I first started publishing guides on Amazon in 2017, and the printing cost was £1.70 for most books. Amazon then kept a further 40% of the sale value. So, a book selling for £6.99 would earn the author £2,49.
40% of £6.99 went to Amazon = £2.80.
They would also take £1.70 for printing.
Leaving the author with £2.49.
So, 36% of the money went to the author.
That was quite a sweet deal, and much more than my regular publisher pays! That’s why I publish all my own books now.
Amazon has been great to me as an author, but in June they said, look, we haven’t put our prices up for so long (at least 6 years!) We’re putting them up by 26%!
I can’t blame them.
So here we are in September. I’ll be putting my prices up next week by 20%. If you want the cheaper price, get your guide now.
But, as you know, you can get all my guides for £0.99 for 60 days, or totally FREE for 30 days with Kindle Unlimited. Click on it to learn more.
How Do Top Grade Students Revise?
This is the title of the book I’m writing this week.
After the results came out, hundreds of students contacted me on YouTube or email to tell me how they had got grades 7-9, or made great progress. 55% of them (out of nearly 5000 votes!) reported getting grades 8 and 9. It’s insane.
So, I asked the 100+ who contacted me to share their tips. Their replies, and my advice, will form the book.
It turns out that students getting grade 9 do revise differently to those getting grade 8. There is one major difference. The number of practice essays.
There are then two massive differences to those getting grade 7. If grade 7 students practised essays, they left it late, and so didn’t have enough time to improve. Grade 8 and 9 students started early.
But, none of the grade 7 students who contacted me had read my guides. Not one.
This suggests an interesting possibility. If you read my guides, you have a massive chance of getting a grade 8 or 9!
Here is a Student Who Got Grade 8
@exclusive___x
Thank you SO much Mr Salles! I began watching your videos when I was stuck at a 6 in literature and Language, but after taking your advice I managed to get an 8 in both at the end. I would’ve never imagined to get that grade because I felt like I was struggling initially.
· I felt your LOTF videos from a long time ago helped me a lot,
· in addition to your Romeo and Juliet prediction videos
· and your 'how to structure literature essays' techniques.
· For language I found MADFATHERSCROCH to be really useful
· and I also got your 100% in Language guide book.
😂 I am hoping to get my Language paper remarked as I got 1 mark off a 9!
My Thoughts
My guide to 100% in English Language was the first guide I wrote, before anyone had sat the current GCSE.
It was, and still is, the best guide I have read on taking the whole exam. But is it good enough?
Well, since then, I’ve written guides to each individual question. To do that, I’ve written over 200 answers to all the questions. These have taught me quite a few things I didn’t know.
The main things? The fastest hand wins the duel. Write as many explanations as you can. Each question is simpler than I thought. It is possible to be a weak reader and writer and still get grade 7.
If you are stuck on a particular question (or you are a teacher whose class do worse on one particular question) there is no other guide which gives you over 20 answers at all grades, with an explanation of how to get each grade the fastest way possible.
Here is a Grade 9 Student
Hello Sir!
I am a student who just finished their GCSEs, and went from a Grade 4 to Grade 9 because of your videos! I achieved full marks on Literature Paper 2 and I know you often go through full mark essays on your channel, so you may like to use my essays.
I did An Inspector Calls and Power & Conflict Poetry.
Best wishes and thank you very much,
S
Top Tips
Making sure I had as many interpretations of single quotes as possible
Making sure I learnt key subject terminology specific to each text
Planning essay ideas for each theme and character, with a thesis for each and as many points I can think of (backed up by quotes)
Writing essays and getting my teacher to mark them and give me constructive feedback, then acting on this feedback and asking her to remark and repeating this until I got into the top band (27-30)
Reading your books! I made quote banks from them with brief interpretations (I usually used key words, such as “domination” for “my nyas” about the interpretation instead of writing it all out). I also tried to pick the lesser-known quotes (I was able to differentiate them as they hadn't been discussed in class), as I think that makes for a more interesting and complex response.
Your 5 key quotes and the FOSSE essay structure for poetry - I also planned FOSSE for every poem in note form, again using key words such as "ancient -> Napoleon desire for power -> Duke of Wellington"
Hope this helps!
My Thoughts
I bang on all the time about how it really is possible to get top grades, even for an ‘average’ student.
It is just knowing stuff, and hard work. That only comes with determination. When you hand in essays, and your marks keep creeping up, you feel successful. That gives you the motivation to continue.
Motivation hardly every comes first.
Don’t wait to be inspired. It’s the other way around. And it doesn’t sound as though it was that much hard work for S, either!
Notice how S used their teacher, and simply chose to improve. S welcomed feedback, because they knew that this would mean they could improve.
S trusted the process and chose to believe in themselves. And it was a choice. No one getting grade 4 believes they are naturally gifted. S didn’t care about that. Hard work earns rewards.
But S didn’t waste time on hard work that wouldn’t improve them. S focused entirely on the key things which would have most impact.
Luckily this also included my guides!
Yes, I see that my wording is misleading. It is not every guide for £0.99 each. It is all 20 guides, for the sum total of £0.99. You get all 20 guides for 60 days, and all you pay is £0.99. Or, you can pay nothing, and get them for 'only' 30 days.
If that sounds like a good deal, you need to click on the link to Kindle Unlimited. Here it is: https://amzn.to/3R7CAtP
Mr Salles, you could be my savior for my GCSE exams 2024