Hey all!
This is a quick tale of the last week of my life which I used to take an idea from my head, create a book out of it, and publish it on the Kindle Store in one week. Before we dive into the fun stuff in this post, I just want to clarify that I didn't invent this process. Rather it's something I pieced together with the help of some quick googling, and a good few posts from the intelligent people of this forum. I achieved a big goal last night, and I have you all to thank for it.
On February 7th, I decided that I wanted to create something, predominantly, to help my girlfriend. There were a great number of ways that an improved, healthy, driven mindset could benefit her on the regular basis, and I needed some vehicle by which I could help her attain that. I have spent the last six years of my life dedicated to furthering myself into a strong headspace, and thanks to the likes of men like our own MJ, I made it happen for myself. Now - I wanted to replicate that success in her.
She's not one for my lecturing (it's gotten me in trouble before!) However, she loves to read so I thought - why not a book?
February 7th, I opened a new account and created my first document with MindMup, a freemium mind mapping software that can be integrated with Google Drive. I set a timer for two minutes, and I created the outline of what the contents of the book would be - just thinking off the top of my head. This was the first step of the process, and reminded me of a number of tools that I would actually later include in the book itself.
After I created the outline, I thought that my girlfriend may not be the only one to benefit from this book. After a bit of digging, I found this post from @alpha1987 which detailed the process of finding a niche on Amazon. I was very surprised to find that the phrase "Organize Yourself" headed less that 150 results on the Kindle Store! With this in mind I scribbled down the clunky working title of "Maestro: Organize Yourself Like A Champion" and gave myself a deadline. I knew of Parkinson's Law, and I knew that it would take me the exact amount of time I gave myself to complete this book. With that in mind, I set my deadline for the next week. I would be finished on Valentine's Day.
Thus began the writing process. Though very early on, I started to get concerned that I wasn't moving fast enough! My typing speed is so slow, and it's very easy for me to lose my train of thought whilst writing. Cue the thought process: there must be a better way! And sure enough, there is.
I pulled out my phone and opened up the Voice Memos app. I noticed that I had performed better at articulating my thoughts if I was speaking, rather than typing. So I simply spoke the book out into my phone, and deleted a few apps to hold the few hours of audio it would turn out to be. Armed with my outline, I went bubble by bubble by bubble simply giving my two cents on each little topic that I had planned out - every now and then adding another sub-chapter that I had forgotten about earlier!
Then, post-recording, I had to turn that audio into words. What I had was an audiobook with bad recording quality. What I wanted, was an ebook. Initially I thought of outsourcing the transcription somewhere else, or simply biting and paying for the transcription, then I remembered that's right - I'm a broke college student! If I could've paid for a VA to transcribe my book, I would've bought groceries instead. Then, when there's a will there's a way, someone had turned my attention to VoiceBase - an enterprise transcription software typically used to keep text records of sales calls. And most importantly - they let me host 50 hours of audio for free just for signing up! That's a LOT of book I can convert!
So I went and popped in my audio. The process was quicker than I had expected it to be, with the full transcription being available within the hour. Though what I was given, of course, was a big wall of dry and shapeless text. I spent the better part of the next two days editing. Picking the font I wanted, setting up a table of contents, a dedications page, all of that.
Then, finally, I was ready to publish! Luckily, I had had unexplored ambitions of writing an ebook last year, and began the process of having Amazon verify my tax information. If you're looking at day one - go ahead and set up your Kindle Direct Publishing (kdp) account first. I set my niches, uploaded my manuscript, gave some keywords and a brief description of the book, and - oh yeah, I need a cover!
I simply went to Google and started searching for cover designs of some of my favorite books. Quickly popping one into Photoshop, I did enough rudimentary editing to make it my own and display my title, and uploaded it into the Maestro section of my KDP account.
Then, Amazon took about 60 seconds to sync everything and display to me a preview of what my book would look like - (I forgot to mention - I did all of the editing in Google Drive. Upon completion, simply title your document appropriately and save it as a .docx file, Amazon will convert it to the appropriate filetype for you.) Then I was on to pricing!
Amazon has two tiers for pricing your ebook: If you wish to earn a 75% commission on sales for your book, it must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99
Any price outside of that range, and you will default back to a 35% commission standpoint.
I chose the 35% commission, and am currently selling my book on the Kindle Store for $0.99 This in hopes that it will lead more people to buy early on, and leave some good reviews. After a month or two, I'm going to raise the price up to $3.99 and take the 75% option.
Now - I'm off to make my book known! My friends are starting to pick it up - often without me having to coerce them to do so. It really is a great feeling that I hope you get to experience for yourself.
If you have any questions, comments, or hate mail, drop it here!
This is a quick tale of the last week of my life which I used to take an idea from my head, create a book out of it, and publish it on the Kindle Store in one week. Before we dive into the fun stuff in this post, I just want to clarify that I didn't invent this process. Rather it's something I pieced together with the help of some quick googling, and a good few posts from the intelligent people of this forum. I achieved a big goal last night, and I have you all to thank for it.
On February 7th, I decided that I wanted to create something, predominantly, to help my girlfriend. There were a great number of ways that an improved, healthy, driven mindset could benefit her on the regular basis, and I needed some vehicle by which I could help her attain that. I have spent the last six years of my life dedicated to furthering myself into a strong headspace, and thanks to the likes of men like our own MJ, I made it happen for myself. Now - I wanted to replicate that success in her.
She's not one for my lecturing (it's gotten me in trouble before!) However, she loves to read so I thought - why not a book?
February 7th, I opened a new account and created my first document with MindMup, a freemium mind mapping software that can be integrated with Google Drive. I set a timer for two minutes, and I created the outline of what the contents of the book would be - just thinking off the top of my head. This was the first step of the process, and reminded me of a number of tools that I would actually later include in the book itself.
After I created the outline, I thought that my girlfriend may not be the only one to benefit from this book. After a bit of digging, I found this post from @alpha1987 which detailed the process of finding a niche on Amazon. I was very surprised to find that the phrase "Organize Yourself" headed less that 150 results on the Kindle Store! With this in mind I scribbled down the clunky working title of "Maestro: Organize Yourself Like A Champion" and gave myself a deadline. I knew of Parkinson's Law, and I knew that it would take me the exact amount of time I gave myself to complete this book. With that in mind, I set my deadline for the next week. I would be finished on Valentine's Day.
Thus began the writing process. Though very early on, I started to get concerned that I wasn't moving fast enough! My typing speed is so slow, and it's very easy for me to lose my train of thought whilst writing. Cue the thought process: there must be a better way! And sure enough, there is.
I pulled out my phone and opened up the Voice Memos app. I noticed that I had performed better at articulating my thoughts if I was speaking, rather than typing. So I simply spoke the book out into my phone, and deleted a few apps to hold the few hours of audio it would turn out to be. Armed with my outline, I went bubble by bubble by bubble simply giving my two cents on each little topic that I had planned out - every now and then adding another sub-chapter that I had forgotten about earlier!
Then, post-recording, I had to turn that audio into words. What I had was an audiobook with bad recording quality. What I wanted, was an ebook. Initially I thought of outsourcing the transcription somewhere else, or simply biting and paying for the transcription, then I remembered that's right - I'm a broke college student! If I could've paid for a VA to transcribe my book, I would've bought groceries instead. Then, when there's a will there's a way, someone had turned my attention to VoiceBase - an enterprise transcription software typically used to keep text records of sales calls. And most importantly - they let me host 50 hours of audio for free just for signing up! That's a LOT of book I can convert!
So I went and popped in my audio. The process was quicker than I had expected it to be, with the full transcription being available within the hour. Though what I was given, of course, was a big wall of dry and shapeless text. I spent the better part of the next two days editing. Picking the font I wanted, setting up a table of contents, a dedications page, all of that.
Then, finally, I was ready to publish! Luckily, I had had unexplored ambitions of writing an ebook last year, and began the process of having Amazon verify my tax information. If you're looking at day one - go ahead and set up your Kindle Direct Publishing (kdp) account first. I set my niches, uploaded my manuscript, gave some keywords and a brief description of the book, and - oh yeah, I need a cover!
I simply went to Google and started searching for cover designs of some of my favorite books. Quickly popping one into Photoshop, I did enough rudimentary editing to make it my own and display my title, and uploaded it into the Maestro section of my KDP account.
Then, Amazon took about 60 seconds to sync everything and display to me a preview of what my book would look like - (I forgot to mention - I did all of the editing in Google Drive. Upon completion, simply title your document appropriately and save it as a .docx file, Amazon will convert it to the appropriate filetype for you.) Then I was on to pricing!
Amazon has two tiers for pricing your ebook: If you wish to earn a 75% commission on sales for your book, it must be priced between $2.99 and $9.99
Any price outside of that range, and you will default back to a 35% commission standpoint.
I chose the 35% commission, and am currently selling my book on the Kindle Store for $0.99 This in hopes that it will lead more people to buy early on, and leave some good reviews. After a month or two, I'm going to raise the price up to $3.99 and take the 75% option.
Now - I'm off to make my book known! My friends are starting to pick it up - often without me having to coerce them to do so. It really is a great feeling that I hope you get to experience for yourself.
If you have any questions, comments, or hate mail, drop it here!
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