Self-publishing Tips #2 - Why Evergreen Books Sell
And How To Create Them
One major challenge with Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), and indeed any business, is sales.
While many new publishers join the self-publishing industry daily, only a handful are making up to $100 every single month.
Why is this the case?
Competition.
I am not saying this to scare you.
But to prepare you for reality.
The truth is, you must have the right information and take smart actions to consistently make money from KDP.
In this newsletter, we will be looking at a type of book called an evergreen book. You will understand what it is, why KDP millionaires invest in them, and how to create yours with the power of AI. Let’s jump right in.
What Is An Evergreen Book?
An evergreen book is basically a book that people buy all through the year.
Unlike trend books that readers usually buy when the trend is hot (a good example being the death of Queen Elizabeth II), evergreen books don’t follow any trend.
A great example of an evergreen book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. The content can never “go out of style.”
Readers find it useful at all times, and they buy it all year round.
Evergreen books are mostly nonfiction.
In order to appreciate this better, I think we should talk briefly about the other types of books that self-publishers create.
Apart from evergreen books, we have trend books, biographies and memoirs, summaries and workbooks, activity books, and low-content books.
Trend books, from the name, are books written about a certain trend. A perfect example of this is COVID-19-related books.
A lot of these were published between 2020 and 2022.
Biographies are books that contain the biographies of famous and not-so-famous people.
Memoirs are like biographies, but more detailed, with stories of the author’s life.
Summaries are books that contain a summary of another book, especially evergreen books that have a good number of pages (like Atomic Habits).
Workbooks are quite similar to summaries. They also often contain summaries of other books while going a step further to provide questions that the reader can use to internalize the lessons in the original book.
However, a different version of workbooks was recently discovered, which seems to be selling really well. It is called hybrid books.
We will talk about how to create them in another newsletter.
Activity books are books like puzzles and coloring books. They are very useful for kids and adults.
Low-content books are books like notebooks with very little or no content in them.
Having seen the different types of books being published at the moment, let’s talk about how to create an evergreen book.
How To Create An Evergreen Book
Step 1: Find a profitable niche
A niche is like a subject matter.
Examples of niches include gardening, mediterranean diet, mental health, etc.
How will you find a profitable niche that is less competitive?
This is best demonstrated in a video, so I recommend you find a free video on YouTube to learn further, or preferably get my mentor’s course here.
Step 2: Get your book outline from ChatGPT
I described the entire process in the post below.
Self-publishing Tips #1 - Write A Book Using ChatGPT In 3 Steps
Imagine a situation where you have been publishing books on the KDP website for three months with no sales. You have done everything you know, but it looks like “luck” is not on your side. When you were about to give up, you had an idea. That idea gave you a book that sold close to 70 copies within the first three days.
Step 3: Get the content of your book
You can also use ChatGPT for this if you wish.
However, ensure to read through the content and edit it appropriately.
The post above will show you how to go about it.
If you prefer to go the usual way, you can get your content from the internet and use paraphrasing tools like quillbot to re-write and avoid plagiarism.
Now that you know how to create evergreen books, we need to answer the question of why they sell so well.
Why Evergreen Books Sell
The reason is not far-fetched.
Evergreen books remain relevant for a long time.
People from every generation find them useful.
One evergreen book can keep selling for over thirty years.
You only need to edit and publish a new edition every five years or so.
Well, I hope you have gotten some value from this post.
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All the best!