Self Publishing Success

I recently found out about a young adult fiction author who has some great success self publishing her books. Her name is Amanda Hocking. She says she tried to break in the traditional book industry for 8 years. However recently her self publishing books have been bringing in the big bucks.

I looked her up on Amazon. One of her books goes for 99 cents. However I hear most sell for $3. She keeps 70% of this money. I understand she sells around 100k copies of her books per month. Doing the math that comes out to over $200k per month. Damn.

Personally I am going to look for her story in the April issue of Elle magazine. Check our her My Blood Approves blog to find out more about her.

Marketing Win

I got of a bunch of coupons from McDonalds. Some give you the opportunity to buy an item at a lower than normal price. Others give you outright free stuff.

Today I used a coupon to get a free drink. This enabled me to go in and dine in. I usually get a sandwich off the dollar menu from the drive through. But now that I had a free soda, I could go in and sit down.

It turns out that once inside, I decided to go big and order their Big Breakfast. This couple a couple more dollars than I normally spend. All McDonalds had to do was get the coupon to me, and provide a free drink which costs them very little extra.

This turned out to be a big win for McDonalds. I find myself going to them for my fast food needs now. A little book of coupons goes a long way in developing customer loyalty. Of course you need to have a good product, but you can benefit from something extra to keep the traffic in your stores.

Web App Secrets

I just read a magazine article on building successful web apps. Most important thing is to have a really fast app. Do this even if you have to fake it and make the app look like it is responsive.

Make sure your apps reach out to your users with reminders. Here is a thought. Listen to what your users are saying. Then respond by adding new features to your app that wow your users.

The end goal is to make money with your app. That does not mean you have to charge for it. You can go freemium. Or you can puts ads in there. There are a lot of other options.