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What It's About
After being laid off, a journalist travels the world self-publishing eBooks.
Business Model
Publishing
Skills Required
Writing & Research
Complexity
Low
Profit Potential
Medium
Words of Wisdom
Kyla has some thoughts regarding whether or not to scale your business, "I spent most of last year trying to scale up and build a massive business around publishing, with a stable of writers and editors to outsource to. I learned from that experience that I don’t like managing people — I’d rather just write it myself! So despite what you hear in the entrepreneurial community, sometimes it’s OK not to scale. I love being a solopreneur, and that’s OK, too."
Fun Fact
When working on her first book, Kyla found the mere thought of writing a book almost too intimidating to take on. It was only through cutting up the process into bite-size chunks, and refining each one, that she became successful.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1006
We don't all get into side hustles for the same reason. Some of us want to leave our day jobs, others just want extra income. For Kyla Gardner, it was all about having the freedom and flexibility to go where she wanted, when she wanted. Kyla earned a Bachelor's degree in Journalism from Northern Illinois University, and then snagged a job as a reporter at an online news startup in Chicago. She covered breaking news, local crime, and human-interest features. She was skilled at the work and loved it, but something was missing. So she made a big change, signing on to a customer service role that involved three months of training in Vietnam, before working as a remote employee. She got the freedom she wanted from that job, and worked there until she was let go. Good thing she'd already been side hustling for nine months. It all started with a coworker. When Kyla found out he was making $1,500 a month publishing Kindle ebooks, her interest was piqued. He lent her a $100 Kindle course he had learned from, and she took the plunge. She admits that most of what the course covered could probably be found on the internet for free, but having it all organized in one package made things easier. She learned all about finding a profitable niche and optimizing your Amazon listing for keyword rankings. Then she began to experiment, writing short how-to guides in the form of ebooks that she listed for sale on the platform. It took six months—and her first two ebooks—before she made a total of $60 in royalty payments. Small as the amount was, that was the moment Kyla realized that Kindle Publishing could actually be a viable income. One of the keys Kyla discovered to publishing on Kindle is the importance of topical research. The market is huge. To make sure her books stand out, she looks for an underserved niche, and then pays attention to the negative reviews for books already written in that field. This business is extremely low-risk. You might not be profitable from the beginning, but as long as you've done the right research, it's hard to lose money writing for Kindle. Kyla's first book costs were $100 on custom illustrations, and $10 for a cover design. What are the results? Kyla now has even more the freedom to travel and live where she likes, while writing about topics that fascinate her. She's published more than 50 short ebooks since her side hustle became her full-time job in 2017. When she first made the transition, nine months after she started, she was making $350 a month. Now, she makes between $3,500-$7,000 a month in profit. She's currently transitioning from the world of how-to and self-help to writing fiction under her own name. She's already published “Greyhound at the Gravesite”, a cozy murder mystery, and is now working on "Guru,” a suspense novel about digital nomads trying to survive a nightmare in Thailand. If all goes well, they’ll be bestsellers on Kindle.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- KylaGardner.com: Learn more about Kyla and her ucpoming book, Guru, at her website.
- Amazon Kindle Ebooks: The marketplace Kyla uses to sell her books.
- Finance Employee Sells 200,000 Self-Published Romance Novels: When she can’t find anything good to read, a finance employee starts writing romance novels of her own. The books go on to sell hundreds of thousands of copies and pull her family out of debt.
- Software Engineer Sells 64,000 “Anne of Green Gables” eBooks: Dissatisfied with the quality of some public domain ebooks, a software engineer ends up creating a portfolio of his own. The business goes on to earn six figures in passive income.
- Canadian Colleagues Publish Children’s Books About Real Life: Two Canadian mothers shake up the children’s book narrative by publishing stories that tell the truth about hard things in life.
Quote of the Day
"I loved my journalism job, but I didn't want to wake up in 40 years and realize I had been doing the same thing in the same city my whole life. There was a whole world out there to see!"
—Kyla Gardner #SideHustleSchool
