With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), you can self-publish your book on Amazon and start making money in as little as 24 hours.

Sounds a whole lot better than waiting months or even years to find an agent, get a book deal, and go through all the rigmarole of working with a traditional publishing platform, right?

And that’s not even the best part…

• Amazon lets you keep more of your money. A lot more.
• With over 90 million Prime subscribers in the United States alone, Amazon’s Kindle store reach is huge.
• Self-publishing with Amazon KDP is absolutely, positively, 100% free.

In short:

Kindle publishing makes it so that anyone can self-publish a digital book and sell it on Amazon.

The only problem?

If you want your Kindlebook to be a hit, if you want it to make real money, you can’t simply “publish and pray.” You need a strategy.

 

It’s a lot of hard work but in the end it will pay off. I have read books by David Gaughran, Robert J. Ryan, Richard McCartney and Mr Kindlepreneur Dave Chesson. Please google them and get their books, you won’t regret it.

 

I will give you the steps but you will have to then go and do the research on how to improve on the steps because like you I am no expert!

 

Here we go:

 

Step #1: Find Your Category On Amazon

First, you’ll need to find a suitable category for your book idea on Amazon.

Go to amazon.com and navigate to Departments > Kindle E-Readers & Books > Kindle Books

 

Next, click Best Sellers & More in the menu.

 

Scroll down until you see the menu below and click Kindle Best Sellers.

 

Select Kindle eBooks from the menu.

 

Pick a category and subcategory that fit closest to your book idea.

 

Once you’ve picked a subcategory, it’s time to investigate your potential competitors.

 

Step #2: Check Your Category’s Top 20 Books For Similar Topics

If you can’t find any similar books, you need to go back to the beginning. Go through your list of book ideas and try again.

 

Step #3: Check The Best Seller Rank Of The Top Books In Your Category

If you want to know whether you can compete in a category and whether there are enough potential readers, you need to know how well the books in your category sell.

You won’t find any actual sales numbers on Amazon, but through their “Best Seller” rank you can get a decent estimate.

You can find a book’s Best Seller rank by scrolling down its product page. The rank will be listed under Product Details.

 

The higher the rank (with #1 being the highest), the more copies it sells — but also, the harder it will be to beat. You have to look for categories where the average best seller rank is neither too low nor too high.

Here’s how it generally breaks down:

• Rankings above 1,000 will have great sales numbers, but will be very competitive.
• Rankings from 1,000 to 30,000 are less competitive, but will still have decent sales numbers.
• Rankings of 30,000 and lower are the least competitive, but will also have lower sales numbers.
• Aim for categories where you think you can crack the top three books.
• If you follow the strategies laid out in this post, you should be able to reach the top three in categories with medium competition.
• And if you can get your book featured in the top three when you launch, the chances your book will be featured highly in the Hot New Releases list will skyrocket.
• If you appear high enough in that list, your book will get lots of exposure. Amazon will feature your book in a highlighted section above other books that are similar to yours

 

Step #4: Make Sure You Have a Great Cover, One That Grabs Attention

Step #5: Write a Description That Sells Your Book for You

Step #6 :Keep the Book Sales Going and the Royalties Coming In

·Raise Your Price Once Per Week

·Run promotions

·Run Facebook Ads, Amazon Ads, Bookbub Ads

That’s the gist of it in a nutshell. Like I said earlier , this is just a summary but to get more details I advice you to check out the Authors above. Remember their names are :  David Gaughran, Robert J. Ryan, Richard McCartney and  Dave Chesson.

Good luck!

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