Amazon. com Most Popular Authors The most popular authors in Business & Money

The 13 Most Popular Business Books Of 2013

Even in a world where technology is taking over, books are an essential resource for people in business. DropBox CEO Drew Houston, for example, got a crash course in business and management by reading bestsellers across different Amazon categories.

We looked at this year's list of the 100 best-selling physical books on Amazon, and pulled out those about business, productivity, and the psychology of success. We ranked them by popularity and also included their overall ranking on Amazon's broader list.

Along with newcomers like Sheryl Sandberg's book "Lean In," some older and still beloved titles continue to fly off shelves.

13. "Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When the Stakes Are High"

Author: Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

Overall ranking: 97

Year published: 2002

The book seeks to help people in difficult and high-stress situations feel prepared, make other people feel safe, and be "persuasive rather than abrasive."

12. "The Power of Habit"

Author: Charles Duhigg

Overall ranking: 82

Year published: 2012

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times journalist comes an examination of how habits form, how they can be changed, and the massive effect they have on businesses and our lives.

11. "Strengths Based Leadership"

Author: Tom Rath

Overall ranking: 78

Year published: 2009

A wildly successful book from the team at Gallup, "Strengths Based Leadership" is the result of an extremely broad survey of both excellent leaders and the people who choose to follow them.

It was also the ninth most-searched book of the year on Google.

How to Make Money With Amazon Affiliate Program

Updated: June 13, 2019

WikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 19 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. Together, they cited 10 references.

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Affiliate marketing is a useful way to earn extra income if you have a blog or website. The Amazon affiliate program, called Amazon Associates, allows you to earn 4 percent or more on purchases made using a special link on your blog or website. Read more to find out how to make money with the Amazon Affiliate Program.

Kindle Direct Publishing Through Amazon. com

An Overview of Amazon's KDP E-Book Self-Publishing Service

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If you are like many writers you have considered the reasons for and against self-publishing, and have decided to give self-publishing a try. These decisions required a review of the editorial packaging and sales considerations of publishing the story yourself and you decided to publish an e-book. E-books give readers immediate, mobile access to your words and one of the best places to market it is through the "Amazon. com" Kindle device.

Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) may be the answer to an e-book self-publishing service but it is not the only option.​ Other than KDP, you may want to review the offering of services link CreateSpace—also an Amazon product—and Apple's iBooks.

About Amazon. com's Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Kindle Direct Publishing offers e-book-only publishing, a format popular with authors such as genre novelists (for Amazon. com's paperback publishing services, see CreateSpace). While of course, you should thoroughly review all the features and contractual points before signing up for any self-publishing service, here are some of Kindle Direct Publishing's highlights.

The site offers guidance to get new authors started. You will need to set up a KDP account that includes author and tax information.

KDP's Editorial & Design Services

Kindle Direct Publishing doesn't offer editorial services per se (though those services are available for a fee from KDP's Amazon sister company CreateSpace). In order to format the file for your e-book, KDP does offer a compact booklet (both in Kindle and PDF form) that provides detailed technical specifications for publishing your e-book successfully on the KDP platform.

KDP Book Package

Kindle Direct Publishing offers e-book-only format and, as stated above, gives parameters and instructions for the technical specifications for formatting the file. In addition to the instructions for the file format, Amazon. com strongly suggests that the book has a compelling cover image, though, for those books that don't have an image, the service will fill in with a simple placeholder.

Book Cost/Pricing

There are no upfront charges to self-publish on KDP. The author chooses the list price. "Amazon. com" offers options for 35% author royalties and 70% author royalties.

Each option comes with its own set of parameters for value-added tax (VAT) and delivery costs. KDP allows the author to switch royalty options if desired, but it's advisable to review the options carefully before choosing the first time.

Book Distribution

The Kindle Store provides KDP-published authors with a distribution channel. Amazon Kindle owners can purchase KDP content on the Kindle Store site and download it for reading on the Amazon Kindle wireless e-reading device.

Readers who do not own an Amazon Kindle are also able to read KDP content on their PCs or Macs by using Kindle for PC/Mac software or read KDP content on their mobile phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs) with the Kindle app.

Publicity and Marketing

When an author publishes through KDP, it is included in Amazon's merchandising algorithms. It is not explicitly stated how a quickly a new book will be entered into the clickstream—presumably, it has to do with the topic, sales movement, and other characteristics.

Online merchandising may include the book jacket and description appearing when a customer is viewing another book's page. The ebook may appear under such cross-promotional areas as "More Items to Consider," "Customers with Similar Searches Purchased," and "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought." Promotional programs also may include customer sampling.

Kindle Direct Publishing's Proprietary Advantages

In addition to the obvious distribution potential of Amazon. com's retail site, those who publish with Kindle Direct Publishing, are offered the opportunity for additional advantages, such as added royalties, through a feature called KDP Select.

By enrolling in Amazon. com's KDP Select, authors make their book accessible to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library (a readers' service whereby Kindle/Amazon Advantage users borrow books for free). Each month, Amazon sets aside a pool of funds and KDP Select authors share in them, according to the number of times their books are borrowed.

An author's share of the Kindle Owners' Lending Library Fund is calculated based on a share of the total number of qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles. For example, if the monthly fund amount is $500,000, the total qualified borrows of all participating KDP titles is 100,000. If a book was borrowed 1,500 times during that period, the book's author will earn 1.5 percent (1,500/100,000 = 1.5%), or $7,500 for that month.

Those who have already published to KDP can also enroll with KDP Select.

How Much Money Can You Make From eBooks? Part 5

Welcome to the fifth and final part of How to Make Money Writing and Publishing eBooks! I hope you’ve enjoyed this series so far.

Part 1 covered what to write about and how much and part 2 outlined how to format your eBook and create an eCover for $5 or less.

Part 3 explained step by step how to publish your eBook on Amazon and part 4 gave you some hints and tips on how to promote it!

In this post, I’m going to revisit the reason why I think writing and self-publishing an eBook is a great idea. Aside from the satisfaction you’ll get from getting your writing published, you can Make some serious moola from doing so! It’s perfect for someone looking to make extra money outside of their day job and it’s something you can work on around the kids or in the evenings – you don’t even need to leave the house! All you need is a computer or laptop, word processing software like MS Word and access to the internet.

So in case you need to speed up your debt repayment, increase your savings or you’d just like to start creating some passive income for any other reason, this is one way that you can do it. But just how much can you earn from writing and self-publishing eBooks?

How much money can you make on Amazon with Kindle eBooks?

Well, the short answer is some authors can make plenty. It depends on the quality of your eBook and also the volume of eBooks that you have. I’ll start with my own Amazon earning experience! I have a few eBooks on Amazon now and the screenshot below details some of my recent earnings from Amazon Kindle over the last couple of months for January and February.

In Feb, I was paid £184.03 which was a little less than in January but even so, I’m pleased with the extra income! Most of these payments come from sales of my eBooks 101 Ways to Make Money from Home and How to Start a Bridal Makeup Business.

I identified a popular page on my blog from Google Analytics which co-incidentally was a “How To” type post. I created more content and packaged it into an eBook about setting up a bridal makeup business. If you want to create an eBook that will sell, find out what your readers want and need and then use that to inspire your eBook!

So although I’m clearly not rich yet, my experience with earnings from self-publishing eBooks so far has been pleasant. But what kind of earnings have other self-publishing authors managed to achieve?

1. Kyle Taylor

Kyle is the owner of The Penny Hoarder and explains in this post how he’s made $2000 from publishing an eBook via Amazon (as well as thousands more on others).

2. Stefan Pylarinos

Stefan Pylarinos is an entrepreneur and internet marketer who makes six figures through kindle publishing, by writing and outsourcing numerous non-fiction eBooks. He has over 100 eBooks on Amazon, in his mission to make passive income.

3. Amanda Hocking

Amanda Hocking is a writer of paranormal fiction and spent many years trying (and failing) to get traditional publishers interested in her stories. In 2010, she turned to self-publishing her books on Amazon hoping to raise a little bit of cash to start with. In just six months, she’d made $20,000 selling 150,000 copies of her books. Roll on 20 more months and she’d sold 1.5 million copies of her book, raking in $2.5 million from her book sales.

4. Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey is a self-published science fiction author who writes post-apocalyptic thrillers. His series “Wool” has earned him royalties reaching six figures most months!

5. John Locke

John Locke is a best selling indie author who first made his money with his Donovan Creed series of books. He was the first author to sell over a million digital copies of his books without a publishing deal. He was also the first self-published author to hit the number one spot on the Kindle Bestsellers list!

In summary

Writing and self-publishing eBooks is a great way to earn money passively and you can use money earned to top up your main income or even enjoy great wealth if your work becomes popular! There is so much potential with this income stream, so why not have a go yourself?

I hope you enjoyed this series about making money through writing and publishing eBooks here on Disease Called Debt and that it’s inspired you in some way! In case you needed any further reading, this article from Tim Ferriss has more information about self-publishing including how to really make $1 million selling eBooks.

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*Top image sourced from Flickr and modified by Disease Called Debt.

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