Christian Mikkelsen from Publishing Life dot com has the secret to making ten Gs a month publishing on Amazon. Actually, it’s a number of things. First and foremost, reviews are critical. Get a lot of them. Make sure they’re as close to a perfect rating as possible. Aim for fifty or more reviews on your print book (eBook) and your audiobook. Once you do that, you’ll make steady sales. So many self-publishers overlook this. Don’t be one of them. What else? Read on for more insights from Christian.
Next is title. A lot of publishers come up with horrific titles. Why? When it’s so easy to model winning titles? Just look at what the top sellers are titling their eBooks and audiobooks and do something similar. It’s not rocket science. Third is cover. Artwork. Design. Branding. Whatever you want to call it. Does it catch your eye? If not, if you wouldn’t buy the book yourself, how can you expect anyone else to?
In terms of the how-to side of publishing, those are the three main ingredients for success. Now, are you ready for the real secret? The big one? Before revealing what it is, Christian explains how it was inspired by a long-winded email he got from some guy. Victim mentality. Nothing else had worked for him. He’d tried it all. Had one shot left to shoot, and wondered if he should risk the bullet on audiobooks.
Christian had to set him straight. He filmed a twenty-two minute video response saying how, unless you’re on your death bed, you have as many shots as you need. This is just business. It’s not life or death. You can fail unlimited times and still break through. So the secret to making ten grand a month on Amazon (or however much you want to make) is to “not stop working towards that goal until you [bleeping] achieve it.”
“So saying that you have one last shot to give at this,” Christian rants, “you instantly have zero percent chance. That’s because, the first time you try anything is never ever going to work.” If you give yourself no margin for error, your expectations are impossible. The only thing that is guaranteed in entrepreneurship is that you have to wade through some suck to get to success.
The problem online is people jump into something and when they don’t see immediate results, they’re all, “I knew it, I knew it was a scam. This doesn’t work.” This type of fixed mindset is the number one thing holding everyone back. “We’ve worked with thousands of students now in our AIA program,” Christian continues, “and a lot of people come in and they get nothing out of it because they’re expecting to try something once and have it work perfectly.”
“But the truth is, the first time you do anything, you’re going to suck at it. It’s going to be crap. And here’s the beautiful part about this: that’s okay. Try it again and you’ll get five percent better at it. Then you do it again. Maybe by your third book you get some traction.” The Mikkelsen twins believe in extreme accountability. It’s all your fault. The good, the bad, the ugly. Just own it. Make the adjustments. Keep going. Not sexy, but it’s the truth.
