How I Made Over $42,000 Selling My Kindle eBooks

In March 2012 one Canadian author boldly went where few have gone before—into the land of making real money with Amazon's KDP Select program.

This is her story…

My name is Cheryl Kaye Tardif and I am an international bestselling suspense author who earned over $42,000 dollars in March 2012 selling ebooks via Amazon's KDP Select program, captured the interest of a major literary agency, and went on to sign with a foreign rights agent. And I'm about to tell you HOW I did all that.

I don't normally tell people how much money I make, but I believe writers need to know it IS possible to earn a real income from your books. Seriously, if I can do it, anyone can—if you have the right combination of criteria and techniques.

In this book, I'll share with you what I believe are four key elements you must have in place to see high sales. And I'll reveal the strategic techniques I used during my KDP Select promotions that resulted in earning over $42,000—with $32,000 of that from ONE title alone.

Not only did I earn over $42,000 in ebook sales, I was contacted by one of the leading literary agencies in New York. The chairman noticed my success when my one title made #4 in the Top 100 Bestselling Kindle ebooks, right under The Hunger Games trilogy. Since then, I've signed with another agent for foreign rights.

So, if you're ready to earn some real money with Select, let's begin…

Available at Amazon (Kindle) for only $2.99.

Sorry, I'm not accepting new clients at this time

In 2011, I branched out from writer and book marketing coach to publisher. IMAJIN BOOKS has grown so quickly and has evolved into something I love almost as much as writing my own novels. It is hugely rewarding to watch other writers see success. And I have a special fondness for my debut authors who are holding their new "babies" for the first time.

As a result, I haven't been accepting new clients for over a year, and most of my regular clients are now well on their way to using everything they've learned to promote their works. I feel like I've set doves free into the world. They'll find their way.

For those who are looking for book marketing help, please check through my posts here. You may find some useful tidbits of info. I wish you the very best in your journey as writer/author and promoter. Remember, there is NO shame in promoting your work. Be bold, be different, take risks, experiment, learn and grow. And then give back a piece of what you've learned.

You can also check my author blog (I'm an international bestselling author) at http://www.cherylktardif.blogspot.com.

And if you're a reader who loves quality fiction, be sure to drop by Imajin Books at http://www.imajinbooks.com

Some marketing books I highly recommend

If you're an author and you want to do your own marketing rather than pay someone else thousands of dollars per year to do it, you will need some really good resource tools.

These are the 5 books I highly recommend you buy, read, highlight, read again, follow, read again and take action on:

What Writers Need to Know About Publishers by Jerry D. Simmons (my friend and mentor)
Plug Your Book by Steve Weber
1001 Ways to Market Your Books by John Kremer
Beyond the Bookstore by Brian Jud
Red Hot Internet Publicity by Penny Sansevieri

I've met 4/5 of these authors and they are awesome people with some great ideas. And having these ideas at your fingertips is certainly much easier than trying to hunt down this information online every time you need it. These books are my 'bibles' of my trade.

Twitter 101: Tweet Marketing

Twitter Tips:

Most of you probably already use Twitter. If not, you really should be! Some of you may be wondering: what's the big deal? The potential for selling your book is only surpassed by the potential for making great relationships with readers―ones who will spread the news to all their friends, and they'll tell 100 friends, and so on and so on…

Author John Locke, a publishing sensation, credits Twitter as largely responsible for his success. He's the first independent author to sell over 1 million ebooks on Amazon. And there are only 8 authors who've achieved the million ebook mark. Maybe you'll be the next.

So how do you use Twitter to market your ebooks? Simple, you create relationships. You get to meet people from anywhere in the world. There are some pretty cool people out there. By showing a genuine interest in people, you'll gather more followers. Eventually, some will read your book. Maybe they'll tweet about how much they enjoyed it. Maybe they'll write a review. Maybe they'll suggest it to their book club, or to a producer they know. This actually happens.

There are a variety of ways to find readers on Twitter, some of them quite obvious, I think.

1. Search Twitter for:

Kindle suggestions

Kobo suggestions

Nook suggestions

#books

#fridayreads

#amreading

#ebook (s)

#bookclub (s)

Don't just pitch your book to them, create relationships. Read their profiles. Read their last few tweets. Talk to them at least once before pitching your book to them. Ask them what genres they like? RT one of their tweets. Ask them questions. Answer a question. Yes, you can suggest one of your books, or give them your website, but do try to either answer their question about a suggestion or get to know them.

2. Search for your genre:

#romancenovel

#fantasy

#western

#historicalromance

#thriller

#mystery

#mysterynovel

#technothriller

Look for tweets where people talk about your genre in a positive way. Add to the conversation. See above tips. Always get your URL in there. 

3. Search for authors you think people would compare your writing (for your novel) to. Chat first unless you're already friends with them online or unless they're asking for suggestions.

When pitching them, say something like:

I saw you liked (author). Me too. In fact, he inspired me to write (name of novel) (Amazon URL shortened)

Or…

Since you enjoy (author), I think you may like (name of novel) (Amazon URL)

Using Amazon customers with Twitter:

Step 1: Go to your book’s page on Amazon and look in the Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought section.

Step 2: Make a list of the book titles that appear. These are titles YOUR customers have also bought. This means they like those books, plus they think they’ll like yours. This means anyone who likes those other titles may also like yours.

Step 3: Go to twitter and search for those book titles one at a time. When you find someone who has liked that other title, tweet them and say that they may like your title too since they liked ____.

Step 4: Word your tweets differently each time, make them personal, and include link to your ebook on Amazon. Use URL shortener like TinyUrl...or I highly recommend you get Hootsuite. You can then schedule tweets. Huge marketing time saver!!!

If someone says they prefer another genre other than yours, recommend one of your author friends or another author you like. Be helpful. What goes around comes around. :-)

Twitter is a leading, successful social network for one reason: it's social. From personal experience, I can tell you I've sold more ebooks via social networks in the past two months than I have doing 80+ book signings for 2 years. And I've met more people; maybe not face-to-face, but they're still quite happy to meet me on Twitter and buy one of my books. 

And don't forget to follow me: http://www.twitter.com/cherylktardif and http://www.twitter.com/imajinbooks

Happy tweeting!