Thank you for all of the great information! Congrats on your success! Your books are super cute! I really appreciated when you said that "slapping it on Amazon" is NOT super easy if you are doing it right. There IS a lot that goes into it. It really gets me irritated to see all these You-tubers making videos telling people how they can get rich by publishing on amazon KDP. Now theres a ton of people flooding the market with low quality books. I don't think that people truly understand how much work, time and thought goes into creating a good quality unique product. Thank you
I published my first children's book in September. I am completing my second, as we speak. I cant believe how hard it has been to promote it on social media groups due to their "no selling" rules on my niche groups. I'm going to look into EVERYTHING I heard on this video. Thank you for sharing!!
It struck me how the author mentioned 2017 being a bad time to sell her properties. The timing was great in that it set the stage for setting up her book business, not to mention doing that before 2020 ❤️
@@DianaRowanBrightWay You're welcome. You can do this! If you question that or need help, grab some time on my calendar and I'll give you a pep talk, LOL.
Wow. There was so much value in this interview thank you both for all your insight and wonderful tips. I'm been feeling so alone as an author, having completed 4 manuscripts, but not yet having published any of them. I think I need a mentor and I will definitely check out these courses, especially given the really affordable price. I've felt so bummed having been watching youtube video after youtube video where people are offering $500+ courses for Amazon and I just... felt so hopeless. Thank you for giving me hope
I started to co-author four books in a Christian devotional genre. And I started to write a manuscript of Christian devotional but not finished yet. But I end up to write and self- published my first book in a Christian poetry. And working on my second poem book. Checking your site, I am kind of interested to write a children’s book too.🙂
Wow, so fantastic and right on the mark!! THANK YOU! What a helpful and informative discussion! Thank you April and Misty. I’m walking these new paths right now. Your candid insights about, the focused and committed mindset, the importance of consistent efforts and clear priorities….( and keeping it fun) is how I hold myself accountable to doing and moving forward every “work day”. My new favorite saying…” I don’t know what I’m doing but I do know that not doing it feels worse!”. Thanks again!
I listened to this interview again and I am still in awe at Misty's accomplishments. Another thing I noted were the little things she does differently. This could be my favourite interview so far. I'll keep watching over and over.
This was such a helpful interview and I can relate to lots of things that Misty discussed, including POD, and self-publishing multiple books for cross-promotion. Great tips in this interview!
Thank you for this interview. This has been such an outstanding help when I am so close to my first launch of a book. I have never done this before and the emotions and fears are seeming to keep up with everything I do. Ha ha
@@turbanless The first one went well considering I was an unknown. The second and current launch (book 2) is struggling some due to some issues with the Amazon platform, but many books are struggling because of that. So I am giving it a week or two before releasing the digital version of Forgotten Steel so Amazon can sort things out.
Glad it helped Sim. You should check out my author workgroup which is enrolling now for a January start. I have q and a session later today. Check out my upcoming events. HTTPS://www.selfpubmadesimple.com/upcoming-events
I agree with her about not being able to do everything as an author. I'm slowly getting away from using too much social media and using old school ways of promoting my business and books.
I’m a YA author. I’m tempted to self-publish, because trad. publishers don’t care about marketing YA books and publishers are racist towards POC writers. How do you get massive exposure for YA novels?
It starts with really knowing your audience and building your author brand and platform. Bring people on your journey during your writing and publishing process and find places your audience resides and show up there! Find ways to serve them and get people talking. Word of mouth is huge!
I’m looking for a printing company to print my books, I am a starter and my main focus is on study guides, I’m on Amazon but there’s are to many policies thanks
Another phenomenal interview April. I am a huge fan of your page. Thanks so much for always being so generous with your knowledge. As Misty rightly said, you were one of the 1st mentor I had on my book writing journey 🙏🏾❤️❤️❤️❤️
Thanks for your kind words. I love helping new authors and cherish the relationships like you and Misty. Watching you grow as an author is so rewarding!
Congrats. It doesn’t happen that quickly for most. Is this a traditional publisher… paying for all expenses or a hybrid where you need to contribute to the payment for the fees.
I’m on the same path as this author. The cost to self publish is staggering. I now have five books published. Each book cost £2000. The hardest part is marketing. I don’t have any skills in this area. I hired a PR market company who proved to be useless. I consider my books to be of very good quality. The childrens books have five two thousand word stories+ sixteen coloured illustrations. The illustrations cost between £50 to £250.each. Everything this author is saying is very good advice.
If you’re creating high quality books and keep moving things forward with more books then you are on the way. The number of words seems high for an illustrated book. Is it for older kids?
@@SelfPubMadeSimple well, I’m not too happy with my ads right now. If I don’t see a turnaround by this coming weekend, I’m going to shut everything down and start over. I might be approaching you on how you might help me get this set up to make some money.
@@Act238 it takes time and some trial and error, a great description and cover… and some luck thrown in. Also the more high quality books you have in a series the better for many genres.
The 12 week course she took was mine. At the time I was offering it free for experience and to perfect it with a small group. Now 8 years later it is a paid course at selfpubmadesimple.com.
I have two books published they are in a series. The first one is called "Love that counts" my second one is called "forgiveness that rewards" it can be found on Amazon in the books section. I hope that people see this and perhaps bu5t it!
Hi, April on a previous video on illustration you mentioned you were willing to share the contract you used. I am new at this and would really appreciate a copy of the contract, I’m searching for illustrators now. Can you tell me how I can receive the copy. Thanks
It is included in my resource library along with many many other tools. The link is www.selfpubmadesimple.com/resource-library, but email info@thelittlelabradoodle.com and my assistant can send just the contract if you want just that.
Click testing is when you try a few different things (different messaging, different images, etc) to see which ones your audience likes best (the ones that give the best results. Than you do more of that!
What was not asked: Are her books purely fiction? Which audience (children, YA, Adult) Are they born from current market topics, or are the subjects purely self-motivated?
I'm heartbroken. I CAN'T afford to lose money on my first four or five books. I live on Social Security. I HAVE to at least break even. I have to. I have already failed twice. I can't do this over and over and over again. I DON'T SELL BOOKS I DON'T EAT. I wish I had a supportive spouse. I wish I had enough income to support my books as a hobby. I have to find something to bring in a few hundred per month. I CAN'T KEEP LOSING MONEY!!! NONSENSE! Amazon has done the math - in their ad course Amazon tell you that a book is not "market ready" until it has 15 reviews. Triple that for popular genres like cozy mystery or contemporary romance. If you don't sell well, Amazon will not even show your book AT ALL and further won't show your ad to anybody, either. I CAN'T KEEP LOSING MONEY! Obviously, this is a complete loser for enhancing my pathetic below-the-poverty-line retirement income.
Set up time with me. I offer a free consult from my website. I am happy to review what you have and see whether I can guide you. No charge. Just want to help.
@John Foley I'm building my website. I'll give it a go. But statistically, over 80% of all books (print or electronic) are sold through Amazon. 🤷🏻♀ So, not giving up on Amazon - especially as an unknown debut author. But selling in parallel sounds like an excellent idea.
My passion is helping people learn to self-publish so they don’t get taken advantage of by predatory publishers. Most of what I do is free for authors. Misty is the real deal. I know there are others that may only be interested in making money, but I assure you those are not my motivations.
The question of how she sold 80k books is not answered in my view. She even uses words like I don't know how I did it I just kept trying. Not clear takeaways here 😢
I think it boils down to keep writing more titles, especially in a series, keep growing your platform and communicating with your target audience. Most of all be willing to try different things and don’t give up!
She is an author with unique experiences and shares my love for helping others. She has unique things she shares like her TIGER technique and writing course, which I don’t do. There is plenty of room for more people to help authors, especially those as wonderful as Misty!
