How much money have I made as a self-published author?

I'm going to dig into the reality of self-publishing my first book.

Includes:

- how much $$$ I've made
- how much $$$ I've spent
- how much time I've spent
- all the intangibles

Scroll to find out 👇 How much money have I made as a self-published author?

Not a lot...

Gumroad eBook sales: $1,027.80
Amazon paperback sales: $187.80

Total: $1,215.60

Why have I made so little?

If you want to charge more for your B2B blog posts, you need to make them more valuable.

Here are 10 things I expect to be included in a $1,000 blog post when I receive one as an editor.

(#6 is the most important)

Let's start with table stakes and progress to earn more 👇 1/ Spelling and grammar to the highest degree.

Use spell check, Hemingwayapp[.]com, @Grammarly, and read back your post on another device.

Read it out loud.

Do all these to spot mistakes so your editor doesn't have to.

What makes a good topic for a #contentmarketing effort?

Here's a rough presentation I created years ago about turning topics into content buckets.

I don't think I've ever shared this with anyone.

Steal whatever you like. I identified 3 possible content buckets a topic might fall into:

- SEO
- Sales and connections
- Brand awareness

Autogrow quotes conversion rates of 86% 🤯

How?

Through the power of open loops 📈

By keeping the reader wanting more, you keep them hooked and scrolling until they convert.

Not familiar with open loops?

Let me tell you all about them... An open loop is a copywriting technique where you open a dialog in your copy (blog post, sales page, whatever) but never quite complete it.

Sounds terrible?

It's not.

But only when you get it right...

Interesting post by @BrianEDean on LinkedIn yesterday.

He's coined the term "bucket brigades" which are phrases like:

- Here’s the deal:
- Now:
- What’s the bottom line?
- You might be wondering:
- This is crazy:
- But here’s the kicker:

Why use these? First off, I use these every day when I write.

Why?

Because it keeps people reading.

Especially when you use them as their own paragraph.

White space + bucket brigades are a copywriter's best friend.

Today is my 4-yr freelancing birthday 🥳

In that time, I've:

- Worked 4-day weeks
- Written 250+ articles
- Delivered 30,000+ leads
- Made $700,000+ for myself
- Accumulated 5m+ pageviews
- Generated $5m+ client revenue

Here's how you can achieve this 🧵 Abide by these core freelance principles to open the door to amazing opportunities:

1. Back yourself
2. Price yourself
3. Market yourself
4. Better yourself

40 components of high-performing blog posts

(A thread 🧵) 1 - A bespoke headline image

There's nothing that says lazy publication more than a re-used stock image.

Instead:

- find an authentic stock image
- hire a freelance designer
- use @canva to create your own
- use @TheMugshotBot to create link previews

I've seen 996488 tweets about content promotion over the years.

So I'm to do something about it 🚀

Introducing my Content Promotion Checklist!

The hardest part is the start so I've done that for you. I include 50 content distribution instructions; not just ideas.

Each comes with a real-life example I did or have borrowed from some smart people (all tagged above).

Intro price of $25 for the first 25 to buy!

That's 50c per place to promote!

Get it: domkent.gumroad.com/l/content-prom…

How to write a $1,000 blog post in a few hours.

THREAD 1 - Know your niche. This is the hard part.

You can only write quickly AND authoritatively about topics you're an SME in.

Spend time learning your core topic and interviewing people.

For me, it was 10 yrs in product before becoming a writer.

I said this was the hard part.

I just reported a new record for @Mio blog traffic 🚀

Over the last 6 months, I only published 22 blog posts (less than 1 per week).

Here's what I did (and you can do) instead.

A thread 🧵 1) Refresh underperforming content

Using @GoogleAnalytics, check for posts with traffic (or conversions) considerably lower than a previous time period.

You can also use your SEO tool & check for rank change.

In larger companies, do this over 6 mths.

Startups, up to 3 mths.