Category Archives: Publishing Books

Congratulations, you’ve published your first ebook. You’ve uploaded it to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Apple, and other online booksellers. The problem? Only Mom and Grandma know it exists (and Grandma doesn’t know how to work an eBook reader so she doesn’t count).

It’s time to start marketing!

The biggest obstacle we face as indie authors (yes, I’m one too) is obscurity. We’re competing with traditionally published authors and lots of other indies jumping on the e-publishing bandwagon.

Today we’re going to look at three ways to help readers find you: guest blogging, advertising, and giving away a free eBook (this can be a short story).

Guest Blogging for Book Promotion

You’ve heard of blogging, and may even have a blog, but have you ever blogged for other people? Guest posting is when you write an article for someone else’s site, someone’s site that is ideally more popular than yours and that caters to your target audience (i.e. the types of readers who might buy your ebook).

For example, if you’re a science fiction author, you might try to find a science fiction and fantasy review blog and see if the owner is open to publishing guest posts or reviews. The post shouldn’t be self-promotional; it should be informative and useful to the blogger’s audience. But, in exchange for submitting this free content, the owner should be willing to let you attach a bio. This can include information about you, and it should definitely include a link to your website and your sales links (i.e. your author or eBook page at Amazon).

Not everybody excepts guest posters, but lots of people do (hey, it’s free content for them and gives them a day off of writing). It’s best to comment on the person’s blog a few times, so they’re aware of you, before writing them and asking about a guest gig.

Advertising Your Ebooks

Guest blogging is a way to promote your work for free, but if you have some money to spend, you could try advertising. There are a lot of options, but most of them will end up costing you more than you earn in book sales (I’ve tried quite a few). There are a couple of good options though.

Lots of folks with fairly mainstream ebooks have had luck buying a sponsorship at Kindle Nation Daily (assuming there’s a Kindle-version of your eBook out there). They have a number of options at different price points.

I’ve also had some luck (I’ve made more than I’ve spent) advertising at Goodreads. There you do pay-per-click ads (meaning you only pay if someone clicks the ad) with a title, short blurb, and thumbnail picture of your book. I wouldn’t recommend this if you’re selling your eBook for 99 cents (because you have to pay about 25 cents just for a click), but for my novels, which are currently priced at $2.99, the royalty rate is high enough that I can afford a few clicks per sale.

You can check my site (link in my bio below) for a detailed how-to on starting a Goodreads campaign.

Giving Away a Free Ebook

When I released my fantasy novel, The Emperor’s Edge, as an ebook, I’d already written a couple of short stories with the same heroes. I decided to take one of the stories, Ice Cracker II, and release it as a free ebook. I uploaded it to several places online and also to Smashwords, an eBook distributor, and they got it into Barnes & Noble and the Apple Store. (As an indie author, you can’t normally list free ebooks for sale on your own–the minimum price at those stores is 99 cents, so Smashwords acts as a backdoor around that.)

At the end of my free short story, I included an excerpt of my novel as well as links showing folks where they could buy the ebook. While this didn’t turn me into an overnight bestseller, it did help me start selling ebooks at Smashwords and Barnes & Noble (places where I hadn’t had much luck before).

I’ve also read about authors who have a whole series of full-length ebooks (i.e. a six-novel fantasy series) who have giving away their entire first book for free and then gone on to do so well, they quit their day jobs and write full time now (Google “Brian S. Pratt Smashwords Interview” for some inspiration).

While there are lots of ways to market your book, these are three that can bring lasting sales and help get the word out about your work. Good luck!

Lindsay is a blogger by day and an indie fantasy author by night. You can visit her site to find that article on Goodreads Advertising and lots of other posts on e-publishing and ebooks.

Author: L.a. Buroker
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Captions contest

The internet allows entrepreneurs to create and market a digital product to hundreds of thousands of targeted customers. Read three tips to start your own online publishing business.

Create A Needed Product

When creating a digital product to publish and sell on the internet it’s important to create a product that solves an immediate need. Pick a subject you have extensive experience with that has a market with high demand.

Products that have found success on the internet include alternative healing solutions and how-to guides. As the internet and social media evolves there is a growing expectation for digital products to include a video format with your product.

Videos have become best sellers when included with how-to guides.

Market Your Digital Product

Whether you choose to create your own custom website or sell your product through an auction site it’s important to create compelling, but credible copy. It’s common practice to give away several copies of your product in exchange for customer testimonials.

Adding positive testimonials to your website adds a social element to your copy that helps generate more sales.

When marketing your product it’s also important to select the appropriate price point. Compare your product with your competitors and decide if your product is worth more or less than comparable products.

Create An Affiliate Program

When you have a product that generates consistent sales you may want to scale your marketing by utilizing an affiliate program. You allow other marketers to promote your product in exchange for a commission.

Using the leverage of an affiliate program can turn a few sales into hundreds of sales in a very short time.

The tips above are just a small sample of a larger marketing blueprint found at the Maverick Money Makers.

You can visit the following link to learn more about the affiliate marketing club created by Mack Michaels.

Author: Mack M. Michaels
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Electric pressure cooker generations

With people buying kindles and iPads by the millions, you may be wondering if you should jump in and be a part of the e-publishing revolution. It’s free and relatively easy to get your eBook listed with the major online resellers, such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Apple. Profits are high, as well, for indie authors (you’re not represented by a publishing house, so there are no middle men to share earnings with). Expect to keep 60%-85% of the royalties on every sale.

But e-publishing may not be for everyone. Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of turning your own book into an ebook:

Advantages of E-Publishing

It’s a speedy process

Between the hunt for an agent, the hunt for an editor, and the wait-time before a book is actually printed and available in a bookstore, the traditional publishing model is slow. You can expect that process to take one to two years, if you’re able to find an agent and publisher at all!

It’s much different with e-publishing.

For my first ebook, it took me about a month from first deciding to publish it to having it go live. In that time, an editor proofread it, an artist created a cover, and an eBook formatter turned my Mac Pages file into something readable on the kindle, nook, iPad, etc. When I uploaded the finished file at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords (a distributor that gets your ebooks into the stores that require ISBNs), it took a maximum of two days for it to go live.

You have full control

Everything is up to you with e-publishing. You write the story or book you want to write, and you choose the artwork. You also choose the price, and you can experiment with the price at will. This means you can tinker around and see if you sell ten times as many books at $0.99 as you do at $2.99, or if you can raise the price to $3.99 or higher and people will still buy.

You can also see novel sales as they’re happening, which gives you some insight into what marketing tactics are paying off and which are taking up time and money and returning no profits.

We may be in the “perfect storm” for ebooks

I’m no Nostradamus, but with eBook readers leaping off the shelves, this feels like the time to jump on the e-publishing bandwagon. Actually, I wish I’d jumped on in 2009, because some of those people are the ones making a living as indie authors now! Still, with more and more people grabbing kindles, nooks, ipads, etc. the market should only grow.

Downsides of E-Publishing

Okay, I can see you’re getting excited, but it’s not all fun and profits. There are certainly downsides, and the indie-author road may not be for everyone. Here are a couple “cons”:

Upfront costs

If you want to create a professional looking product, something that can compete with ebooks from publishing houses, you’ll need to invest money up front.

Unless you’re artistically inclined, you should pay for custom cover art. You’ll also want to hire someone to edit your work. It’s best to have a professional editor (you can find freelancers on Elance or any job board) do the task, someone who edits for a living and can quote the Chicago Manual of Style to you. The formatting is something you can learn to do yourself if you want to save a few bucks.

I paid $600-$800 to put together each of my fantasy novels, and I’ve seen people spend more if they had heavy line editing done (I had several critique buddies read my work first so didn’t feel I needed that).

You’re on your own for marketing

While traditionally published authors may complain that they don’t get much help from the publishing houses any more when it comes to marketing, you’re really and truly on your own as an indie. If you’re not willing to push your book and network online, this business is not for you.

That said, I’m a hardcore introvert who isn’t that comfortable with selling either, and I’m doing all right so far. The internet does offer many ways to market, and it’s likely you can find something that works for you as long as you’re willing to invest time in learning.

There you have it: some of the pros and cons of e-publishing. I hope this article has helped you decide whether or not this road is right for you. Good luck!

For more information on this topic, visit the author’s e-publishing blog, where she covers everything from internet marketing basics to social media promotion to explanations of the Amazon sales rank system. She also maintains a “for fun” Kindle blog that highlights fantasy, science fiction, and geeky non-fiction releases for the popular e-reading device.

Author: L.a. Buroker
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Assisted living

With the computer industry exploding over the last decade, many software engineers are staying away from the traditional means of work and heading over to the freelance market. Sites like Elance and freelancer.com have made it easy for a freelance software programmer to make a hansom income from getting bids on their patented software. These websites also offer freelance software engineers a chance to design for a company on a per project basis. This would usually involve the company posting a job for a specific program that they need for a platform. The engineer would then big on the job and, if they won, they would build the program for the company for a set fee and relinquish all of the rights to the software.

Affiliate marketing has made this means of income extremely easy. A software engineer creates a great program or application plug-in and then offers an affiliate program for his product through an affiliate marketing directory. An affiliate marketer sees the product and believes that they can really churn some profits out of it’s potential. When the affiliate marketer makes a sale, they get a percentage of the sale and the software engineer just sits back collecting a great passive income. Of course, this is only one way of marketing their application.

Another way that you could publish your software is by going the traditional route. By pairing yourself up with a company like IBM or Dell, you could sell your software to them. This route usually involves intellectual property attorneys though. Attorneys who handle this kind of law can be found online or through software publications.

Other software engineers have ditched the traditional means and the affiliate markets by selling through their own websites. With their understanding of computer code and search engine optimization, a lot of programmers have just resorted to investing in themselves by setting up their own websites to sell their software packages to consumers. Niche software usually goes by this means of operation. For instance, one of the hottest markets right now is affiliate marketing tools. A programmer may come up with a series of software packages to help out an affiliate marketer and offer them individually or as part of a bundle per their website.

The software industry is not something that is going away any time soon. Engineers are always finding new uses for software packages and are always updating their products. There are a variety of ways to publish your software with companies or on your own. Whether you decide to publish through your own website, publish through an affiliate marketing directory, or by the traditional means with a large company, you can rest assured that your work will always be needed.

Martin Alan enjoys writing on subjects such as literature, online publishing, digital magazine, publisher software, sharing sites and self publishing. He also enjoys keeping up-to-date with the latest developments and innovations in technology and online marketing.

For more information on online publishing click here; http://www.yudu.com.

Author: Martin Alan
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Pension

Indie artists are at a disadvantage. While there are some who will dismiss any thought of comparing themselves to other artists, I would like to offer a different perspective. The Problem for Indie Artists

First of all, the biggest problem for indie artists is gaining exposure through unfriendly systems. The traditional systems that are in place today were built around an industry that has many layers of interdependency. These layers of interdependency are the various services that are frankly necessary to operate at higher levels. Agency, management, and promotion are only a few of these services. Some of these systems may seem “unfriendly” because they are reliant on larger publishers and labels. For the larger labels, publishers and related services, self sufficiency threatens their source of income. If we were on the opposite side of the fence, we would view it the very same way.

However, as indies, we are not on their side of the fence by definition. We are indies, which, aside from being a genre unto itself, is short for independents. Part of the Solution for Indie Artists

Indie artists must provide many of the services through friends, by themselves, or by paying for specific services. New systems are developing to assist indie artists, but they are unfortunately mired among scores of new services that are yet unproven. Either way, it is an uphill battle for an indie artist.

It is necessary for an indie artist to create paths for themselves that are not always clearly marked. I would suggest trying to look at yourself from the perspective of your potential market. It is not an easy exercise, because it could not be further from the core business of making music. In fact, it can be discouraging. Most artists already have enough to discourage them, so it becomes a critical part of survival, for some folks, to avoid anything that is discouraging. However, if you don’t have the money to pay for this service, then you may need to be a little more resilient. So, if you can be brave for a minute, take a look at yourself from a real market perspective. How Do You Find You?

First of all, how do you find you? It is perhaps a silly question to some folks, because you already know where you are. But, the vast majority of your market has no idea where you are. This is very difficult for many people to imagine, but it can be powerful. Stated differently, how do you rise above the crowd?

Who Do You Sound Like?

I think there are many ways to differentiate yourself, but I want to address one of the easiest techniques for drawing people to yourself. It is actually very simple. Who do you sound like? Do not be afraid to compare yourself to well known artists. Why? Because your market already knows these artists and it can be like a beacon of light leading back to you.

“But I am unique”, you may say. Yes, you are unique. But, there are elements that can be compared to other artists, including your style, the sound of your voice, and perhaps something a little less noticeable such as your lyrical phrasing.

It is a little contradictory in that you are trying to differentiate yourself by comparing yourself to others. However, you can also paint a very nice composite picture of yourself through comparisons with more than one artist. I know most everyone has seen it before, but you might say that you sound like the Allman Brothers with the funk style of Mother’s Finest. It creates a picture that can lead people to you through association with well known artists. The Added Bonus

Guess what? There’s more. You can use these artists as keywords to help your prospective fans find you a little easier. The well known artists do not mind as it also helps them, but it is a very descriptive way to drive potential fans to you. What is the beauty of using well known artists as keywords? They are well known so they are much more likely to be used in search strings.

I would only caution that you should take your time to get this characterization right. Using an artist that does not describe your style or sound does nothing to help you because there is nothing more frustrating to a potential fan than to be disappointed at a poorly characterized comparison. Get a Second Opinion

You should ask others for their thoughts on comparisons. It is very difficult to be objective about yourself sometimes, so this can be very useful. Ask a lot of questions. Ask them how you are similar. That is, are you similar in terms of sound, or are you similar in terms of style? Spread It Out

Finally, try to create a composite built on well known artists from different generations. This also helps to attract potential fans, as you may have an appeal to a larger demographic that may surprise you. If you are an older artist, don’t dismiss the potential for younger fans and if you are a younger artist, don’t dismiss the potential for older fans.

Article written by Del Boland and distributed by permission of Del Boland. Follow Del’s blog at http://publishingboxofdreams.blogspot.com.

Author: Del Boland
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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