Kindle Publishing May Be Your Perfect Doorway To Success Online 

Most people wanting or needing to supplement their income start by looking for an easy (and fast) way to make money online.

And while there certainly is no shortage of business opportunities online, most people discover the hard truth within a month or two…

Making money online is not as easy as many gurus would have you believe. It requires determination, planning and follow-through, and fortitude in the face of obstacles. You have to be willing to pursue your business model tirelessly and not let the self-doubt that everyone eventually feels overpower you.

And you need to understand that success in online marketing requires you to be willing to put yourself out there. That means you need to get past your fear of people thinking you’re not good enough or not qualified enough to be an authority on anything.

Think of it this way – there’s always someone out there who knows less than you do. There are people who don’t know how to build a website, people who want to grow a garden but don’t know seeds from fertilizer, men and women who would like to pick up golf but are so embarrassed about their swing they won’t even go to the driving range.

If you ever have any doubt about your qualifications, just focus on these people. They want someone to lead them. Let me ask you this – would you rather be led by someone who is so far past you, they’ve forgotten what it was like to be a newbie?

Probably not. You want someone who has the skills and ability to move you forward at a steady pace, while keeping in mind where you’re at in your journey.

This is what your target audience will want from you. They want you to guide them. By deciding to become that person, you’ll be matching your best skillset with the needs of your audience, and helping people with their interests.

If you want to make some money while helping people, or maybe even just entertaining them, then you need to know about one of the easiest ways to get started doing that online…

Kindle Publishing May Be Your Perfect Doorway To Success Online

When you have a story or information to share with the world, you need to get it out in the easiest way possible. — a book or ebook. And most people think that means getting published by a traditional publishing house. Not anymore.

Nowadays it’s self-publishing.

That’s because agents and editors — the gatekeepers of the traditional print publishing world, keep far too many would-be authors stuck in limbo. When you go the traditional publishing route, your success or failure is dependent on a few peoples’ opinions. But those opinions can miss the mark.

There are so many people in the world who’ve had their dreams dashed because traditional publishers said no.

That’s because in every single publishing house, there are assistants or interns who go through the manuscripts, or slush piles, as they’re called. These assistants, often fresh out of college and with very little publishing experience, decide if the work is worthy of being seen by the editor.

It’s the same setup at most literary agents’ offices. An intern will make the decision. While that doesn’t seem fair, the reason behind it is because agents and editors see hundreds of manuscripts each day.

Since they’re only one person, it’s only natural that they would need help. Knowing what goes on behind the scenes, it’s easy to see why your manuscript didn’t get the attention that it should have received.

So if you’ve been rejected, take heart. The odds are very high that the rejection had nothing to do with your work – but that the person who saw it wasn’t experienced enough to realize that it should have been passed on to an editor, or it just wasn’t that one person’s personal preference.

An example of this is J.K. Rowling, author of the extremely popular Harry Potter series. She struggled to get any publishing house to take interest in her work and yet, her writing was top notch.

So if you’ve been told no, or if you just want to see your work in print, there is a better way – and that’s by using Amazon’s Kindle Direct publishing method.

Kindle is a wide open door that levels the playing field when it comes to writing. Plenty of authors (both experienced and brand new) have done it and are making a lot of money in the digital publishing world.

If you’ve always had a dream to write fiction, then you should seriously consider trying this publishing platform.

And fiction isn’t the only way that people can benefit from Kindle publishing. There are plenty of other types of books such as non-fiction, games, puzzles and kids books published as a Kindle edition, too. The program is perfect for anyone who has some insight or wisdom that they want to share with others.

You’d be surprised at just how many niches have a waiting audience willing to pay to get good, solid information. It can range from topics like how to set up a garden to getting started in dog training and more. There are so many things that people want to do, but they don’t have the knowledge.

It’s so easy that Kindle publishing can be used by beginners. But it can also be used by anyone who already has an established business and is just looking to expand.

Self-publishing on Kindle simply means doing the work that a publisher would normally do — except you have complete control over the content of your book.

With Kindle publishing, you don’t have to get approval for anything. That means that unlike traditional publishing, you get to publish your book with as many or as few pages as you want – even a short, 15 minute story is viable!

It means that you can publish as many books as you want, unlike with traditional publishing, which often demands a series – even if the author had no intention of creating an entire series.

The great thing about Kindle Direct publishing is that you will be published in digital format. So people will receive eBooks immediately when they order. But, authors also have the option serving customers who prefer print books – so you reach a bigger audience.

How To Get Started

Well, this may sound silly, but the best way to get started is to sit down and, well… START WRITING.

Writing is like any other job in that you need to show up at a regular time every single day and make some progress.

The first thing that you need to decide is whether or not you’re going to write fiction or nonfiction.

While there are some similarities between the two, such as making sure that you research if you’re mentioning a real place or event, they are very different animals. Fiction writing requires a creative and imaginative mind. Personally, that is not a strong suit of mine, and you need to recognize whether it’s a strong suit of yours or not. If not, then do like I do and stick to non-fiction.

The next thing that you need to do is to pick a genre. A genre simply means a category. It’s where the book will fit. For example, horror is a genre. Children’s books and games are another very popular and profitable genre. In fact, in the resources section at the bottom of this post you can download free software from Amazon that creates kids books!

For non-fiction writers there are biographies, self-help, how-to, instructional manuals and more.

My best advice about choosing a genre is to pick one that you personally enjoy. If you love to read horror stories, then you’ll enjoy writing about them. If you like to read to kids, you’ll love creating books for them. The real secret is to choose a genre that feeds your passion, because writing can become a full-time career.

As far as the actual writing process, you’ll hear a lot of conflicting advice about which process is the “right” way. But the bottom line is that the right way is simply the one that works for you.

There are two main methods that writers use. They either outline or they don’t. Either one of these methods is correct. Your personality will be a determining factor. If you’re someone who enjoys making lists and you like knowing where you’re going and having bullet points and subheadings, then using an outline would be good for you.

In fiction, outlining is just another word for plotting. There are plenty of authors who plot. Then there are those who don’t. Authors who don’t plot or outline write off the cuff. Another word for that phrase you’ll run across is the word pantser.

It means writing by the seat of your pants. You have no idea what’s going to happen next in your story because you haven’t looked ahead at the plot. With that type of writing, the author is often surprised at the way the characters will behave.

Some authors like writing this way because they don’t want to know how the story ends. They want to be like the reader and learn the story as it unfolds. There are valid writing pros to both methods. If you have an analytical mind, it’s highly likely that you’ll find writing off the cuff more difficult.

All writers must have the time to write. If you don’t make time, you won’t find it. You need to learn to treat writing as a job, with times that you’re supposed to show up and produce a word count.

It takes a lot of discipline to sit down every day and write. You need to have a goal. If you want a book done in thirty days, then take your projected word count and divide it up by 30.

And you’ll have to let go of the desire for perfection, which is something that causes a lot of writers to freeze. Just get the words down into whatever writing software you like to use, such as OpenOffice or Word. You can go back and edit and tweak, but you should always finish the story first. Remember that you can fix something that’s badly written, but you can’t fix something that’s never been written.

Some writers will sit down and start writing, allowing the words and ideas to flow from the action itself. Other writers can’t work that way. They need to warm up, so they do some prewriting first.

What prewriting does is get the creative juices flowing. It can jumpstart you into writing mode. Freewriting can also help. This is an exercise where you simply write about whatever topic comes to your mind in order to loosen up your creative thought process.

Brainstorming is a method that’s long been used by writers. This can help writers figure out all of the ins and outs of a plot. It can also be used to help when a writer has written himself into a corner.

When you use brainstorming, you think about your story. Some writers will simply write down their thoughts as they’re brainstorming – while others will type them into a document.

But the purpose behind either way is to generate ideas about your story. This can be a new idea or expanding on an idea that you already have. You can brainstorm to fix a plot hole or to help you reach a conclusion about the story.

If you’re writing and you feel completely blocked, brainstorming can help. If you do reach a point where you feel the story has nowhere to go, it means that you’ve written yourself into a corner.

You need to back up and see where the story veered off track. You can start thinking, instead of your characters doing or saying one thing, what if they did something else? Brainstorming can jumpstart a stalled story, but it can also lead to the creation of new ones, too.

That’s because this method allows you to look at your story from a different angle. Some writers choose to brainstorm alone, while others enlist the help of fellow writers. This can be helpful, because sometimes writers are too close to their own work to be able to see it differently.

Submitting Your Work

When you submit your work to the Kindle publishing program, it won’t take anywhere near as long as traditional publishing. In traditional publishing, a manuscript that sells in March, is often not even released until the end of the same year or the beginning of the next one because of how it has to go through those approval steps in the publishing house.

Publishing through Kindle is amazingly fast. The guidelines state that your book will usually be available all over the world in as little as one to two days. However, it usually only takes a couple of hours until you receive the confirmation that it’s gone live.

If you don’t receive a confirmation, it means that something could be wrong with your book and needs to be fixed first. When you want to use the Kindle publishing program, you’ll need a great looking cover for your book.

You don’t want to skimp here, because a cover can make or break your book. How long it will take to have a cover made for your eBook depends solely on the cover artist that you use and how much customization must be done.

Many nonfiction eBook covers can be designed by the author himself as long as you have a good graphic program and a little bit of knowledge. If you have no experience in cover design, I suggest you go to fiverr.com as there are lots of designers there who will do a great cover for you for less than $20.

Once you’re done with the editing process and have a cover designed, you’re ready to publish your work.

Go to the Amazon’s Kindle publishing link when you’re ready to publish.

You can also build an author page using Amazon’s Author Central.

This is a great marketing tool because readers like a personal connection. You can use your author page to put up a biography about yourself. You can include your professional author photo and link the page to your author blog.

Author Central is only a tool, so you really need to make sure that you have your own domain. The reason for this is that an author should have as much control over his work as possible.

In Closing…

Kindle is a good business model to add to your online marketing efforts for several reasons.

As you grow your line of books and series on Kindle, you can publish your book using your vision – and get paid quickly for your efforts. You don’t get that same option with traditional publishing, where it becomes about someone else’s vision.

Kindle publishing can create a stream of passive income for as long as your book is for sale.

Kindle publishing can help brand you as an expert and lead to other opportunities that leverage your expertise, like joint ventures with others in your niche, and even speaking engagements.

Using Kindle to self-publish fiction or non-fiction books can fulfill your dreams, help you increase your income, and grow your self-employment opportunities with virtually no limits!

Recommended Resources:

Here are some helpful links for anyone interested in publishing Kinds Books on Kindle, who wants to get a quick start:

Watch the video at the Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing page for more info.

Build your author page using Amazon’s Author Central.

Picture Puzzle Profits offers a step by step guide to creating puzzle books for royalties.

KindleCreate from Amazon is free software to help you start with a proven template.

To your success online,

Jim Daniels