Kindle Review – Kindle Fire Review, Kindle 4 Review

John Locke has written a book about how he got 1 million ebook sales through Amazon in just 5 months.

How I Sold 1 Million eBooks in 5 Months by John Locke.

There’s a special genius in him pricing it at $4.99. If an author can understand why all his books for readers are $1 but his book for authors is $5 then that author will know she has to make sure she buys it, reads it, and executes on the advice better than other authors. Not to mention why it’s going to become incredibly difficult to survive as an author if you don’t cement your place as a top author.

The main reason I’m recommending this book.

• In my 3.5+ years of following the Kindle and the revolution in publishing this is the most successful indie author. Just by virtue of him avoiding all the traps all the successful indie authors before him fell into – his book is well worth reading. You might feel signing a $2 million contract is a bigger prize – in which case, A) You really aren’t the target audience for his book, and B) You are discounting the fact that ebooks will be 10 times as big in 2-3 years and then it will be 10 million ebooks sold in 5 months for the top authors (that’s $3.5 million to $7 million in profit in 5 months - depending on what the cut is). Why sign with a Publisher if you could be making millions a year in profit while having complete artistic control?

A few additional reasons why I’m recommending the book even without reading it -

1. He sold a million ebooks.
2. He sold them in 5 months.
3. This is straight from the horse’s mouth.
4. Every author will have to take responsibility for some or most of their marketing soon.
5. John Locke gets a lot right. You can tell by the amount of hating going on that lots of people in traditional publishing are scared of what he’s accomplishing.
6. He understands $1. While everyone else who got a $1 hit got greedy and tried to sell $3 books or signed a deal – he stuck with $1 and look how far it’s gotten him.
7. Hate to be the one to point out that there were indie authors in 2008 and 2009 who could have been the first ones to 1 million ebooks if they didn’t sign ebook deals and didn’t fall for the trap of thinking $1 ‘doesn’t value them’ or ‘isn’t profitable enough’ – However, it’s the truth. As long as you keep giving readers $5 worth of book for $1 you will keep doing better and better.
8. It’s reality – you need a marketing plan and a strategy. Everyone how is not a marketer/salesman thinks ‘a good book/product will sell itself’. Nothing could be further from the truth.

There are a lot of other reasons too. If you’re an author, three very important reasons I’d give for getting this book are -

1. There are a lot more slots for independent superstar authors - authors who sell millions of ebooks per year. They are there for the taking – the ones who move first will probably get them.
2. If you don’t get into these slots, or into the next set of slots (authors who sell 500,000 to 1 million ebooks a year), then you’re pretty much stuck with having to do something other than writing to support yourself financially. Wouldn’t you rather get paid, and get paid well, to spend all your time writing?
3. You never know what happens to Publishers. Perhaps they get replaced by service companies that figure out (and if you think about this, it makes sense) it’s much better to make $1,000 per author from millions of authors than $5 per reader from tens of millions of readers.

Authors are on their own already, and will be on their own to an extreme extent in a few years. John Locke’s marketing strategy will be an important part of your skillset and overall strategy – If you execute it very well, it might be the thing that gets you to the top level. If you execute it decently, it might be the thing that saves your skin.

If you’re serious about being an author and making millions from selling books (or enough for a comfortable living), a good litmus test would be whether you finish reading this book today, this week, or never.

Filed under: Reality Tagged: | reality for authors, strategy