So you got a bright shiny new Kindle, and you are now enjoying the thousands of low cost eBooks on a variety of subjects. You love the convenience of one click purchasing and almost immediate downloads. The fact that you can change fonts, adjust brightness, and read in almost any light, just adds to the convenience.
Bottom line: You enjoy the eBook experience.
The good news… thousands of other people enjoy it too. And not just on a Kindle itself. Amazon provides free Kindle software for most other electronic devices, such as Smart Phones, iPads, and Computers. With this software you can take your Kindle books almost anywhere you go.
Here is a simple question. Why not publish your own Kindle Ebook?
If you are knowledgeable about a particular subject and want to share your expertise with others, a Kindle eBook is a great way to get the word out. Kindle books are ideally suited to smaller niche topics that can be covered in 10,000 to 20,000 words.
For example, let’s say you are a craftsman and love to work with wood. You could write a full print book about woodworking, covering the subject in full. At 250 pages, the book would need to sell for 10 to 15 dollars and be generic enough to cover most common projects. Here are three current examples from Amazon.
- The Complete Manual of Woodworking $18.63
- Woodworking Basics $15.36
- Woodwork $28.27
This type of book would take a good while to compile, edit and source the photographs. It would probably take a year or more to complete. Unfortunately, you would have a LOT of high end competition in the marketplace. Breaking through into this genre would be next to impossible for a beginning writer. Having a conventional publisher pick you up would be slim to none.
However, you could write individual Kindle eBooks about some of your popular projects, almost completely eliminate the competition, and actually make more money per book than if you published it in paperback.
How about these titles…
- The Complete Book of Birdhouse Construction $2.99
- Action Whirligigs $8.99
- Kitchen Cabinets Made Simple $9.99
In the Kindle marketplace, if you price your book between $2.99 and $9.99, you make a gross 70% commission. (There are some minor delivery charges that may reduce your percentage 1 or 2 percent) Compare that to the standard book publishing marketplace, where most published authors make about a dollar per book. Even if you self published your paper book, you would have to pay printing costs on the front end, and then pay a 40% cut to Amazon to sell it.
Let’s look at a basic profit comparison…
Let’s say you sell 1,000 books at $9.99 (we’ll round to $10 for this comparison)
- Conventionally published: $1/book Profit: $100
- Self Published Paper: ($4 print cost and 40% commission to Amazon) $2/book Profit $200
- Self Published Kindle: $7/book Profit: $700
So here is the deal. You can publish a book on the Kindle and price it at $2.99 and make the same $2 as if you published it in paper and priced it at $10.
Let’s take this idea a step further. Let’s take our woodworking book and break it down into sections. Why not come up with five books, one for each of the major woodworking project sections in the book. Here are some basic titles..
- How to Build Birdhouses
- How to Build Whirlygigs
- How to Build Doghouses
- How to Build Storage Cabinets
- How to Build Basic Furniture
- Now you can sell each of these project books from $2.99 to $9.99, depending on the page length and complexity. Now you have multiple books on Amazon and are targeting individual niche areas. You also have the power to offer specials or free books to bring in customers.
- Sell a thousand of each book at $2.99 and you’ve made $10,000 in profit. Not too bad a way to share your expertise!
Ask yourself this question..
- If you wanted to build a doghouse, would you rather buy a woodworking book for $18.00 that has three pages related to doghouses, or a specific eBook on the subject for $2.99, that has 50 pages on the topic?
- No brainer, right!
Here’s another thing… If you go to Amazon and search for how to build a doghouse, guess what book comes up. The woodworking book has no chance.
So, let’s end our first post on Kindle Publishing this way.
- Think small,
- Think specific,
- Think multiple
Tomorrow we’ll look at how to come up with specific keywords to help us define our niches and help people find our soon to be published books.
Question: Have you ever purchased a low cost Kindle book?
P.S. Have you seen the new Kindle Paperwhite? Best Kindle for outside reading ever… awesome!