Review: KDP Select Report by Rosa Suen

In this post last week I reviewed Rosa Suen's report on publishing to the Amazon Kindle.

Today I'm reviewing her companion KDP Select Report - also available as a Warrior Special Offer - about the benefits to authors of opting into the KDP Select program.

For those who don’t know, KDP Select is a new program allowing authors of Kindle e-books to earn money by allowing their titles to be lent out to US Amazon Prime customers (though authors don’t have to be US-based themselves). Such customers are allowed to borrow one Kindle e-book free of charge per month under the program.

Obviously, authors don’t get any royalties from this program - as their books are loaned out free - but Amazon has set aside a substantial fund (an estimated $6 million during 2012), which is shared out every month according to how many times each e-book has been borrowed. With low-cost e-books - as Rosa's report indicates - your earnings per loan are almost certain to be higher than your royalties per sale.

The KDP Select program has been the cause of much discussion among Kindle authors, with some contending it offers a poor deal for authors. This is largely because, if you want to take part, you are barred from selling your e-book digitally through any other outlet (e.g. Smashwords) during the (minimum) 90-day period your title is available through the program. Rosa is the author of around 200 (non-fiction) e-books, however, and she shows clearly through her own sales figures and earnings that the program can be very effective if you use it in the right way.

One key aspect of the advice in the KDP Select Report concerns how to use the opportunity KDP Select authors are given to list their e-books free of charge on Amazon for up to five days per month (consecutive or otherwise). With stats from ten different e-books, Rosa clearly shows the effectiveness of this strategy for generating interest in an e-book and getting it into the Amazon best-seller lists.

She compares the number and value of sales generated (on non-free-promotion days, obviously) with loans per month, and shows the total earnings in each case. She discusses how she intends to refine her sales and pricing strategy to maximize her earnings from each title, and also sets out what she has discovered about the best price points for Kindle e-books.

I found Rosa’s systematic approach to marketing using the KDP Select program impressive, and the specific case studies quite enlightening. The guide doesn’t actually tell you anything about devising or writing Kindle e-books, though as previously mentioned Rosa does have another report, also available as a WSO, which covers this subject. And, of course, my own Kindle Kash guide sets out step-by-step advice on publishing an e-book to the Kindle Store using only free resources.

If you’re a Kindle author and have been wondering whether to take the plunge with KDP Select, I recommend this modestly priced guide. It may not have all the answers, but I guarantee it will give you food for thought. It also demonstrates a systematic, mathematically-based way of analysing the returns you are getting from applying Rosa’s strategy and fine-tuning it to boost your profits further. Incidentally, along with the report you also receive 10 charts (plus one already filled in as an example) to help you apply the strategy to your own titles.

With this report, as with Rosa's original one, there is a 30-day unconditional refund guarantee.

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Rosa Suen's KDP Select Report. In addition, the links in this review include my affiliate code, so if you click through and make a purchase, a proportion of the fee will go to me. This has not influenced my review in any way, but you should of course complete your own due diligence and read the sales page (and this review) carefully to determine whether this product will be relevant to your needs.

Word cloud by courtesy of Wordle.

Review: Kindle Publishing Report by Rosa Suen

I was fortunate to receive review copies of two new reports by Hong Kong writer/entrepreneur Rosa Suen about publishing non-fiction books for the Amazon Kindle.

The one I'm reviewing today concerns creating Kindle e-books with good money-making potential. The other, which I'll review in a separate post, is about how to capitalize on the new Amazon KDP Select program (if you're particularly interested in this topic, here's a link to Rosa's sales page for this product now).

Both these reports are currently on sale as WSOs (Warrior Special Offers) at the Internet Marketing Warrior Forum. As you may know, people typically launch new products here at a discount in the hope of getting good reviews and building 'buzz' about their products prior to the main launch.

Rosa's Kindle Publishing Report is a concise (34-page), step-by-step guide to devising a (non-fiction) Kindle title with good sales potential. It's sold as an instant download in the standard PDF format.

In 18 practical steps, Rosa takes you from researching ideas, through outlining your e-book, to creating and marketing it.

One thing I should make clear is that this is NOT a guide to publishing low-quality e-books by copying and pasting PLR or out-of-copyright titles. Amazon is cracking down hard on this, and it is not now a viable business model (if it ever was). Rosa’s philosophy is summed up at the start of the book, where she writes:

The Quickest Way To Succeed: Find Out How Others are Succeeding.
The Most Effective Way To Succeed: You Must Be Original and Create Your Own Success.

One thing I particularly liked about the report was the way Rosa uses examples of her own Kindle e-books, alongside bang-up-to-date sales figures and other information. I was particularly impressed by the way she shows how even unknown authors can piggyback on the popularity of best-sellers. It wouldn't be fair to give away too much here, but reading how Rosa developed an outline for one of her own successful e-books from a starting point of Steve Jobs’ biography is a real eye-opener. This is the type of thing many people would never imagine themselves being able to do, but Rosa’s positive, ‘can-do’ attitude is both encouraging and inspiring.

Rosa doesn’t go into great detail about writing and formatting a Kindle e-book. Of course, there are other guides that cover this (such as my own Kindle Kash), or - as Rosa says - you can always outsource some or all of this if you prefer. Essentially, this is a guide to researching a non-fiction title with good sales potential, outlining it, and marketing the finished e-book. It is unashamedly a guide to making money from Kindle publishing, but doing so in a way that does not sacrifice quality for short-term profits.

I found the marketing advice both interesting and thought-provoking. Rosa has some great tips on pricing your book, based on her experience as the successful author of around 200 Kindle e-books, and she also offers some advice on using the KDP Select opportunity to make your e-book available for lending to Amazon Prime customers. As mentioned, she does have another report, which I'll be reviewing separately here soon, which goes into much more detail about how writers can make the most of Amazon Select.

Rosa's Kindle Publishing Report is illustrated throughout with helpful screengrabs. It won’t win any prizes for its prose style, but it’s perfectly readable and understandable. If you're looking for ideas and inspiration for creating money-making Kindle e-books from someone who really has 'been there, done that, and got the tee-shirt', in my view it's well worth the modest fee requested (on which there is, by the way, a 30-day unconditional refund guarantee).

UPDATE: My blog review of Rosa's other report on Kindle publishing, about the opportunities presented by the KDP Select program, is now available to view here.

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of Rosa Suen's Kindle Publishing Report. In addition, the links in this review include my affiliate code, so if you click through and make a purchase, a proportion of the fee will go to me. This has not influenced my review in any way, but you should of course complete your own due diligence and read the sales page (and this review) carefully to determine whether this product will be relevant to your needs.

Photo of Amazon Kindle by the author.

Review: CreateSpace for Profit

CreateSpace for Profit is a report currently on sale via the Internet Marketing Warrior Forum as a Warrior Special Offer (WSO). It's written by Alan Petersen and Peggy Baron.

CreateSpace is, of course, the popular print self-publishing service operated by Amazon.com (see screengrab above). As this is an area of publishing I haven't particularly explored, I decided to shell out the modest fee of $4.97 to see what it was all about.

So I can reveal that what you get is a concise, well-written 28-page PDF that sets out five different methods for writing books for CreateSpace without totally starting from scratch. All are interesting, and I was impressed to see that the authors include links to examples of CreateSpace books they have written and self-published using the methods described.

The methods involve a combination of using and adapting PLR (private label rights), public domain material, and material bought or commissioned from other authors. It wouldn't be fair to give away all the details here, but I was pleased to see that none involves simply copying and pasting low-cost (and low-quality) PLR/public domain books. The authors point out that Amazon has been cracking down hard recently on low-quality, duplicate-content books. Interestingly, their examples show that by removing the spammy books and e-books, Amazon has actually done genuine authors a big favour.

CreateSpace for Profit doesn't include much information on how to publish to CreateSpace - it's essentially about quickly devising and creating non-fiction titles with good sales potential. The methods could just as well be used to create Kindle e-books, and in fact the authors do recommend publishing to this and other formats as well. If you want in-depth advice on the actual CreateSpace publishing process, though, you will need to look elsewhere (the actual CreateSpace site would be a very good starting point, of course).

Overall, I found this an eye-opening report with some clever ideas I am certainly going to consider applying myself in future, even if I choose not to go down the CreateSpace route. For $4.97 (around 3.50 UK pounds), I have no problem recommending it.

CreateSpace for Profit would also be a good purchase for anyone interested in publishing e-books for the Amazon Kindle, including buyers of my own Kindle Kash course. Bear in mind that the report is currently on offer as a WSO, so I don't know how long it will remain available at the current low price (or at all).

Any comments or questions, as ever, please leave them below!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for this WSO, so if you buy it via one of the links above a proportion of the (modest) fees will go to me. This has not affected my review in any way.

Happy New Year 2012!

Just wanted to wish every reader of my blog a happy, creative and prosperous 2012!

I hope this is the year when you fulfill, or at least start to fulfill, all your writing ambitions.

I'm looking forward to sharing my writing tips, advice, resources, market information and more with you in the year ahead. So if you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe via email or RSS to ensure that you never miss a post!

I'm also very happy to consider guest post proposals for 2012 - click here for guidelines.

Don't forget, too, to follow me on Twitter. I regularly use this to share details of useful websites and resources that I don't always have time to post about here.

And if you really want to stay connected, you can also sign up to follow me on my official Facebook Page and Google Plus.

2011 was, of course, the year e-readers made the leap to the mass market, with the Amazon Kindle leading the way. Many thousands more people received Kindles this Christmas and - together with existing Kindle owners such as myself - they are all now looking for good e-books to read on them.

This development has created a massive opportunity for writers, so I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that I have a course called Kindle Kash that will take you step by step through writing and publishing your own Kindle e-book. Check out this web page for my unique special offer for anyone buying Kindle Kash via my link.

Coming soon in 2012 is my next WCCL writers' guide, Blogging for Writers. This will reveal all the secrets to capitalizing on this hugely writer-friendly medium.

And for something a little bit different, don't forget to check out WCCL's new Think Yourself Lucky audio course, for which I wrote the script. Follow the advice in this to ensure that 2012 is your luckiest year ever!

Once again, a very happy new year to you, and I look forward to hearing about your writing successes in the months ahead.

Photo Credit: "Happy New Year to You" by Beachcomer on the Bay - long way behind on Flickr. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 Generic Licence.

Happy New Year 2012!

Just wanted to wish every reader of my blog a happy, creative and prosperous 2012!

I hope this is the year when you fulfill, or at least start to fulfill, all your writing ambitions.

I'm looking forward to sharing my writing tips, advice, resources, market information and more with you in the year ahead. So if you haven't already done so, be sure to subscribe via email or RSS to ensure that you never miss a post!

I'm also very happy to consider guest post proposals for 2012 - click here for guidelines.

Don't forget, too, to follow me on Twitter. I regularly use this to share details of useful websites and resources that I don't always have time to post about here.

And if you really want to stay connected, you can also sign up to follow me on my official Facebook Page and Google Plus.

2011 was, of course, the year e-readers made the leap to the mass market, with the Amazon Kindle leading the way. Many thousands more people received Kindles this Christmas and - together with existing Kindle owners such as myself - they are all now looking for good e-books to read on them.

This development has created a massive opportunity for writers, so I wanted to take this opportunity to remind you that I have a course called Kindle Kash that will take you step by step through writing and publishing your own Kindle e-book. Check out this web page for my unique special offer for anyone buying Kindle Kash via my link.

Coming soon in 2012 is my next WCCL writers' guide, Blogging for Writers. This will reveal all the secrets to capitalizing on this hugely writer-friendly medium.

And for something a little bit different, don't forget to check out WCCL's new Think Yourself Lucky audio course, for which I wrote the script. Follow the advice in this to ensure that 2012 is your luckiest year ever!

Once again, a very happy new year to you, and I look forward to hearing about your writing successes in the months ahead.

Photo Credit: "Happy New Year to You" by Beachcomer on the Bay - long way behind on Flickr. Reproduced under Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 Generic Licence.