.jpg)
The Daring Author
The Daring Author
The Road to Diversified Publishing Income - Phase One
What if your writing career could reach new heights by breaking free from Kindle Unlimited’ s exclusivity? Jenna is sharing her journey to diversifying her income by going wide and focusing on direct sales.
In this episode, Jenna discusses the meticulous research and strategic planning that go into transitioning solo books to platforms like Apple, Kobo, and direct sales through Shopify store. We'll explore the significant benefits of not depending solely on one platform, even if it means enduring an initial dip in income. This long-term strategy is all about sustainable growth and reaching a broader audience.
Ever wondered how successful authors effectively market their books when going wide? Tune in as Jenna starts this journey by researching and speaking with fellow authors who have gone wide.
This is just the first stage of the journey...lets go!
Book your complimentary discovery call here!
Discover what social media platform is right for you here!
Download 50 content ideas for authors here!
Website: https://thedaringpress.com/
Welcome to the Daring Author Podcast, the show that takes you behind the scenes of building a successful author business, bringing you inspiring interviews and information on writing and marketing ideas for your book so that you can build an easeful, empowering and profitable author business. I'm your host, jenna Lee, owner of the Daring Press, a virtual marketing and support agency where we help indie authors who are ready to take their author business to the next level with more ease, growth and time. You can find the episode show notes and a bunch of marketing resources at thedaringpresscom. Let's become daring authors by diving into today's episode. Hello, and welcome back to another chapter of the Daring Author Podcast Today.
Jenna Lee:This is like the start of a new series of going wide from Kindle Unlimited, because that is exactly what I'm going to be doing, and I want to take you along the journey of that from start to finish and even beyond that, to see how things go with going wide. Now I do understand that going wide is a very long game strategy. Now. It's not something to trial for three months, even six months. It's more like years of trialing, erroring and working out, yeah, how it goes. So I want to take you along that journey and for me, I have all of my books solo books and co-written books in Kindle Unlimited. Now I'm going to be keeping my co-write books in KU just to keep in with my co-writers who want to keep the books in KU, which is completely fine. So I'm keeping all those books in Kindle Unlimited and I'm going to take everything else all of my solo books, solo series and standalone books. I'm going to take them wide. So what that means is I'm going to be taking them wide to sell directly on my Shopify store, which is what I have been building out and my partner, dylan, has been building out over the last couple of months. I'm going to be selling directly on there and I'm also going to be going wide. So, on Apple, kobo, what else is there? Basically every other platform, apart from being exclusive in Kindle Unlimited. Now, kindle Unlimited is you get paid per page read. People can also buy your books separately on Amazon and pay if they're not in the Kindle Unlimited subscription. So I'm going to be taking my books wide.
Jenna Lee:Now the reason behind this is for me, I feel like I just don't want to get in a chokehold with Kindle Unlimited and be stuck with that. I can't, like I'm earning way too much there and I can't actually get out of it and go wide because I'm stuck in there and if I do I will lose income. Now I have seen many authors do this. Where they are making, you know they're working full-time as authors and they have a whole. They have like a three to five year plan of bringing out books and series one at a time to build them out on wide and then keeping the rest in KU and slowly building them out and bringing them out of Kindle Unlimited and going wide. And that strategy seems to work really well for them.
Jenna Lee:So for me, I don't want to be stuck and being relied on one strategy on one platform. It just feels silly to me. But I get it Like Kindle Unlimited have the monopoly in certain genres and they do have a really great readership and you know people have like a lot of success on there. But on the flip side, a lot of people have really great success going wide. It's just a lot of. You've just got to have a really good strategy and you've got to be set with what you're doing, your marketing, how you're going to do it. So that is what I'm going to do Now.
Jenna Lee:I have a lot of different businesses and I make a lot of different income in multiple different ways, which is who I am and how I work. I'm a multi-passionate entrepreneur and I don't like putting all my eggs in one basket. So for me, going out of KU feels like a really good decision, because I'm that type of person that I don't want to put all my eggs in one basket, like I want to be wide and have that opportunity for readers to be able to read my book in all different platforms and just being able to extend my reach outside of just being in KU. And my books will still be on Amazon. They just won't be in the Kindle Unlimited subscription and program, because when your books are in there, you've got to be exclusive to there, which just really annoys me. It's just my marketing site. I don't want to put everything in the one basket. I want to open up that thing.
Jenna Lee:Now. Is this scary for me? Hell yeah, because I'm going to lose income for the time being until I build that up, but for me it's okay. I'm willing to lose a little to earn more in the long game. This is a long game strategy and if you are considering going wide, it is going to be a long game. It is going to be a long strategy in how you set that up and how you plan that out, which is what I'm going to be doing.
Jenna Lee:So first step for me is very much around research phase. So what am I doing in terms of research? So I have been in multiple Facebook groups in the past where I have, you know, looked at how people are going wide. I'm doing a lot of research around. You know what people are doing, how they're going wide, what strategies are they using. Literally, I've been doing this for the past 6 to 12 months at least, just to really look at, okay, what you know. Is this going to be worthwhile for me? What are people doing? How are they? You know, how are they bringing their books out? What genres are they in? You know, literally going through all of the processes and you know, and basically reading everything that I can to see what people are doing within my industry and within the same genre as well. Now I write a lot of Y2's Reverse Harem and that is really big on KU. So that has a really great leadership. Not leadership, that has really great leadership.
Jenna Lee:Readership, oh, my goodness, on Kindle Unlimited. So it is. You know, they do have a lot of readers there. But in saying that I have spoken to because I wanted to find out, I'm like, okay, well, is this going to be worth it taking my why Choose series out of KU and putting it wide? Is there going to be readership there outside of Kindle Unlimited? So that's where I've started.
Jenna Lee:I'm talking to authors who are, who have gone wide, who are why Choose authors, and seeing what they did, how you know how sales are going, and it's quite interesting I was a bit like, oh, cause everyone tells you, oh, good luck trying to get your books to go wide. When you're writing wide shoes and this might be the same for you know, specific genres that you write in People might be like oh, you know, all the readers are in KU, you can't take that wide. That's why I encourage you, when you're doing your research phase, to talk to people that are who write in the same genre, who have similar series, making sure that you know how are they doing, what's, what has been their strategy. You know, ask the questions, and authors are so open to sharing this information with you. You know, I just send them a message who I, some people who I already have a relationship with and just to find out you know how they're doing, and ask those questions, because for me, that's really going to help me to, you know, decide and look at when I'm creating my strategy for going wide. I want to know what they've done and be that little squirrel of like oh, what's worked for you, what hasn't you know?
Jenna Lee:What are you doing in terms of marketing? How did you bring your series out? What did that look like? Now, one particular author that I'm talking to at the moment her plan has been over three to four years, taking one series out at a time and going wide. Now she has three series that are why choose? And she is making really great money from going wide and there is readership there. So for me that is a good sign because if I did do this and I was like, okay, I'm going wide and that's it, it would be a bit of a risk because I'm not doing the research behind it and I'm not looking at okay, well, is my genre gonna going wide? Is there readership there?
Jenna Lee:You know, what have people done in terms of the strategy around, like, how have they taken the books out? Is it a longer process? Are they taking one book at a time, one series, or are they going all out? You know what platforms are they using to do this. Are they using like Draft2Digital, to put it on all the different platforms? Are they selling directly? How are they selling it there? What are they using to drive sales to their website to these other platforms? Are they using Facebook ads? Are they using TikTok, like?
Jenna Lee:Just working out all of these questions and doing that research phase, because if I didn't do this phase, I'm going in with a huge gamble of like, oh, let's just throw all these things into one particular thing. That might not work, but on the flip side, if I actually talk to people and know what steps they took, I'm going to not waste as much time going down the wrong path if that's not going to work for me, because I've spoken to people that have gone through this already and they're willing to share that information with me to work out, you know, what's going to work best for this book, this series, this particular genre, whatever it is, and then that from that, that's going to form and create the strategy that I'm going to take. So I think this research phase is really, really important. There's some really great Facebook groups as well. Wide for the Win Building a Book Empire with Anne-Marie there is really great strategies in there. There's also I have access to a few courses as well that are really helping me with the transition from wide and even building out Shopify store.
Jenna Lee:The transition from wide and even building out Shopify store stuff like that. There is a lot of different resources out there and within those groups there is a lot of great success stories that people share and, in terms of marketing, what's working, what's not working. And it's really good in that research phase to basically stalk these Facebook groups, stalk the people within them. You know, even reaching out cold reaching out if you don't have a connection with this person but I think within the author community we all have a connection somehow and if you just open that, open the message for like an interaction and open that conversation with the person, they are going to be willing to message you back and if not, that's okay.
Jenna Lee:But I think just stalking all these Facebook groups, finding out as much information as you can and then reaching out to people that write in the same genres as you and seeing what works best for them, I think that is the best first stage and what I'm personally doing is this research phase. So that's step number one for me and I think from here, after doing the research phase, I'm going to be putting together a bit of a strategy. So in the next episode that I do in relation to this, I will be sharing, yeah, what's the next step for me after this research phase? What have I found out? What you know, what is working for authors in particular genres and really, yeah, working out what's the next best step for me moving forward.
Jenna Lee:So it is scary, I know that it is a risk, but for me, I truly believe that if I have my books open to more opportunity, open to wider audiences, for me that just makes sense on my entrepreneurial journey.
Jenna Lee:Being a multi-passionate person, I want my books to be open a lot more and have more opportunity for income to come in in multiple different income streams. So that's the reasoning behind it. I hope you follow along on this journey and if you have gone wide, I would love to hear your story, hear your journey. So reach out to me, either by email at hello at thederingpresscom, or reach out on Instagram, tiktok, facebook, whatever you wish. And, yeah, share your journey with me. I would love to see and hear you know what steps you took and how it's going for you so far. All right, I will speak to you in the next episode. Thank you so much for joining. Thanks for listening to the Daring Author Podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review, and if you are ready to grow your author business with the support of the Daring Press book in your free discovery call today, before places fill up. We'll see you in the next Daring episode.