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My KDP Free Promo Experience

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No matter how successful a self-published author becomes, there is one point when that self-published author struggled to make any sales. Just like any other self-published author, there was a point when I struggled to make any sales. During these times, I would be jumping up and down if one of my books made two sales in 1 week.

That is by no means something to live on. As a new self-published author, the process was hard, but there was something that helped me grow. Despite all of the hardships I faced as a self-published author, there was one glimmer of light that ultimately paved the way for my success.

That glimmer of light was the KDP Free Promo. I decided to try out the KDP Free Promo for a book I had just published. I figured I could get about 100 downloads, get some reviews, and then go from there. However, the book didn’t just get 100 downloads. In that 5 day period, the book ended up getting downloaded over 900 times.

The only things I did to promote the book was write a blog post and send out two tweets to about 70,000 followers in 5 days. Unlike my previous books, I paid a professional designer to create the cover for the new book. My book ended up becoming a #1 bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories.

In addition to having my book become a bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories, I got more reviews for my book in 1 month than I got reviews for all of my other books combined. After the KDP Free Promo, the book made more sales than any of my other books. For the rest of the month, I averaged 1 sale every day. That’s really good for someone who used to get one sale every week. The KDP Free Promo is definitely something to consider in order to get more people to know about your Kindle books.

 

Why You Need To Have A Platinum Priced Product

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Underpricing is a common tactic to use to boost sales. Self-published authors only charge $2.99 for their books to get a higher volume of sales. The people who underprice their products forget to create a platinum priced product. A platinum priced product is exactly what it sounds like, a very expensive product that will scare some people away because of the price tag alone.

However, having a platinum priced product will boost your volume of sales. Having a platinum priced product will make your lower prices look more attractive. If you wrote 1 book for $9.99, and you sold your other books for $2.99, the books for $2.99 would look a lot cheaper than they really are.

Brendan Burchard sells his Total Product Blueprint training course for $1,997. For many people, that training course will seem ridiculously expensive. However, when you see Brendan Burchard’s books, The Millionaire Messenger and The Charge both at under $15 for both Kindle versions, they look a lot more inexpensive for $2.99 books.

$2.99 is less expensive than $15, but when you have to choose between $15 or $1,997, changes are you will go with the $15. The $15 is a smaller investment which means less risk. In the end, some of the people who buy Brendan Burchard’s $15 books end up buying his $1,997 training course.

Brendan Burchard’s platinum priced training course makes his books look a lot more attractive. While free giveaways plays a part in this, both of Burchard’s books have over 150 reviews on Amazon (mostly positive). Instead of going cheaper, create a platinum priced product that makes the products you already have look a lot cheaper.

 

The Best Way To Get Motivated

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There are several ways to get motivated. While some methods of being motivated surpass others, this method surpasses all of the other methods. The motivational method that is better than all of the other motivational methods out there is seeing the potential in your niche.

We need to see that someone else is doing something that we want to do. This is why success stories are very popular. If you are a self-published author, chances are you know about a variety of success stories of the authors who made millions of dollars by selling $0.99 or $2.99 books.

When Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile barrier in 1954, he proved the experts wrong. Less than 5 years after Bannister proved it was possible to run the mile in under 4 minutes, over 20 runners broke 4 minutes for the mile. Now, it has become very common.

It only took 1 self-published author for others to realize that there is a lot of potential in self-publishing their own books. One success story offers a glimmer of hope. That glimmer of hope is the motivation some people use to achieve a milestone. As more people achieve the milestone, more people will realize that the milestone is in reach. This results in a milestone that once looked impossible becoming more common.

This is the most powerful source of motivation. All you need to do is find success stories of people in your niche to realize that the potential is there. Once you see the potential, you will give yourself something to strive for. The thing that you strive in your niche will ultimately allow you to become more successful.

3 Things All Of Your YouTube Videos Need To Have

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YouTube gets 1 billion unique visitors every month. That’s a lot of people who can be potentially watching your videos. When someone goes on YouTube and watches your video, your video needs to be spot on so the viewer will want to watch your other videos. In addition, many people make the mistake of not utilizing various options to enhance their videos. These are the three things that all of your YouTube videos need to have.

  1. A “Subscribe” link. This one is very important. All you need to do is use this annotation at the right corner of your video. The people who enjoyed watching your video will then subscribe to your channel. You need to tell someone to subscribe to your channel in order to get that person to subscribe. Simply hoping that someone will click on the subscribe button below the video is not good enough.
  2. Tell viewers where they can find you at the end of all of your videos. Expand the interaction from YouTube to your other social networks and your blog. This will allow your viewers to know more about you and have a way of directly contacting you. 15-30 extra seconds in your video can be the difference between gaining 5 followers every day because of YouTube videos to gaining 20 followers every day because of YouTube videos.
  3. Something worth watching. People either watch a YouTube video to be entertained, amused, or learn something new. Your video needs to be at least one of those three things. If you want a lot of people to watch your YouTube video, you need to entertain, amuse, or teach in a way that beats the competition.

Those are the three things that you need to add to all of your YouTube videos. These three components will allow you to create stunning videos that generate numerous views. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips about YouTube? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

6 Reasons To Schedule More Blog Posts

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There are many bloggers who underestimate the power of scheduling blog posts. While some bloggers rarely schedule blog posts, other bloggers are publishing as they write. There are only a few bloggers out of the millions of bloggers out there who schedule their blog posts. Scheduling blog posts has many benefits, and here are six of them:

  1. You have control over when your blog posts get published. We want as much control as we can get. Scheduling blog posts gives us the control we need to have. If you write a blog post at 5 am when many people are still sleeping, you can schedule the blog post to get published 4 hours later and then go back to bed.
  2. You can publish blog posts consistently and frequently. Publishing blog posts consistently and frequently is a crucial element of a successful blog. By scheduling blog posts, you will be able to be consistent while remaining frequent.
  3. You are less likely to burn out. When you are about to burn out, you do not have to write a blog post. Instead of writing that blog post and burning out, you will be able to take a break for the day. Taking a day off will not change the fact that you have several blog posts scheduled ahead of time. The more blog posts you have scheduled, the more space you have to take breaks to avoid burning out.
  4. Your writing will become better. That is not a lie. The main reason why certain blog posts are poorly constructed is because of the consistent time limit. If you are only writing 1 blog post every day and publishing 1 blog post every day, there are going to be some days where you may start writing at midnight. In order to keep the consistency, some bloggers have to write blog posts at midnight, and those blog posts are filled with typos and bad sentences. Having multiple blog posts scheduled will allow you to take breaks on these nights. In addition, more scheduled blog posts means you won’t have to worry about the time as much. You will be able to write longer, better blog posts and have time to proofread them. If you have numerous scheduled blog posts, then the urgency is gone. You now have time to write better blog posts.
  5. More days off. This one works like a double-edged sword. If you take some days off, then you will still have numerous scheduled blog posts. However, if you take too many days off, then you will run out of scheduled blog posts. When taking days off, be sure to take no more than 2 days off every week from writing blog post. Please note that the more days off you take, the more blog posts you have to make up when you are no longer taking days off.
  6. You can focus more of your time on bigger projects. If you are working on bigger projects such as writing a book or completing a training course, you can take a day off from writing blog posts so you have more time to work on the bigger projects. This allows you to invest more of your time into the bigger projects so you get them done in a faster amount of time.

Those are the six reasons why you should schedule more blog posts. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have another reason for scheduling numerous blog posts? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

 

One Thing You Have To Be Prepared For As A Blogger

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There are many things that bloggers have to be prepared for. First off, the workload increases. Bloggers now have to write 1 blog post every day. That can add up to a lot of extra writing. Another thing bloggers are prepared for is not getting a lot of traffic in the beginning. There are many examples of blogs that went from 0 visitors to hundreds of thousands of visitors every month. This picture that every blogger needs to see is a great example of how far a blog can go. However, there was one thing that most bloggers were not prepared for. From my own experience and from reading many blog posts, even the most experienced bloggers were not prepared for this one.

Most bloggers, including myself, were not prepared for criticism. No matter how good your content is or how much time you put into writing your blog posts, there will be someone who criticizes your blog. No one avoids criticism. The best bloggers also have the meanest critics.

When you start your blog and update it frequently, be aware that there will be criticism. Someone will criticize one of your blog posts, or a troll will continuously visit your blog and leave bad comments. Your hopes and dreams as a blogger cannot get shattered when you get criticized.

Whether your blog gets criticized today, tomorrow, this week, or months later, you need to be ready for it. Criticism will come, and the only way to respond to it properly is by standing firm behind your content and continue doing what you do.