Monthly Archives: April 2012

Is Writing and Publishing Your Career Or Just a Hobby?

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Many authors write because they enjoy it, but promoting their books, seriously trying to sell their books, or even writing books that an audience will read requires being willing to make a few sacrifices for the sake of being professional. Here are ten top signs that you may view writing as just a hobby rather than a profession.

Writing is likely just a hobby for you if you say or think any of the following:

  1. I just write it as it comes out. It’s inspired. I don’t believe revision is necessary. Yeah, and I can tell you didn’t revise. Sadly, I’ve seen too many books where it was obvious the author did no revision. Typos, misspelled and wrong words, repetitive phrases, illogical plots, dialogue that isn’t clear. These books are a mess. No one is going to be impressed by them. Not only are you obviously a hobby writer, but I’m sad to say that you’ve wasted your money publishing a book that no one will buy, or if they do, will only hurt your reputation.
  2. I can’t afford an editor and my daughter just graduated from college as an English major so I’m sure she will catch any typos. Please! I recently had an author send me a manuscript that his daughter, the English major, proofread for him. Something is seriously wrong with public education if she was given an English degree. She didn’t catch half the typos if any at all-worse, there were more grammatical errors than there are words in this article. And even if the English major is good at catching errors, it doesn’t make her a book editor. How many books has she written? How many books has she edited? You need to hire a professional. Better to spend the money and have a quality product than to have a book that people will put down in disgust because of the typos. If you’re serious about being an author, you will invest the money to have the book edited.
  3. My friend’s son is really good at art so he suggested his son could do my illustrations. As with the book edited by the daughter, how many books has the son illustrated? Someone who is good at drawing is not necessarily a professional artist. Put some thought into how you want your illustrations to look. Audition some different artists. Perhaps the young man’s drawings will be good enough for your book-if so, great, but don’t let personal feelings interfere with the success of your book. Remember, producing a quality book is a business decision.
  4. I’ll be happy if I just break even. Do you think Donald Trump thinks that way about his investments? If you are serious about being an author, don’t think about breaking even. Think about making a profit. Even if you break even on your printing and production costs, have you really broken even on the hundreds or thousands of hours you spent writing, not to mention marketing your book? Make sure you know how much your book will cost to produce, what your profit margin is, what percentage bookstores and other retailers will want, and develop a plan to make a return on your investment.
  5. I don’t have the Internet so I can’t market my book online. My computer is so old it won’t allow me to access Facebook or Twitter. Get a new computer. Quit making excuses. If you’re serious about writing and you don’t have Internet access where you live, move to where you can get it. If you don’t want to move, hire someone who can check your email, monitor your Internet presence, post your blogs, promote your book online, and keep you regularly updated. If you want to succeed, you need to keep up with technology. Plain and simple. No excuses.
  6. I’ve decided I’ll only have my books here at the Country Bookstore. The staff is really nice, and I’m not really into running around to all those other bookstores. Okay, and I’m sure your readers aren’t into running across state to find your book at the one place you have it for sale. They will go where it is convenient for them to make their purchases, and they won’t ever see your book in those stores so they’ll never buy it. No one is going to know about your book if you don’t make it visible in many locations, both in brick-and-mortar stores and online. Visibility is a requirement for book sales. The more effort you put into marketing your book, the bigger the rewards are likely to be.
  7. I’m not going to get up to give a speech. No problem. Plenty of other authors will. The library or conference will invite a different author. If you don’t talk about your book, then you can’t provide a hook to make readers interested. People want to be entertained, and even if you’ve written the best book ever on your subject, remember, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” So get up and give that speech. If you’re shy, go to public speaking groups or get a coach so you get better at speaking in public. You need to present yourself so people will get to know and like you, and then they will want to read your book.
  8. I’m not going to sit at that art fair for eight hours a day all weekend. Yes, doing book shows and art fairs can be long days. They can also be exhilarating experiences where your readers have a chance to meet you personally. They get the opportunity to speak to you individually, to have you personally sign their books. What an opportunity for them! And a chance for you to meet people who might never go to a bookstore or look for your book, but now find you unexpectedly, to your benefit and theirs.
  9. I don’t see any point in going to those publishing conferences. They’re just for socializing. That’s true. You can get a lot of information at publishing conferences and writer’s group meetings, but mostly they are about socializing. They are an opportunity for writers and publishers to get together and share information, to brainstorm, to connect, to give each other ideas and make each other aware of opportunities. Networking is really about making friends. The more friends you have, the more people who will be talking about your book, and the more books you will sell, so get to that publishing conference and socialize, socialize, socialize!
  10. I don’t want to write full-time because then it would be like work. Hmm, well, I imagine you’re working now. Are you working in a call center, dealing with customer complaints, making someone else rich, putting up with a nagging boss, doing a job that leaves you exhausted at the end of the day, sacrificing your family time for a job you hate? Let’s get real here. You love writing. It’s what you’re passionate about. What’s wrong with working at it-with having a job you will love, if not fully, then a lot more than the day-job you have now? Writing full-time-that’s not work, that’s living the dream and never having to work again. Don’t you deserve to spend your life doing what you love? Of course you do.

After reading this list, you probably realize you have some of the “writing as a hobby” mindset. Now that you’re aware of it, get rid of it. No more excuses. Make today the first day of the rest of your professional writing career!

Irene Watson is the Managing Editor of Reader Views, where avid readers can find reviews of recently published books as well as read interviews with authors. Her team also provides author publicity and a variety of other services specific to writing and publishing books.

Author: Irene Watson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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So You Think You Want to Self-Publish Your Novel?

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If you’ve already read my previous article about the truth of the publishing industry and how difficult it is to break in and become the next star novelist, then you may find this next commentary interesting. In the past ten years, new opportunities have cropped up for would-be, frustrated authors. Print-on-Demand and Ebooks hit the market, tempting unpublished novelists with promises of do-it-yourself fame. Some authors have actually been able to gain some success through these avenues, but most authors who travel the self-publishing path remain just as underpaid and anonymous as before.

For the sake of this article, I will focus on the Print-On-Demand opportunities. Ebooks may be okay for some things, but to date, Ebooks are not turning enough revenue for me to consider them interesting.
 
The key to self-publishing is first and foremost the quality of the product. It is vital to an author’s success to have a completed, very well written, perfectly researched, and highly polished product before self-publishing. Secondly, it is important that the book publisher produce a product that looks aesthetically appealing. Some Print-On-Demand books are very high quality, which is a good thing. But oftentimes, the author has to pay someone to prepare a book cover and put together the book block, the interior pages. This can be costly. If you are an author on a budget, you may not have any other choice but to provide cover art and a strong PDF version of your pages. Some of the software used to produce either product can cost hundreds of, or even a few thousand, dollars.
 
Prolific authors shy away from self-publishing because they know that to follow that path means their next novel won’t be written for a minimum of a year. Why? Because they will spend that time preparing the book block, the book cover, and then promoting what they produced. Promotions are costly. An author with a lot of money in the bank can simply hire a publicist. But the average author will have to do all the promotional work themselves. Promotions can pay off when a publishing house suddenly notices this self-published phenomenon, but it takes a tremendous amount of work, a great book, and some savvy footwork before a publishing house even cares to notice. Without a doubt, successful self-published authors throw themselves into heavy promotional work. Think in terms of radio shows, internet marketing, print marketing, speaking engagements. You will suddenly be lifted from the profession of writer and thrown into the profession of advertising executive. Most ‘artists’ don’t care to participate in this venture; they prefer to go on to the next piece of artwork. But a frustrated author can have the ambition and the drive to actually make it work.
 
Bottom line: Do your homework, know exactly what you want out of the deal, understand the amount of work and promotion it will take, and have the best product you can produce.  
For more tips, keep your eyes peeled for future blogs and articles by author C. D. Blizzard

Copyright 2008 C. D. Blizzard

C. D. Blizzard is the author of Blackwater, Broken, and Profile. Want to take a peek inside this prolific author’s life? Visit one of the most popular blogs on the web. http://www.cdblizzard.com

Author: C. D. Blizzard
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Self Publish E-Books – The Planned Approach

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You probably want to know the planned approach that will work wonders for selling your writing (ebooks) on the Internet. Well, here are the steps for a planned approach:

1) You have access to the Internet and a computer.

Notice I didn’t say you’re paying to be connected or have a computer you own. I used the word “access” which means you could do your self publishing from your local library or even at an Internet Cafe with computers.

2) You have an idea for an ebook

Before you start writing your ebook, you want to determine if there is a market. Why waste your time writing something that isn’t going to sell? There are many, maybe thousands of writers on the Internet who did not research their market and are now suffering the consequences of zero sales.

Don’t you be one of them.

3) Once you’ve done your research, you write your ebook

You must have a finished ebook. Too many times writers jump to producing a web site first, then write an ebook. This will cause you to have problems with the next planned approach.

5) You buy a domain name

If you buy the domain name before you’ve named your ebook, you have less of a chance of getting targeted (meaning buying) customers to your web site. Your domain name should specify exactly what you’re selling.

For example:

My name “a good read” was acquired before I knew the above. Yes, it’s EZ to remember but it doesn’t spell out exactly what I do. Is it a bad name? No, but it’s not as good as if I chose “Makingebooks.com” for my domain name. It would have expressed what I do better. But hey, after 10 years, I’m attached to agoodread.com.

6) Set up your hosting company

You must have a domain name before you can buy hosting. The hosting company needs to have a valid address to put on their servers.

7) Next is building your website.

This can mean from one to several thousand web pages. But if you have one product (ebook), then you should have four pages.

These include:

  • Opt-In Page
  • Sales Letter
  • Order Page
  • Thank you Page

The opt-in page is extremely important and I’ll go into that in another post but, for now, simply understand and accept your customer will not buy from you the first time they visit your site.

8) An Autoresponder is an absolute necessity.

I didn’t know this when I first started. I let hundreds of thousands of visitors come to my site and did nothing to keep in further contact with them. Don’t you make the same mistake.

9) Another essential item in your Planned Approach is a Shopping Cart

Yes, you’ll need a way to process orders. It can be as simple as using PayPal or any other online merchant like 2Checkout which accepts credit cards.

10) Bring traffic to your site.

Now this is where most writers fall down on the job. You can have the best ebook on the Internet but if nobody knows about it, your sales will reflect this.

There are other parts to the Planned Approach but these will get you started on the right path to self publishing your ebooks.

Judith Tramayne’s “EBook Learning System” has (7) Videos which show you how to make your ebook (2) times better using free software at: [http://www.agoodread.com/makeebook.html]

Author: Judith Tramayne
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Self-Publishing – Can It Be Done?

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In the past self-publishing a book was next to impossible unless you were very rich, and very sure that you were able to sell the book once it was printed. Whilst sending a manuscript to publishers promises much less work to the writer who is then free to do what he does best; write stories, there are now alternatives. The obvious path of making a download-able eBook can often be a poor choice because books which people can feel are still favored. After these two choices all that remains is self-publishing.

Any writer will eventually meet the obstacle called marketing but the self-publisher has the added problem that once his books are printed he needs to find a way to distribute them effectively. This involves dealing with bookstores both online and offline in order that the books may actually be purchased. Advertising the book thereafter can be accomplished through many different means. The bottom line being that the writer needs to communicate the idea of the story at every opportunity and any way he can. It could be through sample chapters online, or viral videos that relate to the storyline, or even a simple review by somebody offline or online. The more people that catch even the remotest glimpse of the book, the more people that are likely to think “I wonder if it is any good… it sounds alright”. Books don’t sell themselves. Just for a moment imagine yourself receiving a delivery of books to your door, and at that moment you have to find an audience to sell them all to. This is probably the part you didn’t dream about when you chose to become an author.

At the very forefront of self-publishing technology is the ability to print copies of books as they are needed minimizing the risk that writers face with their hard-earned cash. http://www.lulu.com/ offer a service whereby the writer can create a book for free which is then available to buy through popular bookstores such as amazon.com and Barnes and Noble amongst others (note: purchasable worldwide). This leaves the writer with a slightly smaller task of getting the book known through any means he/she can possibly think of.

Helping you on your way to becoming a successful writer [http://successful-writer.blogspot.com/]

Author: Harry Hillier
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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Self Publishing 101 – How to Write a Book Marketing Plan

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I’m sure you’re not too surprised to find out that your work as a self published author doesn’t stop when the presses finally start -actually, some of the most important work you’ll do to make your book sell STARTS now (if not a bit earlier…)

How often have you heard other self published authors lament their lack of sales? All too often, I’m sure – and all too often, good planning and a smart strategy could have changed those stories

A sound and sensible marketing plan for your book is just as important as the writing, design, and publication itself – no matter how wonderful your book might be, it won’t sell itself… and it’s highly unlikely for a new author (and even many well seasoned ones) that your book is going to jump off bookstore shelves without some help. Remember, in most bookstores, it has about 8,000 other competitors right next to it!

Your marketing plan should be built to identify the revenue streams you expect to attack. This document should be an outline on how you will achieve your income or sales goals, and it should identify in detail the market you see and how you will reach your sales goals.

Building a marketing plan.

You all know a book won’t sell itself? Right? Surprisingly, many authors DON’T understand this fact until too late – and they are disappointed with their sales performance. Every book needs some sort of marketing plan – something that sets your expectations and creates achievable goals that you can attack in an orderly fashion.

But – how do you create a marketing plan for your book? There is a ton of great freeware, even more that you can spend lots of money on, that all help you create a marketing plan for selling your book. But – before you go to the exciting effort of spending time and money on downloading software, open up your trusty word processor and follow me…

Who will buy your book?

The secret to sales success is to target your marketing as directly as possible to your potential reader – and have it be someone who is reachable.

“Everyone will want to read my book!” Sorry, but that doesn’t work. Even the absolute best selling books – that sell 2 or 3 million copies in a year – only penetrate to about 3% of the reading population. Sales success for your book will be driven by defining a very clear picture of who is interested in your book.

They must be identifiable: Make a list! Which groups would be interested in your book? Why? Who is next? Why should the need or want your book? (remember this – someone is more likely to buy something they NEED before something they WANT)

What is your definition of success for your book? What is your GOAL?

Some authors write for themselves and their faimilies only – they don’t dream of their books as bestsellers in the marketplace. Some authors write for a very specific personal need to tell their story. Some have unique insight into very specific topics. Many have dreams of seeing their book in the front of Borders or Barnes & Noble. Each author is different, but you MUST decide what your real definition of success happens to be. We don’t want to pursue a goal that may not be what you actually feel is important.

Marketing & publicity is a long-term, consistent and concerted effort – it never ever happens overnight, even though it may seem to for some people.

Create a reasonable timeline and budget

All of us have finite amounts of time, energy, and money. Marketing can eat up all three very quickly, leaving you alone, exhausted, and broke. The game is to pace yourself and resources so that you can keep the effort moving along. This is where your planning in Chapter Three works it magic – without looking at the “big picture,” most of us would never know how much of our precious resources should be devoted to each aspect of the game. Organization and prioritizing are the most important part of the process – and you may find yourself returning to and rewriting sections of your plan.

That’s it – the building of a book marketing plan in a nutshell if you will. Let us know if we can answer any questions, and thanks for reading

As always – if you like this information (and found it helpful) please feel free to post it on your site, put it in a blog, toss it in your newsletter, or in general spread it around. Please just give us credit here at www.dogearpublishing.net.

May you have success in your creative efforts!

Ray Robinson is a partner in Dog Ear Publishing http://www.dogearpublishing.net a self publishing services company specializing in delivering “high touch” services to the author community. His company provides a full range of services to authors, from editorial to page layout to marketing and fulfillment. Visit the web site for a complete discussion on marketing your book.

Author: Ray Robinson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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