Killer Cover

You need a killer book cover that can be made into an attractive thumbnail which will stick out on amazon.com and grab eye balls immediately . The cover is the key at least it will motivate people to click and take a look inside , that way they will be able to read the first few chapters of the book and see the table of content , this will expedite their buying process .

Clear and Apt Book Title

You need a sharp title which defines the essence and the soul of your book . This will clearly define what the genre of the book is and what could be it’s content . You can ad a punch line or a tag line to your book tile , this will further define your book and help it sell .Like my blogging for gold book has a sub title A TO Z Of Blogging . The punchline gives the Unique selling proposition of the book .

Pick relevant SEO Friendly Key words : Make sure you link keywords relevant to your book title and genre , get relevant about what your ideal reader will search fro on amazon and use the keywords accordingly .

Have a paperback version always :

Have a kindle book and a physical paperback version always this will attract the readers who like turning pages of a real book . Not everyone likes to read on kindle and a lot of readers get more involved when the read physical books .

Use Book review apps : appsally.com is a kindle review app where you can buy reviews not only for your KDP books but also books on iTunes Google play and android platforms . The reviews are cheap $20 a review at times you can get even 7 reviews for that price . The app has packages that you can buy and pay for through a cart system . This is good for bulk review buying and is fairly safe . I choose to pay book bloggers Rs 500 to Rs 1200 to do reviews for me and post it all ver the place . You can also buy book review packages for Goodreads all for about that price .

Amazon advertising : Use amazon advertising as a tool to advertise your books to buyers but keep it to $10 a day and do it for a few weeks then analyse the result to constantly tweak your campaign . Make sure you choose only people who will read the particular title when you shoot your campaign .

Brand In Placement

This is the first step to raising some money to make sure web-series . Try and sell space inside the web-series , integrating the brand with the content as it were . These can be sold as logo space on the owner and closer of each series . Then you can have the brand placed with in the scene or the logo appear in a frame for a stipulated period of time , you decide how much time you will keep for that in every episode .

Media Sponsorships

You can get media space and publicity time from a Radio Station , a magazine or a newspaper to promote your web-series. In return you can give them a Brand mention or do a product placement for them in your web series . A media barter is the best way to get some publicity that will generate noise about your web-series . You could create an event With a Radio Station , like a search of a new face for for your web-series . This could be an event where they send in their entries through phone audition, you can run this as a promotional event . This will create a buzz for you and give you a huge database of auditioned actors for you to choose from . Your casting is getting done for free and you are creating buzz also at the same time .

Sell The content to OTT Platforms : Then you can sell the story and screenplay to an OTT platform in advance , but for this you might need to wait . I keep pitching the platforms at the same time I make sure I keep building one screenplay after the other . The work must go on simultaneously . This you can sell at a premium and also ask for a certain cut if their is a season two of the web-series. The structure of how you will sell is very open and very difficult to define . You can sell the content outright or sell them non exclusively to many platforms . You can sell as rights separately , music rights ,DVD rights , Radio rights , Tv rights satellite rights and so on . The deal strict is were you make the money , how you structure it .

As we will go on I will try and expand on this and define in detail the deal structure that I myself used .

Death is the ultimate truth like birth death is inevitable and we see death all around us as we go on living . We see are friends die , our parents perish away our loved ones uncles and aunt slowly wither away to their grave . Death is the ultimate truth and surrounds us all as we go on living , surviving eating , breathing , drinking , sleeping and agin waking up . The routine of life goes on infant life itself is a slow grind to the grave a very slow but gradual grind to the grave . The five senses are all perishable and the body is meant to go one day or the other . Ageing causes changes in our skin , bones , complexion , hair colour , we wrinkle with time . The body which is agile supple when young looses it’s turgidness and begins to become weak and placid . Yes no matter what we do use anti agin creams , massage therapies , soaps and oils we cannot stop the body ageing . The wear and tear goes on and on , life is nothing but a lonely march to our Grave. If that were true then how should one live life and how can one get out of the process of ageing I wonder . Scientists have developed serums and therapies that say that align can be reversed . I don’t know if that claim can be entirely true , ageing can be slowed down through Yoga , tantra and meditation but it cannot be reversed or halted as far as my knowledge goes . I have seen women who are 70 look liken 40 or so but still ageing is happening in them all the time .I mean look at your photographs 10 or 20 years back , you will find that you were a different person then . The body structure , height , weight , skin complexion all would have changed .I cant recognise myself in my old photographs .

The same goes for your relationships and attachments , the state of your emotions and wants , needs and desires . So if dying is so natural is it just the end of it all or is the end the beginning of a new journey . What dies is the body that is what the mystics say , the body is like clothes one sheds old clothes and takes on new cloths , just like the soul or atma sheds the body and takes on a new one . With death goes away your phycological drama , all the hmmm and noises that fill your mind evaporate. The body is left to rot way and become dust it mixes back into the five elements Fire , Earth , Water , Air and Space . The atama thus released embeds itself into another sperm as it makes contact with an egg and penetrates its shell at the point of penetration of the egg and the formation of the embryo . Thus giving birth to a new being a new form that can be human , animal , fish , amoeba , bird , reptile or any other living form .The cycle keeps repeating itself endlessly with out stop , death and creation go hand in hand , that is the nature of the universe . Which keeps expanding and contracting on to itself . This cycle can go on for YUGA and Yuga’s . It is an invite cycle with no beginning and no end .That is why it is very difficult for us to comprehend let alone understand it’s mysteries. Remember even Arjuna needed special vision to understand and phantom the Virat roopa of Krishna . As humans we are best equipped amongst all other species to try and understand and comprehend this great mystery of mysteries .Death is thus in sync with life .

So do not fear death but embrace it know it understand it and then transcend it like the aghoidi’s do who are in constant touch with death .

It is important that when you have written your complete story you register it with either of the two associations . Screen writers association or Film makers association . These are the two agencies that will register your script , but first you need to become a member . Although my books are selling online and have a registered ISBN code and number , I also became a member of the Screen writer association where I registered the Title of my web-series and also sent them a synopsis of my story . A regular member ship cost about Rs 2500 and a life long membership costs Rs 21,000 . Once these formalities are done you get a membership number which one must display if you have your own personal website .The process of registration is both online and online and you can pay through a money oder at your local post office . The SWA website is https://www.swaindia.org/membership.php .

The same can be done with the film makers association they charge Rs 10,000 to register the first few pages off the story and then charge for even page accordingly . Per page they will charge Rs 1 for registering the script . You can also walk into their office with your typed or written manuscript to get it registered . After this you can be safe and rest assured that if your friends steal your content , you will get some compensation for it .

The Film Writers’ Association
201/204, Richa, Plot no B – 29,
Off New Link Road,Opp.City Mall,
Andheri (West) Mumbai – 400 053,
Phone Number: +91 22 2673 3027 / 2673 3108
Nearest Metro station: D.N. Nagar Metro Station

Goodreads Good-results

Well after you have authored a few books like I have , you need to figure out ways to promote your book online and offline . I have spoken for the need to get your book into physical book stores , and I have done that , also tried selling them though certain retail outlets like stationary shops and restaurants that my friends own . On the net one can sell though online outlets be part of KDP select program , build an author page on amazon.com send mailers though your mail-chimp database , make promotional video’s and many such activities . I have done most of this in a scattered manner . Goodreads is a another such effort of mine , if one wants to promote their book Goodreads is the perfect site , here you can have your book on display to a huge database of book lovers . Goodreads is a platform for book lovers to share their reviews , discuss their titles , do giveaway to create buzz around their books , I approached a few book reviewers through Goodreads and got them. To review my book , some of them also send me free books of authors that they promote and I was able to read some new titles . I managed to get author interviews in prominent blogs and websites . Goodreads is a great community closely bonded and the platform is full of various functionalities .They have their own choice awards a huge list of genre to select from , expert recommendations and reviews , peppered with news and interviews with eminent authors .All you need to do is create. An account and load your book cover icon , price and links to the amazon page or pages of other online book stores that sell your book . Word of mouth amongst book lovers is a must and Goodreads can get you a few good author reviews that will get you a lot of credibility and at least initiate book sales of e books . If you create an audio book you can have links on Goodreads to the audible site . Unfortunately audible is not available for Indian users currently but should be soon just the way amazon prime is not available for resident Indians since they cannot pay royalty to Indian banks .

You can also scout for new release titles if you are in a mood to read and get more ideas it’s good to be on Goodreads and get a feel of the kind of content people are enjoying these days .You can crate discussion groups or threads , participate in trivia and quizzes. If needed people can also Ask questions to their favourite author . The community sustains itself and you can promote your book on good reads through sponsored posts .The list of Top 10 reviews on amazon.com is available to you and you can follow them or send them your book to review .Most reviewers charge Rs 500 to Rs 1000 to review a book .You can make your new titles available to Goodreads through an ISBN search and keep an updates profile page with your pictures and interviews also .One can search for Book events in your city , their is along list of countries were you can find book events listing a great place to meet book authors and book lovers .

So my verdict Goodreads leads to Good-results.

As you begin to build your screenplay , the time is also ripe to start building ancillary content around your web-series. This is supportive content that will build around your primary content which is Episodic . This includes The Making of the web-series, you will capture key moments around the shooting , interesting Tit Bits , fun and humour between actors , actor interviews as to how their character is built , what they enjoy about the story and how they got the part in the web-series ,what was their favourite dialogue or situation , how did they get along with others on the shoot etc .

You can also start building ancillary content around the casting of the web-series , have the cast do Character Introduction Promotions where each character introduces himself as part of a Promo . This will create some buzz even before the shooting of the web-series starts . The writer can write 2 min short lines which each character says to introduce his or her character .These can be shared in advance with your blog audience to create a buzz . You can also launch a actor hunt with a Radio station or a TV channel to create a buzz here the viewers can audition from their phones and send the auditions to a central number .

Location hunting and making of the set can also be made into ancillary content , basically try and create as much buzz as you can in advance . In my case I launched the book first online and all the big actors I meet for a role I took snaps with them with my book which I posted online that gave a positive feedback of my book which is bound to rub off on the web-series itself .

Think of contests and promotion ideas that you can give to brands , so that it increases your chances of selling the web-series in advance . The better the ideas you give them to integrate their brand with the web-series the better the thing will turn out to be .

Now that I have been a youtuber for over a year and have uploaded more then. 150 video , all are edited video with good voice quality and fast paced edits with music and an opening and closing , I have finally reached 100 subscribers. It has been a long and hard journey tugging along with my camera equipment and Gopro 5 galavanting around the world . I have kept at least the quality of my video’s good , yet have only got 100 subscriber . Now I though I should explore amazon prime video direct , these are high quality standalone video’s , short films , web-series, Indie films , documentaries that viewers can see through Prime Video which is the amazon OTT platform . You get a free 30 days trial , monthly subscription of Rs 129 per month or a yearly subscription of Rs 999 .

Basically apart from youtube this is another great alternative platform to uploads your high quality edited video’s and try and make money . I already sell books through KDP select and thus have access to both audible and amazon Prime direct videos .It is easy to setup you need to fill your personal and company details along with your banking details and tax return details . As of Now they have no mechanism to pay you royalty if your bank is in India , but I have an old account in UK so I will use that for Inward remittance .One needs to sign the user agreement first which has the content sharing plan . You own your content at the end of the day and the amazon direct is a non exclusive content deal . Their are technical specifications and guidelines that your video needs to adhere to and certain audio and visual file specifications one needs to know .The royalty you start getting is divided into slabs.

0 to 1 lakh : $0.6 per hour
1 to 5 lakh : $0.10 per hour
5 to 10 lakh :$0.15 per hour

These are rates for streamed videos which the viewer views , the content provider gets 50% revenue for the videos bought or rented out on prime . 50 % revenue is given if the video is streamed through on line ads .The money is wire transferred to your bank with in 90 days the minus threshold is $ 100 .

This I think is a better system of monetisation because here you start earning immediately as your first video is streamed whereas in youtube you will start earning only after you have at least got 1000 subscribers and a minimum of 10,000 views .Plus amazons payment system and reach into other forms of visual digital service like aneroid , HDTV they also aggregate content with Hulu and Netflix . All this and the amazon service experience makes Amazon Prime a better option to use for freelance Indie film makers , documentary makers and web-series content providers.