It's my bookiversary. One year ago today, I published my first two books on Kindle. I wanted to mark the date and celebrate, even though the results are modest because I did it. For all of you perfectionists and procrastinators out there, stop thinking and just do it. You'll be glad you did.
I wrote and published two books about creating a website in WordPress with a particular theme geared towards writers. I wanted to learn the process of self-publishing a book to Amazon Kindle, so I set out to try it.
I wrote the books over around 6 weeks. This included taking screenshots of the process as I built out and documented the steps to build a WordPress website. The books are:
- WordPress for Writers with Genesis: How to Build a WordPress Website Step-by-Step Even if You're a Beginner [link]
- WordPress for Writers with Divi: How to Build a WordPress Website Step-by-Step Even if You're a Beginner
The first book was the one about StudioPress' Genesis theme. I've used that theme framework for years, so it's what I started with.
The second book was the one about using Elegant Theme's Divi theme to build out the site. I've been using Divi on sites for several years now. And builder type themes are popular since they bring the ability to create complicated designs with little or no coding.
Fun fact: I've even integrated the Divi builder into Genesis sites, just for building out cool landing pages.
I outlined and wrote the books in Scrivener and used it to format for Kindle. That took a little trial and error to get the headings on the chapters and sections right, it can be persnickety. The covers I created in Canva.
Drum Roll Please
I sold 98 copies between the two books in the course of a year. Earnings were $224. These are very niche books, and I'm pleased with how they performed. After all, I got paid to learn.
I tried Facebook ads for maybe a week this summer. They were expensive, so I didn't continue, these results are more or less without promotion.
Instead, I relied on researching and choosing the right keywords and categories for my books and added them to as many categories as allowed by reaching out to Amazon support via Author Central and giving them the exact categories with links and the path. It was worth the time and effort to research this and collect the data.
All of this experience will come into play when I publish my first fiction trilogy in a few months. The books are being edited and reviewed and I'm working on having covers created. I've already started the research for the categories and keywords, soon I'll be ready to repeat the process again. It's exciting and I can't wait to do it again.