Author: Vic Patel

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Starting an Online Business: Tips for Creating Your Website and Blog


One of the first things that you need to do when starting an online business is building your own website and blog. These are the sites where you’ll send interested parties to. As they’ll represent your coaching business in the World Wide Web, making them extremely effective and attractive is non-negotiable. Below are some amazing tips on how you can make this happen:
First, choose an attractive, memorable domain name. Be very creative when choosing your domain name as this will have a direct impact on the amount of traffic that you’re going to attract later on. It must be witty, keyword-rich, short, and memorable. Make a list of those keywords that are closely related to your niche and mix match them until you find something that really sounds good. Check if other people have chosen the name. If not, go ahead and register it right away. If yes, see if the owner is selling the domain name; you might just get lucky.
Get inspirations from top websites. Do your research and create a list of top websites that are known for their designs to get inspiration. Just keep in mind that you cannot copy them all the way. Know their common denominators and see if you can apply those things on your own website.
Keep it simple and elegant. If you think that loading your website with too many graphics and blinking texts will help you attract traffic, you better think again. Doing these will make your website look amateurish. Let me tell you now that online users hate these and pop up windows and scrolling texts. So, just make your website and blog look clean and nice. Also, make it easy to navigate. Your visitors should easily find the buttons that they’re looking for and they shouldn’t need to click more than a couple of times to get to the information they need.
Get help. If you think that you lack the needed technical skills, look for people who can help you. Go to freelancing sites where you can easily find freelance web designers. Make sure you work with somebody who has proven track record. Although this would mean paying for the service, you’ll surely benefit from someone’s expertise and experience and that could be a huge thing.
Make your blog and website very informative and useful. Making your website look visually appealing isn’t enough. If you want your prospects to stay longer, you have to give them exactly what they’re looking for – useful, unique information.
Make it search engine-friendly. Check the latest algorithms of major search engines to figure out what they’re considering when they’re assigning page ranking. Keep these in mind when designing your website, when writing and optimizing it content, and when deciding on the elements that you’re going to use. Grabbing a nice spot on Google is always a good thing for ebusiness owners like you as this will automatically mean more qualified traffic for your website.

Article Source:  Tips for Creating Your Website and Blog


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6 Steps To Content Marketing Made Easy


One of the challenges of running a business online is that when people connect with you online, they are strangers.

Before they can even think about doing business with us, they need to know that we understand their problem, they can trust us, and if the solutions we offer will solve their problem.
That’s why content marketing is such a valuable technique for growing your business. It helps you boost website traffic, grow your mailing list, and increase sales.
But what exactly is it and how do you do it? Here are some simple steps to get started:
1. What is Your Intention?
Before you design any marketing campaign, the first step is to figure out what you want the prospect to do as a result of reading the content marketing piece.
Are you trying to get people to sign up for your event? Wanting them to schedule a free consult? Trying to get people to enroll in your coaching program?
Once you have your intention, you can design your content marketing piece to attract and deliver extreme value to your ideal client.
2. Find Out Your Customers’ Biggest Problems.
Sometimes we are too close to our business to accurately understand what it’s like to be in our customer’s shoes. That’s when you should directly ask prospects and customers what they need most.
Ask them to complete a survey about what worries them the most about their business. Call 3 of your best customers and ask them what issues are keeping them from having the success they’d like.
Read the posts of people in social media groups sharing their problems.
3. Choose A Format.
There are so many formats to choose from – you can write an eBook, shoot a video, do a free webinar, design a free online assessment, or host a Google hangout.
Choose a format that you are comfortable with – that way it’s easy to jump in and regularly offer new content marketing pieces.
4. Write an Action Plan.
Make a list of everything you need to do to complete the project. This includes creating a title, writing the piece, editing it, and creating a landing page with an opt-in form.
Hint: if you want to do it stress-free, hire some help to tackle the tech, make it pretty, and get it done fast!
5. Launch.
Put your content marketing piece on your website. Write a post on your blog. Create a social media graphic and share it on social media. Place a Facebook ad to drive traffic to your freebie. Share it in social media groups online. Do guest blog articles and mention your freebie in your byline.
Sign up for podcast interviews and mention your freebie as a free gift to listeners. Offer your freebie as part of a free gift bundle and share with your list and others. Print a copy of your freebie and show it at your networking group, telling people how to sign up and get a copy.
There are so many ways to share your content with others. Just remember, you have to market the free stuff as much as the paid stuff.
6. Lather, rinse, repeat.
People love new things – always be offering something new to your followers. Make an editorial calendar of blueprints, checklists, white papers, special reports, and videos you would like to offer them. Coordinate your freebies with your sales promotional calendar. Always share value, and you’ll have a tribe of happy campers always waiting to see what incredible resources and offers you have to share.
Content marketing is a highly effective way to grow your business.
You just sit back and watch your sales grow.
Here’s to big success in your content marketing efforts!




Article Source:    6 Steps to Content Marketing Made Easy







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Six Steps To Create A New Paradigm

Six Steps To Create A New Paradigm
Do you desire more in your life? Do you desire more peace of mind? Are you willing to take action? Are you willing to commit to the process of creating a new paradigm?
If the answer to each question is unequivocal, ‘Yes,’ you can be confident that you will be successful in stepping into a new paradigm. If the answer to one of these questions is ambivalence, hesitation, confusion, or lack of enthusiasm, then you need to discover the underlying cause.
If you answered unequivocally, ‘Yes,’ you have accomplished half the process of creating a new paradigm.
Six Steps To A New Paradigm:
The following steps will ensure your ability to step into the paradigm you desire.
Debunk old assumptions and adopt new approaches to problem-solving, instead of doing what you have done.
Actively seek new opportunities, instead of managing those you routinely have.
Risk the possibility of being exposed and/or vulnerable, instead of protecting your pride and power.
Ask for you what you desire, instead o what you think others want to give you.
‘March to your own drummer’ and ‘Toot your own horn’ to ensure others know what you are capable of, instead o hoping your efforts will be noticed.
Speak your truth, instead of biting your lip, because, you might ruffle feathers or subject yourself to criticism.
Pause now. Imagine in great detail the new paradigm you desire.
Next, take the first step-debunk the old assumptions (negative thoughts)-i.e. ‘It is difficult.’ ‘What if… ?’ ‘If only… ‘ ‘I can’t because… ‘ add the negative thoughts you usually put forth. If you have difficulty debunking your old assumptions, there is no shame or guilt in seeking professional help to eliminate negative and limiting beliefs.
When you manage each step without adding negative thoughts to the equation, you will reach your goal more quickly than you thought. Enjoy the journey.

                                                                                                                                       

Article Source: Six Steps To Create a New Paradigm

                                                                                                                                                                   

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How Can Facebook Benefit Your Business?

How Can Facebook Benefit Your Business?
It seems as if everyone is on Facebook these days. You may be used to thinking of Facebook as a way to connect with old friends or perhaps to make new ones, but have you considered how it may benefit your business? More and more companies are setting up their own Facebook pages, often with positive results for their web visibility and profits. How can Facebook benefit you?
A big mistake that many companies make when it comes to Facebook is to set up their page… then do nothing. If you do not give people a reason to visit your page frequently, they won’t! Make sure your customers and potential customers see the value in visiting your page regularly. We are unlikely to do things that don’t have a payoff, so give people a reason to visit your page.
Likewise, if you frequently update your page, but with unappealing and boring content, people are unlikely to visit you more than once. Make sure that your wall posts are visually appealing – could pictures and videos be more effective than words? – and interesting. No one has to visit your page, after all. It is up to you to see to it that they choose to visit your page.
If you have multiple people posting on your wall for your company, make sure there are guidelines as to what is and is not appropriate to post. And the same goes for things posted by your clients and potential clients – read everything that is posted to make sure it is non-offensive and appropriate for public. If there are certain types of comments that you would want to delete, be upfront about that.
When people post comments on your wall, respond! Thank them for their feedback. Likewise, when people post questions on your wall, answer them! People will soon stop posting if they never get a response from you. Answer questions and address comments in as timely a manner as possible. Don’t just say that feedback is important to you – show that it is important in the manner that you address comments and questions posted on your wall.
Using Facebook to benefit your company’s internet presence and visibility is a great use of social media marketing. And it is free! With as many people who are using Facebook these days, there is simply no reason not to have a page for your company.






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What Makes You Think Earning Online Is Impossible?

What Makes You Think Earning Online Is Impossible?
Why didn’t I make any money online when everybody else is earning loads of money? It is proven that majority of the sites that are set up usually run in losses and close down even before making a single penny.
While it is a fact that the online industry is fast developing and can also offer a good opportunity to earn lots of money, you will need to educate yourself with the accurate knowledge required to run your business.
After researching many of the new comers in the online business, these are some points that can possibly ruin a new comers dream.
1. Many of them opt for internet business as a means of getting rich in less time. They search for a source that will make them a millionaire overnight rather than working hard on their website.

2. Most of them keep reading the internet marketing books and suffer from information overload and cannot make a right choice from the various options available.

3. They cannot take the first step and keep on thinking if they can do it at all.
4. They keep changing from one business to another instead of focusing on a particular business. You should rather focus on a particular field and have your knowledge increased on it. Customers would like someone with expertise in a particular field.
5. They don’t have the determination, passion or the patience to get successful. You should know that, achieving success in this field is slow process and it will need some hard work. People expect instant results and this turns out to be one of the main reasons of failure.
6. Lack of technical skills can make the newcomers discouraged. They should rather educate themselves technically and carry on their work.
7. Many of them just don’t take internet business as a serious occupation. They are never willing to invest money in their business for advertising or educating themselves.
8. People don’t apply simple basic steps for building up their business and wonder why their business is not growing and making profits.
9. For an internet business to grow you to work hard and work smart. Just creating the website and expecting traffic to flow from day 1 is not how the business works. You need to have right knowledge and real patience to really excel.
10. The last point is to be persistent with your business. Never quit what you are doing for something else just because it is not working out. Increase your knowledge on it and work hard and you can observe you business returning you profits.
Just keep these basic points in mind; these can really put an end to your online business career.

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How To Find Free Paid Survey Websites

How To Find Free Paid Survey Websites
Don’t want to pay a hefty fee to gain access to a paid survey directory? You don’t have to because you can find free paid survey websites at no cost to you by using nothing but the Internet. If you follow the steps that I am going to outline for you below, you will be able to find many legitimate survey websites that will pay you cash for taking online surveys.
Ready to grow your list of legitimate survey sites?
Step 1 – Open up a blank word document. If you don’t have word, just use whatever text editor that is installed on your computer.
Step 2 – Open up your web browser and go to Google or Bing and search for a list of paid survey websites. Start with a query like this: “List of legitimate free survey sites”.
Step 3 – Review the search results and visit a few sites to see which survey panels they are recommending. Copy the names of each survey panel that you find appealing and paste them into your word document.
This should take you around 10-20 minutes. Don’t spend too much time on this step because at this point, you are only trying to see what’s out there. Once you have 20-30 survey companies on your list, you can move to the next step.
Step 4 – Now, you need to do another search. Take the first survey company on your list and type it into Google followed by the word “review”. Your query should end up looking like this: “ABCSurveys Review”.
You will be presented with websites that have reviewed that particular survey company. Read the reviews on a few of the sites that you come across and see what others are saying about company.
Don’t take them too seriously though because some reviews can be biased or fake. What you want to pay special attention to are the negative comments. What kind of complaints do you see? Are others complaining about the same things? If you feel that the negative comments outweigh the positive comments the company received, cross the site off your list and start with the next site.
Step 5 – If the negative comments didn’t bother you too bad, your next step would be to look for payment proofs. If you saw some recent payment proofs while checking out the reviews, you can skip this step. If you didn’t, go ahead and type in the name of the survey company followed by payment proof.
You may want to use Google Images for this search query to return better results. You are looking for recent payment proofs – checks or PayPal payments that were sent within the past year. A survey panel that paid back in 2006 may not still be legitimate today, so look for recent payment proofs.
If you can find some, continue with the next step. If you didn’t find any, reflect back on the reviews you read. Were people saying that they got paid from this company? Sometimes, you may not find a payment proof but the survey company does send out payments. Some people don’t post payments they get and sometimes, although not often, it is against the terms of a survey site to post proof of payments.
In cases where you have no proof that they pay, you have to use your best judgment to determine if the site is worth trying out. If you have to, do a bit more research on the company. Find out what their BBB rating is, visit their twitter profile or Facebook page, and check out what feedback, if any, the company has been getting from those who talk about their experiences with survey panels on discussion boards.
Step 6 – After you have looked around for payment proofs, it is time to go visit the website directly to check out a few things. When you arrive on the website, you need to see if they have a Terms, FAQS, and Privacy Policy page. If they do, great! Go ahead and read over those pages to see how the site works, how they handle your personal information, and whether or not you meet their member eligibility requirements.
If the site doesn’t have a privacy policy or a Terms of Use agreement, you should probably cross that site off your list. You need to know upfront how they use the information you supply to them and what their terms are. If they are not disclosing this information publicly, it’s likely they have something to hide and it probably isn’t good.
Step 7 – If you have determined that the company is a legitimate survey website worth joining, do just that. Become a member.
Step 8 – Now, all you need to do is repeat steps 1 -7 for the remaining survey companies on your list.
It’s a long process but you only need to do it once. Once you belong to 10-20 genuine survey companies, you can confidently start taking surveys and making money.


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How To Make EBook Creation Easier

How To Make EBook Creation Easier
Have you ever written an e-book and it has taken you for ever to write? Perhaps you started it a few months ago and you still haven’t finished? Or maybe it took you so long to finish that the thought of writing another one just does not appeal.
If that is the case then this article will help you to make e-book creation much easier and quicker.
Follow this plan:
  1. If you don’t yet know what topic your product will be about then this is obviously the first thing to decide. Find out what kind of topics your market need help with. Make a list of those topics and then choose one that you know a lot about and would be able to help other people with.

  2. Once you have chosen your topic break that down into as many sub topics as you can think of that people need to know in order to fully understand that main topic.
  3. Now go back to those sub topics and list three steps that someone needs to take to understand that sub topic.
  4. Once you have done that you can then begin writing. Below each of the three steps that you have listed underneath the subtopics just begin writing about those steps. This prevents you from getting overloaded and not knowing where to start by breaking your topic down into smaller and smaller parts.
  5. Once you have finished writing you can check that your e-book flows from one sub topic to the next. When you are happy that it flows you can then assign each sub topic as a chapter in your e-book.
  6. The three steps underneath each sub topic could be a subheading for that particular chapter if that would help the reader.
  7. You then need to add an introduction at the beginning of your e-book which outlines what you are covering and what people can expect to learn from your product.
  8. At the end you need some kind of conclusion or summary chapter with points that people can take away and implement to improve or achieve what they want to.
  9. Now go back and proof read your e-book and ask some other people to read it for you as sometimes when you have written something yourself you don’t often spot errors.
  10. Once you are happy that your e-book read well and there are no errors in it then you can convert it into a PDF document. I use Open Office for this. And then upload that PDF to your website.
If you use this technique for all of your e-book creation you will see that it can be done much quicker and will not be such a daunting prospect.

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The EBook Selling Business And How You Can Reach Success

The EBook Selling Business And How You Can Reach Success
For those that don’t know, selling eBooks are awesome. There’s nothing like it. You can wake up with sales in your inbox. You don’t have to physically deliver anything. Products can be instantly downloaded from your website. You can sell more eBooks to your customers to make MORE money. And you can put the whole thing on autopilot! Doesn’t this sound great!
Well, it is great. The not-so-great part is that many people who hear about this business fail miserably. They don’t want to learn more about marketing, they prematurely invest in paid advertising – with no idea as to how to make paid advertising work for them. They don’t know what the true meaning of “break-even” is. And they don’t know how to earn additional profits from their eBook after offering it for free – or even selling one for a price.
I must admit, there are a lot of people selling eBooks online today. More than likely you will find yourself with at least 1 competitor… even in some of the smallest niches online. And then in some niches, they may be filled with competitors, but you can STILL make a killing because the niche is just so responsive, and they desperately desire the information that you’re trying to sell them.
So, even though it can be tough, there are great rewards ahead of you if you plan to stay in this business for the long haul. So what are some of the tough things that you can encounter in the eBook business? Well for one there is competition. If you decide to go into a popular niche just because it “seems” like everyone is making money in it, you’re going down the long, unsuccessful path.
Another reason that selling eBooks are tough is that most newbies have no idea as to how to get a lot of traffic to their website. Traffic is essential if you want to see recurring eBook sales in your inbox every day. This is very important. There are a lot of traffic strategies out there, but I would say that the top 7 of them will produce the most results for you.
If you plan on using paid advertising, that’s fine. Just be sure to track your earnings, see if you can turn a profit from the incurred cost, and be sure to test new campaigns. If what you’re doing right now isn’t making the money that you were hoping for, test something different, or exit out of the niche.
If you try everything possible and still can’t get sales, it’s time to exit out of the niche. A good way to tell if a niche is responsive or not is to offer a free gift. If you ask for a person’s FIRST NAME and EMAIL ADDRESS so that you can email them the free gift, and people still aren’t massively responding… it’s time to get out of the niche. Period.
Don’t beat a dead horse. eBook marketing is easy, and it can be easy for you if you know what you are doing. There are many people who think that they can earn a great income with eBooks, but they have no idea of what they’re up against. Do your best, and be sure to monitor your sales, income, and business.
Good luck with selling eBooks today.

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EBook Publishing – A Step by Step Guide for New Authors

EBook Publishing – A Step By Step Guide For New Authors

As every business has its own set of “guidelines for success,” so does eBook publishing. While it isn’t wrong to think you can make money from publishing your ebooks, it does require attention to certain details in order to be successful. Here is a guide to assist new authors with planning a good strategy for eBook publishing:
As a beginner it is wise to set small consistent goals, as you take your first steps into the eBook publishing field. Start with writing an eBook on a topic that interests you. Choose a niche that you can write on easily.
Do some homework, researching topics of personal interest. Create unique quality content that is thought-provoking and interesting. Remember “content is king” and if the content you provide doesn’t grab your attention, it definitely won’t interest your readers.
Ebooks are generally shorter than print books, so test out your first eBook with an easy 5-15 pages. Later experiment with more, like 30 pages. Once your work is completed publish your eBook on several of the top rated free eBook publishing sites such as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.
Once published, it will be essential to put effort into marketing your ebook. Promote your eBook through email, article marketing and social media. Create pages at social networking sites and share a link to your eBook with a short description.
Send the links with an announcement to your friends, and request they pass it on to their friends. Thus you will create a network of readers. These initial steps pave the way for others to notice your ebook and purchase.
Once you succeed in capturing the attention of readers, tackle the next step of eBook publishing. Create a website or blog to cover various topics of interest to your readers. A great way to target this is to do a short survey, asking your existing readers what they are interested in learning more about.
Spend a little more time on research; check various review sites where your topics are discussed before you start your follow-up work. Leave an opening for updating your material with a follow-up ebook in the future. Ask your readers to post their comments to give you a flow of feedback. This helps you understand positive and negative aspects of your work. Once through this second step you definitely will have expanded your network of readers.
Now is the time to get committed to your writing and making some money. You are now ready to create more eBooks for this niche to which your readers have already have expressed interest. Collect more information about your topic and complete your next ebook.
Meanwhile, check for eBook publishing and outsourcing sites that offer services such as editing, formatting, designing and marketing. Discuss fees and royalties. Once your ebook is completed and published, it will be time to take advantage of the groundwork that you laid, with your network of readers.
Price your eBook reasonably, and promote it among your network of readers. Though it might take a while to see returns, as your work attracts more readers you will begin to see economic success.

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Writing Your First (Kindle) EBook – 6 DOs 3 DON’Ts

Writing Your First (Kindle) EBook – 6 DOs 3 DON’Ts

The following are some dos and don’ts if you’re thinking of writing (and publishing) an e-book for the first time. My experience comes from writing & publishing two books on Amazon Kindle, plus I’ve shared some knowledge gained from others who have a great deal more experience with eBooks & Kindle, such as Sean Roach and Ryan Deiss.
Firstly, 6 DOs!
#1 Do consider Amazon Kindle
According to a senior Google executive, Amazon is the company that they fear most. Amazon has over 400 million credit cards registered with them. No one else comes close. Why is Google so concerned? It’s that Amazon attracts buyers not browsers.
When it comes to eBooks, Amazon’s electronic publishing arm, Kindle, is one of the most powerful forces in the business. There are now over 100 million black and white Kindle readers and, more impressively still, the new Kindle Fire (which has a colour screen) has sold over 23 million units since July 2012. Not least that, but Kindle books can also be read (for free) on virtually every platform that’s out there. E.g. iPhones, iPads, PCs, Macs, Android etc. It’s no wonder that Kindle is growing at 119% a year.
#2 (Just) Do it!
If you think you’ve got a book in you, I encourage you to ‘Just Do It’. It’s now easier than ever. Once you’ve hit that Publish button, one of the beauties of the platform is that all books are placed at the same level; whether published by you, Simon and Schuster, or whoever!
You don’t even need to have expertise or special knowledge in any given subject… it’s perfectly okay to write as a reporter.
Another plus is that you don’t need to write a large amount. If you can write in the range of 20 to 50 pages, that’s perfect. If you want to write more than that, then consider writing a series of books rather than a single large book (as was the way, further back in history). If you are a first-timer, then the biggest challenge is possibly just that of overcoming the fear to take a risk and look stupid. Everyone gets that to a degree, so, as they say, just feel the fear and do it anyway. (Version One is better than Version None!)
#3 Do it for Fun (and profit too)!
To get going, perhaps start by just writing for fun. Take the smallest of steps and let it grow.
However, if you’re interested in profit too, I have some numbers that you may find interesting. Firstly, the costs to publish are very low. Kindle themselves charge nothing, however, if you want a professional photograph for your cover, you may need to pay a third-party for publishing rights (say $US 10 for a high resolution picture from a stock photo library). Likewise for formatting; if you prefer to not do it yourself you’ll have to outsource, however, the cost for that is very low as well.
Of course, beyond these costs the sky’s the limit if you want a very professional result or the support of a real publisher. However, if you’re just starting out, you can do so on a shoestring budget.
In terms of book pricing, the sweet spot for Kindle books is between $US 2.99 and $US 9.99. Any lower than that and the price might appear too cheap (implying low quality), and any higher than that needs extra justification. But, perhaps your book really does warrant a higher price. That’s great if so. However, unless there’s a compelling reason to do otherwise, it’s best to stay within the sweet spot range.
Though these prices may seem low, they can still produce a good income for the author as long as the volume is sufficiently high. This is because, as the author, you’ll get up to 70% royalty. (Amazingly, you’ll likely get a better income from an Amazon book selling at $US 2.99 than you will from a traditional paper book selling for $US 24.99!)
If you’re interested in some specific profit examples, I recently came across the results of a couple of Kindle ‘how-to’ books. One was called How To Purify Water and the other was called How To Use Pinterest. Even though both were priced at only $US 2.99, the book on how to purify water produced a royalty profit of about $US 300 per month, and the book on Pinterest produced a royalty profit of about $US 1,300 per month. Pretty good, eh!
#4 Do… aim for a Niche
The previous two examples lead neatly into the subject of niches. Both of those books were, I believe, aimed deliberately at popular niches; the purify water book at the ‘disaster preppers’ niche and the Pinterest book at a ‘happening’ Internet niche.
If you do write for a hot niche, then the results can be great. However, the trade-off is that the result may not be sustained over time.
Of course, niches need not be non-fiction. It’s worth noting that, for every three non-fiction books on Kindle, there are about two fiction books.
One example of a hot fiction niche came about following the roaring success of the book Fifty Shades of Grey. Despite its professional reviewers (who said its quality was “mixed to negative”) it became the fastest-selling paperback of all time. Of course, Kindle rode that wave too and did whatever they could to quickly get more titles of the same genre. (Maybe they still are!)
A brief word on pen names & niches. I’ve chosen to write my books using my own name. Of course, it’s perfectly okay to write in a pen name too. The best advice I’ve received is to use one pen-name per niche if you are publishing in multiple niches.
#5 Do some things to speed Production
I’ve found it’s best to write long, write fast, ignore errors, and then go back and rewrite, rewrite and rewrite again. (I actually start with a mind-map). Set-up the structure first and, if you can, create a book title and description early on. (Essentially, define the outcome and work back from there). To make progress at a reasonable pace, set yourself deadlines and then stick to them. Celebrate when you hit them. And, if you don’t, you might even want to give yourself an occasional penalty!
The only real ‘tool’ you need is Microsoft Word. Kindle does have a process to take Word documents and automatically convert them to their format (HTML). However, you will likely need to adjust your document before submitting it for conversion, as there are some aspects that their process is poor at achieving. E.g. table of contents, bullet points etc. (But, as mentioned before, there are plenty of people who offer this service at low cost).
One thing I’ve used to help me write quickly is voice recognition software. This technology has been around for a long time, however, it has now developed to a point at which it is both fast and accurate. It has to first learn about your style of talking, but, when that has happened it can type as fast as you can talk. I used a program called DragonSpeak, which costs $AU 80. It’s worth every cent!
#6 Do… pick a suitable environment
I found that the choice of the location that is used to write can make a big difference. The better you can focus, the better your speed and quality will be. For example, if you have a study at home that might be perfect for you, or perhaps you prefer a cafe, or public library. Whatever it is, if you’re getting stuck, I suggest to first experiment with your writing environment. (And that includes picking a time when you’re at your best). Just do whatever works for you.
And lastly, 3 DON’Ts!
Here are three simple tips that might help.
#1 Don’t copy others!
Don’t be tempted to plagiarise. Though I’m pleased to say that the content I’ve produced is original, it’s certainly the case that some people copy other people’s work (whether in large or small amounts). For anyone considering taking this shortcut, be aware that Kindle has sophisticated technology to detect this. They are able to scan on-line and check whether duplicate content exists elsewhere. So, the best advice is simple… just produce original work.
#2 Don’t proofread off the screen
It’s very important to produce material that looks good. Even if your content is the most fantastic and valuable thing ever written, it will be dragged down if the presentation is bad e.g. poor spelling, punctuation, grammar etc. I would recommend that, at the very least, you get someone else to proofread your manuscript. Failing that, print out a hard copy and then go through it yourself with a red pen, sentence-by-sentence, word-by-word. Do so slowly, and carefully… very carefully. If you rush it, you will likely miss errors.
But, whatever you do, don’t ever try to proofread off a screen. If you do this, errors are even harder to find. However, fortunately, if you do spot mistakes once the book has been published, it’s very quick and easy to fix them. Just resubmit and the corrected version will be published within about 12 to 24 hours.
#3 Don’t produce an elaborate cover
The key here is simplicity. When people first discover your book it’ll likely be as one thumbnail image in a search result amongst many others. Elaborate covers will likely mask the message, and so people may not click through to find out more. I would also suggest that, if your cover is light in colour, use a dark border on the outer edge. Again, the reason stems from the search process, as the cover thumbnail images are presented against a white background. So, if your book cover has a light shade, it will tend to merge into the background. So, better still, use a darker cover and that way it will stand out more.
As it is for the cover picture, so it is for the title. For this reason, use a title that is short and choose a style that is bigger & bolder than you would first think required.
In closing, I hope you’ve got some value from this article. With luck, you’re now encouraged to go ahead & write your first e-Book!