A small, but passive income.

Dick Barton

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As some of you know I make most of my cash from selling on ebay. However, there is a little something I tried out about 4 years ago and that was putting up small booklets on Kindle Direct Publishing. At first they paid okay and I made about £15 to £20 a month. It was my intention to increase the numbers, but then Amazon changed policy. You got your royalties if a booklet was sold or loaned out like a library book, which most of mine were. The policy change was that any book taken out on loan was paid at one half a cent for each page read. This cut earning down a lot. Anyway, I stopped production! I now get from past efforts anything from £2 to £5 a month and usually top the £25 for the year, As my wife says, it pays for the Christmas turkey! I know a lot of you out there do tasks that bring in small amounts that add up and so, this might be a way of adding to your income. I think my maximum word count on anything I published was about 2000. You don't need great writing skills and if you have free time it might pay you to do this. My actual total income from start to finish is currently £470.
 

Jon

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As some of you know I make most of my cash from selling on ebay. However, there is a little something I tried out about 4 years ago and that was putting up small booklets on Kindle Direct Publishing. At first they paid okay and I made about £15 to £20 a month. It was my intention to increase the numbers, but then Amazon changed policy. You got your royalties if a booklet was sold or loaned out like a library book, which most of mine were. The policy change was that any book taken out on loan was paid at one half a cent for each page read. This cut earning down a lot. Anyway, I stopped production! I now get from past efforts anything from £2 to £5 a month and usually top the £25 for the year, As my wife says, it pays for the Christmas turkey! I know a lot of you out there do tasks that bring in small amounts that add up and so, this might be a way of adding to your income. I think my maximum word count on anything I published was about 2000. You don't need great writing skills and if you have free time it might pay you to do this. My actual total income from start to finish is currently £470.
Going back a few years everyone and their dog online was saying I should write an e-book explaining how to make money online.

My issue was it with (and still is) that online money making moves as such a dramatic rate and what websites or ops are there today may not be there in a months time so your book automatically goes out of date!
 
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David Says...

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Going back a few years everyone and their dog online was saying I should write an e-book explaining how to make money online.

My issue was it with (and still is) that online money making moves as such a dramatic rate and what websites or ops are there today may not be there in a months time so your book automatically goes out of date!

That's not a problem - it's an opportunity.

Landscape changed? Release an updated edition - if readers liked your content and style then they'll pay for it AGAIN.

Or do different editions - Matched Betting edition, Blogging edition, Affiliate marketing edition etc.
 

Countrymadegirl

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Going back a few years everyone and their dog online was saying I should write an e-book explaining how to make money online.

My issue was it with (and still is) that online money making moves as such a dramatic rate and what websites or ops are there today may not be there in a months time so your book automatically goes out of date!

You could do a yearly edition? But now it's got me thinking about books I could write and publish on KDP...
 

Jon

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That's not a problem - it's an opportunity.

Landscape changed? Release an updated edition - if readers liked your content and style then they'll pay for it AGAIN.

Or do different editions - Matched Betting edition, Blogging edition, Affiliate marketing edition etc.
Too much faff lol
 
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Normaq

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I have always thought about writing a book is it hard to do, I only want to do a short read one
 

maisiemog

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All my uni notes are on the kindle marketplace as revision notes. Did quite well from Jan to May with them. Also have a few ideas for other short read books. It’s fefini a worthwhile effort if you can get into it!
 
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Dick Barton

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I should add that I write short (usually under 2000 words) stories and have sold a few of those. I was thinking of hiring from fiverr someone who can read aloud professionally and stick them on Youtube.
 

Jon

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I should add that I write short (usually under 2000 words) stories and have sold a few of those. I was thinking of hiring from fiverr someone who can read aloud professionally and stick them on Youtube.
Just make sure it’s not one of those robot voices people use for them on YouTube!
 
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David Says...

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Too much faff lol

As @The Reverend said you already do that with Totally Blogging. The only difference is the way that the content is output. Re: affiliate links, short URLs would work well - that's what (paper) magazines tend to do.

BTW I'm not trying to persuade you to enter the eBook market. The barriers to doing so (effort of updating) aren't any more onerous than other forms of creating content, though.

Done well, eBook content can be used and sold over and over and over again - even to the same customers.
 
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Jon

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As @The Reverend said you already do that with Totally Blogging. The only difference is the way that the content is output. Re: affiliate links, short URLs would work well - that's what (paper) magazines tend to do.

BTW I'm not trying to persuade you to enter the eBook market. The barriers to doing so (effort of updating) aren't any more onerous than other forms of creating content, though.

Done well, eBook content can be used and sold over and over and over again - even to the same customers.

Why do I see so many 'blogging / money' ebooks being sold for 99p a time then. Or is that the normal price do you think for fact based ebooks?
 

David Says...

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Why do I see so many 'blogging / money' ebooks being sold for 99p a time then. Or is that the normal price do you think for fact based ebooks?

That doesn't follow from what I wrote :)

Done well content can be used and sold over and over and over again.

Go to Amazon and search for "Joe Wicks" (the 'body coach') in Books. There are dozens of books all following the same template. Then go and have a look at some of his courses which are based on the same formula of recipes and workouts. They're exceptionally popular and sell by the thousands.

Rebundling content has always happened. Songs are released as singles and then as part of studio albums, live albums, multi-artist compilations (now that's what I call music, etc) and best-of albums.

Harry Potter went from being a book series to a movie franchise, with all the merchandising spin offs. The Walking Dead went from comic book to TV series and will soon be a movie franchise. Same stories, but rebundled in different formats.

Some people prefer reading ebooks, others blog posts, and others like to watch videos.

It can (and has) worked in your niche. ProBlogger did a series of blog posts here:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/

And then later released an ebook (19000 sold at $30) based around the series:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-join-9100-other-bloggers-today/

And then did a second edition ($100) here:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-course/



Again, I'm not trying to persuade you to do this. If what you do works for you then it works for you! But others shouldn't be deterred if they think they've spotted a market and they think that they can create a high quality product which adds value.
 
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Jon

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That doesn't follow from what I wrote :)

Done well content can be used and sold over and over and over again.

Go to Amazon and search for "Joe Wicks" (the 'body coach') in Books. There are dozens of books all following the same template. Then go and have a look at some of his courses which are based on the same formula of recipes and workouts. They're exceptionally popular and sell by the thousands.

Rebundling content has always happened. Songs are released as singles and then as part of studio albums, live albums, multi-artist compilations (now that's what I call music, etc) and best-of albums.

Harry Potter went from being a book series to a movie franchise, with all the merchandising spin offs. The Walking Dead went from comic book to TV series and will soon be a movie franchise. Same stories, but rebundled in different formats.

Some people prefer reading ebooks, others blog posts, and others like to watch videos.

It can (and has) worked in your niche. ProBlogger did a series of blog posts here:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/

And then later released an ebook (19000 sold at $30) based around the series:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-join-9100-other-bloggers-today/

And then did a second edition ($100) here:

https://problogger.com/31-days-to-build-a-better-blog-course/



Again, I'm not trying to persuade you to do this. If what you do works for you then it works for you! But others shouldn't be deterred if they think they've spotted a market and they think that they can create a high quality product which adds value.
I’ll just employ @Ar_ to write one for me I think :)
 
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Dick Barton

Money Making Megastar!
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Age
79
As @The Reverend said you already do that with Totally Blogging. The only difference is the way that the content is output. Re: affiliate links, short URLs would work well - that's what (paper) magazines tend to do.

BTW I'm not trying to persuade you to enter the eBook market. The barriers to doing so (effort of updating) aren't any more onerous than other forms of creating content, though.

Done well, eBook content can be used and sold over and over and over again - even to the same customers.
As I said, I write short stories and every piece is different. I have people ask when is my next story coming.
 

David Says...

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As I said, I write short stories and every piece is different. I have people ask when is my next story coming.

Sorry, I took the thread in a completely different direction with reusing content! The nice thing about your approach is that it's broadly "do once, profit later" - the holy grail of passive income.

Do you have any tips about what works well? E.g. cover design, descriptions, titles etc?

On the flipside of what I was chatting to Jon about - have you thought about creating a website(s) using the source content of your books? Chuck on a few adverts, promote a few affiliate links and you could double or triple your income from the work.
 

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