We can't deny the fact that we all have our failure stories in life and the same goes when it comes to being an author. Let me tell you some of my self-publishing failure stories that will give you an idea of how to succeed at self-publishing.
Today's topic has three points and you're going to want to stick around for the third point. Because it is a secret as to the one thing that these failure stories have in common and the thing you're going to do to overcome it.
So let's get into it. Today's topic is self-publishing failure stories. This is something that many self-publishers wonder a little bit about.
You're an author and you've written your very first book. But then you put it onto the market or you started to put it onto the market and you hear all of these failure stories of people who have attempted to do what you are trying to do right now.
But failed to succeed at actually getting it onto the market or getting it to sell and those are the two biggest that are of high concern. Now, you may have heard a lot of success stories too. Both of these can have damaging effects on you.
But the failure stories are especially important to pay attention to. That is what we're going to hit in today's article. But before we get into the answers, check out my absolutely free Self-Publishing Checklist.
It will help you make sure that you are not skipping any of the important steps when it comes to self-publishing. So let's get into it. I'll start with my failure story.
And the thing is I published several books on several different genres. That was where I got started with self-publishing. I started with KDP and decided on getting the books onto the market but what's the problem?
I didn't go that well and hold it a second but I did take the books. I put them on a free promo through Kindle Direct Publishing so that people could get the books for free. I posted them on Facebook groups and Twitter.
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I even hired people on Fiverr to do additional promotions for me. And I started to see a trickle of sales, very very few sales were coming in and I was thinking this is not working. I had no ads, I asked my friends and families to do reviews.
Many had been taken down because they are somehow connected or whatever the case would be. And so no real reviews, no plan for it either. No targeting of one genre or spread out over some things.
I was still excited to see some sales but really not enough to make it long-term. So the thing that helps me is that maybe I should do some foreign exchange. Maybe I could exchange Mexican pesos or something else to see if maybe a different internet business would be right for me.
Because I realized I had failed at this attempt and that I wasn't going to be able to pick it up. Since I just do not have the right strategies or something I was doing wasn't right. Then I met some other people who have succeeded at self-publishing.
This turned everything around because of the success stories. Listening to the people who had succeeded share their secrets with you. That is the key to winning at the self-publishing game or any game in general.
Take It Easy
The self-publishing game is what we're focused on. So I started incorporating the strategies and the tactics that they've mentioned. Then got in touch with even more people reading books, taking courses, and all sorts of stuff to figure out how can I crack this code because I was very hungry to do it.
So that was the thing that worked for me. But I was at the point where I was like, okay I think I'm done. Maybe I should try to move on to a different business I've heard like selling, drop shipping from Amazon was a good one, and a couple of other available options.
Previously, I've done many things on eBay but the Kindle books were the ones that I want to succeed. And it wasn't until I heard those strategies. Then I was able to start succeeding at Kindle Publishing.
Now, self-publishing failure stories? Let's get into the three points for today. The first one is there are a lot of failures, don't be fooled.
The number of failures is so unbelievably massive on the self-publishing front. It's unbelievable and there's a couple of reasons for these failures. The first thing is many people just can't follow the best strategies.
There's an awful lot of talking about what they want to accomplish. You may be even have written your first book but then just nothing, you were not able to move to the next step. That's something that I spend a lot of time focusing on.
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If you haven't already read my blogs and listened to my videos previously, this is one of the key mindset topics you need to get straight. If you're going to succeed at self-publishing, it's that do not stop do not get stuck on one single point.
Don't talk about all of the thousands of things you want to accomplish. Like millions of sales and those sort of things. We simply do want one thing at a time and we keep it easy.
Simple and easy is what we're trying to go for here with self-publishing. This is something that you can exactly accomplish if you put your mind to it. That's what I'm trying to help you do, give you a little bit of verbal motivation here on this one.
So let's move on to the second point for today. It's that expecting to make tens of thousands of dollars in just a few months. Now there are a few people who manage to do this but those people are few and far between.
Some people lie about what they get and how well they do. But these are things that haven't been done, I've seen it documented. So there is a possibility but don't say your expectations.
Most people expect way too much when it comes to the short term. But when it comes to the long term, they expect way too little. We're just sticking to the game, long enough will result in the sales that you're looking for.
Focus On One Niche
But you've really got to put it down and stay focused. Now we're going to move on to the third point, the secret point of the day. This is what most people, all of our failure stories that come out.
This is the one thing they have in common and it is that they just don't stick to the one game. So the number two thing they don't do is they don't pump out books. The majority of people making a hundred thousand dollars or more a year on Amazon have at least 40 books.
That gives you an idea of something you might want to shoot for and each book you put out gets better than the previous one. Stick within the same genre, do not hop around as I did. It would do a lot more successfully and improve the quality of your books as you go.
Check out this related article: How To Write A Book?
High-quality books sell a lot more copies than low-quality and you might be wondering why? The answer is the reviews. If you're getting a lot of one-star reviews, your book is not going to sell.
Amazon is not going to push it, you're not going to make sales. But if you're in the right niche that's optimized on that side, your book is a high-quality book for which your very first one can't be.
They won't be high-quality so it's going to take practice to get better and better at the skill like anything else. Then, we get it in a maximum number of formats, like audiobooks, paperbacks, Kindle, eBooks, Smashwords, and EPUB books.
All of these different options available to us, all of these formats we're distributing across multiple websites. We are everywhere that can be found with ads and optimized books. We're going to see huge wins over a long time or over the long run.
The reason why this is so important for you is to remember you don't want to be one of the failure stories. But in reality, everybody has failure stories until you have succeeded at the exact thing that you are trying to do.
You don't want to get demotivated by the fact you put your first book out to see the sales you want to see. In fact, I wouldn't suggest you expect anything. Your first book is just to get it out and become familiar with the process.
We can optimize the book later and we continue to write more books. This is how the scheme goes, we're running ads against it, we're optimizing, and we're getting more clever with each round. These are just a couple of the things that the people who have failure stories do.
They just give up too early and they probably not following the best strategies. So don't try to be original if some things working for people. Just copy what they're doing and you will succeed at the self-publishing game, I can guarantee that.
Do you have any self-publishing failure stories to tell? Have you experienced failure in self-publishing? If you have, write the word "Yes" below in the comments. And if you've never experienced failure, everything's done amazingly in your entire time, then write the word "No" below in the comments.
That will help me know where you are coming from. And that will help me with future articles and videos. Check out my other articles and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.