I was going to title this, “$250,000 a Year Writing Books,” but the fact is that you never ever need to write a book yourself to make this work.
If you can outsource the writing of books, then you can do this.
For that matter, if you can ask 20 people a simple question, you can also do this.
Here’s how:
First, you need books. If you’re a writer, then you can skip ahead. If you’re not, you’re going to either:
A: Outsource the writing of your books. This is almost better than writing your own because you can hire multiple writers to write multiple books at the same time if you like.
The key, of course, is to find good writers who don’t sound like they’re an AI program. Your non-fiction books need not only good information people want, but also personality. It’s the helpful information that will sell the first book, and the personality that will keep buyers coming back for more and more.
If you hire more than one writer, then you’ll need to coach them on having a coherent voice. Ideally all of your books should read like they were written by one person – you.
B: Use other people’s articles. This is a super easy way to put a book together very quickly.
First you choose your topic and then you find blogposts and articles that directly address that topic.
Next, you approach the authors and ask if they would like to be in your book. You’ll have maybe 10 or 20 experts in each book, each with their own chapter. People will say yes to this because they love the extra exposure of being in a book with the other experts. And you’ll give them the opportunity to build their lists by making a free offer at the end of their own chapter, too.
Okay, now that you’re either writing your own books or using one of the two methods above, here are the actual methods one author named Carol uses to make well in excess of $250,000 a year with her books on Amazon:
1: You need lots of books. Unless you miraculously write a super best seller, then you’re going to need a full-sized stable of books that readers love.
If you write one book every 3 months, then in 5 years you’ll have 20 books.
2: Marketing is just as important as writing. If you happen to be outsourcing all of your book writing, then you’ll be at an advantage because you can focus all of your time on marketing your books.
If you’re writing your own books, then you’ll have to decide how much time you’ll devote to writing and how much to marketing.
Carol’s advice is to initially get 2 to 4 books under your belt as quickly as possible, and then devote half your time to marketing those books and half to writing your next books.
3: Short books are better than long books. Let’s say your topic is how to drive traffic to a website. Instead of writing one big book on 10 different methods, write 10 books each detailing one method.
It will be easier to sell any one of these ten because each is tightly focused on its topic. And once a person has one book, and they like it, they’ll naturally be predisposed to purchase more books in the series.
Not to mention the fact that it’s far easier and faster to write a short book than it is a long one.
Recently, Amazon created categories specifically for a type of book called, “Short Reads.” These short books are broken down by the number of minutes they take to read as well as the genre.
And when you write a short, tightly focused book, it’s easier to rank high in your categories and also to get more of your books ranking high in more categories, creating a synergistic effect that sells more books.
4: A series sells better than individual books. Even if your topics are somewhat disparate, if you can find a way to place a block of them under one umbrella, you’ll find it easier to make sales than if each one is a stand-alone book.
Perhaps you’re writing books on all the different things someone needs to know to make money online. Your umbrella might be, “From Online Newbie to $100,000 in One Year,” or “The Ultimate Guide to Starting and Running Your Online Business”.
5: Look at this business model of book writing and publishing as a marathon, not a sprint. Enjoy the process and don’t place too much pressure on yourself in the beginning. This is a method many people are using to earn six figures per year, but it takes time.
It took Carol six months to begin seeing any results and 3 years before she broke $50,000. But the following year she nearly tripled that, and 5 years after she placed her first book on Amazon she is now earning in excess of a quarter of a million dollars per year.
It takes time to build a brand and become known, but once you begin to build your readership, things can really take off.
6: Become a master of book marketing. There are many courses you can take and books you can read to learn this valuable skill. Just placing books on Amazon Kindle won’t cut it, but when you learn how to market your books you’ll find it’s not all that difficult, either.
7: Have a unique voice and story. Assuming you’re writing non-fiction, you’ll want to have a backstory of how you got into your chosen niche. And more importantly, you’ll want to have a voice that resonates with people. Put your personality and your opinions into the books. Just imagine you’re writing to a friend or giving advice to your grown child and you’ll get the idea.
Maybe you never thought of yourself as an author, but since you don’t have to do any writing yourself, this might be a good option for you to begin building toward a six figure income.