Self-Published Kindle Books Produce Full-Time Income

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

In the first episode of the year, I mentioned that we're gonna have a $1,000 giveaway for one listener this year who starts an income generating project. Yesterday was our first episode of the first $1,000 series. In case you missed it, it's all about how somebody makes their first $1,000. So that's a new series we're gonna run, I believe once a week, at least for the next few months. We'll see how listeners enjoy it.

But just to mention that, throughout the year I'm gonna refer back to this giveaway, the $1,000 giveaway. I'll explain more as we go along how it works. But basically if you start a money making project in 2022, you are eligible. And that's really all you need to know for now. So stay tuned for more.

And today we're gonna talk about this self-published Kindle book empire. I read an article in the New Yorker recently that was all about how the book publishing industry has changed kind of in response to the development and advancement of Amazon's Kindle direct publishing. And especially in the world of genre fiction, like romance, sci-fi, thrillers, et cetera, some authors now produce multiple books a year. And they make other decisions like titling, cover art, and so on based entirely on how the works perform on the Kindle platform, which is really interesting. You might say that's good or bad, or it's just the way things are.

That's not really our conversation here. Our conversation is the logistics, the strategy, like how does someone make this happen? And then what does it look like? What are the outcomes for him? So in this story, a government administrator builds an off-ramp to his day job by self-publishing books using this platform.

And he ends up doing really, really well. So I'm gonna tell you all about that in this story coming up after this quick message from our sponsor. [Music]

Jeffrey Mason was filled with regret. His father suffered from Alzheimer's and his memories slipped away more each day. Jeffrey felt like he'd missed the chance to learn more about his dad's life and experiences.

The two men used to have weekly calls and frequent visits, but they had drifted apart over the years. In April, 2018, Jeffrey was feeling particularly sad. He ended up writing a long list of over 200 questions, the things he'd like to ask his dad about. He knew some of his dad's ambitions, problems, and successes, but a lot was missing. And writing that list reminded him of something.

The previous year, he'd ordered a book for his girlfriend called "The Couple's Bucket List." When it arrived, he found it was simply a lined journal with no writing in it, kind of disappointing. Jeffrey believed he could do better. He already knew a bit about self-publishing from listening to podcasts and reading articles. He was confident he had the skills to create a better bucket list or at least something like that. As a next step, Jeffrey turned the list of questions he wanted to ask his dad about into a book that he self-published using Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing Platform.

He designed the cover himself using pre-Canva software and put his book out into the world. It didn't cost him a cent. The Kindle Direct Publishing Platform is pretty straightforward. Writers upload a formatted manuscript and Amazon reviews the document to make sure everything meets their requirements. Then it's listed for sale on Amazon sites around the world.

Jeffrey gets 60% of the asking price as his payment. Now, unfortunately, the first version of the book didn't sell well. So Jeffrey relaunched in February 2019 with a new cover and a new title. Dad, I want to hear your story. That did the trick and Jeffrey earned $2,400 that month.

His earnings jumped to $5,400 in June thanks to Father's Day and then he made another $2,100 in July. Soon after, he started getting emails from readers asking if he had a version of his book for mothers or grandparents. Taking the cue, he self-published three more books in July 2019. In total, he earned $52,000 that year from his four self-published books. But wait, there's more.

Stay-at-home shopping during the pandemic led to a huge year of sales the following year. So what kind of numbers are we talking about? Well, Jeffrey earned $387,000 in 2020. Sales have dipped a bit since then, but he's still earning an average of $20,000 each month. Now the majority of these sales come from that KDP program where he offers paperback and ebook versions of his books, but he also publishes hardcover versions through IngramSpark.

This is another company, another publishing company that allows you to print, globally distribute and manage your print and eBooks. Customers can buy these books on bn.com, walmart.com and any other online retailer that sells books. So what came next? Well, in addition to asking for those non-dad versions of the books, a lot of people emailed Jeffrey asking if there was a way to answer the questions in the books using a computer or smartphone. So taking another cue from his customers, he hired a programmer through Upwork to build an online tool that would allow someone to answer the questions and then print out the pages.

So far so good, but success on Amazon breeds competition and often even direct copycats. There are now many other books on the platform that use the same naming convention as his titles. Mom, I want to hear your story. Grandpa, I want to hear your story and so on. A title can't usually be copyrighted so people can just copy it.

Jeffrey has responded to the competition by hiring designers to update his homemade covers as well as a professional editor to improve the text. In January, 2020, his book sales, plus the need for him to be a full-time dad, led Jeffrey to retire from his job as an administrator for the state of California and go full-time as a writer and self-publisher. The business is now a family affair. Jeffrey's mom runs his Facebook page and his oldest daughter handles all other social media. He's currently looking at how to turn the concept of his books into a podcast, a YouTube channel, and a course.

All those ideas are in the development phase and should launch this year. What started as a way to cope with his regret has become Jeffrey's full-time work and even his life mission. He wants to keep encouraging people to learn their loved ones' stories. [Music]

If you are new to the podcast, at least once a week, I bring you a story, a detailed case study like this one, where we go into all the nuance of how somebody had an idea, how they made it happen, and as you just heard, the outcome of that experience, what it did look like, what were the numbers. We wanna really dive into those practical details to see how this can affect someone's life, as you've heard, in such a positive way.

So congratulations to Jeffrey. Thanks for helping us kick off this season's long list of stories. I've got all kinds of good ones. I'm gonna bring you along with questions and answers, Failure Friday, our weekly segment about challenges and missteps, disasters, the all-new segment that you just heard yesterday, first $1,000, and, you know, so much more. All kinds of good stuff coming up.

Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is so much better. I hope that you take these stories and ideas and use them as fuel for yourself and think about what you can do to create your own freedom through a money-making project without quitting your job, or at least, you know, while you're still working your job and then maybe quit your job later. Okay, that's it for today. Today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/1830. We'll include links to everything mentioned in the episode.

And if you've got some feedback or a comment or question, you can also leave it on that website. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I'm excited for 2022. Hope you'll subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Chris Guillebeau.

You are listening to Side Hustle School. [Music]

from the Onward Project.