My Next Foray into Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

If you've followed my blog for any length of time, you'll know I'm a BIG advocate of writers enhancing their own incomes by putting their writing talents to good use. That means finding ways to earn more money from your freelance writing efforts.

As a freelance writer, there are SO many opportunities to earn more and more money from your talents. You can create your own blog and find ways to monetize your content. You can write for private clients. You can sell your writing on private marketplaces, such as Constant Content. You can join content mills and write random content for clients. You can pitch your article ideas to magazine editors or newspaper editors.

Or you can create passive income from royalties on ebook sales.

That's right. When you take the time to write an ebook, you do all the work of perfecting your manuscript. You create the content. You edit the words you wrote. You polish your creation and then you publish it. Each time someone buys a copy of your book, you earn a little more income, known as royalties.

Now, if you've read any of my previous posts you'll already know I despise the idea of revenue-share sites. Sharing the revenue some other website owner earns really isn't true passive income at all.

But I seriously LOVE the whole idea of royalties on book sales.

So... Would you like to see the latest series of ebooks I've just released via the Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing platform? Okay, here they are....


Yay!! I'm really pleased with how they turned out.
Here's the fun part - I'll be releasing ONE book per day as a freebie download over the next few days. So if you'd like to check out my Kindle ebooks without paying for them, keep an eye on the freebie lists. They'll only be free for 24 hours each, but I've already set the promotion dates for each of them. Take advantage of them while they're available.
Oh - and if you do download them, I'd love it if you'd take the time to leave a review. That would be awesome

Can You Leverage Amazon’s Kindle Publishing to Boost Your Freelance Writing Income?

Can You Leverage Amazon’s Kindle Publishing to Boost Your Freelance Writing Income?

Did you know there are more than 18 million Kindle devices worldwide? There are almost half a billion Android devices out there as well, along with almost 400 million Apple iOS devices, all of which can download and read Kindle ebooks. Of course, you’re also able to read Kindle ebooks right from your desktop computer screen, using the right software to make reading accessible.

That’s certainly a lot of people around the world with access to downloading and reading ebooks. Of course, Amazon lists almost 2 million ebooks in their e-bookstore for you to browse and choose from. When you combine the sheer number of people browsing for something to read with the massive traffic Amazon generates, it’s easy to see why so many writers are jumping onto the Kindle publishing bandwagon.

So how can a freelance writer leverage the power of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing platform to boost freelance income?

It’s much easier than you think….

Write Your Knowledge

No matter what your clients might pay you to write, it’s very likely you’ll have a hobby or passion that you enjoy writing about in your own time. Think about what you already know a lot about. You might have a great way to help moms think up healthy meals that kids love. You might know a good way to train dogs to be perfect puppies.

You might love gardening and have plenty of knowledge to teach others who have never even pulled a weed before. Your hobby might be golf or fishing or sailing or jogging or….

You get the point. Think about what you already know. Make some notes about your knowledge. Compile those notes into some kind of logical order and turn them into an ebook.

Write Your Research

If you’ve been a freelance writer for any length of time, chances are you’ve written about some strange, bizarre, fascinating, obscure, interesting, helpful and truly weird topics for your clients. I still get surprised by some of the odd topics my clients order from me at times.

Of course, before I write anything at all I spend some time researching the topic. I always keep my research filed for future reference, just in case.

When I’m out of ideas for something new to write, I’ll go back through my research files. It’s sometimes entertaining to see the variety of topics I have lots of information about. Collate your information. Sort it into logical order and turn it into an ebook.

Write from Imagination

Yes, there’s always room for a freelance writer to get creative. Spark that imaginative flair and write a short story or a short novel. Write the type of stories you love to read. Format your story nicely and turn it into an ebook.

Why Bother with Kindle Publishing?

When I first heard about writers making decent incomes on Amazon via the Kindle ebookstore, I screwed up my nose and decided it wasn’t for me. After all, if ebooks are selling for .99 cents per download, that’s mere pennies.

Surely my time is better spent writing highly paid articles, right?

Boy, was I wrong.

You see, a friend of mine jumped onto the bandwagon a few years ago (yes, it’s my regular friend and mentor, Lee. Hi, Lee…) She wrote some simple ‘how-to’ ebooks and published them under a pen name. Her sales were steady, so she wrote some more in a different niche under a different pen name.

Two years later, she has a series of best-selling novels and a huge collection of ‘how-to’ series generating more income than she used to earn writing full time as a freelance writer. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you’ll know Lee has a team of 12 freelance writers working for her almost full time just to keep up with orders.

Many of her smaller titles don’t make significant amounts of money on their own. In fact, she has a couple of titles that maybe churn $40-$50 per month each. Nothing to write home about, surely.

But then she released those big profitable best-selling fiction titles that blew her monthly income through the roof! Rather than write another series of high-paying fiction, she promptly released another quick series of how-to books again.

My first question to her was: “Why didn’t you focus on writing the more profitable fiction stuff to start with?”

Her answer surprised me. She said “I write full time as a freelance writer. Orders from the clients come first. In my spare time I put together well-researched chapters about information that people need or want or find helpful. It’s all I had time to do.”

Then she said: “Besides, if you write something straightforward like a how-to instructional book, you’re working from reference material. You can have it finished in a matter of days, spend another couple of days editing it for quality and then publish it right away. Writing fiction takes time. A LOT of time. And patience. And creativity. And more time.”

In essence, those short simple non-fiction books and how-to books might only earn $50 per month. But imagine if you had 10 of them selling comfortably every month. Imagine if you had 20 of them. Or 50. Or 100! That would be cool.

And then you’d have income coming in that would allow you to focus on the more time-consuming fiction writing that has the potential to earn even more money each month.

By diversifying the types of books she has for sale, her income can’t be affected if sales of one or two slow down, or if a particular topic goes out of style. She spread her risk and guaranteed her income.

Why All the Different Pen Names?

Now, my friend has an easily-recognizable name in the writing industry. Yet she released a large percentage of her ebooks under different pen names.

I just couldn’t work out why she wouldn’t want to capitalize on the recognition of her own name. Again, I asked her why.

She said: “I chose to use different pen names across different genres to keep them separate.”

If you love to read romance fiction from one author and she also wrote nasty, gory horror books, or books about making model trains, or wrote about cooking with gluten-free ingredients, or wrote about cultivating a worm farm in your back yard, would you buy those too just because her name is on the cover?

Or would you stick to the genres and topics you prefer and follow individual authors across your chosen niches?

Why Start with Simple Books?

That first series of basic how-to books taught her the intricacies of Kindle Publishing. It taught her about the formatting requirements and how Amazon’s formatting can sometimes skew your paragraphs and page breaks. She learned  how to tweak her book descriptions to boost sales a bit more. It taught her about book promotion and marketing tactics. And it taught her how to work through the payment systems Amazon has in place for earnings in different currencies.

I really thought about my friend’s advice long and hard. I definitely saw the benefits of learning the industry and the publishing platform with a series of simple books. I also saw the benefit of having a consistent income rolling in each month on books that were faster to write, giving me some freedom later to write more detailed work.

How Do You Promote Your Kindle Books?

I asked my friend how she promotes her books. She promptly wrote an article for her own blog so everyone can learn some marketing basics. You can find her article about Kindle book promotion here: http://fictionfactor.com/articles/book-promotion-tips-for-marketing-your-amazon-kindle-ebook/

So….

When is your first Kindle ebook being launched on Amazon’s ebookstore? Let me know your thoughts on the whole ebook publishing idea.

;)

How to Get a 30% Increase in Amazon Kindle Royalties

Have you written and published anything on the Amazon Kindle store yet? You're a freelance writer, after all. It makes sense to write your own stuff along with articles for clients too.

I've had a couple of different book series selling well in the Kindle bookstore for almost 2 years now and they royalties are really handy each month.

The biggest problem I've had as a non-US author is that Amazon insist on withholding 30% of my royalty income and giving it to the IRS. You see, when you sign up for your Kindle Direct Publishing account, you're required to submit a short tax questionnaire. Your answers determine whether they withhold almost a third of your income or not.

The only way I had to get that income back into my account where it belongs was to submit a tax return in the US each year. That's really painful, especially since I already submit a tax return here in Australia at a different time every year.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was when my long-time friend and mentor figured out a way to get out of paying that 30% withholding amount.

You can find the original article, along with instructions how to stop the IRS from withholding 30% of your royalty payments here:
http://fictionfactor.com/articles/getting-out-of-the-30-tax-withholding-for-non-us-amazon-kindle-authors/

Now, I followed the instructions and I figure it took me around 15 minutes to complete the necessary steps. The IRS issued me a new EIN immediately.

I logged into my Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing account, re-submitted the tax questionnaire with the EIN included and now they don't withhold ANYTHING from my income.

That's an instant 30% pay rise I just received on my royalty checks each month!! Thanks for the tip, Lee. The additional income is MUCH appreciated.

:)