The math of publishing an ebook

     So some of my facebook and twitter friends know that I have thought about writing an ebook.  I have probably anywhere from four to ten ideas rolling around in my head at any one time.  So some of you may ask why haven't I written one yet, well that's a good question.  It comes down to motivation.  I've mentioned to several people about writing, and usually get that look of "Yeah right you write a book."  So because of that I usually drop the idea, but lately the ideas just keep popping into my head, so I figured I would do some research and look at the math of epublishing,

     The most recent numbers I can find are for 2012, I'm sure by now someone has done the numbers for 2013, but I have yet to find them.  Anyway in 2012 there were 19.9 million ereaders sold.  So this got me thinking, if I wrote an ebook, and only 10% of the people who bought ereaders in 2012 saw the book, that would mean 1.99 million people would see the book.  Now consider if only 10% of those people actually purchased the book.  This would mean 199,000 buying the book.   That's only 1% of the people who purchased ereaders in 2012, which isn't that far of a reach. 

     Now that we've established a number of people to buy an ebook, you have to think about what that means money wise.  There are various commission rates from all the different epublishers, so I figured I would go with the lowest commission with selling the book at the lowest price possible.  This would mean I would sell the book for .99 and only get a 30% commission, or .297 per copy sold.   So now we take this and multiply it by the 1% of people calculated above, and it give you an amount of $59103.  That's a pretty good amount to take some spare time to write a book.

     One of the things though that I have been asked is, "How would you get that 1% of people to buy your book?"  Well that comes from getting the book out there.  And how do you do that?  Well one way to start would be to blog about it, which if I publish an ebook I would do here.  Another way is to put it out on social media such as facebook and twitter. 

     Just by using social media you could reach a lot of people quite quickly with your friends help.  If you put links to the ebook out on your social media sites, and if only 100 of your friends and family help you out, that would be 100 more times your link to the ebook would be shared.  So now if even only ten people from each of those friends and family share it you would be up to 1000 times that your ebook was out there.  You can see how the link would grow exponentially. 

    So all these shares would also help you out in another way.  The more the link is out there, the more likely it is to show up in a basic search.  So that is yet another way someone could find your ebook, with a basic google search.  based on some research I did about 2% of people who buy ebooks say they got one of their books through a link that came up during a search.  Of course you could also get your book out there in other ways too.  You could do up ads to and pass them out, or take up ads on google or facebook, so something like that.

     So based on the math writing an ebook could be a good second job.  Now to just get the motivation to get all the ideas in my head out onto "paper".  After that submitting the book and epublishing it is the easy part.  But once all that has been done, it is up to the help of friends and family to get the ebook out there, and make money.  So while I motivate myself to write the book, I ask can you motivate yourself to help spread the word of the book.

Back to blogging... Again

     Ok, so yet again I've been neglecting my blog and have made a decision to try to get back to blogging again.   Like I've said in past posts I just tend to get lazy when it comes to my blog posts.  I have a few ideas for some upcoming blog posts, and I hope I'm able to start posting them.  These ideas range from just posts about my day to posts about places we've eaten, to posts about what is on my mind at the time I  sit down at the computer. 

     I also want to start posting blog posts about my diet and exercise progress.  I know I've said it many times that I'm going to start getting into shape, and I seem to fall away from that.  But if I start posting things on my blog, it will help keep me honest about my progress.

     There are also a few local businesses that I would like to blog about.  I know there are several businesses in the area that I feel people need to know how they operate, and decided if they want to give them their money. 

     Over the next few days/weeks I'm going to start increasing the number of blogs that everyone sees from me.  I'm also going to look for new readers and followers.  So if you are reading this, please pass the link to my page on to your friends, and help bring them to me.   The other thing is if any of my readers have anything they want me to blog about, ask and I'll try to get one done.

Sending the wrong message

I'm going to start off by saying that I understand that in this day and age I know people have to always be cautious.  I know even places like churches have to worry about things like vandalism and thefts.  But the more I think about the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Palmyra I really feel they are sending the wrong message to nonmembers with in the community.

     A little while back they expanded their church, and also their parking lot.  In doing this the two side entrances to their lot connected the two sections of Pajabon Drive.  Up until this point if you were someone, like me, who regularly traveled from one part of Pajabon to the other you had to go completely around  the church's property.  I'm sure once the lot was open they had an increase of traffic traveling through their parking lot to get from on side to the other.  That's when they put up a gate on one side, and the signs seen in the pictures below.

Gate blocking off one entrance.

Private Property sign on gate.

Private property on stop sign

     Now  I know there are various reasons as to why they probably put these up, like I touched on above, but shouldn't a church be open to the public.  The gate on the one side makes it look like they don't want any outside people, Then you read the signs. The one says "Private Property No skateboards bicycles, dogs, loitering", and the one on the gate says "Private property. Do Not Enter. Not a through street."  Then on the other side of the parking lot there are two similar signs.

Sings on other entrance

     These signs make it sound like they don't want any outsiders at their church.  I know as a person that passes them on a regular basis that's exactly how I feel.  Now I know I was told at one point in time that if a person or business lets the general public use their property as a street that eventually that state/local town can change it into a public street and you can lose that part of your property.  So I can see the point of the "Not a through street sign", but not the point of the gate or the "Do Not Enter" part of it. I would think as a church they would want outside people coming through, and who knows maybe entering the church.

     A church should be encouraging people to come onto their property.  They should be inviting you into the church, and trying to get you to know Jesus.  If they unofficially let people cut through their parking lot it would be a great way to "advertise" to people.  I know like most churches they have a sign that they post things on, but a lot of people don't pay attention to it.  By letting them drive through the lot they could put signs up with biblical sayings on them, or with church events.  I feel this could actually reach more people.

I looked for contact information for the church, but couldn't get their website to come up.  I would kind of like hearing their side of this.   So if anyone reading this can pass it onto the church that would be great.  And if you are from the church, please post your comments.  A church should be open and inviting, and not sending the wrong message like it seems this one does.