Money Making Resources Center

“If you want to change your life,” Harry Beckwith wrote in The Invisible Touch, “write a book.” But writing a book can also be tremendously frustrating and unrewarding.

Following are the 11 biggest reasons most first-time authors fail to receive the rewards they are due.

1.Unrealistic expectations. Don’t expect to get rich off your book, even if it’s a success by publishing standards. The vast majority of books fail to earn out their advance.

Instead, develop a personal marketing plan to leverage your career off your book. Instead of trying to make money on the book itself, use your book to open doors, promote your credibility and build relationships with readers.

2.Writing without a contract. Never write a book without a signed contract. Instead, prepare a polished proposal and two sample chapters.

Publishers are increasingly selective about the titles they accept. Often, less than 1 in 20 titles proposed are published. Writing a book that isn’t accepted is not a good use of your time.

3.No agent. You must be represented by a literary agent. Publishers rarely accept unsolicited book proposals. Unsolicited proposals are frequently returned unread or are simply discarded.

The right agent will know exactly which publishers might be interested in your book. Agents can also negotiate terms more effectively than you.

4.Weak titles. Titles sell books. The title of your book is like the headline of an advertisement. The title represents your one and only chance to attract the attention of acquisition editors or bookstore readers.

Successful titles stress the benefits readers will gain from your book. Successful titles arouse curiosity and offer solutions. They often include consonants and alliteration (repeated ‘hard’ sounds like G, K, P or T).

5.Title versus series. Focus on a series of books rather than an individual title. Publishers want concepts that can be expanded into a series rather than individual titles.

6.Going it alone. Successful careers involve a nurturing support group of readers and peers. Your quest should include the support of your friends, other authors, book coaches, readers and others who will help you maintain your enthusiasm while providing ideas, assistance and feedback.

7.‘Event’ writing. Write a little each day rather than ‘going away’ to write your book. Stress is an author’s biggest enemy. When you attempt marathon writing, you’re putting an unrealistic burden on yourself. “What happens if I come back and my book isn’t written?”

8.Self-editing. Avoid unnecessary self-editing. It’s far more important to complete the first draft of your book than to agonize over the perfection of every word.

Editors will ensure that grammar is correct and ideas appear in the proper order. But they can’t do anything until you submit the final manuscript.

9.Failure to promote. Publishers are not promoters. Publishers are skilled at editing, manufacturing and distributing books. But they are not set up to give your book the marketing attention it deserves. A single publicist may represent over 100 books!

If you want your book to succeed, you have to promote it as well as write it.

10.Failure to back up and save. Save frequently when writing. Always save before printing. Never turn off your computer without making a copy of your files for off-premises storage. Never end a writing session without printing out a hard copy of the latest version of the chapter you’re writing.

11.Failure to plan future profits. Before writing your book, create a book marketing plan. Book sales should be just the first step in an ongoing relationship with your readers. Your plan should identify opportunities from consulting, newsletters, audio/video recordings, seminars, speeches and yearly updates.

A book can, indeed, change your life. But you must take charge; take a proactive role in promoting and leveraging its success.

About the Author

Roger C. Parker is the $32,000,000 author with over 1.6 million copies in print. Learn about Writing Magic: 8 Steps to Becoming Published and Profitable here: www.publishedandprofitable.com

Have you ever dreamed of selling your book to a large corporation? A sale that would register several thousand copies of non-returnable product on the book sale meter? What’s that? You’ve never thought of it you say? Well, never fear! It’s not too late to pursue this avenue, especially if you have a book ripe for a particular market.

Before you embark on this project, it’s important to understand the possibilities out there. Start being aware of incentive items you might see and understand how they are used. Many are offered as consumer gifts or incentives while others are used as training tools or morale boosters for employees.

Some examples of premium sales might be:

Books offered at yearly company sales meetings
Books offered to consumers at a discount (consumers are usually asked to send in product UPC’s to qualify for these specials)
Books offered to new customers at financial institutions
Books offered to new home buyers
Books offered to new magazine subscribers

To determine the market segment you want to go after, study your book first for obvious clues. If you’ve mentioned or recommended companies or products in your book, those will be the first tier you’ll want to go after. Next, think about the message of your book and how it aligns with particular companies within that industry. Company web sites and ads will offer great clues when trying to match a company or organization up with your book.

If you’re going after the magazine subscriber bonus segment, you’ll have a bit more flexibility. Generally, if the book fits the reader demographic and aligns itself with the message of the magazine, it will be considered. For example, you might offer a home organization book to Good Housekeeping or a fitness book to Self or Redbook. Before you approach these magazines, read them for about three months so you get a good sense of what they’re about and who their audience is.

If you’re going after a particular market and are trying to locate companies within that industry, try doing a Boolean search in Google. Your search should look like this: “your industry and companies.” Another resource is http://www.thomasregister.com. This site will link you to companies nationally and internationally within your industry.

Next, don’t overlook companies in your own backyard. Think about industries, companies and organizations in your area that might work well for your book and begin going after them. Many times, local companies will welcome the opportunity to support hometown authors.

Once you’ve put your list together, you’ll want to contact them and pitch them the idea. Or, in some cases, our company will send them the book and proposal before we even make phone contact. Sometimes the companies you’ve targeted will be on the lookout for incentive items, other times this will be a new (and exciting) area for them. If you’re going after employee incentives, it’s interesting to note (and mention in your sales letter) that employee incentives increase individual performance by 27% and team performance by %45 percent.

Be open and creative with your pursuit of premium sales! Many times, companies will want to put their logo on the cover or include an extra page in the book with a letter from the President or CEO. Check with your printer or publisher on whether this is possible for you and what the additional costs will be before you start pursuing the premium sales arena.

So, how long does this process take? We’ve seen premium sales turn around in a week, while others take a year or more to complete. Oh, and the most important part… how many books can you plan to sell? Anywhere from one thousand to several thousand depending on the deal and the company. We’ve even got a deal in the works for a half a million copies of one book. Discounts and negotiations vary. Often, we’ll negotiate volume discounts of 50% to 70% on bulk orders. Again, make sure you’ve got these figures ready when you pick up the phone to make your pitch.

With the right book, premium sales are not only a great way to gain exposure of your book. But in the end, they make great “cents.”

Penny C. Sansevieri
The Cliffhanger was published in June of 2000. After a strategic marketing campaign it quickly climbed
the ranks at Amazon.com to the #1 best selling book in San Diego. Her most recent book: No More Rejections. Get Published Today! was released in July of 2002 to rave reviews. Penny is a book marketing and media relations specialist. She also coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.booksbypen.com. To subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com
Copyright  2004 Penny C. Sansevieri

About the Author

As an aspiring or an established entrepreneur, you are an expert in something, but does the rest of the world know? You have a wealth of information, experience and knowledge that you can package into a book that will benefit others. This truly is the information age and people want to know what you know.

1. A book will give you unbelievable credibility which increases the respect you will receive from customers and business associates. Wouldn’t you be more likely to purchase widgets from the business person who wrote the book on widgets? New customers are more likely to take advice from, or purchase the services/products from, an established author. Many consultants increase the levels of their business simply by writing a book on their area of expertise.

2. The typical business person might run into roadblocks when seeking media recognition and publicity for their product or service because the media tend to see this kind of exposure as advertising. However, books receive exposure in the form of reviews or features all the time. Books make great print stories and authors make great featured guests on radio and television shows. Sure beats pulling together an advertising budget.

3. Writing a book gives you instant expert status. If you wrote the book, you are now seen as the authority on that subject by others. And you are! You will have now proven that you know what you’re talking about. You will show, in writing, that you know your business area inside and out.

4. Most entrepreneurs love to hear that publishing a book can easily lead to increased fees. People will pay more to work with an established expert then someone who seems less established in a business. Your book has just given you instant added credentials. It would be nice to add “author of…” behind your name, wouldn’t it?

5. If you are not already a consultant, a book along with your proven expert status could bring you new consulting opportunities where you can bill for your time to educate, speak to and work with other companies and individuals helping them succeed through what you know.

6. If you have a service business or you are selling products already, a book will allow you to add a product to your existing business. Expanding your line is never a bad thing and will open up all kinds of doors in your marketing plan.

7. If you aren’t already on the internet (and you should be, but that’s another article), you can add online marketing to your marketing plan with your book. There are loads of places to sell your book online and having an information product to offer will give you a second stream of revenue with huge potential.

8. Expanding your marketing opportunities and focusing on opportunities for residual income is what you should be focusing on as an entrepreneur. Quit trading your hours for dollars and start working smarter.

Your own book will be a complement and a supplement to your current business. It will also mean an additional source of revenue added to your bottom line. I’d be willing to bet that you’ve thought of writing a book at some point in your career. Almost every single person has. Use your passion. Take your knowledge, package it and sell it. People are willing to pay for what you already know.

Copyright Ó 2003 Ink Tree Ltd.

Ink Tree Ltd. Helping writers publish, market and sell books! If there is a book inside you – profit from it. Learn everything you need to guide you from Idea to Book… to Success – the fast, easy, simple way. Publish your own book with one-on-one expert help from publishing professionals who have created numerous bestsellers and sold hundreds of thousands of books.

Phone: 1-866-500-8733 or 403-295-3898 Email: info@inktreemarketing.com

Web: www.moneyinpublishing.com or www.inktreemarketing.com

About the Author

Ink Tree Ltd. is a book marketing firm that helps writers publish, market and sell books. Learn everything you need to guide you from Idea to Book… to Success - the fast, easy, simple waywww.inktreemarketing.com

Promotional content is the invisible content in the various recesses of a
Web page. This type of content is used by search engines and directories to
properly categorize your site and its pages during indexing.

— Site Title —

The title is the first thing a search engine displays as a result of a
search. This makes it imperative that the title contains something readable
and descriptive. Do not place a bunch of redundant terms in your
title—make sure that the title can be read as a sentence. If the reader
cannot understand the meaning of the title, then chances are they will not
visit your site.

Once you create your page title, place it once within the header of the page
using the < itle> tags. Many marketers will place their title as
many as five to ten times within the header of their page! This is good in
that your relevance increases from the number of keywords; however, this
repetitive approach is poor netiquette and is usually not accepted by most
search engines.

— META Tags —

Meta Tags are information fields located in the header of a Web page. These
tags store information about your browser, keywords, site description, and
authoring information. The two main Meta Tags are “description” and
“keywords.” The “description” tag contains a short description of your page
while the “keywords” tag contains a search keyword list for your page.
These two Meta Tags are used by search engines to index your site and are
critical elements of every Web page. When your site is indexed, users can
enter search topics into the search engine to locate your site based on
these two tags.

The Meta Tags should look like this in the of your Web page:

To ensure the proper indexing of your page, you will have to devise a
content scheme that targets numerous types of search engines. Note that
different search engines will index your site in different ways, depending
on the content. For instance, the following list provides information on the
different ways that search engines can index your site:

* Some search engines look for an agreement between the description,
keyword, title, and body.

* Some search engines use only the information located in the first line of
the body of the page.

* Some search engines use a combination of the Meta Tags and the body
content to weight your page based upon consistency.

Obviously, you would want to maintain a consistent content and style
throughout your page. It is important, however, to learn how the different
types of search engines work to have your page properly positioned in the
lists.

— Hidden Form Fields —

Once you’ve developed the keywords for your site, you’ll find that you still
have over a dozen or so discarded phrases and words that are relevant to
your page. Your Meta Tags are probably filled to the maximum 255 character
limit and that the first line of your page body is a graphic and contains no
pertinent text. Forcing any of these additional phrases and keywords into
the page can get you rejected from several search engines for “keyword
stuffing,” described below.

These types of dilemmas are quite common for many Web page developers, but
the solution is simple: a hidden form field. This form field is identical to
every other form field (e.g. input fields, radio buttons, check boxes,
etc.), however, it cannot be seen on the page in a browser.

The hidden form fields go in the body of the Web page and look like the
following:

Many search engines will recognize hidden form fields and use the
information to index your site in the same manner as they would standard
text in the body of your page. Some search engines ignore such fields,
however, it is important to create pages that are acceptable across all
search engines.

Hidden form fields can be used as the first line of text in your Web page
and should reside in your page before any other content. The reason for this
placement is that most search engines will only use the first 2,048
characters in a document. With hidden form fields, you can still get those
extra keywords into your document without forfeiting space and layout.

— Keywords —

Keywords are one of the more important elements of a Web page since they
describe the page to which they belong. The keywords that you select for
your site must be relevant to the page as well as frequently used within the
page’s content.

Relevant keywords provide a better position in a search engine for your
target market. For instance, if your site is specific to a new piece of
financial software, it’s important to stress the keywords that best describe
the general and specific characteristics of the software. If someone
performs a search for “automobile” and your site appears, it’s certain that
you will get a few users. The problem is that these users will do you no
good since they are interested in another topic.

Obviously, if you’re selling some product that’s important to a wide range
of markets, then nearly any choice of keywords would be relevant to your
site. The point is that you want to ensure that you’re bringing in only
those users that are interested in what your site has to offer. In this way,
you are maximizing your marketing effort.

The following rules may not make sense immediately, however, by following
them, you’re sure to increase your search engine position as well as the
number of hits your site receives:

* Plural Form of Keywords
When a user performs a search, it’s unlikely that they will enter a search
term that exactly matches the keywords you selected for your site. In some
cases, the user will enter the singular form of a keyword and in others,
they may enter the plural form. It’s essential to capture both forms of a
keyword to maximize your exposure!

* Repeat Important Keywords
In the days of old, we could repeat a keyword numerous times to increase the
relevancy of a site in a search engine. This repetition allowed sites to be
placed higher in the search engine’s list so that the user would see that
site first. Today, search engines filter out those sites that over-repeat
keywords. It’s best to repeat the most important keywords no more than twice
to increase your relevancy without being eliminated.

* Diversify Keyword Meanings
Assume that every user has a different vocabulary–some users say “book”
while others may say “publication” or “document.” Each word refers to the
same thing, however, unless your keywords are properly selected, you may
only get one-third of your potential hits! When devising your keyword
scheme, take into account the different forms of a given keyword. Create the
keywords important to your site in such a way that, regardless of the search
terms used by a user, your site will appear in the results list.

* Keyword Variations
Consider the fact that users will not enter the keywords into a search
engine the same way every time. For instance, some users may enter “real
time software” while others may enter “real-time software” or “realtime
software.” Think about the keyword variations to ensure the capture of as
many users as possible. Also, consider common misspellings of keywords. I
know many intelligent individuals who tend to misspell certain words because
of the phonetic spelling of the word—consider “eves” and “eaves.” If a
user consistently misspells such a word and you happen to sell plant hangers
for under eaves, you might lose potential clients.

* Keyword Combinations and Phrases
Some search engines will only take the first 255 characters of a keyword
list, while others accept a nearly unlimited list of keywords. The problem
is that you must target the 255-character limitation to be accepted by as
many search engines as possible. One method to accommodate the keyword list
limitation is to use phrases that best describe the page. For instance, I
could use “ebook marketing” as a phrase that could be found with several
combinations of search topics in a search engine. Another method is to
ensure that the most relevant keywords are located at the front of the
keyword list—even with a 255-character limitation, the most important
keywords are accepted.

— Keyword Selection —

Your objective is to attract as many relevant visits to your site as
possible. With that in mind, you will have to select keywords that are
commonly used by users and that are relevant to your site.

You can easily attract users by entering such keywords as “naked women,
adult, sex, …” into your keyword list. Since these are some of the most
searched-for keywords, I can guarantee that your site will get hits. Do you
think that someone searching for pornography is going to spend very much
time on your page? The problem here is that you will be attracting people
who won’t provide a relevant hit to your site. This tactic wastes bandwidth,
time, and money.

— Developing Keyword Lists —

Using the information we’ve reviewed, let’s look at creating a keyword list
for a page. This is actually a more difficult task then creating the page
itself since you must determine the best keywords that describe your page.
To begin this task, let’s ask ourselves: “how would people begin to search
for a site like mine?”

Immediately, you could come up with about three-dozen keywords to place in a
keyword list, however, many of the keywords that you think are relevant may
turn out to be useless. Think about how you perform searches for certain
information and apply that experience to the selection of keywords for your
page. You’ll find that the time taken to create a good keyword list will be
most beneficial.

The best way to weed out useless keywords is to use the steps outlined in
the following list. These steps are proven and have worked on several sites
I’ve marketed.

* Create an exhaustive list of words that describe your site.
* Review and eliminate words that are least descriptive or redundant.
* Create plural versions of words without altering their form.
* Consider and note misspelling variations.
* Combine words into phases.
* Eliminate duplicate phrases.
* Eliminate phrases with words duplicated in other phrases.
* Check for other words or phrases that can diversify the list.
* Create a comma-delimited list of all phrases and remaining words.
* Move and order the most relevant words to the front of the list.
* Duplicate the four more important words and phrases twice.
* Ask an associate to review the words and phrases.
* Ask an associate to edit the list based on their search preferences.
* Clean up and limit the list to 255 characters.
* Perform searches using your keywords to locate other relevant sites.
* Go to these sites to see how they created their keyword list.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Edward B. Toupin is a freelance consultant, writer, and published author
living in Las Vegas. With 10 years of experience, Edward provides quality Web site design, development, and marketing as well as
writing, document design and planning, and e-book publishing services. You
can visit his Web site at http://www.toupin.com or contact him at
etoupin@toupin.com.

Wouldn’t you rather write a book that sells well than be stuck
with unsold inventory? When you plan ahead with the 10 tips
below, you will sell thousands rather than hundreds of your
unique and important information or inspirational products.

1. Write non-fiction first. These books are 90% of total book
sales. After non-fiction success, you can use your profits to
partially finance a fiction project.

2. Write short books to start. Short books in any format, like
eBooks, booklets, guides or special reports are faster, easier,
and cheaper to write than full-length books of 200-300 pages.
They can be as short as five pages (special reports), to eBooks
that can be 5-100pages (even longer).

3. Market to a book-buying audience. Women buy far more
books than men, about 75%. If your message benefits women,
you’ll do well in sales. If your book solves a problem it will sell
more. It’s best to see the need and fill it rather than have an
idea-then look for an audience.

4. Choose your cover and title with care. Image is almost
everything. You have four seconds to impress your potential
buyer. Be clear, use metaphor and make sure your title elicits a
picture or an emotion. Keep your title short, preferably 5-7
words. What solutions and results does your book promise?
See more free articles including “Titles Sell Books” on
www.bookcoaching.com.

5. Expand your book into a series. Think of the huge success
of the Chicken Soup Series. They have one cover for all the
titles.The latest count is 68 million. Think of spin-off products that
relate to your book. Some people prefer to learn by listening
to a cassette. You may also want to serialize your eBook,
sending one part or chapter a week through an autoresponder.

These formats actually help you sell more books. Other spin-offs
include coaching, consulting, speaking, seminars, columns, or
videos.

6. Impress your potential buyer within eight seconds with your
back cover copy. The biggest mistake authors make is putting
their title on the back cover. Since it’s already on the front
cover, you need to instead, put your sparkling headline at the
top. For example, “Imagine 1000’s Buying Your Book Next
Month!” It must hook your readers, stir up their emotions, and
hit their desire.

In 75 words or less, include the benefits your book offers.
How to get more money, heart-centered relationships, more fame,
more health. Less stress and time spend in a project. Include
from 3-5 bullets of benefits, what specifics your book promises
its readers.

Finally, testimonials are the number one way to turn your
potential buyer into a “take-out-their-credit-card-buyer.”
For information on how to get testimonials ask a book coach.

7. Create your written marketing plan before you finish chapter
one. This plan covers your first year’s launch period and lifetime
plan. You’ll want to market at least two years. Inexperienced
authors wait until publication and lose a great deal of sales.

Your plan could include how many books you want to sell, your
30 second tell and sell, book reviews, news releases, the
Online articles to market your book, the book signings, talks,
electronic newsletters, and a book Web site. Without a written
plan, an author creates vague results.

8. Put as much time into marketing as you did the writing of your
book. Your goal is to have people read and learn from your
unique message. Why plant a garden if you don’t harvest it? John
Kremer, book marketing guru, and author of 1001 Ways to
Market Your Book, says to do five things each day. Five calls,
five press releases, five Online contacts or a combination of
tasks. The book coach says spend 6-9 hours a week on Online
promotion.

9. Include Online marketing to sell more books. While you can
sell your books on other sites, such as Amazon.com, you will
eventually want your own. You will make much less with
Amazon and you have to pay for shipping too. An author without a
Web site is like a person without a name. As an entrepreneur,
your site needs to attract visitors and sell your products and
service. Here you include testimonials, benefit driven headlines,
and your sales letter to get your visitor to become a customer.

10. Start promoting your book several ways. If press releases,
book signings, and back of the room sales dim, include Online
promotion such as writing and submitting how-to articles to
top ezines and web sites. When you use his virtual marketing
machine-the Internet- you will keep your book dream alive–
getting it into the hands of thousands of readers rather than a few.

Start marketing your book right now, even if you don’t have a
Web site. Research by reading articles, contacting professional
book and web coaches, or take a teleclass to find out how to
learn non-techie ways to start your lifetime book promotion
journey. Master book marketing like you would eat an elephant
–one bite at a time! Watch your sales grow!

About the Author

Judy Cullins: 20-year author, publisher, book coach
Helps entrepreneurs manifest their book and web dreams
eBk: Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Your Book Online
www.bookcoaching.com/products.shtml
Send an email to Subscribe@bookcoaching.com
FREE The Book Coach Says… includes 2 free eReports
Judy@bookcoaching.com
Ph:619/466/0622

Have you ever heard the expression, ” the quickest way to reach your
goals is to help others reach their goals?”

I remember this expression and use it as my Internet book-marketing
plan. It has paid off with 3 best selling books for me in the past
year.

How does it work in Internet Bookselling? Let me explain.

Websites generally have three characteristics that help them
consistently remain in the top search engine standings:

1. Websites must add and change their content often. (Once or twice a
day is perfect)
2. Websites must offer an e-zine or newsletter. The top websites
offer newsletters and e-zines that are delivered via e-mail every day.
3. Websites will usually have their own bookstore with an affiliation
or association with Amazon.com to allow visitors a method of
purchasing books that complement the information on the website.

Top websites spend a great deal of time and money to remain at the
top of the heap. Everyone wants to be there, but only a few can hold
down those top positions.

Understanding these three characteristics have enabled me to achieve
my goals by helping websites achieve their goals.

Step One: Search for the Big Guys on the Internet

I have two areas of expertise. I am a hypnotist who writes books and
e-books on how to achieve success through hypnosis. I am also an E-
book Marketing Consultant and write books on how to write and sell e-
books.

In order to find top websites that may be interested in hypnosis, I
search on broader topics like “health” and “mental health.” For my
books on E-book marketing I search on topics like “Internet
marketing” and “E-commerce.”

Even though there are hundreds of search engines and thousands of
directories, I begin with searching on Yahoo. Yahoo is a directory
that is difficult to get into and even more difficult to maintain a
high ranking.

>From my own experience once I made the top of the heap in Yahoo,
under “hypnotism” my web traffic more than doubled and stayed that
way over the past three years.

Therefore, I conclude that the websites that arise to the top of
Yahoo will be much more highly visited than through other search
engines and directories.

Step Two: Help the Webmaster Offer More Content

Once I search under the two major categories that fit my topic, I
send e-mail to the webmasters at those sites sending along my article
or sample chapter.

I tell the webmasters I would appreciate posting my article for their
readers in return for a short bi-line or description on what I do and
a link over to Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble.com or my own website in
return for the favor.

Most webmasters jump at the opportunity at receiving free content
that allows them to maintain the high rankings on their websites.

Step Three: Help the Website Newsletter Editor

The top ranking websites also sponsor their own newsletter or e-zine.
After contacting the webmaster about content added directly to the
website, I then contact the newsletter editor in regards to placing
an article or sample chapter in the newsletter.

Sometimes at the bottom of a sample newsletter there will be specific
instructions on how to submit articles. Many times there is even a
section on the website where you can post your articles directly to
the editor.

After following the directions in the newsletter, I submit my article
or sample chapter to the website newsletter editor.

I have just added more content to their website, again helping the
website increase traffic and at the same time direct interested
visitors to my book offerings located in the author’s bi-line.

Step Four: Help the Website Bookstore Make Money

Most of the time, you will find that the top websites also have their
own bookstore. Usually the Website bookstore will be an “associate of
Amazon.com.”

For example: You search on the keyword “health” on Yahoo and are
taken to the top five health sites. Let’s call the top
website “health.com.”

After navigating around the website you find a Health.com bookstore
that offers many titles on a particular aspect of health you are
interested in. When you click on a book cover on that website, you
are immediately sent over to a book description page on Amazon.com.

If you look at the complete link that shows up in your browser you
will see an URL (the Internet address) which looks something like
this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1929695217/healthcom/104-
2910323-8772701

The two most important parts of the link are the ISBN number which is
the number called “ASIN/” which is Amazon.com’s identification
number, and the words following the book’s ISBN number which
is “/healthcom.”

“Healthcom” is the website’s Amazon.com Associate identification
number. This number allows the website to get paid for any sales that
result by someone clicking on the link and then purchasing the
featured book on Amazon.com.

The next thing you do is shave off the number off the end of the URL.

Now the URL will look like this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1929695217/healthcom

If your own book title listed on Amazon.com has an ISBN number or
ASIN number of 1585003557, what you do is insert that ISBN number in
place of the website’s featured book.

Now the URL will look like this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585003557/healthcom

That new URL is going to mean instant book sales for you.

Take your revised URL with your book ISBN and send a short message
via e-mail again to the webmaster of the website.

Ask the webmaster to feature your book on the website. Mention that
you are including the URL with the website’s Amazon.com Associate
identification number.

Within a few days you will begin to see a surge in your book sales as
a result of this technique.

Summary:

By helping the webmaster add content, the newsletter editor offer new
articles and the website bookstore earn more money from Amazon.com by
adding your books, you are helping the website maintain a top ranking.

By helping the top websites achieve their goals you are driving
qualified traffic to your own website or to Amazon.com to fulfill
your goal of becoming a best selling author.

About the Author

Wayne Perkins is an E-book Marketing Consultant and author of the
best selling e-book, A Cheap and Easy Guide to Self-publishing E-
books.
http://www.wayneperkins.net/order/BkTitles.html
Wayne offers free e-book marketing teleseminars at:
http://www.wayneperkins.net/ebooks/write.html
mailto:wayne@wayneperkins.net

Creating a viral ebook marketing campaign can be one of the
easiest and most effective ways to promote your product
or website.

Before you begin writing your viral ebook, you need
to know the 5 most common mistakes that can cost you
time and potential income.

1) Never Link Directly to Content You Do Not Control

You should always use redirect links placed on your own
server instead of direct links to affiliate programs.

You never know when the program you are promoting will
change the way its affiliate links work or go out of
business. Using redirect links allows you to quickly
replace the affiliate links with the new version or
redirect to a similar product.

I can not stress enough how important this step is to you.
Once you launch your viral ebook, you can not get it back
to make changes to it. Using redirect links will prevent
dead links and lost profit.

2) Avoid Using Dated Information By Providing Too Specific
Details.

Do not talk about free trials or time specific discounts.

The affiliate program you are promoting my not always be
offering the trials or discounts. You will anger your readers
if they can not get the bargains you promised.

You should also avoid statements like “Just Released” or
“Just Launched!”. The program you are talking about may
have been around for years but the time your reader gets
your ebook.

3) Never Include Information You Do Not Want All Over The World.

Because of the viral nature of your ebook, it will eventually
spread to every corner of the world.

If you include personal information like your home phone
or your cell phone number, you may be unpleasantly
awakened at all hours of the night. The person in England
or Japan, may not be aware you live in United States.

It is best to provide only an email address or autoresponder
for the initial contact.

4) Do Not Brand The Ebook Yourself

Putting yourself in the position of having to manually
brand and send each copy of the ebook is a sure way to
turn your campaign into NIGHTMARE.

You may be thinking, “What’s the BIG DEAL?”

Let imagine for a moment that your ebook starts out slowly
and only 10 people request a branded version the first week.
It takes you about 6 minutes per ebook to brand it and send
it to the user. You have just given up an hour of your life.

Now those 10 people each give it away to 10 people that
also request branded versions. You now have 100 new requests
at 6 minutes each. Now were are talking 60 hours.

As you can see with each passing generation, you will
quickly become unable or unwilling to fulfill requests.

The solution is to give your carriers the ability and
instructions to rebrand the ebooks themselves. This will
take you out of the loop and allow your virus to grow
exponentially unattended.

5) Do Not Forget To Launch A New Window For External Links

When linking to any information not found directly in
your ebook, you should always open a new window. Many
sales processes use javascript that could cause compatibly
problems if viewed within your ebook.

It would be terrible if a viewer where ready to buy a
product based on your reccomendation but was unable to
because you failed to include this simple step.

Avoiding these 5 simple viral ebook marketing mistakes will
greatly increase the profitability of your campaign while
avoiding the pitfalls.

————————————————————
John Hocking created http://www.guidetoebookmarketing.com
“Your Source of Information on Creating and Marketing Ebooks”
To learn how to create your own viral ebook visit John
Hocking’s Viral Ebook Resource http://www.viral-ebook.com

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Hocking created http://www.guidetoebookmarketing.com
“Your Source of Information on Creating and Marketing Ebooks”
To learn how to create your own viral ebook visit John
Hocking’s Viral Ebook Resource http://www.viral-ebook.com

The Top Ten Secrets of Successful Authors
Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

If you are not a successful author yet, incorporate the following ten secrets:

1. Treat your book as a business.

You spend many hours creating a masterpiece to help your audience. It follows then, you need to set up a regular time schedule to market and promote it.

2. Create a flyer for each book you offer.

Hand out your flyer at business meetings or at any public place. Ask your audience to pass the flyer along to friends and associates. Offer one free report or ezine on the flyer to get new email addresses to send promotion to later.

3. Create a line or two about your book in your signature file that goes on every email you send.

After your name, title, and benefit statements, add something like: eBk: “Write your eBook or Other Book–Fast!” Include your addresses and phone numbers too.

4. Invest some money in book marketing.

Contact a bookcoach and schedule a low-cost introductory session to see if you are a match and will get what you need. Many authors print too many copies or use an expensive service to get a book finished instead of putting aside an equal amount to market it.

5. Take a teleclass on how to market your book.

These low cost and low time investments can make your book the great seller it should be. Discover inexpensive ways to market via the phone and email. How convenient!

6. Don’t get fooled by high-cost services.

If it’s too good to be true, it isn’t true. When you hire someone to do it all for you, it can cost $5000-$10,000 a publishing project, often with small results. Check out what services fit your budget, and get a realistic picture of what your results will be.

7. Delegate some of the marketing.

Like me, hire a low-cost computer assistant from your local high school. They know more than about computers and the Internet than many professionals. For under $10 an hour, you can multiply your promotion exponentially via ecommerce, your assistant does for you 2-3 times a week.

8. Set a dollar goal for your book each month.

Don’t count copies sold. Count each month’s book sales. Put your goal near your workstation to remind you of what you want. Don’t price your book too low, so you’ll appreciate an easy experience–getting what you deserve for all your work.

9. Learn more about Internet book marketing.

Think about reaching hundreds of thousands of your audience every week. When you give them what they want–free information–they will eventually buy. Many authors go the traditional path of talks, ads, or press releases. They don’t always pay well for the effort.

10. Keep marketing each week.

Many clients come to me and say they are discouraged their book didn’t sell well in four months. Replace doubt with patience for the process. Success takes many months, but once you get it, the Internet keeps it multiplied for you.

Knowing the secrets of successful authors can help you receive the same prestige and become a household word.

About the author:

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell, she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The BookCoach Says…,” “Business Tip of the Month,” blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtmland over 170 free articles.
===============
Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com
Phone: 619/466-0622 — Orders: 866/200-9743

I don’t believe in writer’s block. (I can hear the gasps of disbelief already.) Listen: If you hire a plumber to come to your house and fix a problem, do you expect him to say, “Sorry, I can’t figure out what your problem is. I think I have plumber’s block”? Probably not, and if he did, you’d toss him out and call another guy faster than you can say Drano. Not
that plumbing can be compared to writing, but if we follow the proper steps to get the job done, I find that writer’s block melts away, the drains are unclogged, and the words start flowing like water from a faucet. But what are these “steps”? Well, a big part of my job as a book marketing specialist is to help people create something they can actually market: a finished book. Many of us have ideas aplenty but not a clue how to get them down on paper.

Unlike other professions, authors operate under a whole different set of rules. We often can’t just sit down and pound out a story, and those who do have created their own formula for doing so. We see this huge story with all sorts of directions we want to take it, we see the cover, we see the characters, we see the market potential. Then we see Katie Couric or Oprah smiling and holding up our book for the whole world to see. Then we glance back down at our monitor and see a tormenting blinking cursor and blank screen. And we are again reminded of what a failure we are. We have all these stories and nothing on paper. We are idea generators. We have zillions of them running through our minds, but none of them on paper. Unless you make your money in a think tank, operating this way probably isn’t getting you any closer to your goals.

When a project looms before us, it’s like this big elephant — huge, overwhelming and ready to stomp us flat any minute. There’s an old saying: “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” The same is true for writing. You finish a book, one step at a time. But to create these steps, you first have to break down your book into manageable, bite-size pieces. This can be accomplished by creating a TOC (table of contents) that can guide you through the book. My reasoning behind this is as follows: You’d never think of driving from California to New York without a map, right? Well, how can you expect to finish your book without one? Your TOC is your roadmap, guiding you through your book. If your chapters don’t have individual headings, then write a 2-3 sentence

description of what the chapter encompasses. Don’t get too elaborate on this. Remember, it’s not going in your book; it’s just a brief descriptor. Once the TOC is outlined, you’ll have a vision of your book from star! t to finish. A few things that creating this TOC will do for you: It will show you any gaps in your story that might need to be fleshed out, and it will give you a sense of completion, of seeing the book or project actually done, and this is a serious psychological turn-on for most authors, because we often live in a world of half-completed projects. Sometimes this step alone can propel an author enough to get their book done, or at the very least give it a darned good kick-start.

Once you’ve developed your TOC, you’ll want to go through it and create a “to do” list. Regardless of what genre your book is, you will always have a to-do list. Whether it’s getting endorsements, doing research, or getting approvals for quotes or excerpts for your book, this to-do list will become yet another item that will help propel your book toward completion.

Once the to-do list is done, set it aside. Now you should have your completed TOC with a vision of the entire book and a growing list of items that will need to be handled for the book to get done. Now the real fun begins.

Some books on writing will tell you to set aside a day or two a week, or an evening here and there to get your book completed. I disagree with this theory, and here’s why: You need to stay dialed into your topic. When I was working on an upcoming book, I would often put the project aside for days or weeks at a time, promising myself to schedule time “as soon as I could.” Well, that rarely happened. What I found is that if I set aside some time every day to do something on the book, I got it completed a lot quicker. The more you keep your hands in your project, the more it will stay at the front of your mind and on your radar screen, and the more energy you will invest to finish it. I won’t tell you to set aside hours of your time each day — in fact, you don’t even have to set aside an hour. Take 15 minutes, or even five — whatever your schedule permits. If this seems like a ridiculously short amount of time, consider this: You now have your to-do list and your outlined TOC! . If you are short on time one day, pick a quickie item from your to-do list and get it done. If you have more time, then pound out a chapter or two. The idea behind creating the to-do lists and a TOC is to not only give your project a structure, but to also eliminate any and all excuses for getting it done. Don’t feel like writing today? No problem. There’s probably a mountain of research just waiting to be traversed. Get the picture?

But let’s say you can’t even get through the TOC. “My book has too many layers,” you lament. “Too many back stories, tons of stuff going on. I can’t possibly be expected to filter it down into a neat little TOC.” Yes, you can, and you must. If your book has no focus, your book will have no focus. It’s as simple as that. But it doesn’t stop there — if your book is all over the place and you do actually manage to get it done, you’ll never be able to keep a reader interested because you will be the only one who will get it, and what’s the point of that? What you’ll need to do in this case is find the “core” of your book or the focus of your story. Ask yourself this: What’s the one thing this book cannot do without? What’s the one thing this story circles around? That’s your core. If you’re still coming up with three or four things that your story circles around, you aren’t focused enough and neither is your book. Find that one thing and build your story or book
around it.

If you follow these steps, your book will get finished quicker than you could have ever imagined. And the once-dreaded writer’s block will go from a stumbling block to a building block.

Need a little coaching? Check out our book coaching program - guaranteed to get your book on the road to completion in four sessions - or less!
http://amarketingexpert.com/store/product_info.php/products_id/68?osCsid=5d1f3ca504d47bd6cd0faee53546ee47

About the author:
Penny C. Sansevieri
The Cliffhanger was published in June of 2000. After a strategic marketing campaign it quickly climbed
the ranks at Amazon.com to the ##1 best selling book in San Diego. Her most recent book: From Book to Bestseller was released in 2005 to rave reviews and is being called the “roadmap to publishing success.” Penny is a book marketing and media relations specialist. She also coaches authors on projects, manuscripts and marketing plans and instructs a variety of coursing on publishing and promotion. To learn more about her books or her promotional services, you can visit her web site at www.amarketingexpert.comTo subscribe to her free ezine, send a blank email to: mailto:subscribe@booksbypen.com
Copyright ã 2005 Penny C. Sansevieri