Start chasing that ball too early and you're business will never be profitable; wait too long and you're leaving money on the table. How can you manage this balancing act?
The post SNM159: How to Make a Ton of Money with Hardback Books appeared first on Serve No Master.
Connect with Jonathan Green
Start chasing that ball too early and you're business will never be profitable; wait too long and you're leaving money on the table. How can you manage this balancing act?
The post SNM159: How to Make a Ton of Money with Hardback Books appeared first on Serve No Master.
Connect with Jonathan Green
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I had to make a ton of money with hardback books on today's episode. Today's episode is brought to you by Social Pilot. The social media and marketing tool for bloggers and small businesses joined over 20,000 social media pros at serve. No master dot com Backslash social pilot today Are you tired of dealing with your boss? Do you feel underpaid and underappreciated? If you want to make it online, fire your boss and start living your retirement dreams now then you've come to the right place. Welcome to serve no master podcast where you learn how to open new revenue streams and make money while you sleep. Presented live from a tropical island in the South Pacific by best selling author Jonathan Green. Now here's your host. I'm still at the new hotel with my wife. We're working on getting our passports and visas. Everything completed. I have to do that interview with her in two days to prove that we're really married. She's really nervous about I don't know why, with kids together, we've lived together for four years. Our marriage couldn't be more real, but we have to go to that processes. I begin to get my first permanent marriage music here so that I can stay longer. It's easier for me to come and go, and honestly, it's not that important. I haven't had problems living here with my current views of situation or traveling. I've never had a problem. But we want to do things right and begin to progress to make things easier for both of us needs you for our kids, especially if you're going to that process. And while we do that, I'm working on some really exciting things. And one things I'm working on is moving into hardback books. We went to a bookstore here yesterday around the big city would have books, or there's no book search where I live and we've got two cookbooks. We bought a paperback and a hardback and the hardback cookbook Costas Muchas four of the paperback ones. Does that mean the content is four times better? No, it turns out it doesn't. They're both great. They're both good in different ways. Content is very similar, but when a book is hard back, we can sell it for a lot more. There a couple of key questions and tools that we go through in the process green hardback book, and I want to take you through the challenges. The first thing is that create space. Amazon will not make a hardback book for you. They won't sell it. They won't do it. Do you have to go somewhere else? And there are really two made options that I've been looking at. There are lots of options out there. If you've been following me when talking about creating cards, the playing cards and that journey, that company will also print your book. However, there are third party printer. What a lot of these other companies dio is. They go to the companies that I want to use any ways to end up going through two steps and you're paying two different companies to help you through the process. And sometimes you need that. The two main places that I've really looked at our lulu dot com and Ingram Spark Ingram is a really big publishing house. They've been a really big company for a long time in the handle printing for a lot of major imprints, the process of printing books. They've been expert for a long time. First I was so sure I was gonna use Lulu. I started looking at lulu dot com. Someone mentioned it to me recently, and they allow you to do some cool things, like a spiral notebook style book, which I think might be great for the journals I'm working on. I'm still trying to put out my first journal, working a lot of different things at once. I'm trying to really diversify the types of content the way you can engage it. So I looked at lulu dot com, put together a couple of ideas for inside the book. My first question. Waas for this hardback. Should I make it bigger when you go to the bookstore? Hardback is a larger size than a paperback, and I know several people, one of whom was my father, who only read hardbacks because they like larger size of the book, which is something interesting that sometimes you don't think about. So I looked at that possibility, and you can either do a larger size hard back. Or you could do a hardback that six inches by night, which is the size of my other books, decided to buy paperbacks that normal standard dimension. But if you do it a larger size that changes the distribution issues. So I looked at doing a larger size. You could. It's harder to get on the Amazon. It's more of a challenge. So probably the hardback edition of serving a master will be six inches by nine. Be the same size as the paperback will have a hardback cover. It's more strong, and you can do other things like have a leather cover like a cloth cover and then have a dust jacket. All of those things. What I'll probably d'oh and thinking what this is. Have one of those hardbacks where the cover is the same as my paper back. It's like just built into that hardback cover, like under the plastic, and I want to do the whole dust jacket thing a little too complicated, and I don't wanna overdo it. I don't know if you want to take off the dust jacket and that's something. It looks like they have a book for the 18 hundreds that I wrote. That could be kind of cool. What I like about this limitation about doing the six by nine is that I don't have to reformat the whole book. In fact, the only thing I'll have to reduce the cover. It's only because I've been a little bit busy over the last two days that haven't ordered my first proof. The challenge with Ingram is that every time you make a change, they charge you. Once you submit your book design, which is a PdF, which means it's set in stone. If you wanna make a change, it's 50 bucks. If you say Oh, there's a typo, it costs $50 to fix that type of. Tell you what, You're really hesitant to fix those something, You start looking type of guy. You know what? I can live with that wood with great space. It's very easy to change typos on the fly. That's why have us create space. But once your book is awesome, once your book is absolutely frosty and doesn't have mistakes anymore, then you can submit it to this platform. And I looked at the fee set up for you $50 that's a little bit prohibitive because you start saying, Oh, I'm gonna make how long's it may make back this 50 bucks. When I looked at putting certain master on Lulu and on Ingram the pricing was very different. To get my book printed, the cost me $22 on little on Ingram. It's a little over 11. To sell a book from Lou, I have to charge at least $30. Not probably only make $45 a sale, not very profitable for the author and very expensive for the reader to print with Ingram, the cost is actually lower than printing my pick back to create space. That's got a new thought in my mind that I may dabble with my next paperback and printed the ring Grammas well, just to see how the price difference experience. But for now, look at hardbacks. I wanna quit hardback edition of all my books and and Rose will be so easy, kind of not done it for a long time, just because of the set of costs and some other things. But now I think about how cool it could be, and there's always so many things going on when you're looking at doing a hard back. You have to think about the cost of the prophet and do a lot of math and is a worse. It is the UPS and downs all those elements there a lot of benefits to doing hard back through really great imprinted extra imprint. Even if I don't sell hardback copies of my book, having AH Hardback edition there will make more people by the other editions of my book will make it even more exciting people. While this must be a really great book with a great publisher, he's got a heart condition. Most Amazon books don't have hardback conditions. Most independent authors don't have a hardback edition because of the hurdle. When you're looking at creating a hardback, the first thing to look at these two platforms you could look at other ones. And the CD Baby does hardbacks as well and a couple other places that do other different types of printing. You want to look at each different place and see how much money you'll make for sale. I can sell a hardback book for $20 instead of 30. That allows me to give a better experience. My audience. I don't know if that will be the final price of the heart back. The hardback may have to be a little bit more. Maybe they haven't looked at shipping costs and a few other pieces. But at least I'm starting out with a much lower number anyway. Charge the same amount I still make. Double the profit gives me a lot more breathing room, and I like that as I have more experience and begin to sell hardback copies of the book, all really B'more dialed into the pricing, and this is why we have to have two experimentation. The next phase for me is to do that first heart back, get a test printing and send it to someone. Now this is a challenge for me. I always have to fight someone to send it to who will do a good job? What I send up. I have a follower who I send my cards, too. He does a great job. You take pictures of them, send them to me, tells me what's right and what's wrong. That really helps me. There were a problem with my test friending of the second batch of cards. That's why I'm not selling cards yet. It takes two weeks to go through the process of doing that first test. Brendan, because they have toe do the mock ups running through the whole process and then ship them. It takes a while, so it's two weeks each time I come with a new design. Once they're perfect. The second and third printings printing them for you guys won't take us long. We want to find someone who will be reliable. I designed my coloring book, consented to someone, and they're so busy they haven't responded. And three or four days I don't even know if the book arrived. It should have by now. If it hasn't, I really want to know that as you're designing and thinking about doing other things with your business, it's really good to expand into other formats and other additions. Some people really want to hold the hardback copy in their hands. The majority of my readers have more than one addition of each of my books. I know a lot of people that like to go back and forth between candle on audiobook, and if they like a book enough, then they buy the paper back. This is how certain people engaged content and we want to give people whatever they want. This isn't just about making more money. This is about giving people what they want given than that right experience. I really like reading hardbacks, too. I grew up reading hardback books, but now Makindo guy. Because of the convenience, however, I want more and more my books to end up in libraries. That's why we have a recent episode where I explained audio books and libraries in the hopes that you'll tell your library to put my audio book in there. When you were putting together your heart back, choose the right size that would like to do things you want. I wanted to do a larger size heart back, but then it wouldn't give you the option of distribution Amazon and I said, Well, if I can't do it through Amazon, I don't want this larger size. It's no use to me when you're re sizing. You have to do some reformatting issues. You have to set the new tram and say, OK, this is the spacing on the page is the great thing about doing the same size is that I don't have to change anything. I can use the same interior template from my pay back in hardback. It's a bit of convenience. I tried not to be so lazy that I mean that the main reason I chose my size. That's why I tried the larger size First. Thinking about multiple ways to create your book helps you to think a little bit outside the box. I see a lot of others who are caught up in the just pure Kindle edition, and they don't have an audio book and have a paperback little in hardback, let alone a journal edition, let alone a workbook addition. Little on Audiobook Edition You don't have to constantly write new books to generate new content or to expand. Oftentimes, people find me in a very unique ways. There are people who only finally through audible dot com there people on Lee find me through the Kindle edition, and they're not the same people. People have different ways of finding stuff. You're making yourself easier to find. There may be people who have never bought my book. I saw that. So that looks great. Oh, no hard back. No thanks. They're hard back. Only I want them to be able to read and engage in my content. There are people who on Lee find you through certain ways. Diversify your content offerings If I can figure out a way to make a serve. No master coloring book that seems interesting engages people with the lessons that I'll do it. It's not always about commercializing or getting into merchandise. Sometimes it's about how people engage content. Adult color books are very big right now. I'm not sure if there's a way to make a certain rest your coloring book. That doesn't seem a little bit over the top. But if I can find a way to reach that audience, I will. I've got an amazing comment on the blood today. I saw it. Someone found me looking for the cure for depression. I don't even know that serve. No master came up under that search. Result of other books about depression I've just written a new book on the whole top of depression that's now with my transcriptionist will hopefully be coming out in my cycle over the next 2 to 3 months. But it was amazing that someone found me that way, and then they found value in the rest of the book. You never know which last since people are gonna take away. You never know the best way for you to find you. The only reason I haven't pushed hard backs in the past and done a lot myself is that there's a bit of an up front cost, a bit of a risk. It's not huge. It'll be $49 now. It used to be more. They lower the prices, which is pretty cool. Take a look at Ingrid. Take a look at Lulu. There are other things you could d'oh beyond print on demand. You can order a batch of hunch books, and they started. Give you discounts. If you want to get discounts on a run from create space, you have to order over 1000 books when you're looking at Lulu and Ingram. They started give you discounts much more quickly because they're competing. Let's create space. They have to offer you more benefits to make it worthwhile. I can tell you right now that if Ingram can give me better pricing, I'll look for a way to switch my paperback printing because it'll be worth it to me. It's very expensive for me to print a paperback book through Create space. It cost me nearly $15 to get a printing of certain a master and In fact, if I charged $15 I would get nothing for sale. I'll get nothing. It would be a loss. But the lowest number create space alarming to d'oh. That's why the books 1999. I would love for the paperback to be cheaper. I would love for the paperback to be, like $10 or $12 more affordable for people. Unfortunately, so long Christmas doesn't allow that. So I am looking at other things. I would have never thought about changing my paperback printing until I saw this amazing pricing to Lulu pricing. And maybe I did something wrong. I'm gonna look again. Was so high comparatively that Ingram really impressed me. I wasn't even gonna look at Ingram until I thought You know what? I should just double check out so surprised. I forgot. I even had an account with them. I have never done a book. Look at all of these different places When you doing all the printing yourself? Yes, these air, these other hurdles. And I know that it's very tempting at this moment to go. You know what? I'm just gonna go through a publisher or someone else. I looked at this website. I forget wild on this website. I was trying to research a pricing thing or a formatting thing, and they were talking about how they do formatting for you and they'll format your book for you for only $1200. So expensive for something only takes a couple hours to learn. There always people trying to take advantage of what we d'oh the people who made the most money during the gold rush was the guy selling shovels to the gold miners. Very few gold miners struck it rich and the same way very few authors breakthrough and make a massive success. But there are always people along the way trying to grab as much of your profits if they can't very expensive editors. Very expensive. Cover design is very expensive formatting. You can easily take a book you've written and to get it published. Spend five or $10,000 and you probably never make that back. Very few authors do. By that point, you've spent so much money you're not ready to spend money on. Marketing would be so much more valuable. You can just feel exhausted and worn out. I can't believe it's so expensive, and you're hoping to start making 100 or $1000 a day. She could make back your money, but it's not always that quick. Sometimes you just have a base hit. You don't always have a home run. The real secret to success on Amazon is diversification of your books and quantity. The more offerings you have in different formats and in different content. That's when you start to be really successful. But being crippled on book after book can be brutal. So the last thing I'll share with you is a bit of formatting advice right now to format my paperbacks, I used Scripture export directly from Scrivener. I have, ah, set up that's been working really, really well. I only end up having to make a few minor changes. It takes about three or four hours. That's still not perfect. I would make these little mistakes, and Rosa wanted change things. I don't want to the formatting process, but I certainly I wouldn't want to pay thousands of dollars to have someone else do that. I like doing it myself. When you pay someone else, they never want to give you an editable format. They always want to give you the final PdF and say, Well, if there's any changes, you gotta pay me again. That's how they stay in control and I hate that. I spoke to someone recently asking them to help me format my coloring book because I was doing something wrong. They wanted to charge me way too much money for something that was already pretty much formatted. All I wanted them to do is check out why I was making a mistake. With my uploaded create space, I discovered the problem wasn't my file was the browser. They want to talk to a huge amount of money. I said, We're gonna charge me that much, even charge me for the blank pages in a coloring book, every other pages blanks the one someone draws the back of its blank. They want to tear it out and put on the wall or something. They can, and they're like, Well, we got a charge for the blank pages to you're trying to do for the blank pages. You're overcharging me over your initial bit, We least giving edible form. And they said, No way. These people never want to give up the power over us. What? I'm really excited about it. I haven't tested this yet. It just came out a couple of days ago. That vellum now has a physical copy export option. I just bought the upgrade $100 to upgrade my my unlimited account, which is unlimited exports of candle books to unlimited exports of paperbacks. A swell haven't done one yet. I'm gonna do it with control your fate. See how it turns out that was a huge metaphor. Mining time. If it works as well as I hope, I haven't played with it yet, but I'm excited about that. I'm more more excited about vellum. I wish Felt had an affiliate program. So I get a commission when I sell it. But of course, they don't. Such as life. It's such a great progress. I have to share it with you. Talk for mine all my books. And if it can format paperback books as well, it's gonna become my go to piece of software for everything. Right now, my scrivener file becomes my master file. So when someone sends me any type of edits after the book has been released, I have to fix it in scribbler first and then make the same fixes at the same time in the vellum file so that we have consistent fixes that the paperback matches the digital version. But the possibility of just clicking another button and exporting two different sizes means it's even easier than ever before for you to put out that hardback edition. My advice today and when I recommend for you to do if you already have a book out there, format it for hard back and just get one printed, get it sent to your house and see what it looks and feels like that becomes back looking pretty good at it. Your Amazon listing and you're gonna notice a spike in sales. Different people like different formats. It doesn't have to be hard anymore. Formatting in being an evil Gotham is getting easier and easier and easier, and that is how you can make real money. We are back. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Serve No Master. Make sure you subscribe, so you never miss another episode. We'll be back tomorrow with more tips and tactics on how to escape that rat race hit over to serve no master dot com forward slash podcasts Now for your chance to win a free coffee of Jonathan's bestseller Serve No, master. All you have to do is leave a five star review of this podcast. See you tomorrow. Thank you for listening to this episode of the serve. No master podcast. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single episode.