Article Writing Blog

How To Self-publish The Easy Way!

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!

Edward B. Toupin, Ph.D., is a published author, life-strategy coach, counselor, Reiki Master, and technical writer living in Las Vegas, NV. Edward works with people to help them strive for a richer life. He also authors books, articles, and screenplays on topics ranging from career success through life organization and fulfillment. Check out some of his recent print and electronic books as well as his articles covering various life-changing topics! Contact Edward at etoupin@toupin.com or visit his site at http://www.make-life-great.com.

Online publishers, ezine subscribers, and Web visitors want short, useful information. Use this “500-Word Article Formula” to create trusting, confident, and lifelong clients and customers.

How to Write this Short Article

1. Create a benefit-driven title so people will open your email. Put pizzazz into your title. Dare to be outrageous!

2. Create a snappy one to three-sentence introduction preceded by a hook. Include what’s in it for your audience. How will your article improve their lives or business?

3. Know your article’s purpose and specific audience and narrow your slant or focus just for them.

This article’s audience includes business people who want to promote their product or service through a short article. It appeals to small business people, professionals, coaches, or consultants who have a book or service to sell. It appeals to Web site publishers and opt-in (no spam) ezine publishers who want free articles to attract new customers.

4. Write an outline with four to six major points you want to make before you write.

My outline and headings for this article include the seven ways to write this article:

1. Write for Your Targeted Market.
2. Write an Outline First
3. Write Each Paragraph to Support Your Outline Headings
4. Write An Outline With Four-Six Sub Points
5. Write Two- Four Sentences for Each Paragraph
6. Create Four-Six Paragraphs from Each Heading
7. Revise Copy Looking for Ways to Tighten Your Article

Remember each sentence must support the thesis statement, that’s the one major benefit of how you will solve your reader’s particular challenge. In this one, I give you 7 solutions for writing a short article.

Break down each paragraph into three standard-length sentences (15-17 words each). For drama, write one or two shorter sentences. One paragraph contains around 100 words. Five paragraphs of five sentences of 20 or less words will equal close to 500 words.

6. Create Four to Six Paragraphs From Your Outline

All sub points must also support the thesis. Write concise, compelling paragraphs that explain and give examples.

If you write over 100 words, tighten your copy. Leave out stories or analogies. Shorten examples. Cut redundant sentences, phrases, and words. Drop most “is” verb forms and “ands.” They slow the copy and the reader down, a cardinal sin in writing. Bored readers will leave. Instead, use vital, action verbs and colorful nouns.

7. Revise Looking for Ways to Tighten Your Article

Use bullets to clarify and shorten copy

Reduce or eliminate quotes and anecdotes.

Replace -ly adverbs and adjectives with picture or feeling power verbs and nouns.

Let go of superfluous words like “that.”

Use one or two-syllable words for readable, direct copy.

For your conclusion, write only a sentence or two to either sum up or point out benefits. When you write under 500-word-articles of about one page, Online publishers, Web Masters and potential clients will read them, pass them on, and eventually buy from you.

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 Fast,” “How to Market your Business on the Internet,” and “Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, “The Book Coach Says…” and “Business Tip of the Month” at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 155 free articles. Email her at mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com.

Earlier, I published part 1 of this series, which contained a number of methods for building your site using other people’s content. Now, I’ve come up with a few more ways that you can do this that I wanted to share with you.

It’s important to note however that you never want to build your entire site with other people’s content. You’ll keep visitors on your site–and keep them coming back–by building a relationship with them. To do that, much of your copy must be in your “voice,” with your personality. There will be no cohesive voice in your site if you ONLY use other people’s content. So be sure to make it a mix.

Now, here are those new methods…

PUT A REQUEST FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S CONTENT RIGHT ON YOUR SITE

Post a form on your site (or at least a page) that asks people to submit content for your site, whether it’s an article, a personal story, tips, or even photographs. It all depends on your niche as to what type of content you want.

But the bottom line is that most people love to see their name in print and will jump at the opportunity to make a contribution. Also, if another website owner comes to your site and sees your invitation, they may take you up on it just to add an incoming link into their site (and to market their site, of course).

MINE PRESS RELEASES FOR NICHE-RELATED INFORMATION

Press releases come out every day that may contain newsworthy content you can post on your site. The people who send out press releases WANT them to be posted on other sites, because it gives them the publicity they seek.

You can get started by visiting PRWeb.com and searching their archives. Here’s how:

1. Visit www.prweb.com & click on their Search Archives tab.

2. Type your keywords into the box and click the Search button.

3. Review the many press releases until you find a few that fit your niche and your needs for your site.

Cut and paste the press release into a web page for your site. Be sure to include the contact details in clickable format.

ASK AUTHORS YOU LIKE FOR MORE ARTICLES

In the last article, we discussed finding articles you like in various article banks, such as EzineArticles.com. Take that one step further. When you find an author whose work you like, write to the author and ask them if they have any other articles you might use on your site.

The author will often be thrilled to have an opportunity to be published on your site, and may even send you a whole series of articles on your niche topic.

That’s it for this time!

Kathi MacNaughton is a web entrepreneur and freelance writer, as well as a mentor for the Nitro Incubator program. To learn more, visit http://www.powerful-sample-resume-formats.com/how-this-site-came-to-be.html

You’ve got to start somewhere, but once you’ve created your very first How-To report and learned to develop your own research tactics - life will never be the same again. You can write a report on almost any topic you like, providing you have knowledge of the subject through personal experience or research.

There are loads of subjects to choose from. How about; solving household problems, hobbies, leisure activities, social activities, science, psychology, computer problems, mon~ey-making/saving, gardening - the list is endless. Simple, basic, informative reports.

These reports are written guidelines that give the reader more information on a subject he/she wants to know more about. You’ll find that the better selling reports are well researched, authoritative, factual and helpful to the reader in the achievement of his/her goals. Your report can be 2 or a 20 page document - it doesn’t matter, so long as it contains the information they want. Writing your report can be very easy. However, it does take longer for some than it does for others, even if they are equally intelligent and knowledgeable.

Picking a subject to write about, one that has sales appeal, is not as hard as it sounds. Just go to any search engine and type-in your chosen subject and you’ll soon see if it’s popular or not. You will also find less popular niche subjects as well, to exploit. However, you will need to attract the right customers. Though, choosing the right keywords to attract your targeted prospects is for another report and not this one.

If you don’t want to spend months researching your subject, pick something that has a particular interest to you, something you already know a great deal about. Your knowledge and enthusiasm will show through, causing your reader to over look any technical writing weaknesses you may have.

Be factual and clear and don’t pad out the report just for fill. Try to outline the report before you start writing the main body. That way, you know exactly what you’re going to write about before you get too deep into the subject and end up doing loads of re-writes.

Everything that’s written should have a natural beginning, a body and an ending. When writing your report, make it sound as though you are talking to someone on a one-to-one basis. Keep it warm and friendly with a hint of humor, because when analysed, writing is no more than a written conversation.

Ok, now it’s time to ‘brain storm’ - sounds painful doesn’t it? Well it’s not. Begin by writing down all the subjects you know something about, no matter how small. Start with any we’ve already mentioned above and include subjects like: horticultural, carpentry, glass cutting, painting, needle patch work, collecting memorabilia, golf, darts, pet training, astrology, astronomy, sleep walking, giving-up bad habits, smoking etc etc. Possible ‘How-To’ reports can be created from almost any subject.

Once you’ve made your list, go through the topic’s one at a time and keep going through them until you find one subject that you’re really comfortable with, even if it’s not the one you originally knew most about. You see, that’s the one you’ll put your heart and soul into, and that’s the one you’ll be most passionate about.

Now you’ve decided on the subject, the next step is thorough research. The library, magazines, books, newspapers, search engines - anything that will give you information on your chosen subject. Gather this information based on your outlines we talked about earlier. However, don’t get bogged down with a fixed set of outlines, they’re just a guide to the way you want to list or discuss each aspect of your subject.

When you’ve finished with your first draft, be proud of yourself and take a break. Go back to it a few days later, rejuvenated. Scrutinize it with a sharp pencil. Polish each paragraph for clarity, accuracy and flow. Make sure it’s easy to read, easy to understand and each sentence follows the one before it. The smoother the writing of the report, the easier it will be to read and the easier it will be to sell.

And finally, place your report in a .PDF file or a .EXE file for easy down-loading by your customers. Now go and make a cup of tea while nimbling-up your research cells and writing fingers.

Ed Bellamy is a webmaster and ezine publisher. For more tips and tricks visit dotBASiCWorld.com http://www.dotbasicworld.com Copyright (c) 2004.