How I Wrote, Self-Published, and Launched My Book, Selling 100+ Copies in 4 days on Amazon

Have you thought about writing and self-publishing a book?

Do you feel like you wouldn’t know where to start?

Are you worried about spending thousands of dollars, and then not having the book sell or not getting business from your efforts?

I felt all those things and more when I self-published my first book, nearly 10 years ago.

I’ve since self-published about 10 books, and while I doubt I’ll get rich from those efforts, I have had a positive ROI, both in book profits and in additional business.

All but 2 of my books cost $50 or less to self-publish because I did almost EVERYTHING myself. My biggest seller, Speech Class for Teens which I published 8 years ago just so I could buy copies of my own book for a homeschool speech class I was teaching, cost me all of $25 to self-publish (cost for the picture on the cover). To date, I’ve earned more than $32,000 in royalties for that one book alone, directly deposited to my bank account without me doing anything, not even marketing the book! In retrospect, I would have made it a better book, had I realized how many others would be purchasing it. Maybe one of my next projects will be to publish a revised, improved edition.

For my latest book, 100 Tips & Tricks to Appear Confident in Presentations: Public Speaking Success in 5 Minutes or Less, I spent considerably more, about $1300 (half of that was for the illustrations).

The WHY.

My inspiration for this book was three-fold:

1. I wanted a new book project (since 2010, I had published about 9 books)

2. I was inspired by the format of a book I had recently read: 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings: How to Get By Without Even Trying. This book was the “fun” December 2019 reading selection for Readership Toastmasters, a Toastmasters club focused on reading and speaking about leadership books.

3. I wanted to encourage a friend who was working on a book, by setting up a couple of one-day book writing retreats in which she and I would each focus on our books at my home, and have meals together.

The Initial Plan.

Below is the plan I wrote on 11/19/20:

Book title: 100 Tips and Tricks to Appear Confident in Presentations

Book subtitle: Public Speaking Success in 5-Minutes or Less

(note: the grammatical error is on purpose, “Less” has a better ring than “Fewer”)

The content/concept:

This short, non-fiction book will feature 100 tips and tricks, each of which can be accomplished in 5 or fewer minutes, that will enable the reader to appear more confident when presenting, in in-person meetings, conferences, or online.

This book is NOT a comprehensive presentation skills book. My book, Cat Got Your Tongue? goes into greater depth for presentation development and delivery.

The concept for the book is similar to the book 100 Tricks to Appear Smart in Meetings, but less snarky and more practical.

Format: 2 pages per tip, with one illustration per tip (by a Fiverr illustrator)

1. 6 X 9 paperback, b&w interior
2. Kindle e-book

The Market:

Glossophobia, or a fear of public speaking, is a very common phobia and one that is believed to affect up to 75% of the population. Seventy percent of employed Americans who give presentations agree that presentation skills are critical to their success at work, according to a Prezi survey.

Business and self-help non-fiction book categories grew 7% and 18%, respectively from 2016 to 2017 source

Initial Planned Promotion:

• Newsletter
• LinkedIn
• Press Release
• Pre-release testimonials

Proposed Timeline:

• Gather tip ideas (my blog, my books, other sources): November 19 – December 19
• Write/compile first draft: January 2020 (sketch concept pics for each tip, also)
• First draft to editing, illustrator: by Feb 1
• March 15: Revised book, formatted with illustrations
• March 15: Final edits, book formatting
• April 1: publish, soft launch, order review copies
• April 15: book launch

Did Things Go According to the Plan?

Not quite. My book publishing date and book launch date were about 3 weeks later than planned. I was about a month late in finishing the first draft, and then the Coronavirus had some effect, primarily with a delay in getting the illustrations completed.

The “reality” (the actual timelines):

• Gathered tip ideas (my blog, my books, other sources): November 19 – December 19
• Wrote/compiled first draft: January – Feb 2020 (sketch concept pics for each tip, also)
• First draft completed: Approx. March 1
• Feb 28- March 27 illustrations created
• March 23 – April 1 proofreader
• April 14: Book cover design finished
• April 16: Final formatting finished
• April 21: published via kindle direct publishing, soft launch,
• May 5-7: official book launch
• May 31: Audible version done, available on Audible June 10

The Writing Process.

1. Brainstorm ideas for public speaking tips using multiple sources:
   1. My own blogs and books
   2. Other sources, such as books I already owned and using Google searches for “public speaking tips” and more specific searches
2. Collect ideas in a Word Document, numbering the ideas (and supporting research/material)
3. Put the collected ideas on Numbered Sticky Notes (to correspond with the numbered ideas in the Word Document). My goal was to have many more than 100 ideas, so I could edit them down. I think I ultimately ended up with about 120 sticky notes.
4. Put the Sticky Notes in Categories (the categories were written on large Post-it Note Flip Chart paper, 1 category per paper. The categories would correspond to sections in the book. The sections changed over time because I combined some categories and created other categories.
5. I wrote in a few chunks of time, on-and-off over about 3 months, starting in December (I only wrote ONE day in December, however). Two of my writing days were writing retreats at my home with a friend. The first (and mostly finished) draft was completed at the end of February.

The Post-writing, Pre-publishing Process.

I became the “general contractor” for my book, hiring out bits and pieces, trying to do so in an economical way, mostly through Fiverr.

March 5 – April 21: pre-publishing:

I hired out the formatting, the illustrations, and the book cover to providers on Fiverr.

I wouldn’t recommend using Fiverr unless you know what you want, clearly communicate your expectations, review your deliveries closely, and are OK with multiple revisions to get what you want.

Initial Formatting—Fiverr, $93.75. This was mostly wasted money, as I had someone else do final formatting. However, the main thing I wanted formatting for was to allow for a consistent space for the illustrations that I would be inserting, and that was achieved.

Custom Illustrations—Fiverr (Hiraarshad, from Pakistan), $661.98. This was a big job, with about 103 illustrations, one for each tip, plus an illustration of me as the author, plus a cover illustration, plus another illustration for the introduction. Some of the illustrations were merely text, but most were line drawings. Initially, I put the job out for Fiverr sellers to bid on, and was overwhelmed by the responses (42 in a day!). I didn’t pick any of them, and instead looked for an illustrator who had a style similar to what I wanted. I provided a concept for each illustration, which the illustrator usually rendered as I expected, and in some cases made something even better. There was a delay with the Coronavirus impacting the delivery. I was very pleased with the outcome!

Proof-reading—a friend who had proof-read a previous book. $250

Cover Design—Fiverr (Pixelstudio, from Bosnia and Herzegovina), $52 (both the paperback cover PDF and the e-book cover jpg files). The cover designer took the illustration created by my illustrator and combined it with the concept from the book that inspired this effort—100 Tricks to Appear Confident in Meetings.

Final Formatting—Fiverr (Saqib_arshad, from Pakistan)–$93, This took longer than expected, mostly because I was not crystal clear in my expectations. It took several revisions, but the seller was very patient in doing the revisions. I received both the paperback files and the kindle files (MOBI), plus a couple of marketing images. One of the small challenges was that in formatting the book, a couple errors/changes were introduced, which I believe I caught and fixed.

Total pre-publishing cost: $1150

Setting up the Amazon listing:

Based on prior experience, I decided to publish ONLY on Amazon–Kindle Direct Publishing (which is for both the paperback and Kindle book). Years ago, I published my first few books on both Amazon and Barnes and Noble, and got hardly any sales on Barnes and Noble.  I did the listing for the book myself,  prior to the publishing, so that it would be ready to go. Plus, I got the KDP-assigned ISBN number to give the book cover designer (for the back page of the paperback).

PUBLISHING– The Easy Part.

After uploading the cover and the PDF for the paperback, and filling out the pricing and other information, I clicked “publish” (note: I used an text to HTML converter—free online—to format my book description)

Paperback:

Royalty (for books sold on Amazon): $3.62

Royalty (for expanded distribution to bookstores, libraries): $1.62

Author copies cost: $2.37 plus tax and shipping (total cost for 10 copies was $34)

Kindle (ebook):

List price: 3.99 (I picked this price somewhat based on data from Amazon)

Royalty: 2.67 (70%)

Note: for the launch, I would be reducing my price to $0.99, which is only a 35% royalty. If you want the 70% Royalty, the ebook’s price must be between $2.99 and $9.99.

In retrospect, I should have added a “Click here to leave a review on Amazon.com” as part of my ebook. Didn’t feel like changing it. Maybe next time . . .

BOOK LAUNCH:

On the same day that I published the book, I happened to see an ad in my Facebook Feed a $27 ebook with a process for launching a book. It was a very compelling ad!

https://authorexpertbestseller.com/products/bestseller-launch-blueprint/

This little ebook was definitely worth the $27. While it was a little too late to implement some of the ideas, I picked 2 ideas and ran with them:

Idea #1: Have a Launch Team. Since I have a small list of about 450 subscribers, plus another list of about 200 Thinkific course subscribers, I figured that several people might want to help me out and be on my launch team.

Idea #2: Promote on paid promotion sites. The author suggested a few specific sites.

Decision: I decided on a launch two weeks out, May 5-8, dropping the price to $0.99 for the launch dates, to maximize sales. The goal was to rank as high as possible in a few different Amazon categories. And, by offering the book for $0.99, it was more likely that buyers might actually read the book than if I offered it for free (with KDP—Kindle Direct Publishing, you can promote your book for free). I also decided I would execute on the 2 ideas and assemble a launch team and promote on paid promotion sites.

My 3 main promotional efforts were to:

#1 Create a Launch Team

#2 Pay for Promotion

#3  Post on Social Media

#1 Launch Team Effort

1. Email sent to Newsletter lists  via MailChimp.

Email sent:

[picture of book]

Hi *|FNAME|*, It’s finally happening! I’m getting ready to launch it my new book, 100 Tips & Tricks to Appear Confident in Presentations!

I’m putting together an inner-circle launch team, and you’re invited! 

As a launch team member, you’ll get a free pdf copy of the book, so you can be one of the first to read it. In return, I ask that you review the book by May 3 (it’s an easy read, and easy to skim, with a picture for every tip) and help spread the word when we launch (official launch date, May 5).

What do you say? You in?

Either way, thanks for being part of the community. I appreciate you!

[Button: Join the Team & Get a FREE PDF Review Copy] directs to send an email to me.

Diane Windingland

• Posted an Invite on Facebook and LinkedIn.

What I posted:

Do you want to be part of the team? I’m getting ready to launch my new book, and am putting together a launch team. Do you want to be on my book launch team, and get a free PDF copy for review? (In return I ask that you submit an honest review of the book on Amazon by 5/3–It’s an easy read!). Please MESSAGE ME if you want to be on the team!

Follow up on Actions #1 and #2

For the people who responded, this is the message I sent out with review copies:

[name] Thanks so much for being on my book launch team! I appreciate your investment in my success. Now, more than ever before, we are all pulling together.

Attached is a PDF review copy of my book. Please take a look at it and submit an honest (and I hope, favorable) review on Amazon by May 3 (I’m officially launching on May 5).

In your review, if you want to refer to me, please use “the author” or “Diane Windingland” and not just “Diane.”

You can leave a review at the book’s Amazon listing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087FF4YP3 

Thanks so much!

•  Requested Editorial Reviews from about 5 people.

Results for action #1, Launch Team:  Nearly 60 agreed to be on my launch team, mostly from my Newsletter list. Only one of 5 people who agreed to write editorial reviews did so. By May 7, the book had 30 customer reviews (almost all from the review copies I sent out). The Launch Team reviewers had well-written reviews. I was impressed! I had a few follow up emails for the launch team, one a week before the launch, one the day before, and one the week after (I had entered each team member’s name and email address into an Excel spreadsheet so that I could upload the list to Mailchimp). The Launch Team idea was a clear winner!

#2 Pay for Promotion Effort.

These are the sites I paid for promotion with:

Amazon Sponsored Ads (max was $24, but I only spent $2.59 as I only won a few bids)

BookBubs, $69 for 2 different kinds of ads, May 5-8 Ads

BuckBooks (need 10 reviews), $29, May 6 Ad

BKnights (Fiverr), $7, May 6 Ad

Booksends (need 5 reviews), $40, May 5 Ad

Bargain Booksy, $25, May 7 Ad

Facebook, $15, May 6-8 Ad (got 15 link clicks)

Total spent on paid promotion: $188

Results from Ads: Probably not great. It is hard to tease out results from most ads, aside from Amazon Ads. For Amazon, the $2.59 I spent resulted in no sales. For Book Buds, the $69 I spent resulted in only 17 clicks, and probably fewer sales. And for the Facebook Ads, the $15 resulted in 15 clicks. My ROI for paid promotion was probably not very good, but I may try Amazon ads again, tweaking based on results.

Total spent: publishing ($1150) + education ($27) + paid promotion $188 = $1365

#3 Post on Social Media Effort.

1. I created a video summary of the book, which I posted on social media, and on the Amazon sale page. Link to Video
2. Postings on my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts
3. Unplanned bonus: a podcast interview from a pre-launch announcement. Link to Podcast interview.

Results for Action 3: a few shares and a few people telling me they bought my book. I didn’t spend any money, and I spent very little time (as most of the postings, except those on my personal Facebook page, were scheduled using my Hootsuite post planner). Definitely worth the effort.

Overall Results from the Book Launch

Book Sales = 114 ebooks

#1 New Release in one category

High Ranking in 3 Categories

The overall experience was very positive. One important contributing factor to the experience being positive was that the timeline from deciding to write the book to completing the launch was not even 6 months. It also helped that I had already written much of the content in my blog. And, that I had an established list for asking for people to be on my launch team.

You probably have at least one book inside you. If I can do it, so can you!