How many rewrites of their Book should an Author do?

2 to 4 rewrites is the ideal number At that point you will hit the wall of diminishing returns, and should hand it over to a good professional editor Note: Depending on your book category/genre, you might want to do 1 or 2 more rewrites (i.e. a total of 3 to 6 rewrites) BEFORE handing it over to your editor. Certain genres like Historical Fiction have very little tolerance for errors (especially...

Will there be a Netflix for Books? Who has the best chances of becoming the Netflix for Books?

Yes and No. Let's see why First, Netflix reported its 2019 Quarter 4 Quarterly Earnings on Jan 21st, 2020 Some interesting points from Netflix's Quarterly Earnings Report - Netflix has 167 million subscribers, over 100 million outside the US It had quarterly revenue of $5.467 Billion 2019 revenue was over $20 Billion It had quarterly net income of $587 million It had 20% to 31% Year over Year...

Levels of Cover Design Mastery

These are the Levels of Cover Design Mastery Readers don't judge a book by its cover I can make the cover myself and a Title on a blank page is Enough I can do the Cover myself and a Pattern with a Title is Fine I can do the Cover myself and a Pretty Image is enough Let's get a $5 cover at Fiverr I can do the Cover myself and a couple of hours on Photoshop is enough Fonts? What are Fonts? I'm...

Can you test a Market without launching a Book?

Yes, actually you can. Here are a few ways Test the Keywords in Google Adwords using a Landing Page Test a Minimum Viable Product i.e. a short story or a novella that is similar in theme to the book you intend to write. Please Note: This has some downsides Use a Kindle Store Keyword Research Tool to see how much money people are actually making in that market Do Market Research and see how many...

What Gets Measured Gets Managed for Authors

Please Note: All Credit for the Idea of 'What Gets Measured Gets Managed' goes to Peter Drucker, one of the foremost Marketing Gurus of the 20th Century, and to William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), the Scottish physicist Thanks to A Thinking Person for this beautiful comment from Lord Kelvin I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something...

How Big is Kindle Unlimited? Is it 3 Million Subscribers? Is it 10 Million Subscribers?

Warning: This is not scientific. This is A GUESS. This is based on Assumptions and it's literally called a Guesstimate i.e. Guess + Estimate. Except for Amazon, no one knows exactly how many Kindle Unlimited subscribers there are First, let's look at various guesses over the years Fortune in 2015 thought Kindle Unlimited had 2 million subscribers The Passive Voice in 2017 thought Kindle Unlimited...

How much are KDP Select All Stars Paid?

What are KDP Select All Stars? Each month, Amazon determines the Top 100 Authors in KDP Select (Kindle Digital Publishing Select) whose books were read the most in Kindle Unlimited (KU) and Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL). They get designated as 'KDP Select All Stars' and get a special bonus, on top of whatever they get from their pages read earnings How much are KDP Select All Stars Paid?...

How to Use Your Kindle Free Days (KDP Select Free Book Promotions)

What are Kindle Free Days AKA 5 Days of Free Book Promotions Books that are enrolled in Kindle Select, get to run Free Book Promotions on the book for a total of 5 days, every 3 months To be more precise - Every 90 day KDP Select enrollment period, you get FIVE Kindle Free Days where you can promote your book as a free book You can use these days together as a single continuous 5 day stretch You...

Why was Book Subscription Service, Oyster, closed down?

News that Scribd has hit 1 million paid subscribers, and an annual revenue rate of $100 million a year, brings up some very interesting questions If Scribd is making $100 million a year, and has 1 million paid subscribers, how much is Kindle Unlimited making?  Our post on How Big is Kindle Unlimited? will address this in the near future Why did Google buy and shut down Oyster, the Book...

Top Websites for Authors

We've already covered Top Blogs for Authors in an earlier post This post covers the Top Websites for Authors, listed in no particular order Top Websites for Authors Part 1 Writer Unboxed - excellent site about the Craft and Business of Fiction Jane Reid, Literary Agent - excellent website/blog which lets you get insights into the mind of a literary agent Seth Godin Blog and Seth Godin website -...