not want to get bad ratings.
Next, you will need to design a good-looking front cover that will attract buyers. You could design it yourself if you have good Photoshop skills or hire someone on Fiverr. Fiverr is a micro-jobs website and people charge only $5 to make an excellent-looking front cover.
A good tip for making extra money from your book is to include affiliate links in your book. Inserting affiliate links will make you extra money. Don’t overdo it and only put affiliate links in where you need to otherwise, it will just look spammy. Also, dedicate a page to writing down a copyrighted notice that protects your book like this.
Getting your book on Kindle
Once you have done this, you can upload your book and front cover together and convert it into PDF format. You can do this on Microsoft Word. After you have done that, you can upload it onto Amazon Kindle. You also have to correctly format your book in the correct Kindle format.
You can also do it yourself by following the Amazon Kindle Formatting Guidelines: Log into your Kindle account, click add title, set the price of your book, and you are good to go. Make use of the description and the title.
Write a good description, as this is one of the main things that sells your book. Make sure you tell potential customers what the book is, what you will learn, why you should buy the book and any other information they need. The description word limit is up to 700 words, so make sure you use all of them. Insert keywords into your title. So, for example, if your book is teaching people how to play golf, then you could call your book:
Learn how to play Golf like a Pro – Step-by-step guide to playing Golf
Play Golf like Tiger Woods – The Ultimate Guide to Playing Golf
Promoting your eBook
So you have now successfully published your book on Amazon Kindle. Well done. Now you need to promote it like crazy! Make social media pages for your book on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and also post content that promotes your book. Create a blog for it. Make a video that promotes your book and post it on Youtube. Get bloggers and book influencers to review your book. Anything that spreads the word of your book.
You could also give it away for free to people. Post it on Facebook groups and fan pages about your niche. In our golf example, you could post it on Facebook and Twitter pages that are similar to your niche. You can gift the book to chosen email addresses, therefore, getting people to give verified Amazon reviews.
Submitting your book onto your website to get it more popular. The main aim should be to make the book viral. Posting it on book websites like GoodReads and LibraryThing.
Put a link to your website in the footer of your book on each page so that people can visit your website. It will bring more traffic to your website or blog as well.
By following these steps and using a ‘Repeat and Rinse’ process, you can create an eBook empire that brings you thousands of dollars of passive income a month without you even doing anything. All you have to do is repeat this process and carry on publishing books.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this guide. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a comment and sharing the article!
About the author
My name is Bilquis, and I run Get Money Saving, a personal finance and business blog. On the blog, I write about how to make more money and the different ways to save money as well.
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