₦airaland Forum

juwoonn:
@mk82 long time... good to know this thread is still doing great. i want to publish my old kindle books on draft2digital. Please is d2d formatting the same with kindle? or should i submit the files for my createspace store to d2d?

secondly, i filled in my account details and tax info on d2d but i got a 500 error msg which has persisted for 2 days now; could it be because i'm yet to publish a title on d2d?

i anticipate your prompt response boss.

How're you doing Juwoonn?
To publish on D2D, simply upload the same MS Word files (and cover) you used for kindle. No further formating required.
The 500 error problem may be from the browser. Try using another browser. Also, are you using a browsing hack? Tor browser, psiphon etc can cause such issues.

ranson:
Hi mk82, Please I want to be sure if the international payment option on D2D meant I can receive money directly in my Nigerian Bank Account. Again, on D2D, will the auto system generate a paperback for my books or I will have to provide one?

I haven't explored the international payment option. I receive payment through my payoneer USA bank account. You could contact them to find out.
Yes, D2D can publish physical books for you to Createspace. I don't use that option because I can do it by myself directly on createspace without a middleman. They will charge a little percentage for the service and I may not like the formating style they use.

twosquare:
Let me understand because if my calculation is what actually I'm thinking, then it's a rip-off. That means Uncle Sam as a whole (30% for Amazon, another 30% for Tax) = 60% of your revenue. Total sales is $100. So, I will most likely have $40 as take home. Right? Mk82

twosquare:
Okay, thanks for the clarification. One more thing. Am I right in my calculation?

Your calculation is not correct.
From $100 sales, Amazon takes 30% for providing the platform for publishing your books. Now you have $70 left.
The USA government will tax the $70 at 30% which is $21. That means your take home is $49 not $40 as you calculated.
As I said earlier, take your mind off the taxed amount and work to increased your income. Very soon, you will not remember the tax. People pay up to 40% tax in the USA and they are still multimillionaires.
Freelance work is not better just because they don't collect tax. I did it for a few years - it's pure slave labor. You only get paid once and then you have to work again and again. There is no rest.
In contrast, online publishing gives residual income.
When you publish a book on Amazon, you are paid over and over as long as it sells. It's like building a rental apartment and tenants pay you for life.

turnup05:
Thank you sir. When I was trying to even register my account with amazon they asked about the country my bank is located and Nigeria isn't there on their list. I hardly saw any African country. I don't know what I can do about that and their tax policy I dnt really get it. Pls how did you register

Don't fill in any bank details yet, cheque will be chosen for you as default payment method. Just go on with the other parts of the registration. Go to payoneer.com and register an account. When they approve your payoneer card, an American bank account will also be given to you. After that, go to your kdp account and fill in the bank details.
**Check my previous posts for instructions on how to fill the tax pages.

tooltip:
mk82 can using a foreign dedicated vpn or relocating to a foreign country, take care of the tax issue?
the chunk of the pie collected by amazon is much

Don't try using vpn with Amazon. They will find out and terminate your account. Relocating to another country may not solve the tax problem. Even if Amazon gives you 100% of the money, you still have to pay tax in that country and the tax may be more than 30%.
The best approach is to work on publishing good books that will give you a lot of money. When you make good money, you will not even remember the 30% tax. Calculate your income based on the 70% left after tax and focus on making that 70% as big as possible. That is what we do, and we are doing great!

ranson:
Good evening all. Must I convert my books to KDP format before uploading or I should just leave it at word format and allow the system to do it for me?

Upload directly in MS word format. Although, you have to do some formating within MS word before uploading. Google how to do that.

micson:
i have some books in kindle that are not doing well both in kenp and sells, i would love to move them to D2D but i dont know how to do this
please mk8, godmother, ferhyntorlah, please also i notice that formating books to D2D IS a lil bit different from kdp please how do i go about all this.
help thanks

Remove the books from Kdp select and wait for their enrollment to expire before uploading to D2D.
D2D does not require any special formating. Just upload the same MS word you uploaded in kindle and the same cover. Ensure that there are no Amazon links within the book.

turnup05:
Pls I have a fiction book for kids that I want to publish and sell on amazon kindle. Pls I need your advice on how to convert the typed copy in ms word format on my flash to a standard ebook with pictures and a professional touch. I am thinking of seeing a professional that make ebooks. I also don't know how much it can cost me to publish the ebook and the best price for fiction books for children or comics?

I believe you can do the formatting in MS Word. You have to hire an artist for the pictures. You can find them on upwork.com. Search for similar jobs to find out how much they charge per image then post your job. Get ready to spend a good amount of dollars. You have to describe each image in detail so they can get it right. Pay only when you are satisfied. Once you get the images, simply insert in the MS word and format as necessary.
Kindle also has a facility for creating children's books. Do some research on that.

Godmother:
How's the sales like on D2D ? I'm thinking of trying it cos the Kindle promotion and KENP tin is too poor

Sales are good on draft2digital. It gives you access to Apple, Barnes and Noble etc. Those 2 stores are next to kindle in sales. My d2d income takes care of household expenses while I keep Kdp and createspace for projects.

D2D is a great way to give new life to your old books and new books that are not getting reasonable kenp reads. I have a book there that gets more than 100 sales per month and it doesn't get up to 5 sales in Kdp.

After 1-2 months of publishing on kindle, any book that does not bring in at least 850 kenp reads (about $5) per month, I remove from Kdp select and publish on draft2digital after the select enrollment expires.

kay29000:
Hey guys, I am trying to join draft2publish...Do I have to follow through with all the Tax information stuff on payment information or I can ignore it since I am an International publisher?

mk82
godmother

The draft2digital tax page is similar to Kdp"s. Just follow the steps and fill the necessary information as you did on Kdp. it's a requirement and you can't ignore it.

Kreemsy:
Thank you OP and everyone that has contributed,i will definitely start dis biz soon. I want to apply for payoneer,but my national Id has my former resident address while i want to use my current address,hope thats not going to be a problem? Can i use the zip code of the area closest to me and still receive the payoneer? Help pls

Use the address on your National ID as your main address to avoid delays. You can then use your current address as the delivery address. You will see where they will ask you if you want the card delivered to a different address.

If you sent me a PM, send an email to the gmail on my profile. l don't have access to my nairaland email.

doyinisaac:
@mk82 you will never know peace in jesus name if all your accusations are false,!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!funny bastard,after i refused to share my tips with you is when you idiot suddenly remember that he is using trick??let us assume he bought gigs from fiverr as you falsely claimed,now tell the house why you still wanted him to share the tips you claim you already know he was using??is that not hypocrisy and deceit??
secondly you are the fool that felt i was violating the terms and conditions and went to report to amazon,let me shock you!!!!!!!my account has been re-instated after amazon asked me to prove how i got my borrows.....and pls google phillip .M. parker and find out the method he used t create 200000 books and get his borrows....amazon even celebrated him as the author with the most number of books on earth......
thirdly i know two different people from nairaland who tried the facebook and goodreads method and it worked for them,because i did not explain in details how i got the borrows does not mean someone else did not benefit from it.......bad belle!!!!!!!!!!!
let us assume i got subscribers to read my book through a fiverr gig as you fool said,now tell me the difference of someone on amazon begging people to buy or read his or her book and me??go to amazon community forum you will see different people begging for reviews on their books,you see people begging people on how they can get more sales of their books,go to facebook you will see different groups for kindle unlimited subscribers ,from all these group you can send your book links to them and they will read it if they find your book interesting or probably check the first page out and if they see that ur book is not interesting they will simply tell you that your book is wack!!!!!!!now tell me how i have violated the terms and conditions??and please show prove that i did a fiverr gigs??and honestly i wish i know how i can get a fiverr gig i suppose don worth 1 million dollars!!!!!!!!!1 because it means that if i have just 1000$ i can buy fiverr gigs that can fetch me 40 million pages read!!!na him i never buy the most expensive car since all these months??ode ni e ooooooo......
finally GOD will punish you if you don't show proof that i did a fiverr gig....at least you can show us the details of the fiverr gig and proof to us that I was the one that did the gig and not someone else,if you don't do that GOD will punish you with sufferness and bitterness....and by the way how i will i invite a complete stranger online to my house when am just meeting him for the first time??

doyinisaac:
i will continue to call that man names if he does not bring proof to this thread concerning all his accusations !!!!!!!!!!i can't allow someone out of jealousy or curiousity or ignorance to now come and be making me false accusations about something he does not know about!!!!!who does that on a public forum??

First, It is written: The curse causeless shall not come.
It is outrightly pitiful and even diabolical that you still want to maintain your deception so you can bring more people down with you. I had nothing to do with the termination of your account. It is a time-bomb waiting to explode. Amazon is one of the biggest companies on the internet with almost unlimited resources. You can only fool them for a few weeks or months. They always catch up with people like you.
STOP LYING. THAT YOUR ACCOUNT CAN NEVER BE REINSTATED!!! You must have opened another one with a different name.

@Godmother. I am sorry, but it is important to know who you give your respect to.

The following are some of the Fiverr Gigs That read and borrow Kindle Unlimited Books:
https://www.fiverr.com/aammton/speedread-your-kindle-unlimited-books-up-to-12
https://www.fiverr.com/jaredchansen/read-10-kindle-unlimited-books
https://www.fiverr.com/aidanc450/borrow-and-read-25-kindle-books
https://www.fiverr.com/fyrrewolf/borrow-10-of-your-kindle-unlimited-books

@doyinisaac. Please open a new thread on Kindle Publishing and take your followers with you. I rest my case.

doyinisaac:
MR ITK(I TOO KNOW)...........ignorance is a disease sir.....at least you should find out first how i achieved that instead of jumping into conclusions.......to even think i use to respect you before!!!!!you have lost my respect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE WAKACOME/DOYIN ISAAC DECEPTION

@All, I am sorry for not exposing this deception earlier and some of you must have been misled. I had been very busy and also wanted to give him time to say the truth.
The level of depravity of the youths of this generation is appalling and we keep praying that God will deliver them and help them to seek repentance.

On 24th August, 2015, this user Doyin Isaac, posted on this thread (page 42) with the username wakacome (which he subsequently deleted). The post and others afterwards showed screen shots of a kindle account with hundreds of thousands of KENP Read (500000 pages for the month of July 2015).
***He also asked for my account details so he can send me something in September when he is paid, as appreciation for opening this thread. I did not send him my account details, we only exchanged phone numbers.

I and several others on this thread were excited and asked him to teach us how he did. His reply was that he used GoodReads. That he submitted his books to GoodReads and encouraged readers there to read his books through their Kindle Prime accounts - and that is how he could get so many pages read.

I had some reservations because of certain incongruity that I observed:
1. Most of the books had no sales, even with thousands of Pages Read.
2. The books had very poor quality. Many were translated with Google Translate (something a serious minded online publisher will never do). Some had 7 or 9 pages.
3. He (wakacome) asked for other people's kindle books and "helped" them to get more Pages Read. (As if he can command people on GoodReads at will to go and read the books.)
4. **Nobody was able to replicate his success even with all the tips he gave.

However, I decided to give it a try. I immediately commissioned 3 books in the first 2 weeks of September. I chatted with him on WhatsApp and also called him on the phone so he can teach me his method. When I discovered he lives just about 30 minutes drive from my location, I suggested that I come to his place so he can give a practical demonstration. He replied that he is a very busy person and that he will call me when he his free. After that, we never communicated and never had the meeting.

Many people went on the GoodReads wild goose chase. When I discovered that nobody was able to obtain success from the "GoodReads Method", I decided to do some research to find out the truth about what was going on.
What I discovered was that he and many others were buying Fiverr Gigs from guys that have software readers installed on several kindle user accounts. As of October, there were 4 of these Gigs on Fiverr. You pay $5 and you get 10,000 to 20,000 pages read.

This was what wakacome or doyinisaac was doing. Subsequently, his Amazon account was terminated because they discovered his violation of their Terms Of Service. He was still not repentant and came to this thread to say that he lost his account because he "helped people". What a shame!

I discussed with one of the members here and showed him the fiver Gigs but I never got around to exposing this deceit so everybody can know. I also thought he will pipe down after his experience. He has come again to start another series of deception, telling people he finished a 198,000 word book in two days. Please, discard whatever advice he has given or gives you on kdp publishing. Your account will only end up being terminated.

The information on this thread has been a blessing to many people in Nigeria and other countries. Some of my students have bought cars and one is even building a house in the East. We are all working hard and doing all we can to publish excellent books. While I do my best not to do anything that violates Amazon's TOS, I have no grievance with anyone who wants to use a trick to cheat the system. That is your business. What I cannot support is that you will come here and start lying to people about how you got your success.

doyinisaac:
non fiction and it took me just two days...

doyinisaac:
meanwhile i have just finished a book of 198,000 words....

@doyinisaac, I think you should spare the honest, hardworking people on this thread and stop misleading them. 198,000 words in two days!!!

stardragon:
ok. Under U.S tax, should it be left blank?

1. Register with your real Nigerian name and Nigerian address.
2. For the bank account, you need a USA bank account. Go to payoneer.com and register. When your card is approved, they will also give you a USA bank account. This is the bank account details you will add to your Kdp account.
3. TAX:
You don't need a tax ID.
As a Nigerian, you have to pay 30% withholding
tax to the USA from your Kdp royalty. This is because Nigeria does not have a tax treaty with America.
Login to your account and check on the upper
right side, you'll see where to click to update your tax information. Go through all the steps to let them know you're in Nigeria, has no tax ID and choose individual as your designation.
Also agree to give your signature electronically and then type in your name as the signature then click save.

kamnene:
Mk82,
I sent u pm almost two weeks now but u have not replied it ,why now?
Pls, kindly check yr mail and advise me properly.tnks

I don't have access to my nairaland email. Send your question to the gmail on my profile.

stardragon:
@mk82, after opening account with payionee online, i was given an "account reference number" through my imail. pls what is the meaning of account reference number?

I think you'll only need it if your account has any problems before it's fully operational. it's just for reference purposes.

olaexpo14:
Hello sirs/mas here,
i understand that one has to submit my "tax identification number", but i dont have one,please how can i go about it

You don't have to submit any tax ID.
As a Nigerian, you have to pay 30% withholding tax to the USA from your Kdp royalty. This is because Nigeria does not have a tax treaty with America.
Login to your account and check on the upper right side, you'll see where to click to update your tax information. Go
through all the steps to let them know you're in Nigeria, has no tax ID and choose individual as your designation. Also agree to give your signature electronically and then type in your name as the signature then click save.

NB. I have answered this question in previous pages. It would be nice if those of you who are new can read from the first page. You will then have fewer questions. The thread is just 50 pages and a lot of questions have been answered already.

...

slim49z:
@MK82 and the rest of the gang.

I need your honest opinion. Is Kindle publishing still profitable? I want to venture into Kindle but the grapevine has it it's no more profitable.

How true is that?

Kindle is still profitable. The problem is that the game has changed and most people can't adapt to the changes.
It's no longer as easy as it was. No more free money from book borrows, free promotions are not as effective as before, more books are being published (over 85,000 per month) and so on.
Big time publishers are not helping matters. They are upping the game by bringing in a lot of money and expertize which most indie publishers can't compete against. You need bigger and better quality books. Alternatively, you have to be creative to find hidden niches where smaller books still sell.
You can succeed if you adopt a publisher's mindset.
My online publishing business is now spread evenly across Kdp, Createspace and Draft2digital (to get into iBooks, Barnes and Noble,Kobo, Oyster). And my income is still rising.

Godmother:
Abeg what are preppers, loveware? Google dictionary is giving me something else.

Mk82

Preppers or survivalists are people who are actively preparing for emergencies like social or
political breakdown, economic meltdown or apocalypse. They often acquire emergency medical and self-defense training, stockpile food and water, prepare to become
self-sufficient , and build structures, and learn to live solely on nature.
It's an OK niche with a number of topics you can create medium size books on.
By loveware,I think you mean ero.tica. Nairaland bot must have changed it. Ero.tica is simply written por.nography.

HZwriters:
@mk82,
Do you market your books via other channels. If yes, how?

No, I don't do any marketing outside Amazon and that is just the free book promotion.

girlfromafrica:
Ok I think I get it now. I have been writing purely out of passion. However the last time I researched, e.r.o.t.i.c.a seemed to be the most profitable niche on kindle and since I am "too holy" for that I decided to stick to my passion but this time I will conduct thorough keyword research. However, I recently discovered another niche that seems very profitable. I will try it out and report my experience soon.
One more question: Should my keyword research be restricted to amazon, kindle or google?
Thanks a lot!

I agree with your reason for not writing ero.tica.
Restrict your keyword research to Amazon. Amazon has its own search engine that is more than adequate. And that is where your customers are anyway. You can get book ideas from other sources, but make sure you subject them to the Amazon test (the criteria I explained in the research method) and discard anyone that fails.

girlfromafrica:
@MK82

I have followed this thread closely and almost too passionately not just because of the prospect of passive income but from knowing that I can make money doing what I love; writing. Thanks for starting this thread.

I have published three books to date. Below are the links:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SLXAD5U

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NH0NJUS

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SLXABXO

However, I have only been able to get very very few sales. I have tried all sorts of free and paid promotion. I really don't think my books are as hideous as my sales make them look. I have about twenty other books to write but sales from my first three books are discouraging. Please could you kindly give me your opinion on this matter? Also are kindle books still profitable?
Please I am open to advice and criticisms from everyone. Thanks.

Hi @girlfromafrica,

First, kindle publishing is still very profitable. My income has tripled over the past 1 year and it is still increasing. Online publishing is now my full time profession.

Now to your books' matters:
I know how frustrating it can be when the market refuses to give you adequate compensation for a book or books you have put in so much effort to produce. You have nice looking books (despite what someone said in a post above me) with interesting titles. However, kindle success (and online publishing success in general) is not based on just interesting titles and nice looking book covers. The problem with your books is that they are not keyword-based.

The fact that writing is your passion may be a problem in disguise. It may limit you to writing about issues you care about without regards to what the market is ready to pay for. Many people have made this same mistake, many of them writing books in the self-help, relationship and motivational categories. You cannot force the market to buy what it has not asked you to produce. If you want to take this part, you will require enormous promotional and advertising resources.

You will succeed in only when you give the market what it wants and it's hungry for. RESEARCH is the foundation of this business. Your chances of making sales will increase greatly when you start publishing keyword-based books after conducting diligent research. Check page 9 or 10 of this thread for my post on how to research niches on kindle.

You have to develop a business approach to online publishing. See yourself as a publisher and not just an author. Be flexible and get ready to write on different nonfiction topics (most of which you may know nothing about now). Research simple keywords that are getting a lot of sales and then produce quality books. The keywords should also be incorporated into your titles. You can write on different unrelated topics by using pen names.

I am not saying you should throw away your passion. However, the topics you are passionate about may not bring good sales and you will soon lose your passion. If you force yourself to produce keyword-based books on topics you are not passionate about, they will give you enough sales and a lot of money to cover the disappoint of lack of sales of the books you really love.

HZwriters:
@mk82,

Which is better for a beginner between kindle countdown deal and free promotion?

Free promotion still gives me good results and that's what I recommend. I usually set 1-3 days free promo for new books. I did not get impressive results with kindle countdown deal when I tested it with some books last year.

wakacome:
na wa ooo,someone sent an email to amazon that they should remove my books that I am manipulating the system because I am making people on goodreads and other websites to read my books so that I will get alot of kenp reads,now why will anyone just want my books removed simply because people are reading my books??is that not jealousy,envy and hatredwell thank GOD those that own amazon are professionals so they understand that as an author I have the rights to tell people to read my books so amazon emailed me back that did I requested for my books to be removed,I replied them that "NO"....I demanded for the email details where the books removal request was made by someone else,now they obliged,the shocking and sad thing is that the email address of the person correlates with the one of a nairalander so someone from Nairaland did that......well am happy that amazon did justice to the issue.my books are still intact!!!!!!time to continue to get more and more kenp reads..and to the person that did that,well bad belle is allowed...keep on hating!!!in oshiomole's voice***GO AND DIE!!!!

That's unfortunate. Since you know the person involved on nairaland (through the email), I think you should reveal the username so we can all know and beware.
*** That's why I told you to delete your author pen name that time.

Godmother:
@ Mk82
@wakacome

I noticed you cant check your total earnings on kindle; you can only check the previous 90 days. How do you know when you reach cash-out? Is there a way to check your entire earnings without downloading the monthly reports. Cos I dont seem to understand the report when I download it

** There is no minimum threshold for payment if your payment method is EFT.
I don't really bother about the monthly reports excel sheet. At the end of each month, I click on the previous month's report for each marketplace, multiply each book's sale with its royalty and add up everything. I also add up all the kenp reads and divide by 172 to give the dollar figure. Once you have the total, remove 30% for tax, then 1% for Payoneer EFT charges. The remaining is your income for that month.
I keep this total in notepad every month so I always know what I'll be paid the next 2 months. This is just a rough estimate because I get paid a bit more each time.

**Understanding the monthly reports excel sheet is however not difficult. Just look at each country and move to the right side and down to find the total. Then go to Google to convert each currency to dollars. This gives a more accurate royalty figure.

MULLAH123:
Sorry please if am intruding, but can you give us an estimate of the royalties earned per month for the not upto 100 books, like say books not upto 100 nd royalties not upto 2000$. For me I have 5 books in the system and a monthly royalty of 10$...thanks...anticipating, and just to ginger us the newbies.

If you have 100 books with well researched keywords and quality and adequate content, on Kindle + Createspace, you should get $2000 and even much more per month.

wakacome:
have done that....

ferhyntorlah:
I've done that SIR.

Good!

wakacome:
i don't use any pix

I think you should remove your pen name from the previous post. Also @ferhyntorlah help him remove it from your quote.
It's for security reasons, nairaland is seen worldwide.

wakacome:
@mk82 have sent my Whatsapp number to your email...

Replied

ken4jj:
Mk82,

Is there any effect on free book promotion on KENP read? That is if a book is on free promotion, will it be added to your KENP read during that period?

On the free promotion days, everything customers do with your book is free.

wakacome:
God bless the person that created this thread...my total kenp read was more than 500000 pages for the month of July..more than 2500$ in royalty for borrow alone.....@ mk82 God bless you bro,send me your account number so that I can send something.when i receive my payment on September.....God bless you once again,that is all I can say right now..

I like reading this type of post. You just made my day. God bless you too for believing and taking action. Send a message to the gmail on my nairaland profile page so we can communicate.

ferhyntorlah:
Sir, 1-5 months is too much. Highest 2-3 months. He should check his post code first.

I am speaking from personal experience, and that of a few people that I know. Some people are lucky to get theirs 3-4 weeks. Nipost is very wonderful. When I ordered my first card, I almost became a weekly visitor in their office. After 2 months, I ordered another one through DHL. The initial card came in 4 months.