Monthly Archives: June 2012

Book marketing is not what it once was. There was a time when business authors went to publishers and agents and were told how to market their books. Authors who self published their business books paid calls on bookstores trying to get them to carry the books on consignment. With some old and new methods, anyone can market a book efficiently.

Perhaps the single most important thing authors can do these days to market a book is to create a website that features their work. This gives people a way to learn all about the benefits of reading and owning the book. One can offer book excerpts to get people interested. If they like what they read, they may want to order the book.

It helps to have friends and colleagues read the book and write book reviews for the website as well. If colleagues from one’s field of expertise write good reviews, it helps to establish the author as an expert. This is one of a business person’s measures of success in book marketing.

Once the author has the book written and its website up and running, it is time to think about sending out a media kit. This package can be sent to a targeted audience. It is best to reach out to people who are likely to be interested in this particular book rather than having one’s media kit become spam in an editor’s in box.

For example, if the book is focused on the author’s knowledge of interior design, one would not send a media kit about it to a magazine about tools, or to one about pets. One would send the media kit to magazines and newspapers specializing in home makeovers or redecorating.

The media kit is simply a package with everything needed to understand the book. There will be a fact sheet about the author, a synopsis of the book and a list of the key points that are developed in the book. There will be excerpts of the book and possibly even a copy of the book in some form. If the editor is interested, the book will be publicized.

Another online method for book marketing is tapping into the social media websites. An author can create a space on a social media site where she or he can talk about the book and life in general. The space can also be used to talk to others about their books and so create an informal network of authors.

It is good to get on as many blogs as one possibly can, writing about one’s subject and mentioning one’s book. The more exposure the author can get for the book, the better. This is a fun way to get the book out to people who might be interested in the author’s business services as well.

When marketing a business with a book, one also needs to market the book. After taking the time to write a book, it would be discouraging to have all the copies of it lying around in a corner of the garage in a year. The author can turn reader interest into increased business by taking the time to get the word out about the new book.

Jim Chianese is Chief Innovation Officer for http://www.JumpStartJim.com and has been called “The World’s Only Marketing Resultant for The Impatient Entrepreneur”.

Get your Free Video that Reveals the #1 Secret Most Impatient Entrepreneurs Will NEVER Know About Generating Leads And Making Money On The Internet. Just visit http://www.JumpStartJim.com to see The #1 Secret.

Author: Jim Chianese
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Benefits of electric pressure cooker

The advantages and benefits of finding a literary agent are well established and have proven their worth to authors all over the world. While this is true, it is not the only possible road to success as an author. There are other options, which may present more difficulty. Make no mistake, however; these alternatives to traditional publishing have brought success to many authors and will continue to open the doors of opportunity for many more to come.

For those authors who are considering self-publishing their works:

• It’s easier than you might think to get your book published and up for sale on several different sites and marketplaces online
• You should buy a domain and have a website to drive sales of your book
• If you’re a first-time author and are unknown to most people, price your ebook lower than others in order to appeal to more customers
• Plan on taking advantage of social media outlets and channels. This means create a Facebook group or fan page, create a separate Twitter account for your upcoming or recently published book, post in forums where you are an active member, find bloggers looking for guest posts or author interviews, blog about your book on your own site, and anything else you can think of!

Some warnings, words of caution, and challenges you will face self-publishing:

• Unless you have the budget to pay a professional editor, you will be responsible for all proofreading and editing of your manuscript prior to publishing. This is a huge task, particularly for longer works. Don’t underestimate the time it will take you to completely and thoroughly edit and polish your book’s contents.
• Another important aspect of your book’s contents is formatting. You will have to convert your manuscript to several different file formats, depending on which online venues you choose for your self-publishing project. What may look great on a Kindle reader could be unreadable on a Nook, if you don’t pay close attention to what types of files you are implementing and which tools you use to convert them.
• Author’s writing about niche topics which have a small market and readership will experience additional difficulty when it comes to making a profit from their online ebook sales, especially those who are unknown and first-time authors.

It’s also important to remember that you are not limited to only publishing your works online as digital downloads. There are dozens of reputable online companies offering print-on-demand services to authors for very reasonable prices. Another consideration will be your ebook or print book cover art and design. While there are professional services for cover design, I would suggest checking out crowdsourcing and freelance sites before paying the high prices charged for such designs. As far as file types go, I would recommend using PDF files whenever possible. These are widely accepted and easy to convert to other formats. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Lulu and many others all have very user-friendly and simple self-publishing platforms which will guide you through the process of making your book available to the public for sale and download.

Additional Tips for Authors After Self-Publishing:

1. Unless you have a detailed and effective marketing plan already designed, you should consider making a small investment in a paid online press release distribution service. This will help your book get some media exposure and increase awareness of your work. While you can pay these companies to write your press release, it is much more cost-effective to do a little bit of homework on the appropriate format and simply write one yourself. Track the response you get from your press release to gain insight regarding your readers and customers.
2. Make sure that you offer potential customers a sampling of your ebook. Amazon does this for you by making the first 10% of your book available to readers, but other sites like Lulu allow you to choose a custom range for your book preview. Be sure to offer a sampling on your site as well.
3. Create author profiles on as many high quality sites as you can find, and add your book to as many online databases and indexes as possible.
4. If you have a substantial list of email contacts that would be interested in your book, be sure to send out a mass mailing that will inform them of your work and where to find it online for sale. These could be colleagues, co-workers, friends, family or anyone who would want to check out your self-published book.
5. Encourage reader reviews. The self-published author will find it incredibly difficult to get any established reviewing companies to give their book the time of day. Don’t underestimate the power of user submitted reviews on sites like Amazon! Follow up with people you contact with info about your book, to ask for their feedback and request a short review on Amazon if they’d like to share their opinion.

This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to starting out on your self-publishing venture! Each of the areas touched on in this article are overly simplified and far more involved than I could hope to convey in this many words. I encourage you to look further into your many options. Even those working on a very modest budget can achieve amazing results using the free and nearly free tools and resources available to anyone online. Best of all, you can start today and have your first sale as soon as tomorrow. Best of luck to all writers and authors!

Ashly Lorenzana is a self-published author and former female escort. She has spent five years in the Escorting business and during that time has learned valuable information regarding the adult entertainment industry. She has written an autobiographical memoir about her experiences in escorting and in life, titled “Sex, Drugs & Being an Escort.” You can order a copy of her ebook at the Amazon Kindle Store, Barnes & Noble or even order a print version of the book from Lulu.

Sex, Drugs & Being an Escort

Author: Ashly Lorenzana
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
White Coat Hypertension

Self-publishing: will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, join the dance…?

Publishing is big business – a $35 billion industry and it’s as cut-throat as any other business. Which author has no apocryphal tales to relate about the ability to wall paper a room with rejections from mainstream publishing houses and literary agents?

Publishers are like dress designers. They decide what’s going to be the next mass appeal theme/genre and a trend is born. Not you, not me, not the general reader, but them. Then they use all the dark arts to achieve that. If your book fails to fit the design brief then, no matter how promising, it will be binned.

What do you do when, when an agent or publisher takes the greater part of 6 months to tell you your submission does not interest them? What do you do when, lucky enough to find an agent who thinks your book is the best thing since sliced bread and touts it around to every publishing house in the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook, it hears only the resounding sound of silence? What do you do when your publisher who contracted to publish it 3 years ago has your typescript gathering cobwebs in its pending tray? What do you do when the topic of your book was popular when your book was accepted 18 months earlier but tastes have moved on since then and you haven’t earned out your advance? What do you do when your first novel emerged in traditional manner but subsequent publishing efforts ran into the sands?

You’re sick of the whole ruddy carousel but believe implicitly in your book. You’ve decided its throwing good money after bad to nail your publisher. You’ve re-drafted until you know every word by heart; you’ve ignored it and stored it in the boot of your car for months then re-written it. You’ve isolated yourself in a darkened, incense filled room for days on end with a brown paper bag over your head humming mantras. Still no one is biting. Your agent has long since jumped ship and you’re clinging to a rapidly sinking life raft. Do you:

1 Print out several copies of your masterpiece and timidly circulate them to friends over a drink?

2 Shred it and turn your talent to baking cakes (oh so memorable and satisfying and a sure-fire guarantee of no remainders)

Or grasp the nettle and self publish? For those who thrive on statistics here goes. In 2008 the volume of sales of self-published books exceeded those published traditionally. The following year 76% of released titles were self-published and publishing companies published fewer books. With the rapid decline in physical bookshops pundits predict that, within 3 years, 75% of all titles will be retailed online – that’s 50% ebooks and 25% printed books. Bookshops will stock only 25% of printed books.

Advances in technology have generated this turn-around and utterly changed the publishing landscape.There are two main ways you, as author, can have complete control of the entire process (content, book cover, formatting, price, marketing, PR and distribution) without involving a third party publisher.

Print On Demand: Whereas in the past a self published title was sneered at because of its sub-standard quality, now many P.O.D. companies pride themselves on producing a quality product that equals that issued by a traditional publishing house. Their prices depend on whether you want the work to be edited, proof read or marketed. You decide how many copies you want printed depending on how many orders for the book are placed.

Digital or online channels: Here gallops the cavalry to the rescue headed by big hitter Amazon although Smashwords and Kobo are sledge-hammering away for a chunk of the market. You upload your work on such sites to be read and enjoyed electronically as an eBook and with the advent of many e-devices and platforms such as Kindle, Kobo and other eBook readers, mobile phones and tablet computers your food for the mind is readily accessible to readers on the hoof.

And remember, investing in a professional edit before unveiling the book to public scrutiny is always worth it.

Self-publishing is fast disappearing as a dirty word or stigma. Many self-published “indie” authors who unsuccessfully trod the traditional publishing route have surprised themselves when they switched to selling their books direct to the public and a few have sensationally soared into the best seller lists. What are you waiting for?

If you want to see an example of my indie publishing please visit my website:

serenafairfax

Author: Serena Fairfax
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
How to choose a blood pressure monitor

Here’s a really simple way… to start your own business
selling information products.

How many times have you sat and wished you could profit from
information products like the well known marketers do?
But there’s always something holding you back, you don’t
know how to write a book, you don’t know how to sell online,
or a million and one different obstacles you can think of.
Well here are my 5 tips to make your online bookshop and
publishing empire more than just a dream.

1. you don’t know how to write an e-book, or article for
yourself?

There’s a quick and simple way to get around this.
Turn Other People’s Information Formats Into A Publication
You could get permission from a publisher to transcribe an
audio
or video into a print or electronic publication. You would
have nothing to write and you could just pay them an
up-front fee or royalties on your sales. Another alternative
is to Compile A Publication – You could allow other authors and
experts to write the publication for you in exchange for
free publicity or other incentives. You would simply contact the
authors and experts you want and ask them to donate some content.

2. You don’t know which format to use to publish your book.

There are several formats for publishing an e-book, the most
common, and easily distributed is in pdf format. To make it
even easier, here is a link to the Easy PDF Publishers
Toolkit with all the information you need to start
publishing your book.
[http://www.cashinonline.info/pdf]
Another alternative is to publish as an executable file, but
this will limit your appeal to those people running a
computer which can open it. The pdf is favourite because it
can be read by most operating systems and computers.

3. You don’t know how to setup a sales site

This is where you can use the power of the internet again,
Package Your Publication With Other Products – You could
ask similar but non-competing businesses to create a package
deal. You would sell your publications or product together
in one package deal.
You would split the profit or each sells them separately for
100% of the profits.

4. Another tip for saving you doing the selling

Others Give Away Your Publication And You Charge Them For
Bulk Quantities – You could have others give away your
publication and you receive a bulk purchase sale.
For example a business may want 100 copies of your
publication to give to their employees.
You could charge them a lower cost per item because of
the large quantity that you’re selling.

5. Make more money with each book

Sell A Branded Copy Of Your Publication – You could allow
other people to sell or give away the publication as their
own and charge them to place their ads in it. If it
contains links to affiliate sites, offer people the
opportunity to put their affiliate links in for a small fee,
and if not yours will earn money when people purchase
through them.

————————————————————

No matter what excuses you find for not starting selling
your own e-book there is an answer if you really want to
start.

So stop making excuses, follow these tips and start making
money with your own e-books today.

(c) copyright 2005 by Douglas Titchmarsh

————————————————————

Doug Titchmarsh runs several sites including http://www.cashinonline.info and http://www.titchmarsh.com and publishes an e-zine for marketers online and off which you can get by sending an email to douglastitchmarsh@getresponse.com ————————————————————

Author: Douglas Titchmarsh
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Canadian crossborder shopping

Do you teach in the so-called self-help niche? Are you in the business of helping people to help themselves?

Do you have a book yet? If not, I believe you need to get one as quickly as you can.

In this article I’m going to discuss four reasons that I believe mean that you absolutely must have a book of some sort. Either an eBook or a printed book will work. Of course there are alternatives to writing it yourself. They may not provide as effective a solution however, they are better than nothing. The important thing is to have a book.

1. Books will help to help to establish your credibility. We have been trained to believe that books are only written by experts. Only experts can put words to paper. Only experts can be published. The publishing industry — including newspapers and magazines — works hard to establish that myth in the publics’ mind. Therefore if you are published you must know your subject. At least in the mind of the public. By writing and publishing a book you automatically ride that myth. You automatically establish yourself as having expert knowledge. After all, a publisher has said so!

2. Books will help you to reach more people. After all, if you are a lone self-help guru without a book, you are going to have a simple problem. You can only speak in front of so many people. You can only provide one-on-one coaching to so many people. Books are easily distributed and easily read. They can provide you with the universal access that most personal media cannot.

3. Books will help you o make money. Whether you sell them from the back of the room or from the virtual shelves of Amazon, books can make you money with very little investment. And if you are able to interest a major publisher they can make you a large advance which may even subsidize your public speaking and coaching.

4. Books can be a stepping stone to higher priced products. Books can be quite inexpensive. In fact, so inexpensive that people are often willing to purchase them on a whim. If the book truly speaks to a need they have, they may be willing to purchase one of your more expensive products — seminars or coaching sessions for example. Even if they aren’t willing to buy your more expensive products now, they will tell you who is interested in your products in general. And who may be interested in your more expensive products in the future.

Do you want to learn how to write a book in 24 hours? Take my brand new free course here: http://www.learningcreators.com

Do you want to read more free information like this? Go to my blog: http://www.learningcreators.com/blog/

Glen Ford is an accomplished consultant, trainer and writer. He has far too many years experience as a trainer and facilitator to willingly admit.

Author: Glen Ford
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Low-volume PCB maker