Make Money Publishing on Kindle
By Steve Gillman
I first tried publishing on Kindle in 2009, by converting
a couple ebooks I had already been selling. I also put my paperback,
Secrets of Lucky People, into their system. I did nothing
to promote the Kindle versions, and it took me only about an
hour or two to convert each book. I figured I might make a bit
of extra money, and I hoped that perhaps I could get that revenue
stream up to $200 per month within a year. It has been a year,
and just received a payment of $253 last week.
Kindle, in case you aren't familiar with it, is Amazon's proprietary
e-book reader. My wife recently bought me one as a gift (yes,
I was making money on my Kindle books for a year without owning
a Kindle), and I like it. I was reading a book on it in bright
sunlight the other day, with no eye strain. Amazon also make
a Kindle reader available for free for your computer, and is
working on making the software available in other formats.
Anyone can publish a book on the Kindle platform. Once you
open an account (no cost), you upload your document and convert
it. Then you inevitably try again and play around until you get
the book to format how you would like it to. In the end is is
a pretty easy system to use, and there is a forum that has other
Kindle publishers who will help you out if you need advice.
 How
Much Can You Make?
I basically just loaded up eight or ten of my e-books and
do no promotion of the Kindle versions. I have occasionally mentioned
them in my newsletters, but it seems that mostly they are just
found by Kindle users when searching keywords. My book on ultralight
backpacking makes about $100 per month, the others less. With
promotion I am sure many people are doing far better. In fact,
I suspect that there are already a few people making a living
from publishing on Kindle.
At the moment (2011) Amazon pays out a royalty of up to 70%
if your book meets certain criteria, and 35% otherwise. They
want their books to be mostly under $10, but this is not a hard
rule.
Ways to Make More | Related Opportunities
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I know of one man here in Colorado who has been republishing
old classics that are no longer protected by copyright law. I
believe he adds some commentary, and he sells them for as little
as 99 cents. He makes only 34 cents on those sales, but his brother
tells me he sells thousands per month.
Qualifications / Requirements
If you have a book you have written or that you own the rights
to, you can start an account and have the book for sale in two
days.
First Steps
Read through the guidelines for publishing on Kindle that
are provided by Amazon, and then give it a try.
Resources
Steve
Gillman's Books - My own kindle books page at Amazon.
http://kindle.amazon.com
- The official Kindle site.
https://dtp.amazon.com/mn/signin
- Most of what you need to know can be found here.
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