Guy on reddit claims to make $1k a day on amazon and never did any advertisement

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Tettsuo

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Sounds like the guy is simply flooding the market with kid's cereal (pretty, catchy garbage). With that many out there, he can certainly get enough buys to substantiate that kind of monthly earnings.

It's tactics like this that makes it hard to self-publish for others looking to bring something of value to the market without selling their soul to large publishers.
 

Terie

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It's tactics like this that makes it hard to self-publish for others looking to bring something of value to the market without selling their soul to large publishers.

Because, of course, everyone published by a large publisher has sold out. :rolleyes:
 
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Old Hack

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It's tactics like this that makes it hard to self-publish for others looking to bring something of value to the market without selling their soul to large publishers.

Let's not do this here, please.
 

Isabella Amaris

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Maybe there are some who can produce an amazing work from a first draft and at the end of that honestly feel it's the best it can be.That's different to an author telling potential customers he is out to make money and will supply them with 'good enough' in return.

For instance, if I pay a plumper to fix something in my home, I'm going to pay my money to the guy who fixes it properly, not the guy who patches it up because he thinks that's all my cash and I deserve.

Obviously being the best a writer can be is not the only way to make money, but if there are two writers side by side. I know one is trying to bring me the best product they can provide and is making a serious effort to do that, I will support that author over the one who is churning out work that is great but could be better, except they don't believe the consumer deserves that.

I dunno, I can see where you base your argument on but... okay, let's put it this way... I don't think my work will ever be the best it can be... but I do believe I can release work once it's good enough not to be cheating a reader out of an experience...

The alternative is, I'm pretty sure I will be revising my work for decades because I quite simply cannot see a moment when there will not be an opportunity to perfect it further... There has to be a point where good enough is actually 'good enough' or we'll all be writing the same book forever and ever, only releasing it when we die because that is when it would realistically be the best/most amazing it could be... depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, of course...
 
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J. Tanner

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I dunno, I can see where you base your argument on but... okay, let's put it this way... I don't think my work will ever be the best it can be... but I do believe I can release work once it's good enough not to be cheating a reader out of an experience...

The alternative is, I'm pretty sure I will be revising my work for decades because I quite simply cannot see a moment when there will not be an opportunity to perfect it further... There has to be a point where good enough is actually 'good enough' or we'll all be writing the same book forever and ever, only releasing it when we die because that is when it would realistically be the best/most amazing it could be... depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, of course...

Pretty much my argument. No book is ever perfect. Therefore every book ever released has been because someone said "good enough" even though it could be better.

I guess I can understand the distaste for a self published author actually saying it, actually stating that marketing, covers and such are incredibly important and he doesn't worry about the prose so much. But the implicit understanding there is that the repeat business means that the prose is good enough and so this particular author doesn't need to work more there. Given he was previously trade published is another clue he's got a reasonable level of writing skill. He needs to work more on the marketing to get better covers, better blurbs and such because that's what initially captures readers in this environment, and then his writing brings them back for more.

There will be plenty of writers with a snappy blurb and great cover that will generate interest. But bad reviews and a lack of repeat business will sink them. So following that advice in a vaccuum is not advisable either. Such authors will need to concentrate more on the prose where this author did not.
 

brianjanuary

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I just read the article and I have no reason to disbelieve him, because he has 80 works out there for sale.

He does, however, state that to achieve his sales figures, you have to get your books known--but then he says that he does no marketing. Does that make sense?

Brian January
http://amzn.com/B005WM0HN6
http://amzn.com/B006QCZF3S
 
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Tettsuo

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Let's not do this here, please.
I honestly wasn't taking a swipe at Publishers. My point is if the self publishing market is flooded with craptastic books, large publishers will be able to leverage this against writers as they will be considered the only viable means of publishing good quality literature. Tactics like that make it that much harder on writers and benefits no one in the long run except for large publishers.

I would like the option to go the established route or to simply self publish, and still be able to make some money doing it. What this guy is doing hurts the self-publishing market.
 

Tettsuo

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Pretty much my argument. No book is ever perfect. Therefore every book ever released has been because someone said "good enough" even though it could be better.

I guess I can understand the distaste for a self published author actually saying it, actually stating that marketing, covers and such are incredibly important and he doesn't worry about the prose so much. But the implicit understanding there is that the repeat business means that the prose is good enough and so this particular author doesn't need to work more there. Given he was previously trade published is another clue he's got a reasonable level of writing skill. He needs to work more on the marketing to get better covers, better blurbs and such because that's what initially captures readers in this environment, and then his writing brings them back for more.

There will be plenty of writers with a snappy blurb and great cover that will generate interest. But bad reviews and a lack of repeat business will sink them. So following that advice in a vaccuum is not advisable either. Such authors will need to concentrate more on the prose where this author did not.
I thought that was the reason he used so many different pseudonyms.
 

J. Tanner

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I would like the option to go the established route or to simply self publish, and still be able to make some money doing it. What this guy is doing hurts the self-publishing market.

I wouldn't agree with that. He's putting out a product with an attractive cover and blurb that gets people to try the book. And then the books are apparently good enough that he gets a lot of people picking up the rest of the series. People are getting a good impression of self-publishing.

I'd suggest that things like spamming twitter, review swapping, and other unseemly marketing tactics used by self-pub authors are more damaging to the overall reputation than what this author is doing.

I thought that was the reason he used so many different pseudonyms.

I think you misunderstood something. He's using pseudonyms to separate the different series/genres from each other so each author "brand" is closely associated to a particular type of product. This is typical of midlist trade publishing as well.

brianjanuary said:
He does, however, state that to achieve his sales figures, you have to get your books known--but then he says that he does no marketing. Does that make sense?

Yeah. He's completely focused on a different kind of marketing from the blogs/social media spam/ads people generally use (and arguably the more effective kind.) He's focused on covers/titles/blurbs that entice a reader who stumbles upon them to make an impulse purchase. Additionally, he's focused on driving customers who enjoy their impulse buy to a specific book in the series which inflates that book's prominence in the ranking which makes it visible to more people, which starts the cycle all over again allowing Amazon's algorithms to do the heavy lifting.
 
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izanobu

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What reputation? How can what someone else is doing impact my business (unless they are stealing from me, I guess)? If I write a bad book, it won't have your name on it. It won't have anything to do with you. Same as if I write a great book. It still won't be your problem. Your books are your job. Mine are mine.

I'm a writer. My job is to write things that readers want to read and do it well enough that they keep reading.

When I put on the publisher hat, my job is to package the work in a way that readers will want it (good cover, good description, professionally edited, as widely available as I can make it, etc).

When I self-publish, I am wearing all the hats. I am not part of any "movement". I am not a widget to be lumped in with some other imagined widget. My books will either be well-done enough to gain readership or they won't. But that will mostly depend on if I have done my job, all my jobs.

Sorry, I don't mean to derail this thread on a rant. But if you are writing, or publishing, or doing both, maybe you should stop worrying so much about what someone else is doing and focus on things under your control.
My two cents on it, anyway.
 

brianjanuary

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Still, there's something to me that doesn't add up. To achieve his reported sales figures, an amazing number of people would have to stumble on his listings, even for impulse buys--and don't forget, he's spread himself across several genres or categories with different pen names. Granted, having 80 books out there helps, but still... On top of that, his work would have to be of enough quality to motivate repeat business. And he would have to be continually attracting new customers.

Brian January
http://amzn.com/B005WM0HN6
http://amzn.com/B006QCZF3S
 
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J. Tanner

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I agree, it's unusual for short fiction to support this price point outside of erotica.

However, the self-sustaining sales snowball from series is not at all unusual in general. Amazon's also bought and charting algorithms do the rest once it gets started. Even single books get the snowball effect from time to time and often to much greater effect than he's claiming for any one of his titles.
 

shaldna

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What reputation? How can what someone else is doing impact my business (unless they are stealing from me, I guess)? If I write a bad book, it won't have your name on it. It won't have anything to do with you. Same as if I write a great book. It still won't be your problem. Your books are your job. Mine are mine.


Ah, says a person who clearly doesn't work in business.

Here's the problem, if you work in a niche industry, such as self publishing, for example, it doesn't matter what hte people on the INSIDE of that industry think, becuase they aren't the buyers.

Instead, it's the people on the outside who buy the product, and if 99% of what they see on offer is shit then everyone tends to get tainted with the same brush.

In that way self publishing is the same as korean TV's and english wine and primark. People judge on the majority of what is on offer and not the individual product.

So yes, what everyone else does DOES impact on you.
 

FOTSGreg

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Shaldna, So, your argument is that writers DO, basically, compete against one another just as corporations do in other businesses?

To a certain extent, ie writing as a business, I might tend to agree with you, but individual writers and their work are as different from what normal business corporations offer on a day-to-day basis as the sun is from Pluto. In fact, an individual writers' work can be different from one work to another. In this sense, I believe that self-published writers tend to get tarred with the brush "all self-published work is crap" far too often.

This guy, he's put out 80 works under a variety of pseudonyms. He's making some money. He's doing a lot better than I am (1 novel, 10 short stories, 1 collection so far this year), but how long is it going to be until he slips up and reveals what he's really doing here (and I contend that he's using marketing techniques used by any number of "net marketing gurus" to make a fast buck then slip away into the darkness).

In fact, I'll come right out and say it. This individual is not a real writer. He or she isn't trying to tell a story, he or she is trying to sell a product. In that sense he or she is absolutely no different from any other business or corporation.

But that doesn't make him or her a writer.
 
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Tettsuo

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Shaldna, So, your argument is that writers DO, basically, compete against one another just as corporations do in other businesses?

To a certain extent, ie writing as a business, I might tend to agree with you, but individual writers and their work are as different from what normal business corporations offer on a day-to-day basis as the sun is from Pluto. In fact, an individual writers' work can be different from one work to another. In this sense, I believe that self-published writers tend to get tarred with the brush "all self-published work is crap" far too often.
The simple fact is, all writers are fighting for the same buck. If a buyer plans to purchase one book, everyone will be vying for that one sale. Readers do not and most important, cannot purchase everyone's work to read it. That's the point of making a product as good as one possibly can.

The person made it quite clear what he's all about:

Trying to stay as anonymous as possible but October 1st broke $300 for the first time. Two different genres -- stories and educational. Last weekend broke $800 for the first time.
Sales come from 5 things:
  1. Cover
  2. Description
  3. Ranking
  4. Title
  5. Reference
Notice I didn't put "content".
It's a giant game and the more books you have out, the more you sell. This month I expect to clear between 22-27k.
Sales come primarily from Amazon, but an additional 2-4k come from B&N with Smashwords bringing in a few more.
About to start turning the books into audio format, so that should be fun to test.

This person is trying to flood the market with his work and catch sales by having the above covered.

All I want to do is put out a compelling and powerful story. Do you honestly think this guy is after the same thing?

The psuedonyms are used to cover his tracks. That's what I see from the statements in the link (regardless of what he's saying).

It's tough to see a diamond in a sea of zirconia. This guys is putting out 80 zirconias, how can anyone get to see your diamond amongst that?
 

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In fact, I'll come right out and say it. This individual is not a real writer. He or she isn't trying to tell a story, he or she is trying to sell a product. In that sense he or she is absolutely no different from any other business or corporation.

But that doesn't make him or her a writer.

Wow. That's a bold statement. Pretty elitist for someone writing space zombie stories. :D (I write such fare too, so I don't mean that in a condescending way, but in a "we're writing disposable entertainment and there's not too many writers we should be looking down our noses at..." way)

Anyway here's what he said about the self published material he researched:

It's poorly written, badly edited, never proofread, and mostly uninteresting. The covers suck, the titles are boring, and the stories use exposition as padding instead of a way to move the story along.

That says to me he has a reasonable grasp of what good and bad storytelling is--a sign of a real writer.

And here's his response to a question about not obsessing over rewriting at the sentence level in an effort to get more stories out there:

Of course quality is sacrificed. But you have to get out the best possible book in the shortest amount of time. So it's not Hemingway, but I like to think they're pretty good.

Here, to my eye, he clearly recognizes that he's making a tradeoff. Some quality he's capable of for speed to market, but still not dropping below what he considers good. The recognition and honesty there again signal "writer" to me though one could quibble about that decision.

Also, over on kindleboards, someone mentioned being pretty sure he knew who it was and said that he was in fact a generally good writer and part of the kindleboards community.
 
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FOTSGreg

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Tettsuo, I disagree. Writers are not all fighting for the same buck. I'm not going after James Patterson's audience, fir example because I'm not James Patterson. I'm not going after Stephen King's audience because I don't write like King. I'm not going after Scarlett Parrash's audience because I dont write Tge same stuff she does.

I believe it's a myth that writers have to compete against one another for the same dollars because we're not competing for the same audience's dollars.

J. Tanner, nice shot across my bow, but no offense taken. I kinda' like the reference. Space zombies, indeed. I'm a hack and an unapologetic one. My stuff doesn't appeal to everyone nor should it. If the attitude that this guy's marketing rather than writing is elitist, I can live with that. One of these days someone might remember my hack work. Nobody's going to remember this guy. IMNSHO, of course.

Now, with that said, a lot of what he says in the latter part of your post would indicate he's a student of Dean Wesley Smith or Robert Heinlein. Writing fast, minimal editing, revising only to editorial demand, where have we heard that before? If this is truly indicative of his actual capability, then he's a writer, but needs to work on his presentation skills a bit because, up to this point, this is the first thing I've read that even comes close to indicating this.

Anyone know how long he says it took him to produce these 80 pieces or to reach the $1k level of sales?
 

izanobu

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If I write like King, that would be a good thing. Why? Because someone who likes a King book might pick up mine and like it also. I found Mercedes Lackey because someone knew I liked Marion Zimmer Bradley and recommended the Valdemar books. Lackey and Bradley both write fantasy novels, but they weren't competing for my money.

If I do my job right with my books, no one is going to look at them and go "oh, self-published/un-professional crap". Instead a reader will look at the book and think something like "hey, this book says it is X and I love reading books like X, so maybe this will be good" and then that reader will buy the book.

So far, this seems to be working for me just fine. Because I worry first and foremost about writing good books with my writer hat on, then putting on my publisher hat and making sure I have good covers, good descriptions, that my books get professional editing, etc.

Some other guy's crappy book that has a terrible cover, a painful description, and isn't well-written doesn't impact MY books at all. My books have nothing to do with that book. My name isn't on that book. That book won't be bought or recommended by people who might buy or recommend my books.

If I read a book I don't like, I don't immediately decide that I'm never going to read another book again. I go find something I do like and read that. A bad book doesn't ruin anything for me as a reader other than me having made a poor buying decision. But that doesn't happen that often, because I can sample everything, I can buy based on friend recommendations, I can buy based on reviews, etc. I can't remember the last time I read a book and was disappointed.

Anyway. Back on topic.

The guy said in the comments it took him about a year. Also, the 80 pieces up aren't all distinct things. Some are short story collections where he put up the stories and then collected them into books as well.
 

FOTSGreg

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Hmm, I just went back and reread the posts linked to by the OP and I think I can see how he's doing whatever he's doing.

If it's what I think it is, then it's not exactly marketing, but it is marketing. It's just not BIG marketing and I think I owe an apology to everyone here on this thread and to this "throwaway_writer".

The foundation would appear to be a classic pyramid, but it's not a scheme in the sense that he's scamming anyone. One work builds on two others which build on four more, etc. With 80 works out he's built an incredible pyramid of interlinked works all leading straight to the first work.

He's also using Amazon's associate sales to boost his income.

Honestly, that's pretty brilliant marketing strategy. Wish I'd seen it sooner.
 

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J. Tanner, nice shot across my bow, but no offense taken. I kinda' like the reference. Space zombies, indeed.

Indeed. I'm a fan. No offense intended. :)

I see you've come around a bit in your latest post so no need to rehash stuff from the prior post.

So, yeah, from what I see he's really expanded the Dean Wesley Smith model into newish territory quite brilliantly. It's unfortunate to me people are overlooking that based on an admission that he isn't pouring every ounce of his soul into disposable entertainment.

Honestly, I have no desire to learn who he is except that I really want to see the titles, cover design, and blurbs that are working this well to entice readers.

But if he were outed, it would be just my luck that it turned out to be great marketing advice wrapped around pure dreck after all my empassioned defense. :D
 

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I wanted to comment on this thread a few days back. I understand the idea of not wanting to share my pen names. I have made the bulk of my money on the Kindle under a pen name that I don't share with anyone.

That was the point in having the pen name, I didn't want people to know it was me doing the writing and have to deal with the baggage of being "Me".

While the claim of 80 projects in 8 months is an almost insane amount of work, I can certainly understand the idea of remaining anonymouse.

-Evil
 

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izanobu, that strategy of publishing short works for $0.99 and then collecting 5-6 of them in a single volume for $2.99 or thereabouts is straight from Dean Wesley Smith and J.A. Konrath (I'm not sure who posted the idea first). I've only recently adapted it to my stories (only recently having published enough to put together a collection).
 

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Art is where the Labor Theory of Value breaks down completely.

Artist A can suffer for ten years to produce an object of art. Artist B can dash off an object of art in a weekend. You cannot tell from that information which of those objects is the more valuable.

Art is also where pricing strategies in business break down. Object of art A may sell for ten cents less than object of art B. You cannot predict from this information that object of art A will sell better than object of art B.

Folks who come from other businesses, with their shiny MBAs on their walls, are constantly being confused by this. They're used to consumers who, when they can't get Dial, buy Ivory. But someone who's looking for sweet romance won't buy a horror novel if the store is out of sweet romances, and won't buy a horror novel instead of the sweet romance if the horror novel is priced half-off.
 
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