Why Building An Email List = S**T & Scaling UP Your Kindle Publishing Business (Secret TIPS)

Last Updated on July 21, 2022 by Jordan Alexo

One of my subscribers recently sent a few great questions about Kindle publishing. I guess many new publishers may have similar concerns or questions. I’d my best to reply…

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Hey Jordan,

Thank you for this realistic email, I have learned a lot from your YouTube channel and also from Luca’s Channel. Among all self
publishing YouTuber’s your channel seems legit. Everyone is talking about email list- do FB ads to build it. Swaps might get you in
trouble…. I really do not know who to listen and trust. I am having difficulties to scale up faster I started back in July 18,
made $30 first month and I currently only making close to $800-850 (kindle+paperback) per month with 4 books. I wanted to ask if it is possible for you to make video about scaling up publishing business in effective way. Thanks,

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Should you use Facebook ads

Some “guru” publishers often tell newbies to immediately start building an email listing for Kindle publishing. As a way to obtain subscribers who will purchase their books and leave reviews. Additionally to use Facebook ads as their main source of traffic. Is that bad advice? Terrible!

A few years ago I tried building an email listing using Facebook ads. I admit, I didn’t know what the hell I was doing so guess what? I lost money and also discovered…

If you have:

• An effective opt-in page
• Enticing sequence of emails
• Promote expensive products
• Skilled at using Facebook ads

Then… you will lose money. But… not slowly rather quickly!

See Facebook ads are one of the most expensive ones online. So it’s not something you should fool around!

Besides, Kindle books are typically priced at $2.99 in which you only make $2.00 profit. Your paperbacks probably make twice as much money. But still, books are cheap!

Building an email listing with Facebook ads to promote your books isn’t smart! Considering, you will probably pay $0.50 to $3.00 per ad click. Perhaps even more nowadays. I am not sure how much they are costing besides this depends in the niche. Some niches are more competitive and therefore, more expensive to advertise.

Furthermore, most people will go to your opt-in page and not subscribe. You just need one to three bad clicks and you’re already losing money. People are either daydreaming or I don’t know but you certainly won’t recover you money by selling ($2 t0 $7) books. Instead, you need to promote more expensive products ranging from $100 or more.

Why building an email listing is stupid?

If you aren’t doing at least $1000/monthly then you shouldn’t be worried about anything else. Why? Because it will over complicate everything!

The fact is building an email listing isn’t easy. It requires a whole new set of skills. Why bother learning them when you aren’t even able to publish profitable books in Amazon? See Kindle publishing is first and foremost a book business.

Email marketing, affiliate marketing or whatever shouldn’t initially be part of the equation. Instead, your main concern should only be one… building a profitable book business.

Your shouldn’t be asking yourself, “How can I build an effective email listing?”  but rather, “How can I publish profitable books in Amazon?”

If you want to build an email list then do it once you are making at least $1000/monthly in Kindle Direct Publishing. Even then… don’t use Facebook ads. You’ve been warned!

Add links to your opt-in page inside of your books. This way your readers will click them and then subscribe to your email newsletter.

Will You Get banned For doing Review Swapping?

Initially, the easiest way to get reviews for your books is by doing review swapping. Don’t know what this is? Click here to read my other post about review swapping.

Often new publishers are worried about getting banned. However, I don’t know any publisher who ever got banned for doing review swapping. As long as they are doing things the right way then it’s unlikely. Of course, if you do these reviews by using your Amazon account then… Yeah, you might get banned!

I have difficulties choosing profitable niches

Ever heard…

If it was easy everyone would do it!

Finding profitable keywords is time consuming. I still waste a week or two just searching for profitable keywords. But once I have a good selection of keywords everything else becomes easy. I may spend months publishing books inside these keywords without doing further keyword research.

I don’t consider Kindle publishing exactly a passive income stream. I login daily into my account to see the sales and manage my advertisement campaigns. This only takes about 10 to 15 minutes and in return, I make +$5000/month… Hmm… let me think! I guess it’s worth it! 😉

Take everything with a grain of salt

Nearly every single publisher follows a similar pattern. Or you could call it the basics. You can learn the basics by taking a course like, “Self Publishing Blueprint“.

However after learning the basics, you should take everything else with a grain of salt. For instance…

When I was a newbie one publisher once told me to avoid the diet niche. As this niche was extremely competitive and hard to infiltrate.  So guess what… I avoid this niche like it was the plague for several months until one day I decided, “Screw this! Let’s go for it!”

It has been one of the most profitable niches ever since. My advice is to master the basics and then test things out. See what works and what doesn’t through your experience. Everyone and their mom and dog has their opinion. But that doesn’t mean they are always %100 right.

How to have books selling for months

The first books I published only sold well during a month or two. Afterward, they would slowly stop selling. However, I had one book that kept selling well for five or more months and I noticed a pattern. This book…

• Provided different content compared to my competition. It wasn’t another generic book like, “Yoga for beginners”. You  already have hundreds of similar books out there and nobody will care about another one.
• Provided more detailed information. Often content I saw my competitors didn’t have in their books.

If you want to have books selling for months then you need to publish distinguishable books. In other words, books that provide different content or more detail information than your competitors. Otherwise, your books will inevitable stop selling in a short period of time.

How to scale up under a tight budget?

If you are in a tight budget then every single book should count like your life depended on it. Okay, it’s not so dramatic but you should do your best. Just spend more time analyzing your competitors. Seeing what your customers want and don’t like. Trying to provide books with a different angle inside your niche, etc.

In fact, you should always do this independently of your budget.

But of course when you don’t have much money then spending $300 hurts more. Regardless, it’s always hard for you to scale up your business when you have few money to invest. Even when you hit a home run you may still need to wait months until you have money to reinvest.

So obviously it will take longer for you to build a profitable business compared to someone with a larger budget.

I recommend for you to start with at least $2000. You can use this money to get this course, “Self publishing blueprint“. This course will provide the exact strategies for you to become a successful publisher. Afterward, you can use the rest of the money to publish books.

But if you have less money then don’t worry. Just start!

I began with only $400 and it took me longer until I saw some decent results. Nevertheless, I got there!

Should you continuously use Amazon ads for older books?

Yes, you should constantly promote your older books with Amazon ads. Why wouldn’t you? Even if these books only sell with ads still they are making money. Of course, you always want to try to rank your books organically. So you may sell them without wasting money.

How should you start Kindle publishing?

I suggest for you to immediately publish two to three books in different niches. This way you can test several niches and see which one makes the most money for you. Besides, niches are different from keywords. Examples of niches:

• Weight loss
• Fitness
• Spirituality

Afterward, inside of each niche you have keywords. For instance with weight loss this could be: Paleo diet, Ketogenic, South Beach diet. Initially, don’t be worry about finding a niche where you can sell your books in all three formats. Including  KDP, paperback and audiobooks.

Often that isn’t the case with most niches. They either sell well in one or two formats but not in all three. Your main concern should be to make money. Let’s say, you are doing $2000 monthly mostly by selling paperbacks and KDP.

At that point, you can easily enter into another niche where you will sell more audiobooks, why? Because you got more money to invest.

Building A Brand…

In other words, publishing books inside of a specific niche with similar covers and the same author name. Why should you do this? Once you discover a profitable niche.

See the more books you publish under the same pen name the more influence it gains inside of Amazon. Afterward, your newest book will rank better inside their search engine. In return, this increases their visibility and probability of selling.

Last thoughts

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