First time publishing a Kindle e-book on Amazon and how you can do the same
As a young man in my high school years, I discovered that I was good when it came to creative writing. Then I use to excel in English compositions, whether in an English test or an exam.
I could easily make up an imaginary story and make it so good that you would think it really happened. If asked to recall an interesting experience from my last long vacation; know you just made my day. I will write and write as if my life depended on it. It came naturally to me and I liked it. I found it so easy to do.
I thought I was going to be a writer/author when I grew up. But along the way, I lost interest in writing and ended up in the accounting profession. But writing still came easily to me.
I lost interest and didn’t pursue a writing career, especially after reading so many rejection stories of aspiring writers whose 200-300 page books were rejected by every publisher they submitted to. All of them had nothing for their efforts except the rejection letter. I wasn’t ready for that. Imagine spending years to write what you thought was a masterpiece, only to have your dream turn into a nightmare. I wanted to save myself from this agony. This is why I lost interest in pursuing my writing dream.
Then came Amazon and Kindle Books. Amazon created the Kindle Reader and they needed unlimited content for people to read on their e-reader. They should have encouraged people to write and upload all kinds of content to their platform. Thus, Kindle Direct Publishing was born.
Many aspiring writers saw this opportunity and took advantage of it. Soon there were many stories of people making a killing out of it. There was even an unknown writer named Amanda Hawking who earned over a million US dollars from the platform.
Every day I saw that my dream of being a writer through Kindle and Amazon could come to life again. Then I decided to give it a try. I had to publish my first e-book on the Kindle platform.
In this article I will record my experience.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I wrote a story about a girl who had a vision of Jesus Christ. Let’s say she had an encounter with Jesus Christ, who takes her on a tour of Heaven and Hell.
I think I read the story a few years ago as a child, but it stayed with me as a Christian youth; my grandfather was a pastor and church planter.
It took me a day to make the ebook and another day to do the editing. And I was done with my first e-book for the Kindle platform.
From the start, I found the Kindle platform intuitive and very easy to use. I was both surprised and relieved. Uploading my first eBook was easy because the Kindle platform automatically converts your document file (in my case a word doc) to Kindle format. You don’t need to do any conversion yourself. Just upload the Word document and you’re done.
Uploading your title page for your eBook is also easy. But let me admit here that the eco cover almost pushed me off the platform. Let me explain; I had no technical knowledge of graphic design. I thought it was hard and I couldn’t do it. How wrong I was.
When I got up the courage and decided to do it, I discovered that Amazon even has its own ecover creator that anyone can use to make a simple, yet beautiful ecover. This is what I used and it was easy.
After uploading my Word doc manuscript and outline, my eBook was approved and appeared on the Amazon Marketplace in a matter of hours. I still remember the feeling. Now I was an Author. My childhood dream and vision came true.
While uploading my e-book, I found that everything I wasn’t sure about was pretty much covered on Amazon’s site. If there’s something you don’t understand and want an answer from a human being, you can email Support and get an answer pretty soon.
There were several thousand titles in every category on the Kindle platform, and you had to put your e-book in the right category if you wanted to have a good chance of people discovering and buying your e-book.
You need to add keywords to help people search and find your eBook. If people can’t find or see your ebook, the chance of you making any sales is almost zero. It is because the place is very big with so many e-books.
After I published my ebook, I checked every day to see if I made any sales. I soon started to see the sales trickle down. It wasn’t much, but every day I discovered I had made a sale was a very beautiful moment for me.
Let me tell you that back then (when I published my first ebook) the platform was not yet as advanced as it is now. Looking for my sales was not like it is now. The results were specific to Amazon’s different marketplaces. There are markets for USA, Canada, India, UK, Denmark, Germany, etc.
I was only checking sales for the US market. I thought the results I had in the US market were all I had. You can imagine my surprise when, during my first royalty payment, I discovered that I had made over $100 in my first month from the UK market. Hahahaha, I’m still laughing about it even as I write this article.
I’ve been writing and publishing eBooks for Kindle ever since. I do this along with so many other things online like blogging and affiliate marketing. I wish I had focused on the Kindle as I realized it was a good profit for me.
Even the first e-book is still making money today and has repeatedly done so every month for several years. Sometimes I imagine what could have been if I had focused on Kindle publishing and now have about 100 e-books on my Amazon shelf.
Maybe I could retire now. Just kidding. I will not retire online. It’s like a hobby for me. Every day I like to go online and do a little surfing and will continue to do so as long as I can. For me, it’s just like reading.
Now back to my purpose of writing this article. I want to show you that you can do it. Anyone can write and earn money online using the Kindle platform. You just need to have some knowledge, skills and desire to do it. Then get an e-book that teaches you how to do it.
There are many eBooks on how to join and earn from the Kindle platform. Many have written about it, including my humble self, because we want to help those who want to work and earn money online.
In this period of covid-19 and lockdown, when many people are out of work, imagine what it might feel like to continue to earn passive income from your Kindle e-books.
As a Kindle publisher, you’re your own boss and can work full-time or part-time from home. No need to travel daily. For my own ebook on how anyone can easily join and earn from kindle, see my signature at the end of this article. Be sure to check it out.
I encourage everyone to get on the Kindle platform. There is an e-book in each. You have an experience that can benefit someone, somewhere in a corner of the world. It could be how you lost your job and how you survived until you found another job. It could be about how you survived a bitter divorce. You have a story that could benefit someone somewhere. Please write and share your knowledge with the world.
Get on the Kindle platform today. You can never tell; maybe you’ll be one of Amanda Hawkings. Yes, they are many Amanda Hawkings on the platform today – people who have made over a million dollars from Kindle publishing alone.
I’m going
Do it. You can do it!
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