I love the idea of having something for sale in an established marketplace, and I think there’s no better example of that than Amazon. If you don’t have a book for sale on Amazon you’re missing out on a huge audience of buyers.
You might not make a fortune, but self publishing is a viable side hustle and one I’m particularly excited about. And even though I have a couple titles myself and am earning a little bit of “passive” income from them, there are a ton of authors with far more success than me.
One of those is Steve Scott, the author of 15 (and counting) Kindle books. He’s created this impressive portfolio in a little over a year, and it’s turned into a business that generates thousands of dollars in royalties every month.
Plus, it allows for the freedom and flexibility to work from wherever he wants. A couple days after recording this session, Steve was jetting off to Greece for a month with his girlfriend.
Ready to learn how it’s done?
Subscribe to The Side Hustle Show on iTunes!
Subscribe to The Side Hustle Show on Stitcher!
In this episode you’ll learn:
- How to write your book in just an hour a day.
- How long your book has to be.
- Whether it’s better to write fiction or non-fiction.
- Why a book might earn you more money than a blog with the same content.
- The proven path to $300 a month in royalties.
- Why giving your book away for free can actually help sell more copies.
- One innovative way to use Amazon to build your email list.
- The importance of building your own brand, independent of Amazon.
Mentioned in this episode:
- Pat Flynn’s Facebook group for authors
- Steve’s blog
- Steve’s author page on Amazon
- My 30 Day Writing Challenge
- Elance
- Problogger job board
- Steve’s new habits website
What do you think?
Do you have a book in you? What’s stopping you from writing it?
Have you already published on Amazon? What’s your experience been like? Let me know in the comments below!
Excellent and inspiring. Very useful information. Thanks!
Great Podcast. The willingness to share such valuable information is inspiring. I do have an book in my head, and now I can see that it’s not out of reach as I would have thought!
But as you can see from my previous post…I will need a VA editor from Elance.
Thanks Chris! Would love to hear more about your book idea and I think it will be awesome to get started and get it out to the world.
Hello Nick!
Thanks for your podcast.
I did my first eBook and launched in June. I had 8,493 copies downloaded during the free 5 days (woohoo!), then have sold 74 copies so far. However, no sales last week. So I have begun to do outside promotion, but not a lot of movement yet. Basically the free promo allowed me to sell about 2.25 books per day for a month, and then 1 book a day for a few weeks, and now nothing.
How long have you been able to sustain sales after the KDP promo period?
You’re welcome, it was great to connect with Steve for this show.
Wow! That’s an awesome job with the free promo, way more than I’ve ever seen.
My last free promo was pretty successful in my mind given the narrow audience and subject matter, but the depressing part was it had almost no impact on sales. In fact I’m moving one of my titles out of KDP select to try some new angles here this month.
I think in your case, there’s a huge marketing opportunity on all the frugal living / couponing blogs. Maybe guest posting there and sharing a couple juicy tips? I don’t know, but it’s a fascinating topic!
This one got me inspired so I purchased his Writing Habit Mastery book. I started writing a book a while ago and have gone back to finish it. I also listened to Steve on SPI 124 a couple of days ago. Both interviews good.
This is also the first time I have heard about Digital Sharecropping.
Thanks Jason — Steve is the real deal, definitely admire his disciplined, systematic approach.
Great interview, Nick, thanks! I purchased a few of Steve’s books, they are easy to read, have lots of useful info and are free of fluff.