Hi everyone. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. 
I joined here yesterday but was first introduced to the MFL in December of 2011. I am A LOT older than most here (42) and certainly not a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, until the past several months I have never earned enough from any business I have started to support myself completely from that business. I have always worked for others in one fashion or another until recently. But, as of this month, I have earned more in a single month than I ever did working for myself (obviously) or anyone else. This has been an absolutley incredible acheivement for me which took forever to happen but now that it has, I feel 20 years younger.
So I'm not going to waste alot of time talking about all the things I've tried to become successful over the years. It's just not important to me anymore. Pretty much I used to think that sucked at everything I ever did, but then I read MFL and I realized it was the choices I was making that was the culprit.
Now I'd like to say that I read MFL and wham, I started on my fastlane within 24 hours but that would not be true. I still struggled. Mostly because I was mired in several things which produced modest results. But then in mid-2012 I finally burned all those bridges, focused on one thing and it all turned around for me. You see, it was around that time that I a friend of mine (who is not a serial entrepreneur but a real writer) told me about some success he was having writing e-books for platforms like Kindle, Nook and the like.
So, I researched it a bit and to make a long story short, one thing led to another and this month, it looks like I'll clear somewhere around $15,000 for my fiction titles.
Of course I realize that this road violates a couple of fastlane principles - control (ultimately Amazon and the rest are in control of much of what happens) and entry (anyone could write an e-book). Otherwise, it's been scalable as hell, definitely separates my time from my money and, the way I write, is without question an A-Z process.
In other words, I've been able to systematize much of what I do. I think that was the biggest surprise of all to me. But, when you really learn about what the big earners do, it's all systems. Very, very, very few successful fiction writers do it for "passion" and in fact write in a formulaic manner and cater to what the genre wants to read. Honestly, I truly believe that almost anyone can do this if they work this as a system.
Not being a writer myself (thank God for Word's spell and grammar checker!), I relied heavily on my ability to do market research and understand the Amazon ecosystem throughly (in terms of keywords). In my mind, this is definitely what has made me successful in this so far. Aside from that, I am an expert in creating catchy titles, coming up with eye grabbing covers, writing enticing descriptions and hooking folks when they "Look Inside" at the first 10-12% of my books. Of course, I do the very best job I can as a writer but I'm no Shakespeare. Luckily, it turns out that it doesn't matter at all.
My formula is simple.
Step 1 - Look at what is selling.
Step 2 - Come up with my own spin/version of it and sell it.
That said, I don't want to mislead anyone that is reading this... Behind the scenes, within that simplicity are mutiple layers of complexity that represent my system. Nothing I do is accidental or "inspired". I don't write for inspiration or passion.
I write for people and markets. That's it.
Over the long run, I think that this will be my true fastlane. That is, exposing my systems approach to others. The true beauty of it is is that there is no saturation possible. There are thousands of e-book categories on Amazon and hundreds of thousands of possible methods for serving those markets. In my mind, my system is like a Swiss Army knife that can be used in whole or part to achieve goals.
In fact, I hired a programmer last November to help me automate much of the research I do on the biggest platform of them all - Amazon. It is still a long way from being finished but even what I've come up with so far has quintupled my income. I am pretty confident that if it works for me, it will work for others. Time will tell of course - I am still very early in all stages here.
In the meantime, I am writing and building up my credibility as a "non-writing/author" expert. I believe that if I am able to demonstrate competence at a high level using my approach that it will make my job of implementing my fastlane easier down the line. I haven't seen alot of folks on here self pubbing but I just wanted to put this out there for anyone lurking and thinking about giving it a shot.
A word of warning if you do decide to try... Understand that it will not happen overnight.
It took me 227 days or, more precisely, 732 hours, 38 minutes and 44 seconds in working time to get there. How do I know? I use a time tracking program called Toggl to categorize and track every single minute I spend in my business. Again, part of my system since time is my most precious asset.
Beyond the time, it took me 34 titles (ranging from 8,000 - 20,000 words each) to break the $10,000 earned in a single month threshold. You see, once I ironed out what worked (and didn't) in my market, it all turned around - my last three titles have been awesome sellers.
I guess what I'm saying is that if you decide to try it you probably won't get a bestseller but everything sells so just keep at it. In fact, if I can keep doing what I've been doing, I've got a roadmap to $20,000 and even $100,000 per month mapped out.
I figure that even if I'm half wrong, that's still $50,000 per month!
Will I get there? I have no idea. It's a rough and tumble volatile, cutthroat business with Amazon constantly mucking around. But, what business doesn't have an equal number of threats? All I can do is keep it at and see what happens.
Anyway, sorry again for the lengthy post everyone. I hope that I am able to add some value here over time.
Thanks alot MJ for the inspiration - it has changed my life!
I joined here yesterday but was first introduced to the MFL in December of 2011. I am A LOT older than most here (42) and certainly not a millionaire by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, until the past several months I have never earned enough from any business I have started to support myself completely from that business. I have always worked for others in one fashion or another until recently. But, as of this month, I have earned more in a single month than I ever did working for myself (obviously) or anyone else. This has been an absolutley incredible acheivement for me which took forever to happen but now that it has, I feel 20 years younger.
So I'm not going to waste alot of time talking about all the things I've tried to become successful over the years. It's just not important to me anymore. Pretty much I used to think that sucked at everything I ever did, but then I read MFL and I realized it was the choices I was making that was the culprit.
Now I'd like to say that I read MFL and wham, I started on my fastlane within 24 hours but that would not be true. I still struggled. Mostly because I was mired in several things which produced modest results. But then in mid-2012 I finally burned all those bridges, focused on one thing and it all turned around for me. You see, it was around that time that I a friend of mine (who is not a serial entrepreneur but a real writer) told me about some success he was having writing e-books for platforms like Kindle, Nook and the like.
So, I researched it a bit and to make a long story short, one thing led to another and this month, it looks like I'll clear somewhere around $15,000 for my fiction titles.
Of course I realize that this road violates a couple of fastlane principles - control (ultimately Amazon and the rest are in control of much of what happens) and entry (anyone could write an e-book). Otherwise, it's been scalable as hell, definitely separates my time from my money and, the way I write, is without question an A-Z process.
In other words, I've been able to systematize much of what I do. I think that was the biggest surprise of all to me. But, when you really learn about what the big earners do, it's all systems. Very, very, very few successful fiction writers do it for "passion" and in fact write in a formulaic manner and cater to what the genre wants to read. Honestly, I truly believe that almost anyone can do this if they work this as a system.
Not being a writer myself (thank God for Word's spell and grammar checker!), I relied heavily on my ability to do market research and understand the Amazon ecosystem throughly (in terms of keywords). In my mind, this is definitely what has made me successful in this so far. Aside from that, I am an expert in creating catchy titles, coming up with eye grabbing covers, writing enticing descriptions and hooking folks when they "Look Inside" at the first 10-12% of my books. Of course, I do the very best job I can as a writer but I'm no Shakespeare. Luckily, it turns out that it doesn't matter at all.
My formula is simple.
Step 1 - Look at what is selling.
Step 2 - Come up with my own spin/version of it and sell it.
That said, I don't want to mislead anyone that is reading this... Behind the scenes, within that simplicity are mutiple layers of complexity that represent my system. Nothing I do is accidental or "inspired". I don't write for inspiration or passion.
I write for people and markets. That's it.
Over the long run, I think that this will be my true fastlane. That is, exposing my systems approach to others. The true beauty of it is is that there is no saturation possible. There are thousands of e-book categories on Amazon and hundreds of thousands of possible methods for serving those markets. In my mind, my system is like a Swiss Army knife that can be used in whole or part to achieve goals.
In fact, I hired a programmer last November to help me automate much of the research I do on the biggest platform of them all - Amazon. It is still a long way from being finished but even what I've come up with so far has quintupled my income. I am pretty confident that if it works for me, it will work for others. Time will tell of course - I am still very early in all stages here.
In the meantime, I am writing and building up my credibility as a "non-writing/author" expert. I believe that if I am able to demonstrate competence at a high level using my approach that it will make my job of implementing my fastlane easier down the line. I haven't seen alot of folks on here self pubbing but I just wanted to put this out there for anyone lurking and thinking about giving it a shot.
A word of warning if you do decide to try... Understand that it will not happen overnight.
It took me 227 days or, more precisely, 732 hours, 38 minutes and 44 seconds in working time to get there. How do I know? I use a time tracking program called Toggl to categorize and track every single minute I spend in my business. Again, part of my system since time is my most precious asset.
Beyond the time, it took me 34 titles (ranging from 8,000 - 20,000 words each) to break the $10,000 earned in a single month threshold. You see, once I ironed out what worked (and didn't) in my market, it all turned around - my last three titles have been awesome sellers.
I guess what I'm saying is that if you decide to try it you probably won't get a bestseller but everything sells so just keep at it. In fact, if I can keep doing what I've been doing, I've got a roadmap to $20,000 and even $100,000 per month mapped out.
I figure that even if I'm half wrong, that's still $50,000 per month!
Will I get there? I have no idea. It's a rough and tumble volatile, cutthroat business with Amazon constantly mucking around. But, what business doesn't have an equal number of threats? All I can do is keep it at and see what happens.
Anyway, sorry again for the lengthy post everyone. I hope that I am able to add some value here over time.
Thanks alot MJ for the inspiration - it has changed my life!
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