Ben and Patty aren't alone. Selling directly to readers is extremely powerful.

But I need to be 100% clear:

Nothing and nobody can guarantee that you'll make money as an author. If it were possible to predict success in advance, then publishers, venture capitalists, and startup founders would not have that dismal 90% failure rate they're famous for.

And your career results ultimately depend on the quality and size of your catalog.

However, the fundamental principle behind our success is methodical testing to understand your market, which unlocks unlimited possibilities.

AMMO Author AJ Vanderhorst sold 115,728 books last year. You can read more about it here.

Othniel Dory and his team are selling between 800 and 900 copies per day ($180K per month gross revenue) from their Shopify store. You can see Othniel's interview here. 

Ben & Patty Wallace (as I mentioned above) earned $212K in their first six months as AMMO authors. Patty gives an in-depth accounting of their experience here.

Britt & Laurie-Anne are personal finance experts and nonfiction writers who used our testing and conversion optimization process to gain clarity on what their market really wanted from them. They used this knowledge to grow their business to $400,000 in top line every month, and you can read more about it here.

Gordon Carroll retired early from the police force on the strength of his book sales, and has been a member of our community for years. He talks about his experience on this page as well.

Lee Savino and writing partner Renee Rose write wildly popular "bad-boy romance" novels. They grew tired of only making money whenever they launched a new book, so they used our direct sales program to generate seven figures in backlist sales last year. Lee talks about it with me in an upcoming episode of her podcast (along with Russell Nohelty).

Here's some more name-dropping:

David Chesson (Kindlepreneur founder), Joanna Penn (author, podcaster, indie publishing luminary, and the force behind The Creative Penn Podcast), Pierre Jeanty (million-selling poet and entrepreneur), Pamela Kelley (over 250,000 Amazon reviews), Rachel Hanna (multi-million-dollar-per-year author), Marie Force (multi-million-dollar-per-year author), Alana Terry (writing coach and bestselling novelist), Naomi Rawlings (million-dollar earner), David Doepker (bestselling author, entrepreneur, and podcaster), Lydia Sherrer (million-dollar earner), AJ Vanderhorst (sold 115,728 books last year), Monica Leonelle and Russell Nohelty (bestselling authors and book marketing coaches), Lee Savino (million-dollar-per-year author), Diane Capri (of the Chasing Reacher series), Joseph Nguyen (million-dollar-per-year spirituality author), LT Ryan (million-dollar-per-year author) and many more highly successful independent authors and entrepreneurs are clients and affiliates of AMMO.

There are six parts in the AMMO Direct Sales system:

In a world with 60,000,000+ books available for online purchase 24 / 7 / 365, "discovery" isn't a thing.

If we want to sell our books, we need to advertise.

Most serious authors have tried advertising at some point in the past, only to discover it's not as easy as it looks.

Marketing is a profession, so if we want to market our books effectively, we need to be professional about it.

Professional marketing requires methodical market testing.

Inside the AMMO community, we use a market testing method called "Click Testing." It's responsible for over $100M in extra annual revenue across 75+ industries.

Our click testing process has survived all of the (often catastrophic) changes in the digital marketing landscape over the past 7 years for one reason:

Our ad testing process focuses entirely on our customers' desires and preferences. 

We stand out in a world of sketchy marketers by serving our customers with integrity.

When readers see our ads, they think, "this is exactly what I've been looking for."

When they click on our ads, they're taking to the next step in our bookselling process:

The sales page is where we introduce our readers to our stories and to ourselves (Yes, they really do want to know something about you!)

The sales page is where we make them a great offer for a great reading experience.

This usually involves bundling a number of titles together into a "doorbuster" offer (in ebook, audiobook, and paperback format). Bundles provide great value to our readers, and allow us to earn more for every new reader who buys from us.

The sales page presents our "doorbuster" offer to our web visitors, who are eager to learn more about our books, thanks to our click-tested ads.

And while the sales page is usually the most difficult and frustrating element of the entire process to optimize, the payoff is well worth the effort. It works as your brand and product ambassador, and it works 24/7/365.

Your sales page makes money for you all day, every day.

When your page is optimized (we use a methodical process with the help of a very smart spreadsheet), up to 20% of the people who arrive on your sales page will wind up clicking the button to buy your books.

(20% is an insanely high sales page conversion rate in a "cold traffic" environment, but it is a real number, achieved by thriller author Michael Lindley using one of our AMMO sales page templates. You'll receive the same template if you ultimately decide to join us inside the AMMO community.)

Once the user clicks on the "BUY NOW" button on your sales page, they're taken to our version of the age-old question: 

"Would you like fries with that?"

The "Order Bump" is a way to present a highly relevant offer to our new customer.

If they're buying books 1 through 3 in your series, your order bump offer might say, "Most people are dying to find out what happens next after they finish the first trilogy. Would you like to add Book 4 to your order and save 10?"

A surprisingly high percentage of people will take you up on this offer. 

I know, it's going to sound weird, but I've done a lot of research on why so many readers enthusiastically snap up the order bump offer:

Because readers like to read.

:)

The order bump is win-win: your customer gets ANOTHER great reading experience from you, which they will absolutely love, because you're a professional and you've written professional-caliber books...

And in return, your business gets more revenue and profit to help you turn your calling into a career, and to turn your career into the life you've envisioned.

Once your new customer makes a decision about your order bump offer, they'll be taken to the next step in the process: 

We've tested all the major e-commerce store providers, and we use Shopify for a long list of reasons, not the least of which is this one: 

Shopify's checkout boasts the highest conversion rate of any ecommerce checkout system.

This means that more of our customers buy from us when we use Shopify than when we use anything other than Shopify.

Which is a pretty solid reason to use Shopify, IMHO. :)

And once your customer completes their purchase, they will have unlocked the next step in their journey with us:

You wouldn't be human if you didn't worry that making a post-purchase upsell offer to a brand new customer was maybe the best way to make them hate you forever.

And your fear is not entirely unwarranted, because there are some cranky trolls who complain about stuff like that. But they're a small minority of people.

LOTS AND LOTS of readers LOVE these kinds of offers. 

Especially when we congratulate them on having qualified for a special 20% discount on the next book in the series.

It's like the cherry on top of their dessert.

(Happy customer, happy life. :)

And right after our happy new customer completes their purchase, we'll introduce them to what will become one of the most enjoyable aspects of their relationship with us:

Our email system is an exceptionally powerful ally in our quest to make readers happy.

Done right, your email system (yes, your newsletter, and much more: smart customer service, engagement, and retention messages that deepen and nurture your relationships with your customers by sending the right message at the right time)...

will be the source of up to half of your business's revenue.

It's wicked powerful.

Tell great stories in your emails to your fans, and they will always look forward to reading them, no matter what the actual topic might be.

When you put some love and some effort into your email system, many of your brand new customers will soon become fans for life.

So those are the six steps in the AMMO Direct Sales System. Here's a visual recap to help you solidify the process in your mind:

Learn More

If you'd like a comprehensive overview of the most effective author marketing program in the English-speaking world (with an average author earnings of $33,000 per year), have a look at our AMMO V4 information page.

Read about the ad testing process that helped AJ Vanderhorst sell 115,728 copies of his YA fantasy series last year. He sold these books directly to his readers, so AJ didn't have to share any of his profits to help Jeff Bezos make his mega-yacht payments :).

There are two different paths for independent authors to take within our AMMO community. Which path you take depends on the number of titles in your catalog, and is determined by the market forces in the publishing world right now. Here's what you need to know about direct sales and the number of books you have in your catalog.