Archive for April, 2008

Self-published Book Author Probes Cancer Regression by Boosting Up Immune System

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
self publishing
Michael McCain asked:


Cancer regression by boosting up human immune system is investigated by Donald H. MacAdam in his book Spontaneous Regression: Cancer and the Immune System, released by the book publishing company Xlibris.

Recent studies showing that advanced cancer treatments damage immune systems and pose great risk on the patient’s survival prompted MacAdam to self-publish his study.

MacAdam revisited the hundred-year old immune therapy for cancer done by William Coley, a young New York doctor who encountered a case of spontaneous regression following an accidental infection when he injected a terminally ill patient with a virulent strain of bacteria.

The patient suffered an attack of the infectious disease for more than a week but the cancerous tumors began to break down and entirely disappeared within a few weeks after the infection subsided.

The advancement of chemotherapy in the 1950s and the discovery of fast-acting radiation therapy at the turn of the century make Coley’s invasive cure for cancer fade away.

Medical journals, however, publishes thousands of apparently incurable cases of cancer that spontaneously regressed without any medical treatment and bares the power of the human immune system in restoring a cancer patient’s health.

MacAdam’s published book recounts the history and promise of different cancer treatments using non-technical language and looks into the roles of genetics, diet, lifestyle, infection and power of the mind in the development, prevention and spontaneous regression of the dreaded disease.

MacAdam is a self-published book author and holds top positions in more than twenty companies in different industries including biotechnology.

His book is available in Xlibris, a self-publishing company and a leader in the industry.

About Xlibris

Xlibris was founded in 1997 and, as the leading publishing services provider for authors, has helped to publish more than 20,000 titles. Xlibris is based in Philadelphia, PA and provides authors with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound, and full-color formats.

For more information, please visit the book publisher’s website, e-mail pressrelease@xlibris.com or call at 1-888-795-4247, to receive a free publishing guide.



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Self-publishing Creative Writing Anthologies at School

Thursday, April 17th, 2008
self publishing
Jeff McRitchie asked:


As any parent or high school teacher already knows, high school students can be hard to motivate. While it is true that some teens love to write , it’s fair to say that most of them would prefer not to. As educators, we know that the only way to become a better writer is to practice writing. The problem with most high school writing assignments is that they lack relevance for students. They are more concerned with getting the right answer than they are about developing their writing skills and pushing themselves to hone their verbal prowess. At the same time, they do seem to show more interest in the work of their peers than they do in the works of literature in their textbooks.

After spending months and months teaching your students the hallmarks of good writing, a great way to spark some interest in writing is to self-publish an anthology of creative writing at your school. As you approach this publication project, there are a few things you should consider.

Some teens love attention and thrive on competition. Others prefer to silently participate. If you structure the publication project correctly, both types of students will be interested in working on the publication. Let students know that everyone who submits their pieces by the early bird deadline will definitely have at least one piece selected for publication. In addition to including all writers who submit early, hold a competition for the best pieces. Offer simple prizes for first, second, and third places in different categories. You can select categories based on the anticipated scope of the publication project. For small schools, choose broad categories such as poetry, prose, etc. For larger schools, you can choose more specific categories such as sonnets, descriptive paragraphs, and the like. You may also want to expand the project to include art. In doing so, you can also likely get the art staff to help you lay out and design the final publication.

Set your deadlines for submission and decide on other critical dates. You should assemble a team of students who can help you type and edit the submissions as they come in. You will want to develop a style guide and train the students to follow it. Establish a directory and a procedure and rules for saving and accessing the typed submissions. The more thought you put into the process at the beginning, the more smoothly your publication will come together later.

As you and your team put together the files and make design decisions, you need to order the supplies required to physically assemble the anthology. Before you order supplies, think about the size of the final document and how many copies you plan to distribute. You should think about offering complimentary copies to winners and to your publications team. Others can buy the publication for a nominal fee. Once you’ve run the numbers, order the paper, ink or toner, and binding supplies. Depending on how you choose to bind the publication, you will need to order different supplies.

Once you have the document print-ready, it’s time to assemble. Again, this is a chance to get students involved. They like to help with office tasks they are not accustomed to doing, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get some help. Once the documents are assembled, work with your administration to recognize the winning students. You can put their names on a sign or bulletin board or even recognize them at a school assembly. Once the word gets out, other students and their families will be calling the school to purchase copies of the book.

It’s not difficult to self-publish a school anthology if you are organized. Plan ahead and enjoy seeing your students develop a sense of pride in their writing as they share it with their classmates and their families. There is something magical about seeing one’s own words preserved in a bound publication like a school anthology. It is an experience they will carry with them throughout their lives.



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Subsidy Publishing Versus Self-publishing: a Clarification

Thursday, April 17th, 2008
self publishing
Brad Grochowski asked:


Subsidy Publishing

There is a lot of confusion lately regarding the definition of “self-publishing.” Many authors think they have self-published, when in fact they have not.

Subsidy Publishers often refer to themselves and “self-publishing” companies, and offer “self-publishing” services for authors. They intentionally obfuscate the definition of the word, because they are running from the term “vanity press.”

Subsidy Publishers take money to publish your book for you. They act in many ways as a traditional publisher might, however, they do not put their own money on the line and their primary customer is the author, not the book buyer.

When you publish via a Subsidy Press, they are technically the Publisher of Record because they own the ISBN number. They cannot (and will not) sell you the number, give you the number, or assign ownership of the number to you. As long as they own the ISBN, they are the publisher. You did not self-publish. You paid someone to publish you. The only way for you to own the ISBN is for you to buy it from the only ISBN broker in the US; Bowkers.

One major disadvantage of Subsidy publishing is the Price Per Unit of the final product. Subsidy Publishing is not efficient, and the cost per individual book printed that you will pay will be so high so as to price it out of your market. You must have the flexibility to price your book based on a competitive market, not based on production cost.

Another disadvantage is the negative effect a Subsidy Publisher owned ISBN will have on your chances of getting reviewed by the major pre-publication reviewers. It is very difficult to get a book reviewed by the major reviews. If your book is subsidy published, your chances become zero. They will not consider it.

This is not to say that there are not situations where subsidy publishing would not be a suitable choice. If you have a book of local, or family interest and you know you will be able to sell a certain number to a group of people regardless of the cost, then it may be the way to go. Also, if you are just looking to see your book in print and aren’t worried about selling them to large numbers of people, then you might also select a subsidy publishing (this is, by definition, vanity publishing. If that is your interest, it’s probably best to accept it and publish accordingly).

However, if your intentions are in any way to market your book and make money as a publisher, I urge you to consider “true self-publishing.”

Some subsidy presses include: PublishAmerica, AuthorHouse, Lulu, Xlibris, and many others.

Self-Publishing

A self-published book is one that has truly been published by its author. There is a long tradition of very successful authors who have gotten their start by forming their own imprint and publishing their own books.

Self-publishing entails more work, but in the end the results will be much more satisfactory. You will have had control over the creative process, as well as all budgetary concerns.

You will have purchased your own ISBN, and will thus be the Publisher of Record. You will have sought out a cover and layout designer whose work you like and respect. You will have hired a printer that is able to offer a Per Unit Cost that will allow you to set a cover price that matches your market. You will make an actual, reasonable profit on the sale of your book. You will own your own imprint, and will be considered a “small press,” or and “independent publisher,” and so will have a chance of getting reviewed in by the major publications.

Self-publishing is not to be taken on lightly. It is, in essence, starting a new business. This can seem like a daunting task, when done concurrently with the release of a new book. However, as compared to subsidy publishing, it is the only way to publish your book in a way that will give it a chance of success in the extremely volatile publishing world.

There are many really great books on self-publishing. You should select a few and study them before making any decision as to how you are planning on publishing.

POD, or, Print On Demand

There is also some confusion as to the term POD, or Print On Demand. Many authors refer to subsidy publishers as “PODs.” This is entirely inaccurate, and will cause you some embarrassment when talking to the indie publishing community.

Print on Demand is a printing technology used by many publishers of all stripes. Indy presses, small publishers, subsidy presses, church cookbooks, even some of the traditional publisher’s backlogs, all utilize Print On Demand technology.



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Should I Self-publish Or Pitch My Book To A Publisher?

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
self publishing
Brian Scott asked:


You’ve spent many nights working on your book. You’ve rewritten it, edited it, and you used a professional proofreader to proof it. Your book is done - finally — and you’re ready to send your precious manuscript off to a publisher, thinking that writing it was the hardest part.

In reality, getting your blood, sweat and tears published may be the hardest part of the whole process. You’ll need to decide if your book requires a publisher, or if you’d rather self-publish your book. Both venues have pros and cons, some of which I discuss below.

To work with a book publisher, you’ll need to send out query letters and/or a book proposal. This is a letter or a few pages briefly describing your text, why your book is unique, characteristics of your target market, and how you can help market your book. Most publishers don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, so you’ll need to convince them to read yours, or find a literary agent to represent you. If a book publisher requests that you forward your entire manuscript, you have one foot in the door. Be prepared to send more than one query and don’t expect a response next week. An excellent software program to help format your manuscript and create a book proposal is called Wizards For Word at http://www.wizardsforword.com

Publishers look for three things: platform, hook, and execution. This means a writer should have a built-in audience (ideally, a national platform such as a radio or TV show or a column in a major publication), an interesting hook, and strong writing skills.

The problem if you’re an unagented author is that most publishers won’t take your call or read your proposal. Then even if they do, you’ll have a tough time creating a bidding war or running an auction to get the best offer, and you also won’t have leverage negotiating the important deal points, such as ancillary rights and royalties.

There are writer’s guides that serve as excellent resources to find publishers and literary agents who specialize in your particular genre. These guides list the percentage of new authors published as well as the percentage of sales they pay. You may find pay rates ranging from 5-10% of sales. Some pay on wholesale sales and others on the retail amount. Do the math. Perhaps your book will retail for $14.95 and the publisher will pay 6% on retail. This means you will earn 90 cents per book sold. Of course don’t forget that the publisher is doing all the printing, distributing, and marketing of your text.

Another route you may want to consider is self-publishing. Self-publishing requires you to print, distribute and market your book using your money, but you will also retain all profits. There are book printing companies as well as companies that specialize in assisting self-publishers through every step along the way.

Many authors debate which method is better, using a publishing company or self publishing your own book. You know your situation and you know what will work best for you. You’ll want to consider how much time or money you have to invest in the project. That should give you an idea which route to take. Using a publisher takes less time on your part, but you’ll forfeit some of the royalties by using this method. If you self publish, you’ll have to pay “up front costs” and do the initial legwork to begin generating sales for your book. Either way, publishing is your call. With persistence and hard work you can get your book in the marketplace.



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From Idea to Published Book. How to Self-publish the Easy Way!

Thursday, April 10th, 2008
self publishing
annaya rana asked:


I’ve been involved in publishing for over a decade now as an author, editor, and project manager; however, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I decided to move into self-publishing. Indeed, my first few projects involved consulting for others and, now, I am involved in my own, personal projects. It has taken a while for me to come back around to my own works, but in the process I learned how to minimize time and expenses in producing a book and getting it to market.

This short article will not try to explain every aspect of book publishing in detail, but it will brush on a few of the important topics. I have a few other book projects in the making that will detail the book self-publishing process; however, in the mean time, this should give you a good basis of understanding.

— The Idea —

The most difficult part of creating your manuscript is deciding on the topic. We all have ideas. It’s part of our being. Ideas pop in and out of our heads all day long; however, we usually dismiss many of them as useless or too simple to be of use. You would be surprised at how many people want “simple” and easy-to-understand information! Readers want books that teach, inform, and entertain.

When you sit down and really think about all you’ve learned throughout your life, you’ll be amazed at how much you really know! Your life experiences alone could fill a library! Even if you feel that you don’t have any knowledge that would be of interest to anyone, you can start small. Research a market that interests you, find your competition, learn all that you can about a specific subject, and then write about it. Your ideas are important, as your knowledge and point-of-view are unique and of interest to others.

— Planning the Product —

I always suggest keeping your book concise and informative. This provides a small footprint, yet it also allows your readers to purchase your book at a reasonable price. Keep it around 100 pages, which, once in book format, equals about 50, two-sided pages.

The core content of the manuscript consists of a title page, copyright, table of contents, figure and table references, acknowledgements, forwards, content, appendices, index, and back page. This list is the basic minimum requirements to support the information necessary to present your book and its content. Of course, you can add other items such as a glossary and a preface, but such inclusions are at your discretion.

It is best to produce your book in the standard 5.5″ by 8.5″ format in both print and PDF. I always suggest PDF to my publishing clients because it is one of the few cross-platform (i.e., Mac, PC, PDA, and UNIX-based machines) document distribution products available today and it is the most popular.

— The Manuscript —

Once you’ve focused on an idea, you’ll have to create an outline or table of contents to define the content. The best way I’ve found to do this is to break the idea down into blocks of contiguous information — similar to assembling a pyramid. Step through your idea and ensure that you are building from, for example, the most general information to the most specific information. Check the outline several times, and have a friend review it, to ensure that gaps are filled in appropriately.

You can actually over-rewrite your work to the point of frustration and burn-out. Ensure that you’ve planned and researched appropriately to provide a solid foundation. In this way you can develop a first draft and then perform substantive and grammar edits. Then, perform a technical edit and a second draft. Once the second draft is complete, move into a final copy edit then, once you produce galleys or a sample version of the finished book, perform a proof read. Don’t rework any of the core steps of document development, but ensure that each step is completed with quality in mind. This ensures a solid product in a short amount of time. If you would like to update or add to the information in your first release, provide a follow-up revision.

— ISBN and Copyright —

Once you’ve started your manuscript, order your group of ISBNs. You can sign up for your ISBNs at http://www.isbn.org for about $240 for 10 ISBNs. However, additional fees can be imposed based on express orders. This is why I say, order the ISBNs while you’re writing the manuscript so that you can afford to wait the 10 days for standard, free, delivery.

You will have to convert your ISBN numbers to EAN barcodes to apply to the back page of your book. The barcode must consist of the ISBN you assigned to the book as well as the coded pricing of the book. You can have a vendor generate the barcodes for between $3 (http://www.toupin.com/serv_writing.asp) and $20 per barcode or you can download and use the Barcode Maker (http://hem.passagen.se/sams/barcode.htm) to generate your own barcodes. For the price, it will pay for itself in just a few ISBNs for your books.

Once you have assigned one of your ISBNs to a book, you can register it in Books In Print (http://www.booksinprint.com/bip/). This is how booksellers are able to access your information and sell your book through their outlets. Additionally, you’ll want to register your manuscript-in-progress with the Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication (http://cip.loc.gov/cip/ecipp14.html). This registers your book for access by libraries and government archives. You will be e-mailed the “CIP data” to be printed on the copyright page following the heading “Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data”.

To protect your work and ideas, copyrighting your book is a simple and inexpensive process. There are actually several different methods of protecting your work including government and commercial organizations. The primary sites are the government copyright office (http://www.copyright.gov/forms/) and WriteSafe (http://www.writesafe.com/).

— Production —

There are many different ways to produce your books; however, costs range from a $1,000 initial setup plus the purchase of a few hundred copies down to no setup fees and pay-as-you-go. The final choice is yours, but my direction involved a local printing company and a pay-as-you-go scheme. With this approach, reduced initial costs are reflected back to the readers and your profit potential is seen immediately.

Three places that I’ve experimented with to print some of my books include Kinko’s (http://www.kinkos.com/), InstantPublisher (http://instantpublisher.com/pricing.htm), and Mimeo (http://www.mimeo.com/). Of course, use these for starters to experiment with your books. Eventually, you’ll find the right bindery for your needs. You can locate many publishers via Google.com or AllTheWeb.com using keywords such as “online printing”, “book printing”, and “print on demand”, but once you get some experience behind you, the choice will be much easier.

— Marketing and Distribution —

Once you assign and register your ISBN for your manuscript, it becomes available to the multitude of book stores around the globe including Amazon, Borders, Barnes&Noble, and various other major book sellers. Now that you have your book out there, the trick is to have people purchase the book and have book stores stock copies on their shelves.

To have the book stores purchase in quantity, you’ll have to devise a solid marketing plan to their acquisitions personnel. In many cases, book stores will simply sell your book to their customers as it is requested, but if you can get them to buy in bulk, that’s greater exposure and sales for you!

You can also license out the content to various professional speakers. Speakers are always looking for ways to provide quality information specific to their presentations. They might use your content in a handout, or perhaps for sale in the back of the room. Locate those speakers that fit within your audience and contact them. Find out their needs for their next presentation and work out a deal for them to resell your books. I’ve had many speakers use my articles in their presentations and the exposure and feedback has been overwhelming.

Of course, you should always locate affiliates to help sell your books. One way is to offer them a percentage of the gross sales or sell them copies of the books at a discount. Either way, you will have “agents” out pushing your books for you to make money for them, as well as for you.

Always provide a web site that boasts the benefits of your book. Use a book cover maker to create a book image on the web site. One quality book cover creator is called CoverFactory (http://www.ans2000.com/a2k_coverfactory.php) and provides numerous capabilities to generate professional looking covers for books, software, and services.

Free content is an important way to bring people to your site and let people know about your book. You can provide rewritten excerpts from your book as articles and submit them to various article announcement lists, press release sites, zines, and directories. I’ve been able to locate and associate with over 1,000 sites and lists that accept and publish my articles. This provides outstanding coverage for my sites, services, and products.

— Sales and Returns —

Since you are the publisher, you now have to determine how to handles sales. It’s important to define how you will handle direct sales and shipping, bulk sales, and affiliates. You want to ensure that your sales go smoothly as well as provide enough of a margin so that everyone profits.

When collecting funds, it’s important to accept credit cards through one of the popular merchant vendors. To minimize expenses and provide a common and secure payment mechanism, I use StormPay (http://www.stormpay.com) and PayPal (http://www.paypal.com). Since people have their likes and dislikes of online payment vendors, using both allows many different types of users to submit payments. Of course, you must always determine how to handle returns as part of a quality customer service program.

— What’s next? —

Obviously, the information provided here is merely an overview of the entire process. However, I am working on a book that provides all of the details of producing your own book under your own imprint. Publishing provides excellent return monetarily as well as through enhanced self-esteem. There is quite a feeling that comes with getting your message out there and having people return positive feedback. Perhaps, once you self-publish a few of your own titles, you can work on publishing other authors and open a full-fledged publishing house. In this day, such a venture is not unheard of!



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How to Get an Agent or Publisher For Your (Self-Published) Book

Sunday, April 6th, 2008
self publishing
Penny Sansevieri asked:


I get this question a lot: “Now that I’ve self-published I need to find an agent, how do I do that?” Well, it might seem to be a simple and easy transition. I mean you’re already published so it shouldn’t be that hard, right? Not so fast. There are a number of things you need to know before you run headlong into an effort to get a publishing contract.

First off, publishers like what other people like. Well, generally they do. If you’re building success for your book, getting great reviews, building your audience and online presence this is a good thing and will often be viewed favorably by publishers. While there are agents and publishers that won’t even consider a self-published book, there are a number of them who will. The key is to find those agents and publishers and get to know what they specialize in. Since there are a million articles and books on how to craft a query letter and submission packet I’ll skip that. For the purposes of this article, though, we’re going to focus on personal branding and industry positioning.

The first question authors will ask me is how do they know they’re “ready” to submit? Ok, so you’ve got a dozen or so great reviews, you’ve been blogging regularly and you are a regular at author events. Sales, however, are still slumping. You’ve sold 1,000 copies at best and struggled to even make that meager number. Is that a bad thing? Not always, but it depends on how your book was published. If, let’s say, your book was published through a print-on-demand company, a thousand copies is a fairly high number (the average print-on-demand book sells 75 copies).

Also print-on-demand is limited in its distribution, meaning that even if you’ve gotten great media interviews, reviews, and buzz for your book, the reason you’re not selling a ton of copies is the broken distribution systems these books often wrestle with. Bookstores won’t stock them because of the non-returnable factor. (Note to the savvy author, avoid, at all costs, the “returns program” POD publishers offer, bookstores don’t care if you’ve paid to have your book returnable. Don’t believe me? Sign up for it, pay your $500 and then do some calling around to find out).

Here’s the deal: print-on-demand has for years been the red-headed stepchild of publishing. Are there good books published through POD publishers? You bet. But for most of these authors it’s like pushing a boulder uphill. Now don’t get me wrong, all of my first books were published via POD and still they’ve been successful despite the biases and all the other things New York publishing likes to heap on this form of publishing. But the point being: knowing your market and understanding how the market works will go a long way to giving you the insight you need to be successful. Distribution is not defined as a place on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, because anyone with an ISBN can get this type of placement.

Distribution is defined as a distribution company actively marketing your book to bookstores and other sales channels. This doesn’t happen in POD and the New York publishers know this. So, if your book is still selling well despite these obstacles then you’ve got a winner on your hands, and it might be time to seek a bigger publisher for your work. On the flip side, if you have self-published and you do have a distributor in place, then consider trying to pitch your work after you’ve sold over 3,000 copies of your book. But there’s a small catch: you don’t want to sell out of your market. Generally speaking this won’t happen, but in certain cases it could.

Let’s consider, for example, that you wrote a regionally-focused book about the history of a town or state and you’ve focused all of your marketing efforts in that region. It’s likely that if you’ve sold 5,000 copies a publisher or agent could view this as sold out of the majority of the market. You might counter that you could sell this in other markets but unless there’s some tourism angle, it’s not likely and even then, the appeal needs to be really strong. Most books based on towns or cities are sold in the city and generally not outside of that area unless they are big tourism draws, in which case the market becomes much more competitive. Also note that if you’re thinking of trying to cheat the system you should know there’s a little thing called Nielsen BookScan that logs all sales by book and author, so no fair counting your author purchases as sales - BookScan notes sales through commercial sales channels only (major market retailers and bookstores).

All right, so you’re ready to pitch your book. You meet the sales criteria and you know you haven’t sold out of your market. What’s next? Next, ask yourself what your platform is. Platform is one of those words that agents and publishers love to toss out to unsuspecting authors. So what does platform mean? Well, it’s a bit tricky because it varies depending on what you’re writing. Platform isn’t who you know but who knows you. It’s your area of influence. For fiction writers it could be your e-mail list, the subscribers to your blog, conventions you speak at, conferences you attend (as a participant, not just an attendee). For non-fiction authors, defining your platform is a bit easier. Often non-fiction books are tied to speaking, coaching, or some other business model. These are all part of your platform.

When I sold Red Hot Internet Publicity to Sourcebooks, one of the first things I listed on my marketing/book outline was my platform: subscribers to the Book Marketing Expert Newsletter, business revenue, speaking events I am booked on, average client base - everything. All of this is your platform and all of it lends itself to having a built-in audience. This is what publishers look for. Regardless of how you publish you still have to market your own book, and publishers know it’ll be easier to market a book that has a following than one that doesn’t.

After you define your platform the next thing is to define your hook. Especially with self-published books, agents and publishers expect you to have a hook. Since the book is published, if you don’t have a hook this is a tell-tale sign that you haven’t been marketing this book correctly, if at all. (There are additional platform-building tips that appear later on in this issue).

How can you find the right agent or publisher for your book? The traditional ways certainly work: getting books and guides designed to give you agent and publisher contact info, but there might be a better way. Try going to some writers’ conferences that allow you to schedule editor and agent appointments. This is a great way to get some immediate feedback on your book, pitch, and the possibility of selling your work. There are a number of conferences around the country, just be sure to look for ones that offer one-on-ones with publishing professionals.

And finally, it’s sometimes tempting to switch genres to get published. But unless there’s some compelling reason for you to genre-hop, like a changing focus in your business, I recommend sticking with what’s been successful for you. Don’t one day write on true crime and the next day start offering dieting advice unless that’s where you want your ultimate focus to be. Also remember that if you’ve been writing true crime for years, and have built an audience and following, you’ve now lost that base by jumping ship.

The truth is that the odds aren’t always in our favor. With eight hundred books published each day in the US the market is narrow, to say the least, but if you know your market, have a platform and are selling books, you’re already 90% of the way there - the rest is just finding the right match for your book and maybe a little bit of literary luck.



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5 Secrets to Write Your Book Faster and Profit Sooner With Self Publishing

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
self publishing
Earma Brown asked:


You already have what it takes to write and publish your book. And like other professionals you can create or increase your passive income stream each month. Your professional competitors wish you would never discover these secrets.

You may be asking “What if I’m not a professional writer?” You can still write your professional book and start earning in a few months. I am convinced your audience is waiting on your insightful expertise to help solve their problems. 

All it takes is a little know how to write your book like a pro. Start by solving your readers’ problems using your expert knowledge. You know the articles, speeches and reports already in your files.

Expand one of your articles or speeches into a short book by adding short stories and some practical how-to steps. If you want to write your book like a pro, self publish and increase your income, read these five secrets and apply them:

1. Secret One. Write a short book first to build your confidence. I know short doesn’t mean the same thing to every person. For books, let’s agree 50-100 or so pages is short, even 140 sounds less intimidating than a 200-300 page book. Your future customers are busy and usually read only what takes the shortest amount of time. For example, a friend of mine wanted to learn how to conduct tele-seminars. He said he didn’t hesitate buying a short book of 70 pages at $19.97 to help him learn the ropes of tele-seminars.

Make your book simpler, shorter, and punchier. Shorten your sentences, stories and analogies. Your professional format will include a strong heading (question) your reader needs answered and the answer. This professional formula presents the problem and solution quickly without a lot of words.

2. Secret Two. Focus on one topic in your book. It’s a known fact bestsellers focus on one main topic. Focus on one topic then write each chapter to support that subject. When you overload your reader with information, you come across as disorganized, wordy and flat. Instead of including everything you know, stick to one how-to subject and include plenty of simple details with examples to make it useful to your reader.

3. Secret Three. Brand yourself, your business and your book. Think about the greatest benefit that you offer through your book or service. Consider your book and chapter titles. Now think about your keywords and headings on your website. Do you see a repeating word that stands out?

For example, the book “Win With the Writer Inside You” the author threads some form of “win” throughout her materials. Ever heard of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series? The title changes in its audience but the Chicken Soup brand stays the same. For example, there’s a Chicken Soup for Teen-agers, Chicken Soup for Mothers, and so on.

4. Secret Four. Get a professional editor or book coach. Yes, its o.k. and you should get feedback from family, friends, local writing group, etc. But you need to get a professional viewpoint of your work to weed out the passive voice, bad grammar and all the things that slow your readers down to a standstill.

Copy that appeals to the emotions of your reader sell your books. Your future customers want word pictures that they can respond to with their emotions.

5. Secret Five. Target and get to know your audience. Let’s face it not everyone will want to read your book. Most uninformed authors write what they feel is a great book; spend tons of time and sometimes money looking for people to buy it. Instead match your expert knowledge with an audience you can serve.

Consider their needs, problems and how you can help solve them. Business people are a hot audience right now. They are hungry and willing to buy what will improve, make profitable their life and business. Right now think of one to three preferred audiences in your area of expertise. Then write the book your customers will be looking for.

It’s faster to write a book if you know how. People are looking for practical information and knowledge that you have. Don’t let your ideas, knowledge and expertise fade away. Put it to work for you in a book. Remember, if you need help contact a professional book coach or take an e-course to inform yourself.



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