eBooks Are Awesome

Holy Cannoli.

I've released two books in my new series, in my new niche, and I've never had any ebook sell this well before. These two books have made me over $100 so far. One of them, priced at $0.99 (35% royalty), has been out for nine days and has made me $76. The second, priced at $2.99 (70% royalty), was released this morning and has already made me $46. I had my best sales day ever, making a total of $70 across 10 ebooks. $57 of that came from these two new books.

With a week to go in the month, I've already exceeded my best month on Amazon by $37. I am confident that next month will easily become my first four-figure month. There is a small chance that this month will end up being my first (I've got all these nifty numbers because I started keeping a more detailed daily sales spreadsheet halfway through this month).

I'm releasing three more books in the next three weeks, all a part of the same series. My mailing list is growing every day and I have a reliable system of promotion in place to get the initial sales I need to push my books up the Amazon ranks.

The biggest news of all is:

In pretty much any scenario that plays out at this point, I am going to be able to quit my job in February 2013 and write full-time! 

Learning from Mistakes

Jaana over at Passive Income Stream Creator has hinted that I should write a post about the mistakes I've made over the past few months and what I've learned from them. I thought that was a fantastic idea, so here we are!

A little bit of backstory: The first five ebooks I wrote did very well and continue to make me money five months after their release. Instead of leaving 'well enough' alone and moving on to the next project, I instead decided to build a website to generate more sales of my ebooks, which ended up being a waste of time because i didn't do the math beforehand. Oh well, lesson learned.

After that, I juggled through several ideas and ended up releasing two more ebooks - not a lot. In between those two releases were a few more ebooks that I started, but decided not to finish after realizing that they weren't going to make me any money. The two that I did release didn't really make me any money anyway.

To date, one has sold 0 copies after being live for over a month. A lot of effort and research went into that book, and I was really disappointed. I learned a lot writing that book, though. It was a lot longer than any of my other books and required much more intense and detailed research. It was a large undertaking and I stalled on it quite a bit, but finishing it proved to me that I am capable of undertaking larger scale projects - very important for my new niche of focus.

The other book I wrote during this time sells 2-5 copies a month, which I won't turn down since it cost me absolutely zero dollars to produce and costs zero more to keep on sale. I won't turn down an extra ten bucks a month, but if I keep writing books that only sell that amount, it's going to be a long road to creating a livable passive income. That's out of the question when there are so many better options.

I hit on something right with my first books when I discovered a topic that was:

1. Popular
2. Selling Well
3. Not saturated/had a gap in niche coverage

But for some reason, with my next few books I decided that I would only focus on number 3, and ended up writing books for which there was no market. Silly me!

I'm willing to write whatever sells, so I've finally gotten back on track by jumping into a flaming hot niche that meets all three criteria. I just released my first book in this new niche and it has already moved nine copies in less than 24 hours (having gone live on only two sites and with no promotion) - a good sign that I've hit all three criteria. Here's hoping. Now, to get back to the business of writing...

My Net Worth: It's (still) Less than Zero (but...)

...it's way closer to 'zero' than it was the last time I checked. It now stands at $-547, up from a roughly calculated $-3,140. I attribute this huge jump mostly to more accurate calculation, but also to:

• Getting current on my debts (+450)
• Continuing to pay down those pesky student loans (+84)
• Putting my first small bit of money in savings (+200)

If all goes well, I could get to 0 by the end of the year, then start actually building wealth! I'm really excited. It's a big mental shift for me. It feels good to struggle less.

Opening a Savings Account

I'm really excited because I came a step further along in my plan today. I opened a savings account and made my first deposit. I'm now current on all of my debts and have moved on to the next phase of the plan: saving up money. (for a combined 'emergency/buy a car/move to LA' fund).

I am roughly following Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover plan, but I've modified it to meet my needs and circumstances - namely, my impending move to LA. Instead of throwing all of my extra income at my debt after I fund my baby emergency fund, I'm instead going to continue saving for the many components of my moving plan. My reasoning:

• My student loan debt (the only debt I carry) is small (less than $5,500 total)
• The interest rates are very low on these small debts.
• My total minimum monthly payment is currently only $84, and that's the highest it's going to get.
• One of my three loans will be paid off in six more months.
• I am not sure how much my income will increase. The additional $5.5k could potentially delay my move by a year.

I will compromise by continuing to implement the 'debt snowball'. Once this smallest loan is paid off, I'll reallocate the $40/month from that loan to the other two, in order to pay them off faster.

My combined fund contains the following components:

• Emergency fund + cushion: $3,000
• Used car: $5,000
• Car Insurance (6 mos): $800
• Plane ticket to parents' (to buy car and pick up belongings): $300
• Shipping current belongings home: $200
• Moving expenses: $1,000
• Sublet/lease rent+deposits : $1,800
• Total: $12,100

This is an extremely safe estimate. I anticipate receiving a little help with the car and having a temporary place to stay in LA, but I'm budgeting as if neither of those are a certainty. I also won't move until I have at least $2,000 a month in passive income.

October Earnings Snapshot: $689.30

I wonder if this is lower than expected because I haven't reached the payment threshold for foreign currencies?

Finally

I finally got the first eBook of this new series done. It was significantly longer than the last ones, which is part of why it took so long - not because it was a lot of work, but because I found myself quite overwhelmed at several points. When all was said and done, however, it wasn't nearly as much work as I expected it to be. Now I can go into writing the remaining books with realistic expectations of how long it's going to take.

Finally Getting Back into the Swing

I've been struggling with discipline/motivation/something. That's partly the way I seem to work: I get super jazzed about something for a stretch of time, then drop it for a stretch of time, then come back to it. I was really intrigued by this method of working outlined by Steve Pavlina, where you work overtime for one week and then take a one week vacation, alternating every week. I think in order for me to execute it effectively, I'd have to add a little structure to it. If I could condition myself to work really intensely for one week and then break really intensely for one week, that would be great...but I'd have to keep it at a strict interval.

But that's a solution for a little further down the road. Right now, I want to be putting in a few hours on this project every day.

I was really hesitant and reluctant to work for a few weeks and ended up procrastinating a great deal. Procrastination usually ends up being a vicious cycle for me. I start to feel really bad about the fact that I'm procrastinating so badly, then get really down on myself and procrastinate more as a result. This cycle can go on for weeks at a time - what just happened to me.

I got out of it this time by taking a good, hard look at why I was procrastinating. I evaluated many possible reasons, but the one that made the most sense was an embedded fear of success.

I've accepted that I am capable of changing my life. I'm also blessed in that I have a pretty good idea of how I'm going to do it. But I am also very afraid of changing my life. I've grown comfortable in my situation, even if it's less than ideal. Things that change after I accomplish my goals include:

• My living situation - moving across the country and setting up a new, comfortable home. That's stressful, complicated, a lot of work, and expen$ive!
• My schedule - am I possibly trading my current existence for one in which I am constantly working? Does having all this money to do all of these cool things and take all these cool vacations interfere with my long-established penchant for lazing around on my couch and playing video games/aimlessly surfing the internet?
• My relationship - how will it change? Will we grow and change together? Will my success put him off? Will his staying the same put me off? Will we no longer be compatible?

Etc, etc, etc. I came up with a few more reasons, but those are the big ones and they are not small things to consider. Changing my life means actually changing it, and that has consequences. Subconsciously, leaving my comfort zone is a scary thought. After listing my fears, I thought about each one and decided that most of these fears were me putting a negative spin on a positive thing - even my relationship, though I'm still a little scared about that.