Here is the 4th part in our How to self publish a book. Check here for Part 1 and part 2 and part 3.
Update 2009
We took back Dining On A Dime from the publisher in 2008 and are self-publishing again. To date we have sold around 200,000 Dining on a Dimes. We still have yet to make any amount of decent money. Mike is working 2 part time jobs on the side as well as working at home on Living On A Dime.
You can make good money running websites and selling books. But it is work and a lot of hard work. I didn’t post above the steps we take to sell books so I will briefly outline it here.
You need a website with information for people to come to. It needs to be good, useful information and not just a sales page. We do that with articles and recipes.
Then you need to get people to your website. We do that by writing articles for other websites and blogs to use, we send out press releases to newspapers, magazine and TV who then interview us. This is something that has to be done constantly. With media interviews we do get some people but it’s not the huge amount most think. When we were in Family Circle we got around 1,000 extra hits on the website and 16 sales of books. It’s not much at all but all of it together does add up and help.
We also run the free newsletter to keep people interested in us and our products.
You have to also be willing to send out a LOT of free review copies to the media. We sent out over 400 on our first printing and have sent out around 1,000 total. Besides the work involved that is $20,000 worth of product not to mention postage and packaging. People will need to see your product in order to review it and sell it.
Customer service. We spend HOURS on customer service. People lose links to e-books, the Post Office destroys their package and we have to send another, they have the wrong address on their order and they don’t get the package, they are mad about something we wrote, they don’t understand something etc. We also spend a lot of time just blocking the Google Ads on our site are Inappropriate and not going to rip off our customers. We currently spend 50% of our time just dealing with customer service issues. Another 25% is spent on bookkeeping.
At this time we have decided that mom and I are going to cut way back on the amount of work we are doing. We were spending most of our time writing new material for the blog and new e-books and Mike is doing all the customer service, computer and website work. We are also seriously considering not re-printing Dining On A Dime when this batch runs out.
We did figure last year that we earned about $4/hour so we really need to change the way the business is run. (Basically Mike earned the money and Mom and I just work for free for the fun of it.)
(That is why I know people wonder why I don’t have a large income with all the money we are making on the book (I still live off about $600 a month) but we really aren’t making enough to even sneeze at. Jill)
So the moral of this long story is, make sure that you learn how to market and do an LOT of it! Writing a book is the easy part, it’s selling it that’s the hard part!
If you have any questions feel free to ask and I will try and answer them.
Tawra
Would you make more money if you just got a tiny part time job?
I would miss you all terrible but wouldn’t you have more time for you family if you stopped. So many people have come to love your writing and help but would you all be ahead if you quit? Please don’t! But I couldn’t help but ask.
Yes, I would have made way more money if I would have just gone to Lowe’s and got a job.But…. I’m sick and can’t work a regular job. I have tried many times over the last 20 years to do different outside the house jobs and never could hold one for more than a month or so before I got so sick and worn out that I had to quit.
I was hoping this would be something to bring in extra money that I could do at home when I was feeling good but it didn’t work out that way.
For now, Mike is doing most of the work and mom and I are just going to blog for the fun of it until we decide to quit/if we quit.
Tawra
Tawra & Jill,
I’m curious, do you do better financially on your e-books than you do on paper books?
I just want you to know that I love the Not Just Beans/Dining on a Dime cookbooks that I’ve got from you and have bought several as gifts. I’m just sad to hear that you haven’t made more $’s as a result of this labor of love.
Dear Jill and Tawra
I hope you do not quit but even if you just blog, I would love it! I love all of the stuff that you both write and blogging would be great! I do understand abou wanting to cut back…..I sell books on Amazon in addition to a couple of other part time jobs and sometimes the customer service part takes up more time and the money is not great for the time spent….take care and please consider blogging….I would be happy to have that!
I wanted to read parts one, two & three but when I clicked on them it had a sign in page….
Did I miss out on those parts of the story?
Best Wishes
Please don’t leave, we will all miss you. I have most of your books and use them a lot mostly for reference.
Thank you for this wonderful info. My boss (a chiropractor) is interested in writing an e book on Fibromyalgia and her experience with it as both a victim and a doctor, so this is great information to have.
Do you do any article marketing? I was just wondering how it compares to blogging as a way of driving traffic and pre-selling your ebooks/print books online.
Yes, we do article marketing all the time. It’s a great way to get the word about your site and products.
It gets people to your site much much better than just blogging. People need to know you out there and how to find you. Just having a website doesn’t get people to it they have to hear from somewhere else how to find you.
Tawra