I have an unnatural obsession with socioeconomics, so much so that a lot of my personal interactions are seen as callus, cold and unfeeling. Granted, I’m not an economist, although I wish I thought about it when I went attended college and I’m not some unfeeling troll that delights in the tears of the average human being but that’s strictly due to the high sodium content.

Why am I obsessed with social economics? Patterns. Human beings are intriguing creatures. Despite what they think, feel or know, they function on patterns. Now, these patterns may be have the most strange, inconclusive answers BUT they consistently rear their heads and make us go ‘Huh….well, who would’ve thought?’ . I guess it’s obvious that I am a rabid fan of Freakonomics and their quirky creators, the two Steves. Yes, yes, Dubner and Levitt made socioeconomic  hip and easy to swallow for the masses. They are the Pitt and Clooney of economists…they are also one of the most brave because they tackle ugly data and give ugly answers; strange thing is…those ugly answers are true 9/10. Those books don’t make up themselves…or do they?

 

The Ebook Parameters

In the spirit of efficiency and experimentation, I wanted to try a project with the following parameters:

• Something I know well both artistically and administratively
• Something with a low ceiling of work investment, including marketing, social media and content delivery
• Something that can consistently generate passive revenue even when I’ve forgotten about it
• Something that can have an easy to replicate workflow with consistent results
• Something that can game the algorithm system without being ‘smarmy’

All these requirements added up to one hilarious venue that’s blowing up over the web: Ebooks.

 

Yes. Ebooks.

Since the birth of the ebook reader, which gently shoved aside the .PDF, anyone and everyone can be a self published author. Neat, isn’t it? Gone are the days of drinking rum and silently hating whatever gender wronged you while typing out the next classic. Now all it takes is an idea, a cover, MAYBE a blog,  and a 99 cent price and you are an author.

After reading the series from The Hustle (Part 1 & Part 2 are here) and getting a gentle nudge from a friend whose brother loosely followed the romance author’s steps, I wanted to see if I could replicate the results BUT maintain a higher price tag because, hey, my knowledge doesn’t come cheap. If the world is willing to pay 8.99 for The Martian, 13.99 for the 4 Hour Body (the info is Free and 8 years old), Tucker Max’s Mate sells for 12.99 then my little book shouldn’t be that big of a deal.

In contrast, James Altucher sold his self help Choose Yourself for 99 cents, but, wisely, his ebook is a calling card to get traffic to his blog. What intrigued me is that ‘Choose Yourself’ is a compendium of his top blog posts that went through an editing pass. In contrast, his physical book is 9.30.

My Persona Parameters

I compiled my data while cross checking with Think Progress, Pew Research and OKCupid. OkCupid you say? Yes. Simply put, we do not live in a post racial society. The data shows this.

The data also shows that Romance is the highest selling genre. Love, intimacy and steamy goodness is what female readers want, which is logical since they own more ebook readers than men.

And let’s be honest, I’m not Oprah, so to appeal to my readers I created a typical Eat, Pray, Love persona who owns a pet and is finding herself one Pumpkin Spice Latte at a time. I’m not ready for the cat to be out of the bag just yet; that will be for another post.

 

The Books

I wanted to test my theory by writing two books:

• The first would be an actual book of my knowledge. I wrote the content, had it professionally edited, had a professional book cover made as well as professionally formatted for ebook consumption. I am, technically, the ghost writer. The book? Nonfiction. The price? 4.99.
• The second would be whatever romantic topic I made up, had someone else ghost write it, applied the same professional steps for ebook consumption and would be sold for 1.99

The Process & The Series

This is a part of a series on how to publish ebooks step by step through my experimentation, failures and successes. But more importantly, it’s an in depth observation about what the denizens of the internet really want. Consider that most wealthy nations are connected through social media, get their news from digital sources and rely on digital entertainment, it’s difficult decipher fact from fiction.

Yet, if a fake person makes a fake book that makes real people happy and gives real people value…is it still wrong? Is it wrong to write like a Freak?

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I’m not above asking for tips!

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