John Lock just sold 1 Million books on Amazon…and he did it all on his own through the Kindle Direct Publishing program. Last week, John Locke, a self described niche marketer, has become the first independent author to sell more than 1 million ebooks through the Kindle Direct Publishing program.
According to this Mashable article, John Locke attributes his success to the $0.99 pricing model, which allowed him to sell 1 million ebooks and document his journey in his book How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months.
If you do the math, Locke is earning approximately $0.35 for each ebook sold. This adds up to a total of $350,000 that he pockets for himself for the million ebooks that he sold.
The best part is that he is doing it all himself through Kindle Direct Publishing. (read more about John Locke in this guest post interview here)
The better part is that YOU can be doing the same thing as well.
Publishing Then and Now
I remember many years ago, as a young teenager, I had aspirations of becoming a writer. I had drafted up some short stories. But the difficulty was how to become published?
I read up on the subject. I bought a huge book that listed the addresses of potential publishers and read up on how to send out a query letter.
Then came the tedious process of drafting an introduction letter to the publishers and sending out my short story, hoping for someone to pick up the story.
After that, there was weeks of waiting. And waiting.
Being a young high school student I was the impatient sort to begin with, but I remember coming home every day to check the mailbox for what felt like an eternity.
Then after months of waiting, I came home one day to find an acceptance letter!
Yes! My heart cried out!
The publisher was actually a small science fiction magazine. If I remember right, they offered my the magnificent sum of $25 to publish my short story.
I jumped on the chance right away and weeks later, I cashed the $25 check.
It took me the better half of a year to sell that story. And in the end, I had ended up selling the complete rights to that story for $25.
Later on, as the shine of my publishing success was wearing off, I recall thinking that I earned more by working one afternoon in my waitering job that I did selling that story.
The prospect of going through that process once again dampened my enthusiasm for publishing, and frankly being a teenager, my interests turned to more prurient pursuits….
Years later, I’ve recently discovered the joy that is the Kindle Direct Publishing program, which allows independent authors to quickly and easily publish their ebooks within days.
You can read about publishing through Kindle Direct Publishing in my tutorial about how to publish an ebook on Amazon kindle.
That’s right!
An independent author can now take their completed book and upload it in electronic format via Kindle Direct Publishing and have their completed ebook appear in the Amazon store within 24 hours.
Talk about change!
The other benefit is that authors are earning more through Amazon than ever before.
Royalties from selling a kindle book range between 35% to 70%.
Even at the lower end at 35%, authors are earning more than in the past.
This system is a virtual goldmine for the aspiring author.
If you are an aspiring author and have a manuscript on your computer waiting to be sold, what are you waiting for?
It may be time to bypass the traditional publisher and go independent. The process is much simpler and the profit margins greater.
Putting Together Your eBook
Perhaps, you are a writer hopeful. An aspiring novelist, whose works have yet to be drafted, or you are simply curious to break into the writing arena.
The Kindle Direct Publishing program provides a great platform for you to experiment in the writing medium without risk to yourself.
The hardest part is coming up with an ebook to sell.
If you are the creative sort, then you may already have an idea for a story ruminating in your head and it’s just a matter of putting the metaphoric pen to paper.
But for the new writer, perhaps it takes some practice to get those creative juices flowing.
Then I would suggest taking your time and coming up with the material slowly.
Starting a blog is good practice for writing in short spurts. You can then take several posts and put them together into a book.
Each post topic can be expanded and turned into a separate chapter.
The other method that allows you to expand your horizons and publish more variety is to use some PLR materials as a foundation for your books.
Using PLR articles as source materials for Ebooks is a method that I’ve found gives me good practice in editing and putting an ebook together. You can take separate articles on a topic and edit them, putting them together into a single book. This way, your process is more of being an editor, rather than coming up with the source material yourself.
I’ve also found that it is a way to quickly break into the ebook market and publish books and earn some profit as you continue writing your other original Ebooks.
Here’s how it works: for example, you can pick up one of my PLR article packs from our store and pick one of the included niches, such as Investing.
You’ll find that the article packs will have hundreds of PLR articles on a particular niche that will discuss all different aspects of investing.
Then follow these simple steps and put together an ebook quickly:
- Download a PLR article pack. (You can find these by searching the web, but I have several available in our store. for example: You can get 55,000 PLR articles for only $4.95.)
- Find an introductory article on the topic for the introduction of your ebook.
- Then look through the articles and pick out different topics that you wish to include in your ebook as chapters.
- Take all the articles and put them together into a single document, make sure that you label the different articles as chapters.
- Then edit for grammar and punctuation (I also go through a short rewriting process to ensure flow)
- Take the completed ebook and paste it into the blank ebook template. (download blank ebook template)
- Now, create an ebook cover. I use the web service: My Ecover Maker, which allows me to create a 3D ebook cover in minutes using preset templates and images. You can even upload your own images. You can try it now for free.
- Now you’re done, just follow the steps in my Kindle Publishing Tutorial to complete the process of publishing your book.
I would suggest that using the PLR method is a great way to put out many good ebooks quickly.
My recommendation is that it is better to take PLR articles and put them together into an ebook, rather than taking a completed PLR ebook and trying to re-sell it. This way your e-book will still have an element of originality and it will be unique when it shows up in the Amazon store.
My second thought is that you can and may want to publish these eBooks under a pen name, which Amazon allows. You simply come up with an original pen name and fill that in as an author. As these works are a compilation of PLR materials, they will be decent books, but you may want to save your own name for completely original works of art.
Thirdly, editing and binding together these PLR materials is good practice to getting the creative juices flowing as you work on your own original material.
Finally, it’s not a bad way to earn some extra profit and avoid becoming the next starving author.
So, what are you waiting for?
Start publishing!
Just as an example, you can use them to publish blog articles quickly, as research materials for your articles, or put several articles together and publish an e-book. You can find a variety of e-books and PLR Article packs to suit your every need at the Riches Corner store.
Check out our best deal yet. Get over 55,000 PLR Articles for $4.95.
There's a ton of merit to the new publishing platform Amazon offers through Kindle. In fact I recently bought a Kindle just so I could study this platform, and ebooks, in their native habitat. I've never been able to read an ebook on my computer, even a laptop, no matter how I tried. But the Kindle makes it so easy! Now I have no excuse not to publish all those books that I've written over the years, polished, and then never found publishers.
Delena
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It's never been better for a new publisher. The kindle is an awesome platform for reading an ebook and the ease of publishing makes it ideal for the aspiring author. This is especially true if you already have some books waiting in the wings and ready to be published. Maybe you can be the next million book publisher on kindle!
wow. I need to join Amazon. 😀
It's definitely worth it to write and sell some books. 🙂
Hi,
I really like the site, thanks for the information Richard…Love to hear more from you…
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Thanks, Charlotte. I'm glad you enjoyed this post. I look forward to your continued visits. 🙂
Hi! Can anyone please help me on how to join the amazon on and sell books? thanks!
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Hi Shikha,
You can go to the kindle direct publishing page here: https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/
If you don't have an amazon account, you can create one. Then if you have a book already, you can follow the steps in my guide to upload your book. http://www.richescorner.com/how-to-publish-a-book…
Let me know if you have further questions.
I have lots of books here but they are not in used…I think this will be a good idea…
Remind me to send a LARGE thank you to Stumbleupon.com! I'm so happy they landed me here! This is a wealth (no pun intended, but take it where you can get it!) of information for fledgling writers. As some fool, somewhere said: "I'll be back!"
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Hi Katz,
Thank you for visiting! I will also send a big thank you to Stumbleupon for sending you here. I will eagerly await your next visit! 🙂
I really appreciate this article, it shows that Internet marketers created e-books to share good info about something we don't know.
Thanks for the comment, Jeremy. I think that the world of publishing has really opened up to everyone. Anyone can write a book and share their unique knowledge or experience with the world by publishing it electronically.
As a recently "self-published" e-booker, (Creative Exercises to Inspire, which can be purchased at Amazon and Barnes and Nobles) I would just like to warn that it is not as easy as you make it sound. Not if you are going to put out good content. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE if you do decide to e-publish, focus on GOOD CONTENT!! This has the potential to be a brilliant phenomenon for authors, but the danger of any and everyone being able to publish is that any and everyone will. If the content is bad, it will turn readers off. Next thing we know it will crash and burn. Also, just because you have published, doesn't mean it will sell. You have got to do a lot of work marketing and promoting your own work! Be prepared to spend hours figuring that strategy out! All in all, it is not easier than getting published the traditional way, but if you believe in what you are doing and aren't afraid to do some hard work at least you can and will get published! Not so guaranteed in the traditional publishing world nowadays!
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Hi Heidi,
You make some excellent points here. Nothing is ever as easy as it sounds. However, I would make a point of distinction. Publishing is easier these days that in the days of old because the technology has cut out the middleman to allow self publishing to multiple platforms. However, SELLING your book is as hard as ever. Now the difficulty in self publishing lies in self promotion as well. Because you don't have a brick and mortar publishing company to assist in promoting you, ie. setting up book signings, taking out ads, etc… You are on your own in the promotion department.
You also make a good point about ensuring the content is good. Focusing on good content in any arena is a must if you want to become successful. I do advocate creating good content. I would say that is something that comes from practice and dedication.
I'm more in the camp that believes that allowing more people to publish is a good thing. Yes, there will be more bad content, but there will also be more good content as well. I think people will learn to filter the books they read, but the market will still continue to grow. I think a good historical example would be the invention of the printing press, which allowed the masses access to printing and reading books. Overall, this set off a beneficial cultural revolution. I imagine that many people initially wanted to limit allowing the masses access to more education. However, in the end it was a good thing.
Hi Richard,
I will definitely going to use Kindle Direct Publishing. Thanks a lot for this eye-opening post.
Amazon, here I come.
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