Tag: amazon kindle

  • Self-Publishing School Review: The Pros, Cons, and 3 Things It Will Help You Do

    Self-Publishing School Review: The Pros, Cons, and 3 Things It Will Help You Do

    A Note To Our Readers: Here at The Write Life, our reviews are meant to be unbiased. In full transparency, we used to be part of the Self-Publishing School platform, a company dedicated to changing lives through books. That said, this review was written before that acquisition, and has only been updated in terms of pricing and deliverables. The author’s original opinions have not been changed. 

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    Product Name

    Self-Publishing School

    About the Founder of Self-Publishing School

    Chandler Bolt is an entrepreneur who has dabbled in running his own businesses since he was young. Since he released his first book, The Productive Person, his self-publishing success kicked off, culminating in the release of Published and the creation of his company, Self-Publishing School and selfpublishing.com.

    Cost for Self-Publishing School’s Programs

    Most products, which include 1:1 coaching, group coaching, done-for-you services, and online curriculum, retail for $8,000. Bundling products reduces the price. You can learn more about their products here.

    Who It’s For

    Self-Publishing School is for anyone who wants to write and publish their own books and learn how to launch a book to be an Amazon Kindle bestseller. The entry-level program has three writing streams, one for non-fiction writers, one for fiction writers, and one for children’s book writers. This works for business builders or career authors.

    What It Will Help You Accomplish

    This comprehensive program will take you through each step of self-publishing your book.

    First, it will teach you a replicable process for writing and publishing books.

    The program is broken up into three main phases so you can follow the entire process from start to finish: writing, book production, and launching. Rinse and repeat for as many books as you want to write.

    The team and curriculum will show you how to turn an idea into outline and then into a written book, right through to working with an editor, having your cover designed and converting your book to a Kindle-ready (and paperback) format. You’ll also learn how to build authority in your niche or connect with your readers.

    Second, it will help you build a network of fellow authors and supporters.

    The Self-Publishing School Mastermind Community is active and full of good vibes and encouragement. Many authors have claimed this is the best author community on the internet, and when you join, you have access to 2,500+ members with multiple opportunities to connect, network, and collaborate via Author Connects, Group Coaching Calls, and community events like Author Advantage Live. 

    Third, the team will help you navigate the toughest parts of book production by taking care of certain author services for you.

    This including cover design, formatting, and more. (You can see the full list of services here.) This will make the process easier on you and take a lot of the stress off your shoulders. 

    What’s Included in Self-Publishing School

    • Community: Inside Self-Publishing School, you’ll be connected with like-minded writers and develop your new built-in network of people who will support you every step of the way. While you might be alone in your writing, you won’t be alone in the self-publishing process
    • Coaching: One of the first things you’ll do when joining Self-Publishing School is get a personal coach. You also have access to group coaching calls multiple days each week for your specific program
    • Online Curriculum: You’ll have access to the online training which includes videos, transcripts, PDF checklists, templates, and more
    • Done-For-You Services: Their team will handle book production services for you, like cover design, formatting, and more
    • Weekly Community Calls: Chandler Bolt and other Self-Publishing School team members host a community call one day each week

    The Best Part about Self-Publishing School

    When you enroll at the top level, which I did, you’ll be assigned a coach, someone to chat with throughout the process and get direct feedback from about your book project. This includes a one-hour clarity call, multiple 30-minute coaching calls, and unlimited email support with the team.

    I was lucky enough to work with Chandler Bolt directly. He suggested ways to improve my book, helped refine my title and connect me with the right outsourcers for my project. While he doesn’t do 1:1 coaching any more, all of his coaches are highly trained and bestselling authors themselves, so you’ll be working with someone you can trust that knows what they’re doing.

    Within two months of joining Self-Publishing School, I was able to publish my book and I credit a lot of this to the fact I had direct access to someone who could answer my questions when needed.

    The other great part about Self-Publishing School is the community. But I’ve already told you enough about that.

    What Would Make It Even Better

    There are a lot of technical aspects involved in self-publishing a book and some of that is glossed over inside the curriculum, leaving each student to figure out those aspects. If you’re not technically minded, it can be quite overwhelming, particularly once you get to the publishing and marketing side of things. But they do have tech support calls for their customers and if you know how to Google to find your answers, then this challenge can easily be overcome.

    How Self-Publishing School Changed My Life

    When I joined Self-Publishing School in July 2014, I was a full-time freelance writer with a solid base of clients. I had only recently just started looking to diversify and felt that writing and publishing a book would be a nice segue to earning passive income.

    Fast forward two months into the program: I had written and launched my first book, No Gym Needed: Quick and Simple Workouts for Gals on the Go. It became a number-one bestseller on Amazon within three days of launching.

    After this success, I knew that I could scale and decided to release the next book two weeks later, which was the men’s version of the first title. That first book earned $800+ in royalties in the first month and now earns me over $1000+ per month (just one book!). Since July 2014, I have written and published 26 books and am now a full-time author and author coach.

    I “fired” my last full-time freelance client in early 2015 and haven’t looked back. I earn between $3,000 and $4,000 per month just from my books and have more than 30 books mapped out for the next few years.

    Our Recommendation

    Self-Publishing School is one of the most comprehensive programs available on how to write, publish, and launch a book to bestseller status on Amazon. I would recommend it to anyone looking to write a book.

    Be prepared to put in extra time to learn about the technical aspects of self-publishing and you’ll find the process goes a lot smoother.

    You can grab a free copy of Chandler’s book below.

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  • Into Kindle Publishing? Under New Payment Rules, You Should Write Longer Books

    Into Kindle Publishing? Under New Payment Rules, You Should Write Longer Books

    Authors who use Amazon’s KDP Select program, which includes the Kindle Lending Library and Kindle Unlimited, will be compensated in a new way as of July 1, 2015.

    Previously, ebook authors earned money each time a customer downloaded their book through Lending Library or Unlimited. KDP Select authors will now be paid based on how many pages readers view, instead of the previous system that paid based on “total qualified borrows.”

    What do these new changes mean for you?

    If you publish a 200-page book that’s read in its entirety 100 times during a given month, you will earn twice as much (from the KDP Select Global Fund) as an author whose 100-page book was read in its entirety 100 times during the same month. Only first read-throughs count; you don’t earn extra when people re-read your book.

    Of course, if your 200-page book was read halfway through 100 times, you would earn the same as the 100-page author whose book was read in its entirety 100 times that month.

    The new Amazon KDP Select system

    Amazon says the new system is a result of feedback it received from authors who requested changes to the old “pay per download” payment method, pointing out “great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read.” It’s similar to Spotify’s “pay per track” model, which the music streaming service uses to pay artists.

    What does this mean for authors?

    Some writers believe this new system will reduce the advantage that short book authors used to enjoy. Many authors use a strategy of publishing lots of short books, then rely on Amazon’s recommendation engine to suggest new titles to readers who have purchased their other work. But the new system also incentivizes writers to make sure their content is something people will read through to the end.

    Chris McMullen, author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers, writes on his blog that he believes the platform will provide all authors with more equal footing, saying, “What Amazon has really done is remove the advantage that some short books used to have.”

    With the old system, many authors worked to create a number of different titles in their series in order to increase their profit, as they were paid for every sale. The pay-per-download system, regardless of book length, led to some authors breaking down what could have easily been one regular-length novel into a series of short stories (which would each count as an individual download) to increase their profit. The new system will let these authors simply release one book (with the same number of pages as the combined series) and make the same profit.

    How does Amazon count pages?

    So what counts as a page under this new system?

    The company has instituted a standard page-counting measure to ensure that authors don’t game the system by placing five words on each page or using 20-point font. This new scale is called the Kindle Edition Normalized Page Count (KENPC) and standardizes each book for page count purposes by using a common font, line spacing, line height, etc.

    Readers can still customize their reading experience and adjust font size and other factors through their devices, but this measure helps standardize the page count for fairness. Images, illustrations, photographs and graphs will also count towards the total page count, though Amazon has not disclosed how many words each image will count for.

    If you’re an Amazon author, you can find Amazon’s KENPC calculation for your ebooks by looking at your Bookshelf, then clicking “Promote and Advertise.”

    But don’t count on people rapidly flipping through your book to boost your earnings. “Readers will also have to linger on a page long enough to read it before it’ll count for a royalty check,” The Verge warns.

    And what about super-slow readers? Those won’t hurt your total sales. If someone reads your book over several months, you’ll be paid for the pages they read each month.

    How do authors feel about these changes

    A.J. Cosmo is one author who will likely be affected by this change. He writes short children’s books, including “My Babysitter is a Monster” and “The Monster That Ate Our Keys.” He predicts the overall quality and artistry of books will decline as authors focus on sales and figure out how to earn the most from the system.

    “The ebook market is flooded, dominated by search keywords and highly competitive,” Cosmos says. “Gone are the days of writing from the heart. Now you research what to write and do A/B split test the results until you get a salable product. This is wonderful for making money but something artistic dies in the process.”

    While some authors fear declining profits and may pull their short books out of the running, that could leave a larger share of the KDP Select Global Fund for authors who stick around.

    Regardless, this change will incentivize authors to create content that people want to read cover to cover — and that’s always a good move as far as readers are concerned.

    What do you think of Amazon’s recent changes to this payment policy?