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General Category => Off topic => Topic started by: Fawkes85 on January 22, 2017, 07:40:27 pm

Title: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 22, 2017, 07:40:27 pm
Post 1: The Day Jeremy Clarkson Became My Co-worker

So I am back in South Africa. Been back for 3 months. Thing is, I didn’t care much for the job I had on the other side of the world. The money was good and I very much enjoyed living there but the job...well it was slowly killing me. Just woke up one day and it hit me, I am miserable. Went into work, had no passion, clients starting realizing and telling on me. Snitches. Anyway, the boss called me in and told me to improve or they’d sent me packing. I looked that bastard square in the eyes, and with Patrick’s stories of F-You Money ringing in my ear (and my own stories of F-You Just Plain), I told him to go ahead. Fire me. Put me out of misery. Set me free.
Anyway, long story short, here I am. Here I am. And I’m determined to do it right this time round. No distractions. No more f*cking around. But how? How do I get what I want? I have been thinking about it since before I could think and I am yet to find a way. How do I get that which I want it more than I want Taylor Swift? Yes, yes, I know, her music, but, you know, she’s really pretty. So sod off. But, anyway, what is it that I want so much that I would even turn away Jennifer Lawrence if it meant that I could get it? Well, my freedom.
There is nothing I value more in life than knowing my time is mine. I can do with it as I please. Wherever I please. Whenever I please. I get a hard on just thinking about it. But that’s just it. I don’t want to think about it anymore. Thinking has never done anyone any good. Thinking has given us atom bombs and Marxism. Too much thinking has given us SJWs. And I don’t mean the good kind of SJW. No, I mean the Millennial kind. Thinking is for the birds and I have no more use for it. I don’t want to think. I want to have.
It all.
And there is only one way to gain my freedom. It’s not pretty, but I am going to have to go ahead and get rich. I know, I know, it is so crass and vulgar but I don’t have a choice. Time is freedom and time costs money. You go to work, you sacrifice your time and get paid in return. You quit, or beg to be fired, and you keep your time but you sacrifice the pay. I am an atheist. I don’t believe in making sacrifices. I want to have my cake and eat it.
But how?
Well, I tried the JSE. It’s not a bad place. I could not have found myself in a more welcoming atmosphere. But again, time. The JSE was a bit short on that. It asked me to hand over some patience, the currency of time, and I was almost all spent out. No, thank you, JSE, close but no cigar. So I had to ask myself, if I leave the tower of Babylon, where could I go? Well, I spun in a circle and went in the direction I ended up facing. I headed into the wild west.
This was roughly 6 months ago, in case you’re wondering.
It was a long journey with not much to tell about. But when I finally got there I found these four very rich fellows on the TV box. Well, they were supposed to be on the TV box, but I found them, much to the dismay of the fat cats who run said TV box, on the Internet. But I digress. These four fellows sat on four chairs and brought in smart people with stupid ideas. These people would pitch said ideas in front of these four fellows and the four fellows would decide if they want to invest in the stupid idea. The answer was usually no. Sometimes, however, a stupid person with a smart idea would come in and the four fellows would fight each other to throw their money at the stupid person with the smart idea and buy up 20%, 30%, 40% or sometimes even 50% of the stupid person’s company.
I couldn’t help but watch and think, How nice that must be? You give someone a lot of money and they do all the hard work of getting the company of ground and then you sell out later for a one thousand gazillion billion percent return. I want to do that. So I started looking at turning myself into an angel. I swooped high and low looking for someone at whom to throw my ex-JSE money. I knew there was a lot of risk involved, it was the wild west after all, but I promised myself that I would invest my last bit of patience wisely and take my time before signing on the dotted line and handing over a six figure ( six, the number of the devil) sum to any old fool. Turned out that I had less patience in the bank than I thought and I soon ran out of it. Now some dude in Cape Town is sitting with a lot of my money. I went in too quick and I came out to slow. Oh well, what are you going to do?
It was a very risky thing I did but I knew that going in. I had to make a choice and bite the bullet. Eleanor Roosevelt apparently once said that you should do one thing a day that scares you. Well, that’s what I did, something scary. Proper scary. So scary that I had to throw my pants away that day. But it is not all doom and gloom. To, kind of, make sure that I get my six figure sum back I had it put into the contract that the dude from Cape Town needs to start paying me back a certain four figure sum for a two figure period of months starting after a one figure period of said months. So as long as the business does not fall flat on its ass in that two figure period of time, I will get my money back.
It has provided me with some passive income while I get myself onto the straight and narrow. It isn’t much, but it’s enough to cover my rent and put food in my belly with some spare change left over to fill up my car. But it is not enough. It is not it all, and it is all that I want. So while the dude in Cape Town got cracking on with his thing, I needed to get cracking on with my own thing. I needed to increase my passive income.
But how?
Well, I thought I would try my hand at writing. How hard could it be? As hard as Jacob Zuma around Dudu Myeni, that’s how hard. And what made it so hard was again patience. I was all spent out after my life as an angel. I just didn’t have the patience to sit there the whole day rewriting and then writing again one little sentence until it was perfect. Money moves fast and I needed to keep up. I cracked out two novels, and I am being very cavalier with that word right now, in the space of six months. One was 60,000 words and the other 90,000, and they were both completely and utterly sh*t.
It was not the sh*ttyniss of my novels that was the biggest problem, though. The biggest problem was getting past the gatekeepers who refer to themselves as literary agents. Without them, you cannot gain entrance into the halls where the vultures known as publishers roam. So what to do? I spent some time conversing with the oracle they call Google and came up with a plan. I would self-publish through Amazon. But publish what? My stories were no good. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks right between the legs. I should make other people write the stories and then I just buy the rights from them.
It was/is a perfect plan. But what would I make them write? It was a problem I only had to think of for the shortest of whiles. Go for the lowest common denominator. Sex sells. Write erotica. So I went on the Internet and posted a position for a freelance writing position. You write me a story and I buy it from you. Now, I am not going to lie, I screwed them over with the price. I’m not proud of it, but it’s just how it is. Only the brave survive in the world of entrepreneurship and I was feeling brave enough to save the world. Unfortunately, however, you get what you pay for, and I got even worse sh*t than my own. Of the ten or so submissions I got, only one was half-decent. So I paid the person, made them sign over their time to me, and got down to it. I went through the thing and edited and rewrote it as best I could, marginally improving its quality.
I then started reaching out to graphic designers to hear what they will pay me to design the book cover and very quickly told them all to go make love with themselves. I headed back to the oracle and quickly found a website where you could design your own professional, well professional enough, looking book cover. With that sorted, I uploaded the book to Amazon and signed it up to their Kindle Select program. I am not going to go into too much detail as to what Kindle Select is, save for telling you about a feature it has where you can give your book away for free for five days. Now why on God’s green earth would I give it away for free you might be wondering. The answer is marketing.
I do not have money for marketing. It’s just a trade-off. I give up the income I would make from the sale, but save the money I do not have on marketing. If your book is free, you can also upload it up to some websites which will feature your book and list it in their mailing lists of thousands of people. It was a no-brainer. Or at least let’s hope so.
Yesterday was the first day of my free book promotion and I only moved seven books. It is not the greatest of starts but it is better than nothing. And better than nothing is what I am going to leave you with for the time being. Talk soon.

P.S. This thread is not just for me to babble on. I hope you will join the discussion and give me some words of wisdom as I try and build up my publishing empire. I am sure there are more than a few successful entrepreneurs on here who have succeeded in starting up a business or two. I would love your advice and guidance.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Nivek on January 23, 2017, 09:16:45 am
Nice post, maybe that can be the start of the book. Good luck, building a successful busines is very satisfying. At least with writing you don't have big overheads, so there's very little risk to your finances, you'll only lose your time.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on January 23, 2017, 10:13:59 am
Very interesting - also have dabble with the writing idea - have had an idea for a kids series for years. I occasionally re visit the idea - and even attempt to start writing, but have zero follow through. Have said to my wife (a graphic designer) to explore the idea of doing book covers - would fit in well with us while we travel. if you don't mind me asking, what where they asking?
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Moneypenny on January 23, 2017, 11:17:18 am
Impressive. 

I like how you "think out of the box" so to speak, and more importantly - act on it.

If I'm not mistaken, you're a millennial - mid-30's or on your way?   At the risk of being too presumptuous - I think I'm getting what you're going through.

Anyways, I'm babbling.  Good luck, I hope it works out for you - keep us updated.



Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Orca on January 23, 2017, 11:24:19 am
I did at one stage look at becoming an angel myself and found a financial company that pools all investment money and spreads it out among many different startups. This way you will not have all your eggs in 1 basket.

Your book idea is great and looks set to work. Most of my life I have been wanting to write a book on "a simple method to never forget math formulas" and a simple method to never forget some geographic principals.
Your story has me motivated to do so.
 
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: jaDEB on January 23, 2017, 11:30:24 am
And yes, here comes Mr Negativity  :frustrated:. My daughter studied how to write Short stories, Novel and 1 other course to do with writing. She has written books, and have been in contact with publishers.

Not going to F%$# up your day.

DO IT !!!!

Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 23, 2017, 11:35:38 am
Thanks @Nivek. Problem is there are still living costs involved while I give this my undivided attention and don't work. But luckily I got that passive income coming in from the investment I made. As long as I live frugally it should cover most of my big expenses.

@Mr_Dividend they wanted to charge me R5000 to design my book cover. R5000! For something that would take them all of 1 hour at most to put together. I ended up putting together a decent enough looking one myself in less than an hour. For free. So yeah, they can just go ahead and do you know what with themselves.

@Moneypenny yeah I am a millennial. Will be 32 in August but we speak about it in hushed tones only.

@Orca do it. If you then publish it through Kindle Direct Publishing you have nothing to lose but your time. Won't cost you a thing otherwise.

@jaDEB by all means share your thoughts. I might be a millennial but I am not prone to take offence just because the world won't play nice. Any truth you can send my way can only help and prepare me

Update: As mentioned, I moved 7 books that first day(Saturday). So yesterday I promised myself that I wouldn't rest until I moved more than 7 books. Well, midnight came and it showed I only managed 6. I ended up going to bed very disappointed but then when I woke up this morning the graph updated and it showed I actually moved 9 books yesterday! Now, of course, they are still just free copies and I am not earning a single cent for them but still, I managed to achieve what I set out to do. I moved more than 7 books. Gave myself a pat on the back and now let's see if today I can do at least 10.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: dividendtycoon on January 23, 2017, 12:20:12 pm
Interesting story.  It will be interesting to note your progress with selling books. I write for my blog, but would perhaps like to write a book relating to dividend investing, or something in that line. However, my first love is still the actual investing. Do you think if you had rather placed the angel investment in say listed property yielding 10-12% you would be better off? Can you share more about what put you off the JSE, as it can also become a good way of making passive income ie not very time consuming, if you pick shares with high and growing dividend yields.

In my experience I did not reach financial independence quickly from investing on the JSE, but it did work, and now is pretty secure unless I mess too much with the portfolio. I feel people do not give it enough of a chance and rather seek the get rich methods, which usually do not work. I am not criticizing your angel investment, as one learns these things by trial and error, but would be interested if your decisions were based more on your area of interest or if it was more impatience.

Good luck with the publishing empire though, earning royalties would be a great way to live should you succeed.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: PlatinumWealth.co.za on January 23, 2017, 06:03:40 pm
Nice read
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 24, 2017, 12:04:49 am
@Thor187 Thanx

@dividendtycoon You are right. If I were a bit more patient I could have found something better to invest in as an angel investor but my ass was itching and I had to scratch it. It was my mistake but at least I am getting that monthly payment from the guy which will give me a 20% return a year for 2 years. Hell knows what will happen after that. What put me off the JSE was definitely impatience. I was invested in high dividend paying stock but it would have taken me 10-15 years to start making the money I want to make and it was just too long for me. There are just some things I want out of life and I was not going to get them from the JSE. I will go back there one day but only after I have proper money to do it. My long term goal is to actually start a type of holding firm through which I will buy shares in listed companies. If I invest proper money I will get a decent enough dividend return but it was just not going to happen while I was investing the chump change I was investing. For my kind of money, I had no choice but to take on bigger risks and invest in a start-up to have a chance at getting the kind of money I want.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: dividendtycoon on January 24, 2017, 08:44:38 am
@Fawkes85 I understand where you are coming from, it does take money to make money with dividend investing and you do perhaps need to first make a large lump sum in some other way. If I was starting over I would perhaps look at using the JSE to make shorter term trades on undervalued stocks, I made a good lump sum profit from Gooderson recently for example which is about to be delisted. The price a year or so ago was obviously ridiculously low. I would not invest long term or for dividends in such stocks anymore, but a few of these can give you a lump sum fairly quickly, although with some risk.
However, if you are wanting to stay away from the JSE you will need to look for a business that generates a lot of cash. Could you use some of your returned angel investment to buy a fast food franchise, or a cheap property that can be redeveloped, or buy and sell something you have knowledge of. My worry with writing is that you are not guaranteed anything, I would perhaps do it part time while looking for another area to make money, while keeping the books as another stream of income.
Unfortunately I do not have a Kindle as I would be interested to read your book, but perhaps it time to enter the modern age.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Moneypenny on January 24, 2017, 09:27:05 am

My book is still available as a free download on Amazon, and it will remain free until 25 January 2017. If you want to do me a solid go download it, give it a read, and throw me a review.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7U4DAS


Will do. 

Patrick, you could start a book review section perhaps, mostly for investing, trading etc but also "other"?
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Patrick on January 24, 2017, 11:01:33 am

My book is still available as a free download on Amazon, and it will remain free until 25 January 2017. If you want to do me a solid go download it, give it a read, and throw me a review.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N7U4DAS


Will do. 

Patrick, you could start a book review section perhaps, mostly for investing, trading etc but also "other"?
I could, but I think Fawkes is hoping for Amazon reviews so it will improve his sales, not really reviews on a third party site.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: jaDEB on January 24, 2017, 11:41:31 am
That was a close call, I nearly mailed it to my daughter and ask her to download it for me.... gonna kick u a$$  :LHST:
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Moneypenny on January 24, 2017, 12:15:40 pm
Whoa.

Totally unexpected, think that is erotica not adult romance. 

For obvious reasons, I’m not going to review story-line, writing style etc, but I’ll say from a business perspective there is potential for international audience, timing is perfect considering current human involvement (especially female) as to what is deemed as acceptable in society and of course we have the second Gray movie due in time for Valentines.  Try to hook into that somehow - perfect timing - awareness is going to increase next few months.  Go with the flow.  That’s it – all I have to say.  Good luck.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Moonraker on January 24, 2017, 12:31:09 pm
That was a close call, I nearly mailed it to my daughter and ask her to download it for me.... gonna kick u a$$
Yup, dangerruss. Move to OT.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 24, 2017, 12:40:44 pm
Ok, I need to apologise. What I did last night was just downright stupid. I should never have done it. This is not the place for it. Nobody likes spam and I gave you filthy, dirty spam. Again, I apologise. I could give you some excuse about sitting in front of my computer from 8 in the morning until midnight trying to hustle and promote and blah blah but what I did was inexcusable. It won't happen again. It was not was this thread was supposed to be. It was supposed to be about me setting up a business and sharing my experiences with you so that maybe someone can learn from my experiences.

Well, lesson 1, be an opportunist but choose your opportunities carefully.

The link has been removed and biggest apology goes out to jaDEB. And to Patrick for turning his forum into something it is not.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Patrick on January 24, 2017, 12:49:03 pm
The link has been removed and biggest apology goes out to jaDEB. And to Patrick for turning his forum into something it is not.
No problem, I'm actually quite keen to follow your progress, as I'm sure many others are too. Keep posting your updates. I've moved it to off topic where it should probably have been all along. You could still post the link but you'd have to have a warning as to what people would be clicking on.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Moneypenny on January 24, 2017, 01:18:12 pm
No need for apologies Fawkes85, it was a link – everyone chooses to click or not.  Put it back by the way, just add warning as Patrick suggested.   

I’m also interested in the progress, please keep us informed, for example – how was the traffic today at Amazon?  I know I was one who downloaded.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 24, 2017, 11:29:24 pm
So let me just say, thank God I don't work in marketing. My plan, yesterday, was to wake up, spend half the day getting the word out about my book and then spend the other half starting to write the next one. How naive was I? In the last 48 hours, I have been doing nothing but marketing except for maybe 10 hours of sleep. In other words I have spent 38 of the last 48 hours just doing nothing but marketing! I have a new found respect for advertisers. It takes a lot of work getting the word out on something new. And for all that trouble today has been my best day for moving...wait for it...ONLY 12 copies! But it is not all doom and gloom. Each day I set myself the target of moving more books than I did the day before and so far I have been successful. Moved 7 on day one, 9 on day two, 10 on day 3 and 12 today. It irks me though that they were all for free. I did the math, and if they weren't free I would have made about R160 so far. It isn't much but it would have been a good start. But like I said, it was all about opportunity cost. Either pay for real marketing or give the books away for free and hope things spread by word of mouth.

Tomorrow is the last day of the free promotion. Bit scared to see it end. So far I haven't had a day where I did not move at least one book. I'm scared that might just start happening the day after tomorrow  :( ??? :-[
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 26, 2017, 11:29:02 pm
It would seem my fears have been actualised. It is the first day since the end of the free book promotion and also the first day that I did not move one single copy. Damnit. Would seem that it is now extra hustling time. I am just hoping that at least one of the 57 people who have downloaded the book will actually read it and give me a review. They are key to moving up the rankings. I have also started writing the second ebook myself. People just kept on submitting complete and utter crap to me so I am going shelve the idea of buying stories from other people until I can offer more money and get the more professional writers to come forward.

For what it is worth, I have made my first money. Amazon has a system where people who have Kindle Unlimited and Amazon Prime can borrow a book for free and then the author gets paid per page read by the reader(but only if they read at least 10% of your story). Amazon refers to it as Kindle Edition Normalized Pages(KENP) and you get paid out of a pool of money which Amazon pre-sets every month and is shared by all authors. Said pool of money for January is $12 million. It sounds like a lot but I have done the research and it would seem authors get on average about $0.005 for every page of their novel that gets read. That would mean I will be getting $0.15 for the 30 pages that someone read of 'my' little novella. The whole system is very contentious and unpopular with indie writers and especially for those of my genre. Most erotica books on Amazon are apparently of the novella category and thus do not consist of many pages. This means less money every time someone reads your story from front to back. I understand why Amazon uses this system, though. Apparently, they used to pay a set fee every time someone borrowed your book. People who wrote longer novels complained, however, that other people who wrote a 50-page novella earned the same money as them who wrote 200-page novels. I guess it is only fair that you get paid more if you worked more.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 28, 2017, 05:36:48 pm
I sold my first copy!
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Patrick on January 28, 2017, 07:26:22 pm
Congrats! You can now tell people you're a paid author!
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 30, 2017, 12:25:13 am
Post 2: I Need More.

So let all just address the elephant in the room. I am currently dealing in an industry which can at best be described as morally questionable. Yes, yes, I know, times have moved on and it is not so controversial as it used to be. But at the end of the day, it is still talked about in hushed tones by most people. What I need you to understand, though, is that this is just step one in a multi-faceted plan to get myself on the Forbes Rich List. Preferably position number 1. I do not intend to turn the writing and selling of erotica into a career. It is but a means to an end. Look at these posts as chapters in what would be the first book in a series of books on the life of Fawkes. It will be titled 'My Story as a Seller of (Erotica) Books and you are the lucky ones. You do not only get to read the books, but you get to read them in real time. I know, right? Mind. Blown.

But let us continue. Since the last chapter, I have moved more than 70 free copies and 2 paid for copies. Also, more than 170 pages of my book were read on Kindle Unlimited for which I will earn $0.005 a page. It does not amount to much money, maybe about R20, but it is still no mean feat. About one million books get published on Amazon each year. One million. Do you know how much one million is? It is, like, a lot. That is one big crowd from which to stand out and get noticed. The fact that I managed to move just one tiny little copy of my book out of all the millions that are there, well, I think congratulations are in order. Even if it is being given by myself. I worked my ass off marketing the book. Interestingly enough, that was where I came up with my next moneymaking scheme. But I am getting ahead of myself. So, yeah, marketing. Worked my ass off. Books were moved. Not enough, though. So had to accept that it is going to take a lot more time to make a name for myself and start selling enough books for it to become worth-while. The secret, I think, is that you just have to keep uploading. This is something I learned from those tubers that you. All the big ones give that as their number one piece of advice. You just have to keep uploading and the followers will come. So that is exactly what I will do. I do not think I will buy stories from other people anymore, though. The crap I get is not even worth mentioning so I will be writing the stories from now on. I am going to try and do one book a month.

But what to do in the meantime? It is going to take time and I am not comfortable with this whole not having an income thing. My savings are there, but I really do not like dipping into it. There is no reason for me to touch it. Where there is a will, there is a way, and I need to find a way to get some money in. Yes, I am getting that four digit sum each month from my investment as an angel, but I cannot rely on it. It is not a sure thing. It is invested in a startup and you know what they say about startups. Something like all percent of startups fail within the first minus one seconds. That business can fail at any time and then that monthly four digit sum's arrival will also start to fail. No, I need to get another source of income. I have come up with two schemes.

Scheme one also involves writing. I found this website called Upwork.com where people post freelancing positions for work they need to get done. You bid on the jobs and tell them for how much you will do it, and if your price is good they give the project to you. Well, I got chosen to write 500-word articles on various topics which will then get passed on to websites that require content. You can write as many articles as you want per day, and choose which days you want to work. Now, the money is not good. They are only willing to pay me $1.50 per article as I have no reviews on Upwork.com yet. They did, however, promise to up the amount after two months. I do not think so, though. I reckon I will be able to write one article an hour, and $1.50 per hour is just not acceptable. I am thus going to renegotiate after the first month. I hope I can get them up to $4 per article, which is still not much, but I have a plan. As long as $1 is never less than R10, I will always get R40 per article. I am then going to post on Gumtree and look for students looking to make extra money. I will then pass the articles on to them to write and pay them R20 per article, keeping the other R20 for myself. If I can get at least five people to write one article each a day, except for weekends, that will mean an extra R500 a week for me. That is about R2000 a month. Groceries, covered. Also, with other people doing the writing for me, I will be freed up to spend my time making more money elsewhere.

Such as with scheme two which involves marketing. See, there are these Twitter accounts with 50,000 followers and upward. If you want to market your book, you pay them up to $15 for four tweets! Here is the thing, though, almost none of them want to tweet about erotic books. They are too scared of offending their followers. Thus there is a gap in the market. So I created an erotic book tweeting account. For now, I am tweeting books for free as I build up a solid base of followers. Once I have a few thousand followers, I will start charging. I will start low at about $5. Again, if I can then just get one book to tweet about a day, then it's $5 a day. $150 a month. At the current exchange rate that is almost another R2000 in the bank. Car insurance and petrol, covered, with R1000 left to throw at part of the rent.

It is still not enough, but it is a good start. We will have to see how it goes. It is all very doable. There is only one thing that is going to be hella hard, and that is going to be giving up my first love, smoking. My disposable income is just not what it used to be since I quit my job and I can use that money better. The plan is to throw the money I blow on cigarettes every month into a tax-free savings account instead. That would be a good R1200 a month to invest. Let it start growing for the day I need it instead of it just lying there in the bank doing nothing for me. I guess I am coming back to the JSE much sooner than I thought.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have a difficult conversation I need to go and have with a pack of Marlboros. I think I am going to take it harder than she will.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on January 30, 2017, 12:10:57 pm
I have read through this thread and the things that strike me is are not only the comments but also the dreams of some or their families who wanted to write, or at least try the writing trip.
However if I look at this thread pragmatically then other issues strike me, these being that there seems to a compulsion for the end result monies that one hopes to generate by having ghost writers or articles/writings released under there own name. There is also a sense (I get) of doing as little as possible for maximum financial returns, and that in essence you are more into what you can skim off for your own financial well being. In other words there is very little writing that you really want to do yourself, and if you can get others to write for your account

So maybe what you should consider doing is to set up a web page wherein you firstly appeal to aspirant writers to write into the web page (they cn't publish on your web page unilaterally the articles need to be vetted by you as the moderator) with their articles and or books which you will vet and then publish making a financial recompense for each article published on the page.
This may take a bit of pain to get it up and running but as they say no pain no gain - it is a fact of life that no business was ever created from a dream - there was always research, testing, planning, dipstick testing and planning, launching as part of the journey.

So without busting your bubble you need to do more work around how to get from your dream to the launch of the product and some very specific planning and understanding what the touch points are to realise the dream and let me say that, that talks effort and sweat and more importantly huge sacrifices, and keeping your eyes wide open
Nevertheless good luck on your journey 
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on January 30, 2017, 12:40:51 pm
Well, that was the plan initially, to make other people do the writing while I enjoy the rewards. I mean, why not? Why do the work when you can make someone else do it for you? Like I mentioned in the last post, let someone else do the work for you and then your time will be freed up to do other work somewhere else and increase your income. If you ask me, that is bloody genius. However, you have some good points. It is not an error free plan, which I learned when people started submitting garbage after garbage after garbage. I very quickly learned that I cannot rely on someone else to write me stories and I will have to do it myself, which is exactly what I am doing now. As for the the articles, that will be simpler. To do that, they will just have to do a bit of research on the Internet regarding the topic, and then throw is together in an article. I am more hopeful concerning that one.

But, please, do not think that I do not appreciate the mountain that I still have to climb. I am very much aware that this will be a slow, painful process and that it will probably take months, if not years, before I will start to see any real proper return. I know that. I appreciate that. And I am in it for the win. I have the right motivation and that is all that truly matters at the end of the day. How badly do I want it?

Nevertheless, I appreciate the constructive criticism and advice. That is exactly the reason I started this thread, to here from the more experienced and wise ones amongst us.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on January 30, 2017, 03:13:51 pm
Enjoying this thread!

I gave up using champix - was seriously hooked and had tried countless times before. Well worth it BTW - might be easier if you did a bit of a lifestyle change - you know, take up a sport, eat well, moderate the drinking.

Good luck in all your ventures. Many have ideas (me included) but never take it much further than the idea phase. Kudo's to you for not getting stuck there.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 05, 2017, 04:01:03 pm
Post 3: Thinking is for the dreamers. Goals are for the realists.

Goals, you need them. Milestones need to be reached. I need to move forward in life. And every step I take should have both rewards and punishment. I measure up to my own standards, and I get rewarded. I do not, and I get f*cked. As I rightly should for not giving it my all. The time to stand up and be noticed has come and I cannot let the opportunity slip away. Who knows when it will come around again? Will it even come around again? Do not know, and do not care. I, myself, am not going to wait around to find out. It is now or never, everything or nothing. There are no buts, or ifs, or yeah-but-maybes. Either or and nothing more.

So I have moved out of the house. Live in Joburg now. Goal is to move to Cape Town six months from now. Call that my medium-term goal. For now, though, I will have to focus on my two short-term goals. I moved in with a friend and I have to say that he is doing me a big favour. He is only charging me R2000 a month because it is all I can afford at the moment. I have made a deal with him, however. After two months he can add R500 to that amount no matter whether I can afford it or not. Two months after that, he can add another R500. Same terms. Those are my two short-term goals. I have to start making R1000 a month from this writing thing within two months, and another R1000 a month by the end of May.

If I succeed I will have an extra R500 in the pocket every two months. If I fail, I will be out of pocket R500. So how am I going to do it? In a nutshell, I am going to stop being a cheap bastard. Those five days my book was free, I had 75 downloads. Since it stopped being free, I had only two. I clearly need to make a name for myself first. I need to create a following. People do not want to pay for an unknown. So I shall let them know me, and it will not cost them a dime. I shall be free. See what I did there?

Anyway, I have decided to start publishing a weekly (perma-free) series of short stories of about 3000-5000 words. I also went to a subreddit that has about 50,000 subscribers and asked them if they would mind if I post links to the new, free book on their subreddit every week. They said as long as it is free, they do not mind. On top of it being free, they will have the added benefit of engaging with me as the author, as I very much intend to be an active member of the subreddit.

Then, every month, I am also going to publish a novella which will not be free. Hopefully, through the free short stories, I will have gained enough of a following that by two months at least some of those people will buy the novella. I mean, if only 1,000 of those 50,000 people buy my novella each month...well, let us just say I will easily be able to bring the rent up by R1000, and Cape Town will be within reach.

So, those are my short- and medium-term goals. What are yours?

P.S. Attached a photo below. My first workstation if you will. Humble beginnings.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on February 05, 2017, 10:42:49 pm
Fawkes - I don't wish to burst your bubble but my opinion is that you need to separate the writing from the financial - it just seems to me that the driver is the income you need to derive. I don't think there is an author that has not struggled initially before their books started paying the bills. I am not saying you should ignore the financials, but the real reason you are going down this path is the enjoyment of writing, there are things like writers block and if this occurs it could have a significant impact on your financials and what's you back up plan or contingency in this situation, because the costs will keep coming at you month after month and if you don't meet these commitments it will impact on your writings. You will end up writing to meet the bills and enjoyment will float away.
Consider stabilizing your financial position and have enough contingent funds to meet expenses for say 6 months and then do your writing knowing full well you have enough funds to see you through this window period.
I agree whole heartedly that you must have milestones, but you need something more than that what you need are tasks that assist you in achieving these milestones as these are checked quarterly/half yearly or even annually and for your set up this is too infrequent to review. With tasks you can be definitive like, "writing four hours each and every morning except Saturdays and Sunday"; "writing 2000 words a day", and other such tasks which keep you on the straight and narrow daily. The human is a unique creature they can find all manner of reason for not be disciplined and for deferring a commitment.
I would also suggest that you do an internal uniquely to you mind map where you set out the plot of your article, this will bring structure, thread, timing and conclusions.
I would also speak to subreddit and try and get a sense what articles are popular and once you establish that try and find out who your target market really is do you want to do travel doccies, drama, theatre, humour, serious stuff, text books, or read and throw away type articles
Could go on but may exceed forum word count

But most of all I wish you success with your chosen endeavours       
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 05, 2017, 11:05:25 pm
GCR, as always I appreciate the advice and guidance. I will definitely take it to heart.

But just to allay some of your concerns, my financial position will never be better to do this. As long as I get that monthly amount from my investment, I can support myself for two years. Without that monthly payment, I have enough in the bank to keep myself going for a year and a bit. I understand that it can come across that I am obsessing about the money a bit too much, but, I mean, yes and no. On the one hand, I have only ever had two things I truly enjoy doing and for which I have ever had any passion. Well, actually, three. But I am sure we do not have to talk about that one. The other two are writing and obsessing about money. So, yes, I am obsessing about the money. But only because I enjoy it. On the other hand, no. I am not just obsessing about it for the sake of obsessing. I see it as a challenge. Something real that can be achieved. For so much of my life, I did nothing but dream. Dream, dream, dream. All day long. And what do I have to show for it? Not much. Just a lot of wasted time and opportunity. So, yeah, I am obsessing about the money. But not because I need it. I do not. I just want it. Just like I want to write. Because I like it.

But, again, I will take your words to heart. I will heed them.

P.S. My daily schedule is my background on my desktop.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 05, 2017, 11:17:35 pm
Just thought I would leave this here for whoever may see fit to watch it, which I would strongly recommend:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ_z48aJD5o
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 08, 2017, 12:30:05 am
Post 4: GCR You Bastard

You were right. I did not like what you had to say. I actually took a bit of offence. I half-expected pats on the back left, right, and center, then you came and did exactly not that. But you were right. I am humbled. I got ahead of myself and just all round cocky. All I could see was the money. It was no good.
Then you came along and pissed all over my world. Thank you. I needed that. You made me realise that I was doing it all wrong and for all the wrong reasons. You made me realise that if I am going to do this, then I should do it right. Instead of churning out garbage on an as regular schedule as possible, I should rather take a step back and reassess. I should take pride in my product. I should take pride in my writing. Quality over quantity.
So I have canned the idea of releasing a novella every month and just focus on the short stories. They will also not be weekly, but bi-weekly. That will give me two weeks to write a 3000-5000 word story and then some. I can focus on it for two weeks and make it as good as possible. I will continue releasing these short stories until they have a strong following, no matter how long it takes, and then look into selling them instead of giving them away for free.
I will not write anything else until I got the short story thing on firm ground. It will have my undivided attention.
I have been doing it like that for two days now and I have to say, I actually enjoy the writing more. I am not even thinking about the money. Just focusing on making it the best it can be and it feels as good as f...

Photo: Workstation has been upgraded a bit. The screen is just on lend though. I have to give it back once the person who lent it to me needs it again.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: dividendtycoon on February 08, 2017, 08:19:15 am
Post 4: GCR You Bastard

You were right. I did not like what you had to say. I actually took a bit of offence. I half-expected pats on the back left, right, and center, then you came and did exactly not that. But you were right. I am humbled. I got ahead of myself and just all round cocky. All I could see was the money. It was no good.
Then you came along and pissed all over my world. Thank you. I needed that. You made me realise that I was doing it all wrong and for all the wrong reasons. You made me realise that if I am going to do this, then I should do it right. Instead of churning out garbage on an as regular schedule as possible, I should rather take a step back and reassess. I should take pride in my product. I should take pride in my writing. Quality over quantity.
So I have canned the idea of releasing a novella every month and just focus on the short stories. They will also not be weekly, but bi-weekly. That will give me two weeks to write a 3000-5000 word story and then some. I can focus on it for two weeks and make it as good as possible. I will continue releasing these short stories until they have a strong following, no matter how long it takes, and then look into selling them instead of giving them away for free.
I will not write anything else until I got the short story thing on firm ground. It will have my undivided attention.
I have been doing it like that for two days now and I have to say, I actually enjoy the writing more. I am not even thinking about the money. Just focusing on making it the best it can be and it feels as good as f...

Photo: Workstation has been upgraded a bit. The screen is just on lend though. I have to give it back once the person who lent it to me needs it again.

Would agree that you need to do something you enjoy, or can add value, if you do it well the money will follow, even though it may take years.

Have you considered starting a blog?, you could write short stories there, or review others etc. If your blog takes off you could even potentially monetize that, but it would also be a vehicle which you could use to sell books through (have an Amazon store on your blog for example). Blogs are also good for marketing via twitter etc.

From my experience, it can be enjoyable, I started my Dividend Tycoon blog (knowing nothing about websites etc) with the intention of perhaps making some money down the line, but quickly realised it not worth focusing on that as you first need to write good content. It has been a year and I do not make any money out of it, but it has helped in other ways such as clarifying my investment process and thoughts. I do almost no marketing and site is fairly basic, but think that if I keep doing it and enjoy it, something good will flow from it, although most likely not financially. I prefer to make my money from shares, mostly long term, but a little trading too, so making money from the blog is not necessary or a priority. However, in your case where this is where your talents and enjoyment are, and given you are driven to do a lot of marketing etc, I think it could potentially be a good platform for you.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck.

Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on February 08, 2017, 11:13:22 am
Fawkes85 - your welcome ;D
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: jaDEB on February 09, 2017, 08:39:29 am
Sorry, sorry, only saw your post now. Please accept my apologies. If u know me it was tong and cheek, I did say @ss. Please put your link back.

My daughter is writing a book ( think it is her 2nd - nice Dad you are), and she is putting it on twitter, per chapter. I read it as she tweets it. She also works in marketing, online / magazine stuff, and is also studying online thingy, about twitter / facebook, about online communication with clients.

Her book is called Alone with Wolves. https://wykms.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/alone-with-wolves-chapter-1-part-2/

Once again, sometimes I joke not thinking ... my apologies.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 09, 2017, 01:05:21 pm
Sorry, sorry, only saw your post now. Please accept my apologies. If u know me it was tong and cheek, I did say @ss. Please put your link back.

My daughter is writing a book ( think it is her 2nd - nice Dad you are), and she is putting it on twitter, per chapter. I read it as she tweets it. She also works in marketing, online / magazine stuff, and is also studying online thingy, about twitter / facebook, about online communication with clients.

Her book is called Alone with Wolves. https://wykms.wordpress.com/2017/01/31/alone-with-wolves-chapter-1-part-2/

Once again, sometimes I joke not thinking ... my apologies.

No worries jaDEB. I did not take any offense. But considering that topic of the book I decided to keep the link deleted. I know it is not for all people and not all people will feel comfortable with me posting such things on here. Anyway, I am going to unpublish that book anyway. It tried to take a shortcut and I ended up publishing a book of poor quality. I am starting afresh and I am going to do it right this time round. Still going to stick to the genre but I am going to write it myself instead of wanting to take shortcuts and having other people write it for me. Here's to wishing me luck.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on February 21, 2017, 03:01:17 pm
*********insert update here*****************

 :)
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on February 21, 2017, 08:44:15 pm
*********insert update here*****************

 :)
F85 - I think you should do updates periodically.
The advantages are that you have a narrow and a world view - but you don't know how close it is to reality.
I for one would like to see you succeed in your endeavours as this represents your hearts desire, and sure as hell beats mundane activities for sustain yourself.
So post and those who wish to see you succeed will also counter post (hopefully) with rational, objective observations based on their life experiences and knowledge of what life can throw at you.
Some of us on this forum have been involved in many spheres of life/business/endeavours so suss their views out and learn about life's knocks and how to restart your passion
Never be discouraged as you will regret it for the rest of your life
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 26, 2017, 02:37:42 am
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

I am still doing it. Which is why I haven't been posting here. Been giving it all my attention. After GCR's fist full of reality, I went back to the drawing board. Like I said, I think, quality over quantity. So spent the last 4 weeks writing, rewriting, editing, and rewriting again a 5000-word short story. About 6 hours ago, I scrapped the whole thing and started over. Spent those 6 hours writing about 250 words. MUCH better than the crap I wasted the last 4 weeks of my life writing. But yeah, progress is slow. Another reason I haven't been posting here. Just not much to report on.

But I am still doing it. No matter what, this is happening. I will report back as soon as I have news.

And thanks for the encouragement! Truly appreciate it.

I have also been learning French, Korean, and the guitar. Have to keep the mind busy all the smart people say.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on February 26, 2017, 04:02:14 pm
Hope you didn't full scrap your 5000 word short story - put it in a library and revisit again at some future stage.
Good to see your resolve to write
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on February 28, 2017, 05:14:48 pm
Post 5: I have gone and done it.

I pressed it. I pressed publish. It is the greatest moment of both relieve and dread I have ever experienced in my short life. See, the last time I pressed that button I did not really care. It wasn't my story. I just bought it and claimed it as mine. I knew it would fail. It was complete and utter garbage. I just wanted to make a quick buck and be on my merry way. This time it is my story. For realsies. I scrapped the last one because I was play-play writing, you know, just for the fun of it, and I started finding my groove. I just kept on writing, a short story, and for the first time, I was actually happy with something I wrote. So if it isn't received well, it is going to be quite a knock. I don't know how much better I can do.

But it will be received well. Cause that s**t is lit.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on March 03, 2017, 02:32:14 pm
So been writing out and experimenting with different kinds of blurbs for my short. I think I have finally found one that works. I tried to write it as more of a business pitch than a book description. Since there are quite a few business minded people on here, I thought I would post it and get your opinions on it. Here it is:

The erotica, it is minimal. Sorry. But let me try and intrigue you anyway. Erotica or no, I can still make it worth the 5 minutes you will spend reading my short. Just give me 5 seconds of your time, and let me show you what I can do with that. If you like what you see, we can talk. Here goes:

I like things short and sweet,
Rough and tough, just as life.
And much like mad Macbeth,
I often wonder whether this is
A dagger I see in front of me.

Don’t mind the dagger. It’s a metaphor. But that is what I can do with 31 words. Imagine what I can do with 864. And it doesn’t cost you a cent. Only your time.

*Clenches ass in anticipation of GCR bringing the hammer of truth*
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: gcr on March 05, 2017, 11:03:00 pm
Fawkes85 - you can stop clenching - hold fire I will respond to you in the next day or two - been very wrapped up in Hobby X since Wednesday here in Joburg :LHST:
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on April 06, 2017, 04:36:37 pm
Glad you keeping at it Fawkes - that's some pretty decent writing right there.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on April 09, 2017, 10:11:05 pm
Post 5: Jeremy is gone, I'm now working with PewDiePie

You are indeed correct, Mr_Dividend, that is decent writing, but I was employing it in the wrong way. But anyway, hi, how have you all been? It's been a while. I apologize for that. But I had to do some soul searching. For the 3 months I was trying to be a full-time writer (and the years I was trying to do it part-time), all I could think about was the end of the journey and not the journey itself. I couldn't say that I had any true passion for it. So, I stopped. I refused to write another word as long as I did not have that warm, fuzzy feeling on the inside. So that's what I did, nothing. For a whole month. Just pure, unadulterated soul searching.

What did I find? Well, I'm sure you have figured out YouTube. But how? In short, because of a dog licking its non-existent family jewels. You'll be surprised where you might find your 'lightbulb moment' as Oprah used to put it. But yeah, I have started a YouTube channel called 'My Shorts Are Lit.' With it, I plan to release animation/word-arty shorts. The whole thing is one HUGE experiment and I have no idea how people will receive it. Sound will play a very minimal role in my videos. So to be honest, I do not see this going huge, but I do see it working with a considerable amount of people. I do also not expect to make a lot of money from YouTube itself. If the YouTubers with millions of subscribers are worried about their YouTube income because of YouTube demonetizing so many videos and AdBlockers and and and...

But that is okay. I don't really care. I had so much fun making the first 3 videos that, at the least, I have gained a hobby. And if I do manage to find some modicum of fame, I can then release an ebook and venture into merchandising or something like that. The business has scalability. That's neither here nor there, though, because that is a long ass way down the road. I'll deal with it when I get there.

I will leave a link below if any of you want to go have a look. Don't worry, you don't have to like, comment, or subscribe ;) The 3 videos I have done so far are promo videos announcing the arrival of my channel. It's meant to create some hype and curiosity. In 3 days it has gotten me 9 subscribers (well, 8. 1 of em is a friend who knows I'm doing this) and 93 video views. As fellow entrepreneurs, go have a look and tell me what you think of my campaign, down below in the comments :D Sorry, couldn't help myself.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1jbxLz3SmtA90zuLR-9LHQ
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on April 11, 2017, 09:45:14 pm
Very interesting, we really seem to have a very similar way of thinking. That said, I am still a happy holder of both Tex and RPL - and have added more. I have also looked at starting a youtube channel - more a travel vlog. For a few reasons, bad memory, meeting other travellers, freebee's and then a bit of extra cash are the main reasons. But, as you say, it's a fun hobby.

Must say, I have never seen youtube video's quite like yours - intriguing - have subscribed.

What are you editing on? Have been playing with shotcut myself, did try resolve but my puny 4gb of ram made it pretty unstable. Really need to get another 4gb in it.

Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on April 11, 2017, 10:04:12 pm
Thanks! Really appreciate it!

All I use is Windows Movie Maker :) It is free and real easy to use. Very basic and extremely light on the features though. So if this takes off I will consider investing some money in better software and learning how to use it.

Added a photo of my rankings according to Socialblade.com as they were on my first day (4 days ago).

My channel grade has already been improved to a C- and I have also already moved up almost 1 million places in the subscriber rankings, 250K places in the video view rankings and 6 million places in the Social Blade Rankings. Sounds like grand leaps but I guess it is much easier move up the rankings when you still only have one way you could go.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on April 12, 2017, 07:35:42 am
Never spend money!

Shotcut and Resolve are both free - and for titles and photos - Inkscape and Gimp.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Patrick on April 12, 2017, 09:35:08 am
I'll keep an eye on your channel too. I also like to youtube, but so far I haven't really edited much. My wife and I have just barely started a travel blog. Like you Mr div it's mostly because we have so much fun on our travels, we want some sort of record of it.

That socialblade website is pretty cool, I'll see if I can get my ranking to improve. Here's what they say now: (http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w112/pgpatrick/Capture_zpseosl3hy5.png) (http://s174.photobucket.com/user/pgpatrick/media/Capture_zpseosl3hy5.png.html)

Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on April 12, 2017, 07:13:25 pm
Pretty awesome. Didn't know you did a bit of YouTubing yourself. What is your channel name? Interested in helping each other out with a bit of exposure? I'll add you to my channel's 'Featured Channels' tab if you will add me ;)
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Patrick on April 13, 2017, 07:39:11 am
I started just putting up things I used to make, my electric bikes, LED lights for my motorcycle. My most popular video is of an LCD TV I put behind the mirror above my bath, I'd never have guessed!

Lately it's more of a bicycle channel, with my folding bike mods, and a few short travel vids, mostly unedited. It's here: https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickza

I'll add you to the featured tab, once I figure out how :)
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Fawkes85 on April 14, 2017, 05:28:12 pm
Good for you! You are a helluva lot further along than me. But yeah, it took me awhile to figure out how to add a 'Featured Channels' list to channel's dashboard. Anyway, added you :)
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: Mr_Dividend on June 12, 2017, 08:28:48 am
Fawkes, take a look at steemit.com. Might be a good (and more profitable) outlet for your writing and to promote what you doing on youtube or whatever. I have been there for a week and find it a lot of fun. If you do, my user name is life-of-al, link up.
Title: Re: My Story as a Seller of Books
Post by: AbramCor on September 09, 2017, 09:02:21 am
Fawkes, take a look at steemit.com. Might be a good (and more profitable) outlet for your writing and to promote what you doing on youtube or whatever. I have been there for a week and find it a lot of fun. If you do, my user name is life-of-al, link up.

Interesting story Fawkes.