As the author of 9 self-published books, including a few Amazon bestsellers, I think self-publishing is a fun and rewarding side hustle.
The lightbulb moment for me came early on. I’d published my first book (on how to hire and work with virtual assistants), and I expected to sell a few copies through my website, which I tracked with my Amazon affiliate link.
The surprising thing was almost none of the sales came through my site; instead they came organically through Amazon. Even though my first author royalty check was less than $50, I was excited. I’m a professional author! Someone (several people) bought my book!
Since then I’ve published more titles and learned more about the writing, editing, and marketing process. One of my book projects generated 20,000 free downloads in its first week and went on to earn passive royalties for over a year.
More recently, I launched a new book at $0.99 and it became a bestseller on its first day, and netted $2600 in its first month.
If you’d like to learn more about my book launch process, especially for non-fiction authors without a huge platform, check this link for a special offer on my Udemy course that walks you through the whole process start-to-finish.
As a blogger or business owner, are you using Amazon to generate new leads and reach more potential customers?
If not, I think you’re missing out.
Amazon is the 4th most popular site in the country (according to Alexa), which means there are probably a metric ton of potential customers searching there for what you know about.
This week I’m excited to introduce one of the hottest side hustles of the moment, and that is low-content self-publishing.
What is low-content publishing?
Let me explain — self-publishing has been around for a decade, and we’ve covered that quite a bit in both fiction and non-fiction — it’s one of my favorite and perhaps most passive side hustles. Write the book, hit publish, collect royalties for years.
What inspired me to create and launch The Progress Journal last month?
Like many of my projects, a few planets came into alignment around the same time.
Note: Click here to download Paul’s top tips for setting up and selling a group coaching program from this episode. Paul Brodie is a former special needs teacher turned 11-time Amazon bestselling author. What started as a side hustle writing about his own weight loss journey turned into a string of bestselling titles on Amazon, $3000 … Read more
A year ago I launched my book Buy Buttons out into the world.
It was my most ambitious book project to-date, and I put a lot of effort into the creation and marketing of it.
The launch did well. The book became an Amazon bestseller on its first day and earned around $2600 in profit in its first month.
But several people have asked how it’s done since then, and while I had a vague idea that it was still selling daily, I figured the 1-year anniversary would be a good excuse to dive into the numbers to see in concrete terms how profitable it’s been in its first year.
Derek Murphy is a world traveler, book cover design extraordinaire, and the author of a dozen different books, mainly in the young adult fantasy genre.
A lot of the content and interviews on the Side Hustle Show has been related to non-fiction books, usually solving a specific problem or containing useful and practical ideas. Fiction is a bit of a different animal, and something Derek covers in detail over on his site at CreativIndie.com.
Last month I launched my latest book project, Buy Buttons, out into the world. On Day 1, it became an Amazon bestseller and has gone on to collect 75+ 5-star reviews and sell more than 2600 copies.
My process was much more involved this time around than it was two years ago for the launch of Work Smarter. A lot has changed during that time so I was excited to put some new ideas to the test.
In this post, I’ll break down the entire writing and launch process, step-by-step, start to finish.
Last month I compiled a killer round-up post with book launch and marketing tips from 25 authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders in the self-publishing space.
When I sent my weekly newsletter out about it, one subscriber replied and said something to the effect of, “That’s cute, but let me show you how it really works.”
As you might have guessed, that subscriber was this week’s guest, Adam Houge.
Tom Morkes has worked on the book launches for a number of previous Side Hustle Show guests, including John Lee Dumas, Dan Norris, Taylor Pearson, and Neil Patel.
What I wanted to do in this conversation was reverse engineer some of the steps that go into producing, launching, and marketing a bestselling book, even you don’t have thousands of fans waiting for it.
And selfishly, I wanted to get some insight on what I could do to make my latest book project, Buy Buttons, hit the top of the charts. Tune in to hear Tom’s top tips from more than a dozen different bestselling launches.
What’s the best way to write a bestselling book? Ask a hundred people and you’ll get 100 different answers.
This post serves a couple purposes. The first is to collect and share some awesome book marketing tips from the authors you’ll find below. After all, the “round-up” post format is a proven winner.
The second purpose is admittedly a little more self-serving. I’ve got a new book launch coming up and wanted to hear from some of the best in the business what I should to give it the best chances for success.