Last time I counted on Amazon.
There were around 33 million books published,
and that's probably a lot more now because around 2000 to 7000 books get
published on that platform every single day.
Now only about 1% of all authors and publishers on Amazon
make more than $1,000 a month,
which means 99% make less and probably a big proportion of that make no
money at all. And from the questions I get,
particularly from people starting out,
I suspect that you may be one of those also. And if that is the case,
then I'm going to address that in today's video. So follow along. Now,
if you've not been to this channel before then, welcome,
my name is Paul Marles and I do videos on how to make it, to keep it,
and that's your money I'm talking about. If you do like videos like that,
then please do give it a thumbs up,
hit that subscribe button and smash that notification bell to receive
notification of when I produce more videos like this. Okay.
So one of the most common questions I get is,
and it goes along the lines of, I published a book, two,
three books about two weeks ago or even a week ago,
and I'm not making any sales. Sigh. What's the problem.
What am I doing wrong? Or I'm going to give up.
And it reminds me of a story about Novak Djokovic,
who's the current number, one tennis player in the world. And in fact,
myself and Novak Djokovic have something in common,
but now it's not tennis.
Now Novak started playing tennis at around the age of four and didn't
win his first professional title until around the age of 16.
So that was 12 years of working of training and not earning any
money. Now, some of you may not know this,
but I was a medical doctor for nearly 30 years.
Yes. I know what you're saying. I don't look old enough.
And to get to that point, I went to medical school for six years.
So the thing that we've both got in common is that we kind of both did an
apprenticeship where we spent a considerable amount of time
learning training, and not earning any money whatsoever.
Now,
the problem with publishing books on the KDP platform is that there's a very low
barrier to entry.
And as such a lot of people assume it's easy to make money,
but actually the opposite is true because a lot of people are publishing books.
The competition is high and it's difficult to get your books seen. Now,
does that mean that KDP is saturated,
which is the other comment I get very frequently.
Absolutely not. I've got a list of loads of different niches,
where people are making good money and there's low competition.
And on this channel,
I publish videos on some of these niches to help you.
Guys get in there and start making money. Now,
when I was like a lot of you guys and the position that you're in,
you're just starting out. My books were awful.
They were just plain lined notebooks and journals. And, you know,
I used to get things like images of say a pineapple,
go to Adobe Illustrator,
create a pineapple pattern and call it a pineapple notebook.
And I did that for lots of niches. I'd actually had a spreadsheet.
It was like a grid of all different notebooks and all different niches.
And then for me, a niche was things like unicorns, space,
pineapples, avocados.
And I'd create these pattern notebooks and upload them to Amazon.
Now, understandably it took me a while to get sales and it wasn't until probably
about six weeks after I started that I actually made any sales
whatsoever. And I used to do these different patterns in plain lined notebooks,
composition notebooks, all different types of notebooks, dot grid journals.
And understandably, when I look back at them, they were, they were awful,
but that's the way I started.
And I know from a lot of the people that send me books to look at,
that's how you guys are starting as well.
And that's really the only way to start. And then after about five months,
I started producing sports-related log books,
very simple covers, but they started to sell.
And then that got me onto the log book type thing.
And it wasn't until really a year after I started,
and looking at so many different books on Amazon, studying them,
looking at all the bestselling ones in different niches,
looking what they had in common in terms of, you keyword use,
cover design pricing,
descriptions that I then started to get a real grasp of this business.
And I came upon a design concept.
It's suddenly came to me one day and I knew straight away that this would sell.
And it was a very basic, simple concept that only had,
or used two colors. And yes, as soon as I published a book with that cover,
within a matter of days, I started to get sales.
And I used that concept on other types of books and got sales from those
as well.
But I wouldn't have got there without producing all the books that I did,
without practicing my design skills,
without learning more about keywords and keyword use.
Now I had a slight advantage and that I'd tried other businesses online
businesses in the past.
I'd studied search engine optimization and understood keywords
and keyword research and how to get websites and blog posts ranked.
But again, it wasn't until about a year that it's suddenly twigged,
that keywords are important for getting your books seen on Amazon.
But.
One of the most important aspects of not only getting your books seen,
but getting those clicks and sales is the cover design. Now,
unless you've got a background in illustration,
graphic design or some form of visual creative arts,
it's going to be very difficult early on to get covers that are really good,
that attract customers.
And the sort of factors that need to be looked at and things that I studied over
that first year, as well as looking at books on Amazon was things like,
you know, composition, color theory, fonts.
And I got all my information from YouTube doing searches on Google and
learning about those aspects. And sometimes, you know,
you can learn those aspects and then break it down into its simplest components.
So you don't complicate things too much and come up with very basic designs
that are effective, you know,
rather than using lots of different colors on a book cover using just two or,
or three covers,
but using them effectively to create something that's attractive.
So when someone asks me that question I've just produced a couple of books a
couple of weeks ago, and I'm not making any sales,
it's almost similar to perhaps me going up to Novak Djokovich and saying
Novak, you know,
I started playing tennis two weeks ago and I did my first tournament
last weekend and I didn't win. What's wrong? Well,
after he's picked himself up off the floor, laughing it,
just pat me on the back and say, you know,
practice and the same goes for this business. Yes,
the barrier to entry is low. It might seem an easy way to make money,
but it's anything but. And you've got to put in that apprenticeship,
if you like, you've got to put in those hours of creating, uploading,
repeating, and going through that cycle of doing that over and over,
and also studying about essential factors like keyword research,
which I cover on this channel cover design again, which I cover on this channel.
But it's not just me.
There's lots of other videos out there that cover these individual components as
well. You know, if you're using Adobe Illustrator or using Affinity Designer,
again, I've done videos using those bits of software,
but there's lots of videos also on YouTube on how to use those pieces of
software. And YouTube is fantastic. It's one of the best resources out there,
if you want to do learn something and learn it for free.
And that's what you've got to do. You've got to study, study, study, create,
upload, repeat, and go through that cycle over and over.
And after a period of time, you will improve, but it will also start to click.
And all those factors that, you know,
you need to create and sell books,
which are niche choice, keyword choice,
keyword use, title structure, cover design, descriptions,
and pricing.
Those are the main components after doing that over so many times will it all
come together and it will twig and you'll start to get sales and you'll discover
what works and you'll start to make more sales.
But you've got to put in that time, it's not going to take two weeks.
Probably not going to take three weeks or four weeks.
It's probably going to take a few months of creating and practicing to
get there.
So take that on board before you send me that question about
what's going wrong.
It's probably because you're new to the business and you've just not put in the
time yet, but if you keep at it, you will. And I promise you,
you will get there. Now,
if you are just starting out in this book creation process,
particularly no content and low content books,
but there are principles that do apply to normal books as well.
Then I suggest watching this playlist next,
which is my book tutorials playlist on all the different steps on creating and
publishing books on the Amazon KDP platform. Thank you very much for your time.
It is very much appreciated.
Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and until next time, goodbye.