Dear Diary,

Bet you thought I gave up on learning to publish on Kindle, and went away. Well, I’m still here. I just had to earn some money, and didn’t have time to write. (grin)

It took a while, but I finally settled on using two epublications– “Kindle Success Formula” by Amy McDaniel (short and sweet, with 12 secrets for success), and “The Power of Kindle Books” by Lambert Klein. The latter is somewhat longer (652 locations versus 525), but there is more detail. Looking over the tables of contents (TOCs) of the two items, they cover pretty much the same information, but I suspect the views differ somewhat. The other books are for later–after I have an idea what this publishing for Kindle is all about. Let’s see what the two selected books have to say…

McDaniel’s tips start out with determining a price, then go on to discuss finding a niche. She delimits the profit an author earns based on selling price and sales. She also explains how Amazon determines which ebooks to promote and why. This is important information to know before an author starts writing, but I’m not sure I need to know this before I know what I’ll be writing about. Her next tip deals with finding one’s niche. Aah! Figuring out what I’m going to write about.

Klein jumps directly into the importance of knowing what your niche is before you can do anything else. That means brain-storming and exploration.

First the brain-storming; then the research.

So. … I did some brain-storming the other night and came up with the following topics about which I know something or that I think I am qualified to do:

• classroom management ideas
• teacher-student, parent-student, teacher-parent-student reading collaboration skills
• academic articles for educators
  • special education
  • grade-level reading skills
  • reading skills for adults
  • English as a Second Language (ESL) for adults
• training techniques
  • ice-breakers
  • team-building
• dissertation guides
• building a site for ESL/ELL (English Language Learning) for adults
• developing a small crafts business online
• learning about web design
  • design objects
  • design languages
• teen fantasy fiction (No Vampires!!)

Quite a list! But now I have to do a bit of research to see what topics are “hot.” 

Both books recommend checking the book lists on Amazon–what books and ebooks are now or have been best sellers? What are people interested in? What are people buying? What are people recommending? Amazon makes this easy, but I should check other sites, too, like Barnes & Noble, ebook companies, etc. And I have to remember to check the Kindle “free” list and lending library, too.

More work before my next post. (sigh) Hopefully, some of my brain-stormed topics turn up on the lists. I’m trying to position myself to earn a little money, after all. But if I have to reinvent myself–well, it won’t be the first time. (grin)

OK. Off to do some research…

Addendum:

A reader posted this link the other day, but I didn’t look at it until today. This particular post has some interesting ideas, but I think we have a caveat emptor situation here. Free information is not always free…

(If you can’t get there through the link, copy and past this text into your browser:) http://www.copyblogger.com/recycle-content/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter