My Journey in becoming a Self Publishing author and an Entrepreneur

Aspiring Author Entrepreneur series - My first big mistake and learning

2013-11-21T11:09:00.001-08:00

This is part 3 of the Aspiring Author Entrepreneur series. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 of my journey series.

Till now I got the user feedback that few people were interested in reading my E-Book and also completed my E-Book within a week's time.

Then came the dilemma. How would I distribute it to my readers. What were my possible options? I thought of hosting it in some file sharing service but didn't want to waste time searching for the best option. Then I decided, since the population was very less, I thought of distributing my E-Book through E-mail itself and made an update to the same google plus post giving away my email id and asking prospective readers to email me directly.

Probably not a very wise idea, but anyway it solved the purpose right then. Then those few people emailed me directly and I sent them my E-Book copy.

What I realized after giving my E-Book to my early adopters?

I thought I would get good feedback and waited a day or two. Since it was a short E-Book, I thought it would take only a few hours to glance and read through the E-Book. I thought people would enjoy reading it and they will reply me with all sorts of accolades.

But I was wrong. Another 4-5 days passed by, I didn't get a reply. Then I became a bit impatient and composed an Email asking for the feedback.

But again to no avail. I tried pinging a person directly who was in my contacts. He said he was too busy to read the book right away and promised to read the book whenever he got time.

"Then why should he ask for the E-Book in the first place?" was what that immediately came to my mind. But then I came to terms with reality. Then I decided that this strategy of emailing readers with my Ebook didn't work out. So I decided to Pivot (thinking of another strategy)

Key Learning

It is better to test out a strategy to check if it works. If it doesn't work, we can persevere a bit but not for too long. You have to take a pivot soon enough before losing interest or before we lose momentum.

Why I wanted a proper channel to distribute the E-book?

Now I needed to think of another strategy to distribute my E-Book. I began to search in Google and instantly got a reply that I can self publish Ebooks (for free) in places like Amazon which is probably the largest retailer of books. Especially Kindle, their popular platform hosts a large number of Electronic books. So I decided to go through that way. I planned to publish my Ebook through Amazon and market the Ebook through my blogs and social media. But I had to get the feedback from prospective customers.

This time I started a new discussion in another Google Plus group and asked for the devices and formats that people generally prefer. I got Kindle as the number one device, a mix of Nook, iPad and PC as the next. And formats, I got PDF as number one followed by Epub and others.

Key Learning

There is plenty of information available on the internet and most of them are free. So make use of it. Gather the information and filter it out and plan a strategy that suits you.

My First Big Mistake in this journey

With enough information, I began the process of trying to publish the Ebook on Kindle. With that I created an Amazon account and logged into Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) as it is called. KDP is the self publishing platform from Amazon which allows content to be uploaded in MS Word format and it converts it into .Mobi format which is used by Kindle.

The steps in KDP were very simple

1. Entering the book details like title, author name, description, edition, etc.

2. Verifying publishing rights

3. Specify Target Audience

4. Upload or Create a cover page (There is an inline editor with which we can create cover pages)

5. Upload the word document

6. Preview the content in different kindle devices (online)

7. Once ok, select pricing (There was a Free option as well)

8. Publish

Considering these steps, I thought of finishing them very quickly, but once I started reading the detailed Kindle content formatting guidelines, I was dejected seeing so many stuffs to be done. I tried different options and watched few videos on the formatting. I prepared multiple versions however I couldn't get proper preview as I was not doing the formatting correctly.

Then I searched in Google for Kindle templates, I couldn't find any free ones and I saw a paid one in http://www.self-publishing-coach.com/. At this moment, I had two options. One was to go ahead and buy the template for $50 and go ahead with publishing without any hassles. Two was to waste more time trying to do the formatting myself.

I took the former option. The reason being I didn't want to waste my time in doing things that didn't come to me and those that didn't directly fit my purpose. My job was to create good content and not doing formatting. With this thought, I went ahead and did my first financial investment. Yes, I was investing plenty of time but this was the first financial investment. A $50 investment or a Rs. 3000/- (Indian currency).

Having bought the template, I put my contents into the template and in a breeze, I went ahead with all the steps before the pricing. Now you would think that I happily published the Ebook.

But No. As they always say, "The Devil is in the detail", the devil for me was in the pricing page. Just when I set the pricing as Free and I was all set to publish, it told me that as a small publisher I can't set the price of an Ebook as free. I needed to be a bigger publisher in order to set the pricing as free.

What an irony? Why on earth would someone buy a book from a little known author. First of all, how would I make them realize that there is something in it for them to read. I had to think of another strategy because setting a price for a little known book from a little known author didn't make sense for me.

Key Learning

Never ever try to do something without proper research. Not doing proper research caused me a loss of $50 and some precious time in hitting the market. Remember every penny is costly and it should be used with utmost care especially in case of startups, which in my cause is pretty analogous.

What's Next?

Remember the ride of a startup or an entrepreneur or an author is going to be a roller coaster. In my next posts, I will cover

Which platform did I choose to distribute my Ebook?

What I learnt about my Ebook?

Major Learning in my journey

If you wish to stay tuned to the updates from my journey, please subscribe to the blog feed (Free) by submitting your email id to the right or by clicking the URL http://feeds.feedburner.com/MyJourneyInBecomingASelfPublishingAuthorAndAnEntrepreneur

Aspiring Author Entrepreneur Series - The Idea of an E-Book

2013-11-05T19:22:00.002-08:00

This is part 2 of my journey series. I previously posted Part 1 of the Aspiring Author Entrepreneur Series - Introduction

I was interested in doing something but could do it only part time due to my current job. But whenever I found time, I blogged. As time passed by, my posts became more and more popular and viewership increased over time. I got an increasing followers list as more viewers added me to their Google Plus circles.

Then an idea stuck me. How do I improvise on this? Now that I have got a decent following and plenty of knowledge still to share, I wanted to take it convert it into money or atleast do something bigger. I thought of adsense but soon rejected it as I was not getting that much traffic to get decent earnings from adsense.

Then I pulled thoughts from my product development background and tried to productize what I was offering. That is when I thought I would release an Ebook which is a more productized form of knowledge.

Key Learning:

Always try to capitalize on your growing fan base or user list. And keep the fire burning.

Next you will think that I wrote the E-Book but NO.

As an aspiring entrepreneur, I read a lot of blogs and books about startups and their success and failure stories. One thing that particularly stuck me was the idea of The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.

For starters, some key aspects of The Lean Startup principles that I learned are:

1. Get your idea validated with prospective customers

2. If you are trying to build a product, try to build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

3. Based on the feedback from customers, either persevere or pivot

So I decided that I will go the following route

1. Thought of a minimal version of the full E-book.

2. Compiled the list of topics to be covered

3. Try to get some feedback if anyone is interested.

So I compiled a list of topics and used Google Plus as a forum for getting user feedback. The message was simple that I am going to start a E-book on the following topics and asked who are interested in getting a copy of the E-book.

A very few people (7-8) mentioned that they were interested. It seems a very low number, but to me it seemed very big. It meant that I had Early Adopters, again a term associated with startups whose users are willing to try something or experiment with a new product.

That inspiration was enough for me to go ahead and write the full minimal E-Book that I was planning to write. I finished writing the E-Book in a week's time.

Key Learnings:

Always test your assumptions with prospective customers/users. There is no point in wasting time building something that no one wants. By validating my assumption that someone will be interested in what I am offering, I got my idea validated with least effort and also I got the extra confidence to push harder to complete my E-Book which might not be the case if I was trying to write it without getting feedback.

What's Next?

The ride of a startup / entrepreneur / author is not going to be one way. It is going to be a roller coaster. In my next posts, I will cover

What I realized after giving my E-Book to my early adopters?

Why I wanted a proper channel to distribute the E-Book?

My First Big Mistake in this journey

If you wish to stay tuned to the updates from my journey, please subscribe to the blog post (free) by submitting your email address to the right.

Aspiring Author Entrepreneur Series - Introduction

2013-11-03T20:35:00.000-08:00

Why I started this blog series?

This series was inspired by "A SaaS Startup’s Journey to $100,000 a Month" by Groove HQ, a startup which started posting its journey to make it to $100k per month on revenues. I got a lot of inspiration from the blog after reading it last week and the blog had one important wording that I believe is very applicable to me. "Don't underestimate what you can teach to others"

These above words gave me the inspiration for me to start a separate blog for my journey in the world of a software book author and an Entrepreneur. Yes. I aspire to become a book author and an Entrepreneur. In fact I have already published my first E-Book for programmers titled "Programmer's Motivation for Beginners" which is now available at Lulu, Apple iBookstore, My own website, Pothi.com. Ok, enough bragging. Let's get onto the meat of the topic.

How it all started?

There were several reasons for me to embark on this journey to become an author and an entrepreneur. First and foremost, I think I have it in myself to build something from scratch. Maybe the projects that I had involved in, I took those roles and succeeded (maybe partly) where others didn't try to enter. My latest project was a Product Development as part of an R&D team in a very large MNC organization. That project was started from scratch under extreme uncertainties and I had to battle a lot of uncertainties in order to come up with the product.

In short it was like building a startup from scratch. Whether it succeeded or failed is another story. From the organization perspective, it was a success as we had a major product company sign a great deal with us but our product was merged into theirs. But for me, it was not a great success. According to me, success was to see the product grow strength to strength. So for a artistic builder like me, that was not a great result. I was a little satisfied that after many struggles, finally it got some recognition but unfortunately I wanted more, I wanted to launch it into a huge product and that didn't happen. So the urge to build something became even more when I was lot dissatisfied with the results.

That is when I decided that I should do something on my own, in which I can have complete control. But unfortunately I didn't have any financial backup to start something immediately, so all I had to do, I had to do it part time. Before that, there were a lot of learning from the project, so I decided to share my knowledge through my blogs. Both from the conceptual standpoint and process, journey and learning standpoint.

There is another reason for me to start the blog. When I decided that it was time to move on with a new job, I found it difficult because by 8 years my skillsets was so diversified that it was very generic to suit any particular job title. Then I started to reflect on myself and asked myself "Does anyone outside my organization know about my talent, skillset or performance?" The answer was No from within? My next question was "Does anyone apart from the ones whom you worked with know about the unique skillsets you possess?" Again the answer was No.

So I decided that I was not in good shape because I was trying to compete with people with specific skillsets and I didn't have any advantage when it comes to competitiveness. So I asked myself "How do I make my profile standout from the rest that will make others notice?" The answer was to build something online so that I have an online reputation that I can showcase it to others. First I concentrated on building my LinkedIn Profile and then I began to build my blogs. My knowledge was well received. I got decent amount of following. Not great by any standards, but just enough to keep me motivated to blog and share my knowledge further. That is when I decided that I will step on the accelarator to do something better.

In my next post, I will tell you how an idea of an Ebook came into my mind and how it took shape. If you wish to stay tuned to the updates, please subscribe to the blog post (free) by submitting your email address.