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

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Al Stevens

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If you just struck gold, do you announce it to the world and start a stampede to the gold fields? Or do you keep it quiet and keep all the gold for yourself?

I still don't see it. Where's the edge?

(I hate analogies.)
 

Irysangel

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The first thing I thought is that he's writing erotica. There's some pretty strongly themed, fetishized stuff cropping up on the Kindle and yeah, they sell like hotcakes at high prices.
 

Dani

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Wow lol you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't in this self-publishing drama.

If he put his name out there, people would say he's just trying to generate sales.

When he doesn't, he's hiding something.

Geesh.
 

shaldna

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Wow lol you're sort of damned if you do, damned if you don't in this self-publishing drama.

If he put his name out there, people would say he's just trying to generate sales.

When he doesn't, he's hiding something.

Geesh.

I'll have option number 3 please Bob,

'If you make sweeping statements declaring huge profits and all for no promotion or marketing and then not provide evidence to back that up then I will discount what you say until you can.'
 

Cyia

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The $2.99 price point being a better choice than $0.99 seems to be holding up even among the loudest proponents of self-e-publishing. If you read Konrath's blog, one of his guest posters did a post on this last week or the week before saying that $2.99 is the price point she (and many others) use for SHORT STORIES, while novels are higher, around $4.99.

(found the link to her guest post - http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2011/10/guest-post-by-selena-kitt.html)

There's a lot more to it than this, but here's a few key quotes about the price differences.

At first, I found that lowering my price to $0.99 shot me up on a few bestseller lists. That increased my exposure, which was great. And I also found that my sales of those $0.99 titles doubled. Stories that had previously been selling 50 a month were now selling 100.



Sounds good, right?



But, of course, at $0.99 I was getting a 35% instead of the 70% royalty I’d been making when I was selling them at $2.99. I was now making roughly $35 a month on a story that had previously been taking in about $100 a month—a loss of $65 a month in income. Multiply that by twenty-five short stories (which is about what I have out there) and that’s a $1650 a month loss.

Kindle readers are tired of $0.99 cheapies. The shine is off the new toy, people have stopped loading their Kindles up with freebies and cheapies, and have started getting more discerning about what they download. Many Kindle readers are starting to shy away from the $0.99 price point because they’ve read some stinkers and don’t want to travel down that road again. What was once a huge draw for Kindle readers—oooh, look, cheap books for my new toy!—has now become the opposite.
 

Dani

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I'll have option number 3 please Bob,

'If you make sweeping statements declaring huge profits and all for no promotion or marketing and then not provide evidence to back that up then I will discount what you say until you can.'

But what would the motivation be to lie here?

Note: I'm not saying he isn't or is telling the truth. Maybe later he's going to be all shy and "oh I'll just write a book about it" but so far, I don't see that he's doing that.
 

kaitie

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I don't think the erotica angle explains the anonymity unless he's writing erotica under his real name and not a pen name--which would be stupid for someone not wanting people to know he wrote erotica. I don't think anyone believes John Locke's name is really John Locke, but he's gotten a ton of press.

I don't know. I'm not saying there isn't a legitimate reason for wanting to remain anonymous other than the whole because he's lying thing, but I do think this particular reason isn't one of them.
 

izanobu

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It doesn't sound to me like he's saying "down with the system, do what I did or die". All of his comments trend more toward "here's what I think helped me do this". I don't get a vibe from the thread over there of self-publishing is the only way, so not sure why that even came up.

Frankly, I understand the wish to remain anonymous. It's definitely a damned if you do and damned if you don't sort of thing. I think it was brave enough of him to post a screen cap of his KDP screen (with returns and everything, not just the gross sales).
 

kaitie

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But what would the motivation be to lie here?

Note: I'm not saying he isn't or is telling the truth. Maybe later he's going to be all shy and "oh I'll just write a book about it" but so far, I don't see that he's doing that.

That's the part I'm not sure about myself. I'm just psychoanalyzing a person I've never met, which can't really be done beyond speculation. Typically lying about something like this would be to try to gain something from it. In this case, how could he anonymously gain because no one is going to find his books and check them out if they don't know who he is.

Second, one could argue that he's lying so that people don't look up his books and discover that he's really only sold a few dozen copies. That's possible.

It's also possible that there could be other motivations: attention, for instance. Even anonymously, maybe getting his fifteen minutes of internet fame makes him feel special. It's similar to people going online and making up insanely ridiculous stories about crazy things that happen to them or claim to have a terminal disease just for attention (I've met people who have done this). Someone anonymously claiming to have sold thousands of copies could fall into that category. I'm not saying he does because I really don't know. I'm just randomly speculating on potential motivations.

The thing is, if he's really selling this well shouldn't it be obvious? Even if it's scattered over numerous books, shouldn't at least one of those be in a top sellers list? And if he really has that many books out it would be easy to figure out who he is just by clicking on the author's name.

I think that's what makes me more skeptical than anything. I feel like even if he wasn't giving his name, it should be showing up just in fan lists or kindle bestsellers or in some way gaining some steam even without his statement, or at the very least that someone would have been able to check out the list and say "Oh, it's obviously this guy because he's the only one on the bestseller lists with 80 books."

Is it possible that with so many he could just be selling four or five copies of each and still make that amount? It's too early in the morning for me to do math. :tongue
 

kaitie

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It doesn't sound to me like he's saying "down with the system, do what I did or die". All of his comments trend more toward "here's what I think helped me do this". I don't get a vibe from the thread over there of self-publishing is the only way, so not sure why that even came up.

Frankly, I understand the wish to remain anonymous. It's definitely a damned if you do and damned if you don't sort of thing. I think it was brave enough of him to post a screen cap of his KDP screen (with returns and everything, not just the gross sales).

Because a lot of people are very defensive about the entire topic and see this even where it's not?
 

J. Tanner

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The $2.99 price point being a better choice than $0.99 seems to be holding up even among the loudest proponents of self-e-publishing. If you read Konrath's blog, one of his guest posters did a post on this last week or the week before saying that $2.99 is the price point she (and many others) use for SHORT STORIES, while novels are higher, around $4.99.

Selina Kitt writes erotica, the only genre proven (to some extent...) to support $2.99 short fiction pretty well.

Outside that genre or a bestseller selling a short based on a popular series character, $2.99 is generally considered crickets for short fiction.
 
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J. Tanner

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The thing is, if he's really selling this well shouldn't it be obvious? Even if it's scattered over numerous books, shouldn't at least one of those be in a top sellers list? And if he really has that many books out it would be easy to figure out who he is just by clicking on the author's name.

According to him, he's using multiple (10+?) pen names for each genre and using stock photos for author pics. You'd never find him without him dropping some specific clue by mistake, and even then you'd find one pen name and not the rest.

Currently the biggest clue he's dropped is that he's got genre series using different categories for each book and links within each subseqent book in the series that push only the first book in the series. That's unusual. And it would stand out if you saw it--as would a needle in a haystack--if you saw it.
 

Dani

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That's the part I'm not sure about myself. I'm just psychoanalyzing a person I've never met, which can't really be done beyond speculation. Typically lying about something like this would be to try to gain something from it. In this case, how could he anonymously gain because no one is going to find his books and check them out if they don't know who he is.

Second, one could argue that he's lying so that people don't look up his books and discover that he's really only sold a few dozen copies. That's possible.

It's also possible that there could be other motivations: attention, for instance. Even anonymously, maybe getting his fifteen minutes of internet fame makes him feel special. It's similar to people going online and making up insanely ridiculous stories about crazy things that happen to them or claim to have a terminal disease just for attention (I've met people who have done this). Someone anonymously claiming to have sold thousands of copies could fall into that category. I'm not saying he does because I really don't know. I'm just randomly speculating on potential motivations.

The thing is, if he's really selling this well shouldn't it be obvious? Even if it's scattered over numerous books, shouldn't at least one of those be in a top sellers list? And if he really has that many books out it would be easy to figure out who he is just by clicking on the author's name.

I think that's what makes me more skeptical than anything. I feel like even if he wasn't giving his name, it should be showing up just in fan lists or kindle bestsellers or in some way gaining some steam even without his statement, or at the very least that someone would have been able to check out the list and say "Oh, it's obviously this guy because he's the only one on the bestseller lists with 80 books."

Is it possible that with so many he could just be selling four or five copies of each and still make that amount? It's too early in the morning for me to do math. :tongue

I'm an internet marketer. I've been doing websites and blogs for about three years now. When I started out, I had one website. It made about $5 a month. I wasn't number one in google for any of my terms. It was all a bunch of different longtail keywords that brought in traffic.
By month two I had three websites. I didn't just double my income (which was about $11 btw) back then. I quadrupled it. It's not a lot of money. Just a little.

Guess what? Now I have sixty-five websites. That's how I make my living monthly. I still am not number one for any of my main terms. All my traffic comes from longtail terms (except on one website where, oddly it gets loads of traffic - ironically (or coincidentally), it's my worst money maker ). Many of my websites aren't inter connected. Many of my sites are not the same .

My point? Volume. Volume is what made my sales. Every website increased my volume and my income and my traffic.

That's what this guy is saying. Every book increases his sales exponentially. Internet marketers worldwide could tell you that's how we've been earning for years.

In fact, that's what every successful self-publisher has said. Konrath, Hocking, Locke - volume volume volume.
 
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izanobu

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Looking at the screen cap he posted, I think he's probably not on that many genre best lists. A few things in the 21 were selling 1-400 copies, but most were in the handfuls. To make 1k in a day off 80 works without seeing huge sales on any one thing is pretty easy, really.

It's about 35 sales per book if everything is priced at .99 (which he states is not the case). Or it is about 6 sales per book if every book is priced at 2.99. Not exactly bestseller list territory or breaking the sales bank. That's the benefit of having a lot of work up. You don't need record-breaking sales on it to make a decent chunk of change. He stated somewhere in there that his books are priced in a range between .99 and 5.99. The royalties at 5.99 (about 4.15 per sale) add up quickly, which I can tell you from my own experience, so the sales numbers might even be lower than 6 per title or something. The thing is, with 80 titles, it adds up quickly.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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I'm an internet marketer. I've been doing websites and blogs for about three years now. When I started out, I had one website. It made about $5 a month. I wasn't number one in google for any of my terms. It was all a bunch of different longtail keywords that brought in traffic.
By month two I had three websites. I didn't just double my income (which was about $11 btw) back then. I quadrupled it. It's not a lot of money. Just a little.

Guess what? Now I have sixty-five websites. That's how I make my living monthly. I still am not number one for any of my main terms. All my traffic comes from longtail terms (except on one website where, oddly it gets loads of traffic - ironically (or coincidentally), it's my worst money maker ). Many of my websites aren't inter connected. Many of my sites are not the same .

My point? Volume. Volume is what made my sales. Every website increased my volume and my income and my traffic.

That's what this guy is saying. Every book increases his sales exponentially. Internet marketers worldwide could tell you that's how we've been earning for years.

In fact, that's what every successful self-publisher has said. Konrath, Hocking, Locke - volume volume volume.

What are you marketing?
 

kaitie

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Thanks Dani and Izanobu for the explanations. That makes a lot of sense on both counts.

Here's my question: It's possible to put out a ton of mediocre works, but is that a potential detriment in the future? Would it be better to put out books very very quickly that might have iffy quality and sell a few books each, or to put out fewer books of better quality with the hopes that readers of one will also become readers of others?

I know there's no good answer to that, but that's just what this makes me think of.
 

Irysangel

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According to him, he's using multiple (10+?) pen names for each genre and using stock photos for author pics. You'd never find him without him dropping some specific clue by mistake, and even then you'd find one pen name and not the rest.

Currently the biggest clue he's dropped is that he's got genre series using different categories for each book and links within each subseqent book in the series that push only the first book in the series. That's unusual. And it would stand out if you saw it--as would a needle in a haystack--if you saw it.

See, that's why I thought it was erotica. First, the above-mentioned comment that $2.99 for short fiction is really only feasible in erotica. Then, why would you need stock photos for your own author bios? No one cares that much, unless you're pretending to be, say, a woman writing erotica vs a man writing erotica. Because lots of readers think a man writing erotica = pr0n, and a woman writing erotica = just erotica.

Also, if he's got 80 books up and they're all priced higher than $2.99, he doesn't have to sell that many a day to bring in $1000 a day.

Let's say each one is priced at $2.99 - on that, you get about $2.07 in royalties. To make $1000 a day, you'd need to sell approx 483 books. Between 80 different books up, each one needs to sell about 6 copies a day, or 180 a month. Brisk, but not that hard to do and one fast-moving book will quickly skew the odds in his favor.

Going by my own book rankings, if his are under 20k on Amazon, he's probably moving at least 6 copies a day. If they're all under 20k, then he's easily making $1000 a day. The trick is that $2.99 price and the fact that he has EIGHTY freaking files for sale.

It truly is a quantity game.
 

Sheryl Nantus

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Thanks Dani and Izanobu for the explanations. That makes a lot of sense on both counts.

Here's my question: It's possible to put out a ton of mediocre works, but is that a potential detriment in the future? Would it be better to put out books very very quickly that might have iffy quality and sell a few books each, or to put out fewer books of better quality with the hopes that readers of one will also become readers of others?

I know there's no good answer to that, but that's just what this makes me think of.

Personally I'd rather only write one book a year and have that be an excellent book than pump out bad to below average pieces of crap to make money.

There are plenty of authors who produce multiple titles a year like Nora Roberts and James Patterson. There are others who produce only one book every few years or even one in a lifetime and that's the best they can deliver and it resonates with readers.

If you're just in it for the money then you might as well go write web content articles for pennies on the word. You'll make more than with original fiction and at least have some pride in your work.

I don't get the impression that this "genius" has any pride in his stories or that he cares about anything other than the bottom line. It may work fine for him but I'd rather write slow and deliver my best work instead of burping out cheap stuff for a buck.

jmo, ymmv of course.
 

Irysangel

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Thanks Dani and Izanobu for the explanations. That makes a lot of sense on both counts.

Here's my question: It's possible to put out a ton of mediocre works, but is that a potential detriment in the future? Would it be better to put out books very very quickly that might have iffy quality and sell a few books each, or to put out fewer books of better quality with the hopes that readers of one will also become readers of others?

I know there's no good answer to that, but that's just what this makes me think of.

There is no good answer. I don't think he's looking toward the future, though? I think he's looking at how to maximize his earnings ASAP. Plus, if he's willing to create a bunch of pseudonyms to sell his books, he can easily shut one down and move on to the next name.

There are a few people I've seen that crank out lots of erotica novellas and price them all at $2.99 because again, quantity. I've also seen a lot of self-publishers decide to start writing erotica simply because of the money in it.
 

izanobu

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Kaitie- there's a line between "bad" and "good enough" that is tough to tread, but doable. I'm guessing that this guy is probably "good enough". He's put the work in (the practice) by writing that much and he probably isn't grammatically unreadable. He likely has a decent grasp of story and the principles of what make something entertaining. It seems like people are finding his books and reading more of them (he talks about how he links everything to the first book in the series, etc, so people can easily find his stuff once they buy one of them, at least for things in the same genre).
Speed has very little to do with quality. I know this idea is foreign to some people, but some people just write quickly (or work many hours, which can look like writing quickly) and suffer no quality loss for it. We write at the pace we write.
 

kaitie

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Actually I agree with speed and quality not being directly related. But someone before had said that he wasn't having copy editors or proofing but basically just finishing and putting it out there. I might have misremembered that, though.
 

izanobu

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He stated that his wife proof-reads everything. So it is being seen by a third party. Maybe she's got an eye for that sort of stuff (I know my husband does, he proofs stuff before I send it out on submission, which is good because I'm dyslexic and there are mistakes I won't even see that he is able to pick out and fix for me).
And again, he's writing short fiction. It's a lot easier to catch most of the mistakes in a 5k word story than in a 100k novel.
 

Irysangel

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He stated that his wife proof-reads everything. So it is being seen by a third party. Maybe she's got an eye for that sort of stuff (I know my husband does, he proofs stuff before I send it out on submission, which is good because I'm dyslexic and there are mistakes I won't even see that he is able to pick out and fix for me).
And again, he's writing short fiction. It's a lot easier to catch most of the mistakes in a 5k word story than in a 100k novel.

Yeah. I had a team of betas proof-read my books too. It's not the same as having an editor (unless his wife is an editor). I'm actually paying someone to go back through my books and proof them one more time because I don't like putting out a less-than-clean product.

I'm still boggled by how many books he has up. That's just...crazy to think about from a money standpoint. I wonder if he has his books up on B&N and ARe and others? If so, he's bringing in a lot more than just what Amazon shows.
 

KalenO

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Well another thing is his 80 book volume isn't that cut and dry. He said they're spread out across multiple pen names, so someone who buys one of his shorts and likes it doesn't know where to buy all 79 other stories. So his volume isn't quite as effective as it sounds, I don't think.

If we were talking about one author page that had 80 works on it, I could see how all of those would inflate the others' sales and possibly lead to 1K a day....but if he's got ten under one name and fifteen under another and so on and so on....that doesn't make as much sense. We're not talking exponential sales here anymore, simply additive from combining the sales from each pen name.....but they're not actually doing anything to boost each other. So with NO marketing, he's moving at least six copies of all these works in a day, spread out over various pen names with no seeming relation?
 
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