My first Kindle eBook - Download Free (for 3 days) (6)
I've created a couple eBooks in the past,
which were sold as WSO's. (Don't hate me 
)
My strategy now was to reformat them as Kindle eBooks and launch them on Amazon
and see if I can make some extra money out of that information.
So I've just finished editing, reformatting and uploading my first eBook on the Kindle Store
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BRMEF06
The eBook is about increasing your click through rates in order to maximize your AdSense earnings.
To give you an idea, it sold previously (like 2 years ago) as a WSO here:
http://www.warriorforum.com/warrior-...ok-inside.html
So.. I wanted to share my strategy and earnings to see if I can actually make some extra money out of this...
Here's what I did so far:
1. I spent some hours last week re-editing, updating and reformatting my eBook into a Kindle format. I must admit, it's still not perfect, but I think it's good to go for now.
BTW Images are a bitch on the Kindle.
Basically, in Word I adjusted the page size to A5 and middle-sized margins to get a better feel of how it would look like on the Kindle.
2. I then created an account here:
http://kdp.amazon.com/mn/signin?ld=AZEbooksMakeM
and uploaded my eBook (as product description I used basically my WSO sales page)
as tags I did a quick search on Amazon and added a couple tags that appeared as Amazon Suggest searches
I changed the title a bit.
I searched for my cover on deviantart.com (check for rights), then edited the image adding my title using Paint
3. After about 24 hours, it's live on the marketplace (cool!)
4. I have now started a Free-Promotion offer for 5 days (till Friday), but maybe I'll cut it down on Wednesday
So far, the eBook has already been downloaded about 150 times in about 30hours
and ranks 4th in free eBooks under category Web Marketing (click image to zoom)
5. I just (today) sent an email to my subscriber list of about 1000 people about the free promotion, here's the newsletter I wrote:
http://www.getresponse.com/archive/p...-10650722.html
I wrote the newsletter in order to see if I can get some reviews out of that.
The price of the Kindle eBook is set at $2.99, still not sure if the price is right.
I have no idea if I will actually sell a unit after the free-promotion is over.
For now, you can download the ebook for free. I still don't know if I can create a coupon or something so that you guys can download it even if the promotion period is over. Amazon allows you to have a 5-day free promotion every 90 days.
I'd love to hear your feedback about the
Title,
Description,
eBook itself,
pricing,
and promotion strategy/ideas?
.. and maybe drop me a feedback on Amazon? 
I'll update this in the coming days? And see if I can demystify this Kindle thingy
Do you guys want to know something else?
I'll give you feedback, keeping in mind I am not an experienced marketer. This is my opinion as a customer.
- Title is too tryhard, so is the description and review. Too many books are following the same pattern. Try something creative, like alliteration: "Advance Your AdSense: 5 Proven Steps to Increase Your Revenue by 1% per Day" or "Amplify Your AdSense..." People who use AdSense can usually do math and will know +1%/day is huge. Also it stands out because everyone is offering to double and triple revenue, but you're using 1%, it's so...unique.
- Cover looks very amateur. Unless this is intentional, spend $20 to get a nice cover. Cover has to be very clever. The fist doesn't do it for me.
- Hire some contractors to post reviews, and don't make them all glowing. Some should be average. Post some negatives ones, but for the wrong reasons. For example, say the book is good, it's missing some stuff you wished it had, but overall it was well worth it and paid for itself in minutes. I'd personally be more likely to buy it if the price was $18.95 but slashed to only $7.99 for the kindle version. Cheap books are seen as low value.
Finch started an awesome thread on Amazon Kindle here: http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...t=finch+amazon
Check that out if you haven't yet and maybe it will give you some ideas.
How did you sell that many WSOs?! My best WSO sold about 700 copies after a ton of bumps. Nothing was profitable on WF for me outside of the small list that I built selling products.
Were most of those sales affiliate sales from your list or did you sell a lot of products on there? I ended up killing my WF account after realizing I wasn't winning the popularity contest and facing more of an uphill battle than it was worth.
Originally Posted by _mcr_
I agree with you on the cover thingy.
I wanted it to be a bit flashy in order to stand out, that's why I liked the red/white combination with the fist.
I was actually hoping to find a fist holding some money, to make the "conquering" message more concrete.
However, designing a better cover, probably including my name in there too is a good idea, just didn't want to spend any money in the beginning, just to test if I could actually sell some copies first.
I agree with you on the pricing thing as well, the problem is that I think I should first gain a "reputation" and have a following as an author in order to claim so high prices, example Steve Scott. The other thing is royalties. Pricing high doesn't necessarily give you higher royalties, based on Amazon commission models. I wanted to get some traction in the beginning, but I should definitely test a higher pricing along the way.
Originally Posted by thomasbhm
The thing about the WSO's is leveraging affiliate sales, that's crucial.
I made all my sales within a 4-day period after product launch, because some guys with big customer lists on Warrior Forum decided to promote my product.
Refund rates were very low so that pulled more affiliates to the offer as well.
I think that's the best way to get things rolling, because bumping is incredibly expensive considering that sometimes you'll drop to page 2 within 20-30 minutes.
====
Quick update here:
I finished the free-promo last Wednesday (3 days total), so I still have the possibility of a 2-day free promo before having to wait 90 days to do another free promotion.
All in all, it was quite successful, ended up being number 2 for category Web Marketing in Free eBooks, and got about 440 downloads.
Also, I received 3 very good reviews along the way thanks to the email I sent to my tiny list.
Now, I have sold 4 copies so far, so the traffic is there.
This definitely does not equal a good hourly rate yet but it is a success already in my terms.
The eBook was sitting on my hard drive for about 2 years now, and after some editing it is selling again and making me some money, so that's definitely worth it.
However, I need to turn up a notch on the promotion thing, I think that's probably key.
I'm considering doing another 2 day free promotion just to get some more Amazon verified purchase reviews during those dates, maybe after sending the link to Kindle Author communities or something, still have to look into it.
Conclusions so far: People actually buy Kindle books. Wow!
Quick Update: Worked on this again some time yesterday. Sold 20 copies so far.
Lessons learned:
a) Free promotions are probably only useful to take the chance to get amazon verified purchase reviews. My book was downloaded 440 times for free but no fuckin' soul reviewed it. My reviews were done by members of my email list. There will always be freebie seekers, but unless you get something out of it it's rather useless.
So next time I do a free promotion it will only be to get some reviewers download book for free and review it for me after 48h, but it should be planned accordingly.
b) To succeed in Kindle you probably need to either create an amazingly successful book, or scale the same way you scale campaigns, by dropping more and more books into the marketplace and build a following.
Changes made:
1. I changed title and cover of eBook to:
Conquering Google AdSense - 5 Proven Steps to go from 5 to 15% CTR and Triple Your Earnings Overnight
2. And I raised price to 4.83 (Still trying to figure out how much I have to set the price so that it ends up being 4.99 or something). List price right now is 4.35
I'm hesitant about increasing the price any further because there are quite a few other AdSense books on the same price range but with over 200 pages or so. I know length does not equal quality but it could be seen potentially as a quality indicator to potential buyers.
3. An industrial designer who is working with me on another project helped me create another cover & Name idea.
The Name would switch to:
Skyrocket Your AdSense Earnings - 5 Proven Steps to go from 5 to 15% CTR and Triple Your Earnings Overnight
and here are some sample covers he created for me:
Which Name and Cover do you think is the best?
Would appreciate your feedback!
I think there's immense potential in the Kindle platform, particularly in the emerging market of micro-content. Who needs to spend 2 years writing a wedge-thick book when you can slap together 40 useful, actionable pages and sell it to the mass market for a dollar? Volume is your best friend here.
I agree with the point above about 'scaling' on the platform. The secret sauce for the most successful Amazon marketers is creating a series. If you have a series, the freebie promotion becomes more effective. You are giving away the 'intro' to the rest of your work.
In terms of revenue generated, my own affiliate ebook hasn't got a mark on my actual campaigns. But it's produced a huge surge in sales for my other Premium Post products.
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