A Story of Starting Over from Rock Bottom Part 3: How My Unit Prices Went Up

The trilogy was complete.

But honestly, I didn't know what to do next.

After the trilogy, I branched out

Hearing that coloring books were popular, I released a coloring book. I turned the essays I had been saving up on note into a Kindle book. I also released an English version of it.

Before I knew it, I had a portfolio of 10 books.

I thought I had spread myself too thin, but I couldn't imagine myself after quitting. That was all there was to it.

Building a track record without charging money

Around that time, I was doing various things without charging for them.

How to create EPUB files that can be uploaded to Kindle. How to make paperback covers in Canva. How to finish a paperback manuscript in Canva.

When a friend said their blog was closing and they wanted to preserve it, I consulted with them and helped them turn it into a Kindle book. I also gave advice to people who wanted to publish books.

I experienced every place where beginners stumble

There was a reason I was doing it for free.

It was because knowing where beginners have trouble and where they stumble was very beneficial for me.

People who couldn't get EPUB conversion to work. People worried about cover sizes. People who didn't know how to set margins for their manuscripts.

I had experienced all of it myself. That accumulation became my own knowledge base.

But I wasn't making any money

I was building up my track record little by little. But it wasn't generating any income at all.

At that time, I was also studying for the real estate notary exam in parallel. I started at the beginning of the year, and I was in a situation where I couldn't choose to go out and work.

That's why I desperately needed a side job I could do online.

The reason I kept sticking to crowdsourcing was here.

The rewards that were 300 yen started to change

At first, it was all one-off jobs for 300 or 500 yen.

But once I had built up my portfolio things started to change. I began to be able to land jobs for 3,000 and 6,000 yen.

Encountering a 25,000-character, 17,000-yen project

There was a project that became a turning point.

It was a job creating an e-book manuscript from interview videos. It was a project that would eventually become a manuscript of about 25,000 characters, and the pay was 17,000 yen.

The client liked the deliverables, and I received requests for continued work multiple times.

I learned a lot from this project. What kind of instructions editors should give writers to make it easier to write. The flow of e-books as marketing tools. How to use Kindle as a customer acquisition channel.

It wasn't just a simple writing job; I was able to learn a little bit about the behind-the-scenes of the publishing business.

You can't notice it when you're in the middle of it

At this point, I still hadn't realized it.

The value of what I had built up was something I only realized after I started teaching students at a certain online school.

While I was editing the self-promotion essays of my students, I suddenly thought.

Oh, so this is what it meant to provide value.

Starting from 300-yen jobs, building a portfolio, gaining experience without pay, and completing 17,000-yen jobs. All of that had become knowledge I could pass on to my students.

When you are in the middle of it, you are overwhelmed and can't think about anything else. It was painful, difficult, and I was anxious. But looking back, it was all a learning experience.

No matter how terrible the experience was, looking back, it was all material. That old teacher's words were true.

That was the moment I felt that.

And last year, I encountered a certain online school.

That's for next time.

↓↓↓↓↓ Continue here! ↓↓↓↓↓

↓↓↓↓↓ Here is the coloring book that didn't sell at all (lol) ↓↓↓↓↓

* I am a participant in the Amazon Associates Program.