Why publishing more books will get you to $10k/month with Amazon self-publishing

0:00Hey guys, Ken here. So, you're watching my second channel. On this channel, we do three things every video. The first one is a YouTube comment Q&A. I answer any self-publishing related question that you leave below these videos. We then do a subscriber book analysis. I go over one of you guys' books, tell you why it's not selling, what we can improve, and what the best thing to do moving forward is. And then the third thing we do is we go over some sort of up-to-date self-publishing strategy or some sort of advice that's either working right now in my business or one of my students' businesses. Today, we're

0:26going to be going over something very important, which is the compound effect of Amazon KDP. So, stick around for that. Getting right into the YouTube comment questions, this first question is asking essentially, is it not compliant to have a QR code in your book asking the person if they want to stay in touch by subscribing to your newsletter or getting a free coloring

0:43book page bundle in this case. So, technically, it is against Amazon TOS to have a QR code that sends somebody directly to an opt-in page. However, I've done this many times. I've never had any issues. I haven't heard of anybody having issues. So, I wouldn't stress about it. But, what I do think the best thing to do moving forward is creating some sort of custom landing page in your email marketing software or on sites like Lovable, which is an AI website builder, and then putting a bunch of free information on that page that relates to your topic, and then having an additional email opt-in on that. The reason this is more compliant

1:17is because you are now sending them to something that gives them additional value for free, which is compliant and it does say this in the Amazon TOS. It's perfectly fine. And then there is the option for them to opt-in and get a bonus gift if they want to. But, it's not the core focus of where you're sending them to, so this should eliminate any problems. The next question is, would you be willing to make a video related to automation? So, if you can just clarify what you mean by this, are you referring to AI automation in publishing? How can we automate more

1:43parts of the process? If so, absolutely. Um, but if you give me some more specific clarity, I can answer that better. Which software do I use for video creation? For these videos, I use Tella, t e l l a. This next question is asking if the workflow from my previous video, which was showing you how to get organic reviews, would work entirely through Kit or ConvertKit is what he's referring to? Or does Kit lack some of the features? He's a beginner trying to keep things as simple as possible. He's about to publish his third book under the same brand. So, my opinion, I don't believe that the normal email marketing

2:13platforms will do this. Just for some clarity, what I did in my previous video is I show you how to get organic reviews for your books, and the best way to do that is to have an email automation, of course. So, somebody signs up to your email list, you put them into some sort of flow, but additionally, you have a Zapier account. And so, Zapier essentially lets you connect anything to anything. And so, what we want to do is we want to have somebody opt in. Zapier is then going to pull their email they used to opt in, and then you're going to send them a personal Gmail in this

2:41automation. So, this is going to come from a Gmail account related to your your pen name, but more importantly, it's going to be a personal email. It's not going to be the generic email marketing email. It's going to be a personal email reaching out to saying, "Hey, thanks for buying the book. I appreciate the support. Here's an additional bonus for you that I think

2:57you might find helpful as well." And then, after a couple more days, we can send them another personal email because now we have an email thread with them one-to-one asking them how they're enjoying the book and getting them to leave their feedback. This is way more effective than just a normal email automation cuz you're getting that

3:11one-to-one contact. Of course, go watch that video if you want to learn more about that. And the final question is, I've noticed that you create some really impressive book covers with the ChatGPT. Thank you very much. I was wondering, how do you upscale them so they're high enough quality for print editions? And am I using a specific AI upscaler or another workflow? So, essentially, what I do to create covers with AI is when I prompt for covers, I get ChatGPT to make sure they're as high quality as possible. And then from there, I'm going to simply take it and put it into Canva, and the Canva document is going to be the right

3:41size for my book cover, and I'm going to export it from there. So, I'm not going to export it right from ChatGPT. It's going to go into Canva first. And normally, that's enough to do okay. However, if you're having some issues with that, if the ChatGPT quality isn't the best, the easy fix to this is just subscribing to their pro

3:58plan, the one that's like $130 a month. It's a way better image generation model. What you can also do is go and put the same cover into Google Gemini. Sometimes it produces higher quality results, but mainly if you're asked ChatGPT to make it sharp, clear, and high quality, and put it into Canva, this has worked perfectly fine for me. The big issue you might run into with AI covers with ChatGPT is it might have a shadowing effect. So, normally the last prompt I do is I'll ask ChatGPT to, "Hey, can you remove this light shadow effect and just ensure that everything is crisp, crisp, sharp, and clear?" And

4:29then that right into Canva has worked very well. I've never had any issues with AI covers on Amazon. So, those are the questions for this video. Leave any questions below any video on this channel if you want them answered in the next video. Now, let's get into the subscriber book analysis and then get

4:40into the compound effect of Amazon KDP. But, if you haven't seen me analyze a book before, there's seven key things I look at when determining if a book is selling. If it's not selling, why is it not selling and what can we do to improve it? The first one is you have to ask yourself, is there a customer? Is there somebody actually searching up your search term? Is there a book or is your book specifically speaking to that customer? And exactly, are they

5:02targeting that customer extremely well? Can they see and read your title and cover at a glance? Is it super easy for them to to navigate what you're selling them? Does your book present a better offer than your competitors? Is it just a better option for them? Does your cover look the part yet stand out? Does it look like it should be there and then it's easier to see and

5:21read than the competitors? Is our product page designed to convert? Is it actually selling our book or is it merely listing features in a a poor quality way? And do we have enough social proof to actually warrant sales? And so, when you nail every one of these things, your book will sell. And in 100% of cases, if a book isn't selling, something here is wrong. And so, going to the book we have for this video, the main keyword for this book is investing for beginners. And the book is titled The Beginner's Guide to Investing Made Simple, Transform Your Financial

5:48Future With Easy-to-Follow Strategies. And so, let's go through the list here. So, first question is, is there a customer? Let's go to Amazon, search up the topic and see. So, let's have a look at the topic here. I'm using the Book Beam tool to see these numbers. However, you can do it for free as well with the DS Amazon Quick View extension, if you haven't done any of this before. But, all I'm really looking for to determine if there's a customer is I'm just

6:08looking to see these books are selling. And so, do you have a books We do have a few books selling here. However, they have lots of reviews. But, going into the second row here, as you can see, the sales start to trickle off quite a bit. So, although there is a lot of search volume, the only books that are selling are the ones that have 20,000 reviews, 2,000, 12,000, and nothing else is really selling. So, in my opinion, I'm going to say there's not a customer cuz the customer is clearly buying specific books, and most likely these books are ranking in other places. Maybe there's some sort of

6:41credible author with with an audience. But, there's not much clear evidence of normal books with lower reviews selling well. So, there is a customer if we have tons of reviews, but for this specific book trying to sell in this topic, I'm going to say no. I'm actually just going to give it a 0.5. Kind of, but because of those those

6:58nuances we looked at, it's not the best. Is our book speaking to that customer exactly? So, The Beginner's Guide to Investing Made Simple, I'm going to say yes. I do think we can improve the title, which I'll get to later, but I'm going to say yes for now. Can they see and read the title at a

7:11glance? I'm going to give this one a 0.5. The reason being is because you can see the main title, but the rest of it is not really noticeable, and sometimes you want to give a bit more and really showcase what the reader is getting right away so they can see it immediately. So, I'm going to say

7:260.5 because it could be a bit better. Does our book present a better offer than our competitors? Let's go have a look. So, looking at the book titles here, we have Investing 101 from Stocks and Bonds to ETFs and IPOs, an essential primer on building a profitable portfolio. We have The Little Book of Common Sense, The Only to guarantee your fair share of stock market returns, investing quick start guide, the simplified beginners guide to successfully navigating the stock market, growing your wealth, and

7:50securing a financial future. So, for this book, I'm going to say, no, I don't think it presents a better offer. Does it present a good offer? It can be improved, but I wouldn't say it's better than our competitors. This is very important because if a customer is deciding which book they want to buy, if your book is the same or worse, they're just going to pick the book with more reviews or the one that has a better cover. So, we want to make sure that we're offering more and we're just, you know, giving a bit more in our title, which I'm going to get to in a

8:18second. Does our cover look the part yet stand out? So, let's go have a look at the topic again. Looking at what we got here, some of these books do look a bit dated. However, I do like some of them. Um they're looking like they're branded, they're looking like they're communicating well. So, talking about this book specifically, I'm going to say, no, I don't really think this is the best cover compared to the other options. It doesn't really sell the book enough. It's a little bland, it's a

8:42little flat. And although it's not horrible, I do think it's not really standing out how it needs to be. And I do have an updated cover that that I created, which we're going to look at in a second. Looking at the product page, the main things I look at for determining if it converts or not is the description and the A+ content. Of course, reviews are well, we have

9:02another validation question for that. But essentially, looking at the description, many people believe their wealth comes from earning money, but true financial freedom is actually how you manage what you already have. So, this description overall is pretty good. I think the wording they're using is nice, it's explaining the topic, it's speaking to their problems,

9:20speaking to their pain points. I do think it could be a bit better in regard to it does list what's inside the book well, how to truly understand your money and put it to work for you, the simple mindset changes that take fear of investing. I probably would, I guess, structure this a bit differently where I'd say I'd emphasize more on this pain point and why they don't have financial

9:41freedom, what the key to investing is. You have to make sure you're doing this, you have to make sure you're doing this. And then I would have a section that says why this book is going to help you do these things effectively. It has this system that helps you understand your money and put it to work for you. We have this simple mindset changes that do X. And so the point is that we're speaking to their pain, we're telling them what the solution is, and then we're saying, "Hey, this book is the the bridge that takes you from where you are

10:05to this the outcome you're looking for." And so the description is fine. We need to improve the formatting here, so there's a gap from this last sentence. But that's how I would change it is is sell the transformation more because people aren't buying the features, they're buying the end result. They want to be a financial financially free, and they want to go from being a beginner investor to knowing what they're doing. Going down to the A+ content, we don't actually have any A+ content, so I definitely would add that. But overall, is our product page designed to convert? I'm going to say no just because we need to

10:35improve the formatting on the description, add some bolding, maybe sell the book a bit better because in this competitive landscape it really makes a difference, but more importantly because there is no A+ content. And a book that has A+ content is always going to convert better. And of course, does our book have social

10:50proof to warrant sales? I would say in this case, no. It has 21 reviews, and although that's enough to get some potential and gain some traction, if we want to make some real sales, especially in a competitive topic like investing for beginners, we're going to need that to get that number up to at least 100 plus. And so the final analysis and road map for this book is the cover I think needs

11:10to be a lot more welcoming and exciting. It's a bit bland, and when you think about somebody learning to invest, in their mind it's just a bunch of numbers and strategies, that's already kind of boring. And so we want the cover to look fun, to look bright, to be the opposite of that. And so it kind of goes against what they're expecting, and they're

11:27excited to learn about it. So look at those cover options I changed in a second. The title I also think needs to be a bit stronger, which of course you can't change, but you can do this for your next book because people want something specific. They want that end result and they want to avoid pain. They don't just want strategies, they want the solution. And so in this case, if I were to retitle this book, I would make it something along the lines of this: A simple step-by-step guide to start investing, avoid costly mistakes,

11:52and build long-term wealth. And so now we're telling them it's simple, it's step-by-step. It's where they are right now, so to start investing. It's avoiding their pain, so we're going to avoid costly mistakes. You're not going to waste money, which people are probably afraid of. And we're going to build long-term wealth, which is the end goal for investing. So going into the cover revamps, there's a few options I have here. This is the first

12:13one. All we're doing here is really showcasing investing made simple. And so that's the first thing they see. It's super, it's loud, it's easy to read, it targets exactly what they're looking for. It also targets beginners. And it also has a book by the knowledge seeker. So because you have this on your your cover, this is a good way to to give some credibility. They might think, "Oh,

12:33maybe this is a a brand of some sort." I also recommend removing the website from your book. It's not really going to add any value. And going to the next cover option is I have this one here. Once again, we're targeting investing made simple, so it's easy to read. And then beginners is large as well. And then it actually calls out the demographic, too. You can always put two people here, have a guy and a girl to kind of showcase that this is for beginners and this is what they're going to learn. And so these two cover options, in my opinion, of course aren't perfect. They can be tweaked, but this

13:01is kind of the direction I would go in to be a lot more welcoming. It's going to stand out from those very generic, you know, higher reviewed books that look a bit dated. If you pair this with a description and A+ content revamp, as well as you get 100 plus reviews, you're now going to be a more viable option that can start to take some of the sales from the bigger books, especially if you're advertising your book on their parked pages. So as you can see, the big reason why books don't sell is because there's something wrong. In this case, there's definitely things we can improve

13:28because people who are buying on Amazon are shopping. They're finding the best solution for them. They're not just going to buy any book because it's there. So, if you want me to analyze your book in one of these videos, I will leave a link below to my email course. You can sign up to that for free, and every once in a while I will send out an email getting more submissions for these videos. Okay, so now let's get into the actual strategy advice for this video, and that is just we're going to dive deep into the compound effect of Amazon KDP because Amazon KDP and selling books and ebooks

13:55on Amazon is is very much a compound effect in a few different ways. And so, let's paint a picture here. Let's say you publish a couple books that make $0 a month. You make no money. And maybe let's say you publish book three that makes 25 bucks a month, which if you look at the math here. And so, if you want to make $50 a month, you have to make about 10 sales a month if your book is making $5 per sale, which is very normal for a medium or high content book. And so, it's

14:19essentially two and a half sales a week. This is extremely easy to do once you of course follow the process correctly, but even if you don't really follow it correctly, as long as there's demand and your book is targeted well, you can do this. And so, let's say you get book three to 25 bucks a month. Maybe book four does a bit better. It

14:35goes to $50 a month. And so, although this is only a couple sales a week for each book, it starts to stack up. And so, book five is $50 a month again, starting to add up. And then maybe now that you've published a few books and you've had some experience, we go into book six and we make 150 bucks a month. Okay, now

14:52we're making four five sales a a week. And the goal here is if you're using AI create books fast, you're using AI to create books cheap, you're only getting maybe 20 reviews per book to keep it manageable in time and spend if you're using Book Reverb. This is going to allow you to keep going, and then you can double down your efforts on the books that are working, but more importantly, just keep publishing more books to get better. And so, as you move forward, you might publish book seven, book eight, book nine, and now you kind of see what's working. So, you're starting to make a couple hundred bucks

15:20a month from each one of these books. And you get to this point and you're making no money, something is wrong and you should probably book a road map call below and we can work together and actually build your business because you absolutely should be getting some traction by book nine. But then you start to gain your stride, you start to

15:34make 250 bucks a month for for book 10. And book 11 is another 250 dollars a month. And the point I'm trying to make is all this is starting to compound. So even if it's only a couple sales a week per book, this is now stacking up to over a thousand dollars a month. And so really is just trusting the

15:51process. Even if you can make 10 dollars in a month from a book, make 10 bucks, make 100 bucks. It's all going to stack up. And as you do that process, you're going to learn more and more what a good book good book looks like and what a good book performing looks like. And every book's not going to make 10 bucks a month. Some books will make 20, some books will make 50, and it's going to start to get better and better. But it's important that you trust the process and stick to it because we're not just compounding our books, we're compounding our knowledge cuz every book

16:21you get better. And so now when you're 10, 12 books in, you have the knowledge, you have the capital. Now we're all compounding this together with our earnings. And this is how you start to have books that make 700 bucks a month, 1,000 bucks a month. And although I've seen this happen a lot earlier with myself, with lots of students that I I've coached, the important thing is it takes time to get

16:42here. You're not just going to know what to do right away. And I've used this analogy before. If you want to bench press 200 pounds, you can't just walk into the gym and just bench press 200 pounds. And then because you didn't do it your first try, you're like, this is stupid, it doesn't work. Fitness doesn't work.

16:57That just doesn't work that way. You're going to go to the gym, you're going to work out, you're going to exercise, you're going to try 100 pounds and maybe 110 pounds, and you're going to work your way up to the point where you can bench press 200 pounds. And publishing is no different. It might take a few books, two, three, four, five plus, to gain some traction, and importantly

17:15understand what you need to do. Man, it's just doubling down on what's working. And then, when you have 10, 15, 20 bucks, it all compounds, even if they're only making a couple hundred bucks a month each, it's going to be a few thousand dollars. And so, essentially, what I'm saying is just do the thing until you have the

17:30result. This is the simplest, yet most effective advice I can give you is my best students who have the best results out of anybody, just kept doing it. And I've had many students who have come to me after not having results for like a year. And then the next few books just just kind of take off because they now have a better process to follow, and they're just continuing to stack on the knowledge they've learned combined with a bit of mentorship. But, if they just stopped after their third or fourth book because they didn't get the result they were hoping for, they never would be at the position

18:01they're in now. And so, it really is just putting in the time until you have the result and not thinking about when am I going to get this result? If it doesn't happen with the next book, I'm going to quit. Just do it. You will get better. You will have more books. It will compound. Your knowledge will compound, and you eventually will always get to the result. Cuz if you don't quit, you just can't fail. And that might seem simple

18:20and stupid, but it's it's pretty true. So, the worst thing you can do if you want to succeed with self-publishing is to get to books two or three and just stop because you don't aren't getting the results you're hoping for. Just keep going. And you never ask yourself, should I stop or keep going? If you want the end result, you have to just do the thing till you get the end result. And think of it like guessing a password. Let's say you have to guess a password that's three digits long, and you know it's something, and you know that once you get into this this account, there's going to be money

18:48sitting there. You're not going to think, okay, I'll try 10 passwords, and if it doesn't work, I'm not going to do it. No, you know the result is there. And so, you're going to guess password number one. Okay, it didn't work. You're going to guess another one. You're going to guess another one. And you know that you will eventually get to the one that's correct. And although this is more of a gamble compared to KDP, Amazon KDP is a lot more strategic, but you're just going to keep doing it because you know once you

19:09get it, you're going to get the result. And you know that the answer is there. So, books are no different. You know that the answer is there because you've probably seen tons of people flashing their results like like myself included. But, the point is that we've just put in the time and the reps to get to that point. And now we talk about it so confidently because we've seen it happen. We've done it. We've seen other

19:27people do it. And we know that it just is a matter of time until you learn how to do it properly and then you can continue to stack and compound your results. But, even if you don't do it properly and you only make 50 bucks a month for a book, just make 10 bucks a month and you now make 500 bucks a month. And so, business in general

19:44is honestly a game of last man standing. It's not smartest person wins. It's whoever sticks around long enough to find the result. Because most people who start online businesses do not continue with them. They quit, which is fine. It's not for the faint of heart. Entrepreneurship is definitely for a specific type of person. But, there is a common denominator with everybody who's reached an end result that you're seeking is they just didn't stop doing it and they just did it until they figured it out. Anything worth of the result is worth doing. And it's only a select few people who are willing to push past this point and trust the

20:15process who will get the result. If you don't trust the process, if you don't believe it's possible, if you don't believe the end result is on the horizon, you're going to find a reason to quit every single time. So, that's it for this video. Make sure to subscribe for more. I try to post these videos at least a few times a week. And make sure you leave any self-publishing related questions you have below. And of course, if you want to work with me to build your book business, I will leave a link below to schedule your roadmap call and

20:37we can map that out for you.