Do you remember when you were a kid in the playground and 2 kids started to fight everyone gathered around chanting Fight Fight Fight and then the teachers came and broke it up…. well here is the digital version, except I am not sure If i am one of the fighters or the teacher.
A good friend of mine Paul Nichols who is also a member of WordPress Goldmine wrote a blog post yesterday about how people who try to make money with kindle are basically making a mistake.
It’s an interesting article and does make some valid points however I do think that paul may have missed the “Big Picture”
You’ll find a link to Pauls post at the end of the article but here are the main points I took from it
Let me tell you why doing this is a complete waste of your time and effort.
When it comes to creating a business online you need to be spending your time wisely and by that I mean spending your time on things which are actually helping to (build your business).
Things like:
- Creating more leads into your business
- Improving conversion rates
- Improving opt in rates
- Writing new follow up emails for your leads and customers.
- Creating new products
- Creating new content for your blog
- Creating new content for your subscribers
- Finding new affiliates
On that point he is correct and I agree with him that is a great way to build your business. However what he missed there is that this is exactly what people who publish books are doing or at least should be doing.
There are a number of emails that I open as soon as they come in and those are ones from the authors whose books i read, every book should have a link to the authors website and on that site they should have a newsletter. I always without fail sign up if I’ve liked the book i’ve read as i want to know when the next book is coming so I can buy it.
A new Kindle book is nothing more than a new product, a good book and a good author will achieve everything that he’s listed above except that instead of getting new affiliates you’ll be getting new readers via word of mouth.
One of the Authors I follow is Julian Stockwin you can see him home page below:
If you look at it you’ll see a newsletter signup box, details of the latest book, details of upcoming book, a shop where you can buy related merchandise and a the option to sign up for a membership which will cost $10. All of which is linked to in every book.
That, my friends, is marketing
Now…. let’s take a look at what you are doing when using kindle
- You are spending time trying to create an income on a platform which you have absolutely no control over what so ever.
- It does not matter which way you spin it, look at it, or say it, when you upload books to kindle you are running a massive risk and using a very risky and un-stable business model.
- Just think for a moment if you had lots of books on kindle which were ranking high and bringing you in some money each day and then suddenly…Boom, Amazon decide to disable your account.
How would you feel?
You would feel sick right after putting in all that hard work?
And it does happen believe me.
Normally I would agree with Paul on the points he makes above, I would never tell people to build a business on something they can’t control. However Even if Amazon were to ban someone tomorrow they still have a physical product that they can use elsewhere. The book can be added to the main amazon store via Createspace. It can be added to any number of alternative digital platforms including apple books.
It’s not like Squidoo or Hubpages closing down a site as you still have the product available and you will have built up followers if you have done it correctly.
The final main reason I disagree with Paul is that Amazon have a vested interested in getting as much content as possible onto kindle.
“For every 100 print books sold through the site, Amazon said it sold 114 titles for its Kindle e-reader device.”
The quote above is from a recent BBC article about Kindle sales in the Uk I have no doubt that it’s probably a higher figure in the US.
Kindle isn’t just a flash in the pan it is a very relevant business model and another way for Marketers to either get their message out or to make money it’s here to stay and it will only get better.
So to conclude I disagree with paul on a number of points, I think that Kindle marketing if done correctly is a potential goldmine and I know several people In WordPress Goldmine who are making more money with Kindle than they have with any other method.
Go and have a look at Pauls article then let me know what you think, Feel free to stand around chanting Fight! Fight! Fight! (BTW if you comment on both posts you’ll get 2 links as we both use comment luv :) )
Pauls original Article is At:
Are you Trying to make Money with Kindle- Stop Following The Herd
Right off to calm down the members of the Kindle section at WordPresss Goldmine