Posts Tagged ‘publishedandprofitable.com’

Self-published authors need developmental editing as much as authors working with trade publishers. No one is immune to the need for a fresh perspective and reality check by an experienced editor.

Unfortunately, many self-published authors don’t get the developmental editing help they need…and their book deserves. There are several reasons for this:

• Don’t consider it important. Sometimes, self-published authors, especially subject area experts, may feel their experience working in their field eliminates the need for developmental editing. Often, this belief is coupled with offers from family members and friends to “proof” their book for free. A willingness to accept professional input is often based on a misunderstanding of what developmental editing is all about.
• Don’t know where to get it. Many first-time authors don’t know where to locate developmental editors or how to find a local editor. Even if they search on Google and explore some of the websites that appear, they don’t know what to expect, what to ask, or how to evaluate candidates.
• Can’t afford it. Finally, many developmental editors simply can’t afford an experienced editor, and avoid the whole issue—rather than exploring what they can do on their own.

What is developmental editing?

Let’s start by analyzing what developmental editing isn’t, and, from there, explore what it is.

Developmental editing is not:

• Prooreading. Developmental editing isn’t searching for spelling errors, incomplete sentences, misused words, or misspelled words.
• Checking for grammatical errors. Developmental editing also isn’t grammar checking, i.e., checking for agreement between subjects and verbs, run-on sentences, passive verbs, or overuse of exclamation points! g)
• Fact checking. Developmental editing also doesn’t get involved with verifying details, ideas, or suggestions.

So, what is developmental editing?

I view developmental editing as pre-publication, multi-step search for coherence, or alignment, between:

• Books & author goals. Nonfiction, brand-building books aren’t written for creative expression. They’re written to establish the author’s credibility and contribute to future profits. Developmental editing can provide a reality check increasing the likelihood that the author’s writing and publishing goals will be achieved.
• Books & reader needs. Readers don’t buy business and personal-growth related nonfiction for entertainment or writing style. Books are purchased to solve problems and achieve goals. Developmental editing provides another reality check that tests the ability of the book to help its intended market.
• Books & their competition. Developmental editing provides an independent perspective on the other books competing for reader attention. The goal is to identify the “missing book,” or the book that’s wanted, but hasn’t been written yet.
• Coherence within the book. Finally, development editing provides an fresh perspective on how the contents of the book, and its various parts, work together serving the author and reader’s needs.

Basically, pre-publication developmental editing provides a “big picture view” to replace the myopia that authors face writing about topics they know and love.

Developmental editing provides focus and saves time and energy because avoiding mistakes is a lot more efficient than fixing them after they show up.

Developmental editing process

The goal of developmental editing is to save you time, reduce stress and sell more books by working as efficiently as possible. It involves making the right decisions as you plan and write your book.

The best developmental editing approach involves asking, and answering, the questions associated with the 7 key areas involved in writing, marketing, and self-publishing books:

• Goals. What are your writing and self-publishing goals? How are you going to profit from your book?
• Readers. Who are your ideal readers, firms and individuals you want to build lasting relationships with?
• Competition. What are the leading books that your book will be competing with?
• Position. How can you make your book distinctively different from existing books on your topic?
• Efficiency. What’s the easiest and fastest way you can get your book into your reader’s hands?
• Demand. How can you build demand for your book…while you’re writing it?
• Profit. What are some of the ways you can leverage your book into new opportunities and profits after it’s published?

The power of questions. Questions are powerful developmental editing tools because each time you answer a question, it’s likely to lead to additional questions… This forces you to question your assumptions and explore new options and alternatives.

Do-it-yourself developmental editing resources

Here are some of the ways you can enjoy the benefits developmental editing if you’re not ready to work on a 1-to-1 basis with a developmental editor, or take advantage of the benefits of group coaching.

• Free do-it-yourself resources. Many developmental editors offer free checklists, podcasts, worksheets and white papers containing valuable ideas. While its still available as a proof, you can also download a copy of my 99 Questions to Ask Before You Write and Self-publish a Brand-building Book. This hands-on PDF workbook provides a step-by-step framework to answering the questions that must be addressed before you start planning and writing your book, guiding you as you create a content plan and business plan for your book.
• Premium developmental editing resources. There are numerous free online resources that you can search for using terms like “book coach,” “developmental editing,” or “help writing a book and getting published.” You’ll probably find that the problem isn’t locating resources, but keeping track of them, and implementing the ideas you encounter. There are also low-cost, paid online resources that provide a “guided tour” approach to the tasks involved in planning, writing, promoting, and profiting from a book. Often, these resources include online group coaching for subscribing members. 500 pages of articles, checklists, author interviews, and worksheets.

All books require developmental editing

Self-published books need developmental editing as much as books written for large trade publishers. Whether you do the work yourself, or engage a professional developmental editor, you’ll find that developmental editing before and during writing will save you time, reduce stress, and increase the likelihood of your book’s success. What have been your experiences reading self-published books by others or self-publishing your own books? Share your experiences and questions below, as comments.

—

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, business, management, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger c parker, Writing for Business

Put Your Passion on a Platform

“If we don’t stand for something, we shall fall for anything.”~Peter Marshall, Chaplain (1947)

Although we often associate the word platform with politics, in fact it has a far more profound relevance in how we live our lives and pursue our passions. As most of us are not running for election, we do not need to use our platform to debate an opponent or win over voters. A platform is a point of view, a perspective, a place to stand. Without a platform we simply drift.

One of the best ways to develop a platform is to write. Whether it is a diary meant for your eyes only, or a published platform for the world to see, the very act of putting your thoughts in writing gives your thoughts wings, and sets your mind in motion. Writing not only gives shape to your thoughts, but the process of writing makes you a proactive producer, rather than a passive consumer. Writing puts things in perspective by requiring you to take a point of view, while at the same time considering the points of view of your readers, an excellent recipe for flexible focus.

Although we all learn to write in school, few people continue to write, and many resist the process as a tiresome task. Even people who want to write often experience writer’s block, a state of mental congestion in which words jam and fail to communicate what is inside wanting to come out.

Oddly, chances are that you are never more fluent when it comes to talking about your passions. But when you try to write about them, you often find that your thoughts have clipped wings.

One of the reasons for this is the feeling cultivated in school that writing is something that you will be graded on. Poor spelling and awkward phrases may brand you as uneducated or incoherent. It may seem safer to stick to speech, rather than committing yourself in print.

And yet putting your thoughts on paper is one of the best ways to put your passion on a platform, because it is lasting, and reaches much further than your voice. Your writing can be the core element of your personal brand.

Facilitating the Process

The fastest way to fluency in writing is to form the habit of logging your thoughts in a notebook, capturing your ideas in key words, images, and visual metaphors. Your brain takes to a notebook like a duck to water. it is your space, your playground, your mental mirror. No need to worry about grades or grammar, just enjoy the power of the pen.

I have explored this process in depth in my Creative Career Path column in such articles as, Idea Marathon, Making Your Mark, and Doodle for Your Noodle. Without a vibrantly flowing river of thought running through your life, any efforts you make at formal writing will sound stilted and forced. Imagine if a company of actors put on a play without any rehearsals or practice. The results would not be pretty, and yet that is the approach that many people take when they sit down to write without the habit of daily practice.

Once you have become comfortable putting pen to paper and generating ideas, the next step is to engage in writing to an audience. Whether through a blog or an article, or more formally through a book, you are better served if you make use of writing tools which can enhance your ability to say what you mean in a memorable way.

Words gain more power when addressed with alliteration. Taking care to select the right words can help you craft your style in a way that is both conversational and concise. Because your passive vocabulary is much larger than your active vocabulary, it is important to reach into the full range of words which you already know, but may not be accustomed to using. The best way to do this is to make use of tools like Thesaurus.com. You will be surprised to see how many ways there are to say the same thing with a different nuance.

To enhance your writing experience, Scrivener is an excellent tool, available for Mac OSX, and with a beta version for Windows. Scrivener is a complete writing studio, with all you could possibly want to organize your research, format your documents, keep visual notes, manage text statistics, search your documents, or edit and add comments. It is a writer’s dream.

The Mandala Chart itself is an excellent way to organize ideas around a subject, or create an editorial calendar, allowing you to see the big picture, the fine detail, and the integration of your material with flexible focus. Another excellent tool for organizing your ideas is PersonalBrain. You can create your own 3D idea maps on your computer, or publish them in the form of a Webbrain, such as I have done for this column with the Flexible Focus Webrain.

If you want to write or present yourself professionally in print, then there is no better resource than Roger C. Parker’s PublishedandProfitable.com, a step by step resource guide to planning, writing, promoting, and profiting from a book or any other form of writing. Here you will find templates, white papers, expert interviews, articles, worksheets, and a wealth of resources for writers. Roger has also lent his wisdom on Writing for Business through his Author’s Journey series on Active Garage.

Published writing increases the size and quality of your interface with the world. It has never been easier to create and cultivate that interface through software tools and leverage your work through social media. Give wings to your thoughts, and see just how far it can take you personally and professionally.

—

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, Creative career path, doodle for your noodle, Flexible Focus, Idea Marathon, Leadership, making your mark, mandala charts, manga, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger parker, scrivener, tips and tools, Webrain, william reed, Writing for Business, writing tips, writing tools

When I am asked “Why do you write”, its usually followed by a “Everyone  knows most writers don’t make a living out of it. So, why would you do something like that?”

In answer to this,  the following quote by James Baldwin resonates with me.

“You write in order to change the world…. The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” – James Baldwin

If you keep this in mind, you can sense the difference writers’ and authors’ tribe makes to this world. And in pursuing this passion, you come to a point, when you meet and interact with many people who are changing the world one article and one book at a time. Seth Godin says, “He writes because there is no better way to spread ideas”… I agree. So, if you look at this Tribe of authors you will see their commitment to spreading ideas, sharing ideas – like a free trade of exchange of ideas to shift the world view in a medium called “language” which is what separates human beings from animals.

When I wrote my eBook, PINk and Grow RICH, I was sharing the idea that ” RICH means different things to different people. Most successful people did not start with the motive to get rich. They were more interested in helping others”. And then it was a matter of time when I saw the power of sharing ideas through social media. I found an aspect of “creativity” and “community” that I did not know.

Creativity

This was brought forth for me by Roger C Parker, who shared his review on his popular blog leveraging social media to do so . His review focused on sharing ideas on content, design and picking a title – ideas exchange for those writing or considering to write an eBook.

Read below his post on content and design

Content & design tips for e-book success

Read below his post on choosing a title for your book

Choose a memorable book title before you begin to write your book

Community

This became visible with post from William Reed and an interview with Rajesh Setty. They became part of the community that helps you spread the ideas using social media.

Read below article by William Reed
Lessons in Leadership from Deepika

Read below interview with Raj Setty
Pink and Grow Rich; Interview with Deepika Bajaj

And their respective communities “Tweeted” and shared it with their communities. And I became part of a bigger community – a larger community powered by social media.

So, as a gift this holiday season, I am taking 40% off the price on my ebook (regularly priced at $9.95, now $5.99).

We all have people who give us material gifts, this season give an idea as a gift and become part of the larger community of folks who share your interests. Make this Holiday count for someone, who is not stepping up to his maximum potential Or someone who feels robbed of his dreams Or someone who thinks if he had more money, he would be happy….Get your copy now and gift it to as many people…and become an agent to spread the ideas.

—

Tagged as: active garage, author, business books, deepika bajaj, ebook, invincibelle, Pink and Grow Rich, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, Rajesh Setty, roger c parker, roger parker, seth godin, Social Media, social media and tribes, tribes, william reed, writing, Writing for Business

The publication of your first book marks a milestone in your life and in your career. You’ll probably never forget the excitement you felt when the first box of books arrived and you reached in and could hold your book in your hand.

Hold that thought! Because your feeling of joy and satisfaction will soon be followed by the question, What am I going to do next?

Where’s the second act?

At some point, your agent, clients, friends, and publisher are going to ask you, What are you going to write next? It’s not an easy question to answer, here are some of the things you should be thinking about:

1. Write or market? Should you devote more time to marketing your current book, or should you move on to new projects?
2. Topic. Are you going to write about the same topic, or a different topic?
3. Format. Will you write another book, or will your follow-up project be an audio, video project?
4. Distribution. Are you going to self-publish your next project, continue with your current publisher, or seek another publisher?

Some of the answers to these, and other, questions may be beyond your control. Depending on your agent’s, or your, savvy, your current publishing contract may limit your options. Unless the dreaded “Right of first refusal” clause was deleted from your contract, for example, you may be limited in your publishing options.

Likewise, if you don’t have clear copyright ownership of your book title, or, at least, the key words in it, you may not be able to take the title elsewhere or use it for creating your own back-end events, products, and services.

Your book’s sales also make a difference. The sales of your book will influence your desirability and bargaining power with your current publisher and your reception at other publishers.

Is your title expandable?

Most important, Were you looking to the future when you chose the title for your first book? Did you choose an accurate, distinct, and memorable title that you can expand into a series of books? Was the core idea of your first book so specific that it won’t survive the test of time? Or, did you choose a title that describes a condition that will be around a long time?

The ideal book titles balance brand and specificity.

• Narrow book titles, like How to Get Rid of the Water In Your Basement, doesn’t provide many opportunities to build your brand. These titles are so literal that there is nothing to remember.
• Branded titles, however, emphasize an attitude, approach, or perspective, such as the 5-Thumbed Homeowner’s Guide to Getting Rid of Water in Your Basement. Now, using a title formula, you can do what Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerrilla Marketing series, the …for Dummies series, or Robert Kyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad series, did and create a series of best-sellers that can be added to over the next 20 years!

When you’ve chosen a branded title, you can create a series of 5-Thumbed Homeowner Guides to building outdoor patios, renovating bathrooms, or converting a spare bedroom into a home office!

Should you re-invent the wheel?

Thus, when selecting topics for follow-up books, avoid the temptation to reinvent the wheel. Instead, look for ways you can build on the brand you began with your first book or e-book.

The following are some topic ideas you can use when choosing a topic for your follow-up book:

1. Go deeper and narrower. In your follow-up book, you can explore a particular aspect of the process described in your original book, going into greater detail than you did in your original book. Often, a topic that you covered in a single chapter of your original book- -or, even- -just part of a chapter, can form the basis for your next book.
2. Different formats, different prices. In contrast to going deeper, you might explore ways to write a less expensive version of your original book, perhaps one designed to appeal to newcomers to your field. If your first book was an expensive Handbook, for example, your follow-up book can be a Weekend Guide. By offering a lite version of your original book, you can appeal to a particularly price sensitive market.
3. Narrower market focus. Another alternative is to narrow your focus, and focus your next book on a particular market segment. If your first book introduced 10 ideas or tools, for example, for online marketing, your follow-up books could apply the ideas or tools to particular business categories or occupations. A series of books on home maintenance, for example, could be created targeting different geographic areas, i.e., cold climates, warm climates, humid coastal locations, etc. Jay’s Guerrilla Marketing series, for example, has been adapted for financial planners, non-profits, performers, and writers. There are also versions targeting techniques, like online marketing.
4. More helpful. Even if your original book contained exercises and questions intended to help readers apply your ideas to their specific situations, there’s usually room for improvement. In this case, consider offering a workbook containing worksheets and planning sheets readers can use in conjunction with your original book.
5. Case studies and profiles. One of the best ways to return to the theme of your original book is to describe the experiences of readers who read your book and followed your advice. Undoubtedly, new ideas and perspectives will emerge as you interview your original readers, which will add interest to the follow-up book.
6. Updates. New challenges, opportunities, technologies, and trends are constantly appearing, and new case studies are likely to emerge. In some situations, there are opportunities for yearly updates. In other cases, however, you can wait for new tools to establish themselves before writing a book describing their impact on your field.

The importance of planning ahead

Planning has been a constant at every step in this Author’s Journey (see previous installments in the Author’s Journey series). Whether you’re picking a topic, analyzing the competition, creating a table of contents, or setting up a blog, you start with a plan. Serendipity will always present itself, but it’s essential that you look to the future when planning, writing, marketing, and profiting from a book.

—

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, book title, case studies, market focus, planning, promote, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, publishing, roger c parker, roger parker, self publishing

Last week, I discussed some of the ways authors can attract profitable speaking invitations.

This week, I’d like to take the idea of “speaking for profit” to the next level, which involves creating, marketing, and producing special events like conferences, seminars, and workshops. These differ from speaking in two important ways:

• Multiple presenters. Conferences and workshops, often called “bootcamps,” typically involve multiple speakers. Often, there’s a well-known keynote speaker, followed by sessions conducted by subject area experts- -often other authors- -who may be paid, but often participate because of the visibility and opportunity to demonstrate their competence to attendees who may be coaching or consulting prospects.
• Affiliate marketers. Authors presenting conferences and workshops often depend on marketing affiliates to help promote and sell tickets to their events in exchange for either a flat fee, or a percentage of each attendee’s fees.

Major profit potential

Profits for authors presenting in-person events can be significant. Profits quickly mount up when you have 100 or 500 people paying several hundred dollars to attend a live event. Successful events also create a buying frenzy of back-of-the-room profits from books,
CD’s, DVD’s, and workbooks.

Soon after Looking Good in Print appeared, I became a lead speaker for desktop publishing conferences produced several times a year around the country by Thunderlizard Productions, a partnership of three authors. I remember staring out at hotel ballrooms filled with participants who often faithfully attended each year’s conference, as well as pre-conference and post-conference workshops.

Other sources of event profits include:

• Booth rentals. This involves renting booth in an adjacent “open-to-the-public” exhibition space to firms interested in marketing to conference attendees.
• Sponsorships. Often, corporations sponsor pre-conference breakfasts, sponsored lunches, and happy hour afternoon networking events.
• DVD’s and CDs. When events are recorded, post-conference sales of audios, transcripts, and videos create excellent content for direct-marketing and back of the room sales at upcoming events.
• Pre-registrations. Before one year’s event ends, savvy producers are usually offering significant discounts for attendees who pre-register for next year’s conference. These pre-registrations, of course, help pay for marketing next year’s event!

All is not entirely rosy, of course; promotion and space rental costs can be huge, and the potential of major losses is possible because of events far beyond your control. I also remember numerous event cancellations immediately following 9/11, and the current economic environment doesn’t encourage attendance at anything other than the most important events.

As a result of this, authors are frequently turning to “virtual events” based on computer and telephone-based teleseminars or webinars. These typically take place over several days. Whether in-person or virtual, however, the principles remain the same.

7 keys to success and profits

Even more than books, conferences and workshops are planning-intensive. Success involves careful planning and co-ordination. Planning often begins a year, or more, in advance.

Above is a copy of a mind map I’ve created to help clients plan their event’s success. The map’s purpose is to help you co-ordinate the 7 key activities that will determine your event’s success and profits:

1. Planning. Planning involves answering 2 key questions. The first question is, Where and when do you want to hold your event? This involves identifying and contacting conference and banquet facilities in the areas where you want to host your event. Realities like availability and pricing have to be balanced with desired requirements. The second question is, Who do you want to attend your event? As a successful author and marketer, you’re probably familiar with the concept of personas, described in Author’s Journey #2: How to Target the Right Readers for Your Book.
2. Promotion. As soon as you have locked-down space availability, it’s important to start preparing your online and offline marketing. Once you have identified your location and target market, you can start preparing landing pages and a web site for your event, even if the pages won’t go live until later. Details can always be added, but it’ essential to give copywriters and designers enough time to prepare the foundation for a multi-faceted and multimedia promotion program.
3. Sales. In addition to creating sales copy and attractive landing pages, you have to set up a sales system which will not only facilitate online registration and sales, but also will allow marketing affiliates to sell for you. First, you have to sell your event to marketing affiliates, getting them behind your event. Second, you have to provide your affiliates with the sales tools- -e-mail copy, pre-written blog posts, graphics- – they need to sell their markets. And, finally, you need to sell- -or convert- -visitors when they are sent to your website.
4. Content. Next, you need to create a “table of contents” for your events by identifying and contacting other experts in your field and convince them to speak at your event. Scheduling can be time-consuming because of the necessary co-ordination. Mind maps help you visually display the status of various time slots each morning and afternoon of your event. With a map, you can easily keep track of multiple speakers and multiple conference rooms throughout your event. After deciding who speaks when, you have to work with them and make sure their presentation addresses the topics you’ve agreed upon.
5. Visuals. Most events include a video component as well as a spoken message. Among the decisions you’ll have to make is whether or not to require all presenters use a presentation template that’s branded to your event. By encouraging presenters to use the same template pays off in terms of projecting a consistent and professional image. Again, your Workshop Planning Map can help you track the status of the various presenter’s visuals.
6. Handouts. Attendee handouts will play an important role in the perceived value of your event. This is no place for last-minute cost cutting. To your attendees, your handouts are their primary “souvenir.” Attendees, and their attendee’s friends, co-workers, and employers, will judge the value of your event by the quality of your handouts. In addition, evaluations are an important part of your event. Handouts must include clearly-marked evaluation forms that must be collected after each presentation.
7. Follow-up. Your event isn’t over on the last day. The success of next year’s event is paved by what you do after the event. Ideally, if your event ends on a Saturday, attendees will receive a “Thank You” gift in the mail on Monday, their next day back at work. By sending a tangible expression of your appreciation to attendees- -ideally, a “bonus” item that relates to your event- -you’ll be cementing a relationship that will last for years.

Although broken apart for clarity, above, many of the above tasks have to be simultaneously addressed. By analyzing all of the tasks involved in a successful event, and displaying them on a single mind map- -especially one that can be shared online by everyone involved in your event’s success- -you can monitor what’s been done, and what still needs to be done.

Planning & profits

Planning is a constant theme throughout a successful Author Journey, as you can see from my previous 32 posts.

But, no amount of planning can protect against every eventuality; Who could have foreseen the empty planes and empty pre-paid seminar seats following 9/11? Yet, by focusing on the above issues, and giving yourself and your team enough time to do the job right, you can leverage your book into a series of profitable events that may catapult you into an entirely different tax bracket!

—

Tagged as: 7 keys to profitable special events, affiliate marketing, audio conferences, author's journey, book sales, book signings, bootcamps, booth rentals, Content, handouts, pre-registrations, presentations, profitable speaking invitations, profiting from speaking, promotion, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger c parker, roger parker, special events, sponsorships, video conferences

Information products are an author’s best friend; they offer far more profit potential than authors can earn from book sales alone. Last week, we explored the 3 main issues involved in creating profitable information products: copyright, format, and topic.

This week, we’ll take a look at creating a process to produce, market, and schedule information products.

As I’ve stressed throughout this Author Journey, the goal of a system, or process, is to help you increase efficiency, reduce stress, and increase the likelihood of success.

The same systems I described to help you write your book also apply to creating and marketing information products that leverage off your book. The ideas I described when we discussed finding the time to write your book are equally applicable to creating information products. In both cases, success involves breaking big tasks into a series of smaller tasks, each with their own starting and completion dates.

Creating a process for Info-product success

The starting point to creating a process for managing and marketing your information products is to use a worksheet similar to the Info-product Production Worksheet, shown here, that I created for myself and my book coaching clients.

Like all Published & Profitable worksheets, it is designed to be downloaded and printed and filled out by hand.

The choice of format is important: in a world where we are usually tethered to our computers, there is often something liberating about writing by hand. Perhaps its the freedom to jot down ideas as they occur to you, and perhaps its the freedom to work wherever there’s a flat surface- -even if there’s no computer available.

The purpose of this worksheet is to be used after you have decided on the info-product formats and topics for your back-end products and services. (Other worksheets are available for evaluating options and prioritizing the information products you’re going to use to create back-end profits based on your book. )

Working with the Info-Product Production Calendar

Here are some ideas and tips for working with the Info-Product Production Calendar worksheet:

• Multiple copies. Start by making several copies of the worksheet. Print a separate copy for each project you’ve decided to create and market. Print the worksheets on 3-hole punch paper, and store them in a a 3-ring binder. Add the project name and the current date at the top of each worksheet.
• Dates. Note that for every task, there are spaces for entering 3 separate dates; a Starting Date, Goal date (i.e., desired completion), and Finished Date. The Finished Date is there to help you and your Info-product Team track your progress.
• Create tasks. Begin by identifying the steps needed to create the Info-product. These tasks break down into Planning, Production, Copywriting, and Bonuses. Planning involves testing and market research. Copywriting involves preparing the marketing copy that will form the basis of online and offline product descriptions, downloadable one sheets, and press releases. Bonus are there to remind you that Info-product best practices include offering bonuses, often audios and videos, that enhance the perceived value of your offer.
• Market. Many authors make the mistake of concentrating their time and energy on producing information products, then compromise the quality of their marketing materials by rushing them to completion. The purpose of the Market section of the worksheet is to encourage you to prepare the online pages needed for marketing your Info-products as far ahead of time as possible. Luckily, WordPress and other online marketing tools allow you to prepare drafts that won’t be published until your Info-product is ready for sale.
• Distribution. Likewise, it’s important to schedule your time so that you and others you’re working with have time to set up and test your delivery system, such as shopping carts to take and process orders and autoresponders to deliver them.
• Tracking. One of the most important sections of this worksheet is the final section, which permits you to track the results of your marketing and compare page visits with the resulting sales. You can also use the Tracking section to identify and test variables, such as price, headline, or marketing copy, in order to constantly refine your marketing for each product or service.

Worksheet benefits

Worksheets, such as the Info-Product Production Calendar, are valuable in many ways. They remind you of the numerous tasks involved in marketing and selling even a relatively simple Info-Product. They make it easy for you to track your progress. They improve quality and reduce stress by helping you plan your time so you’ll avoid “deadline madness.” And they provide an easy way to consolidate a lot of different project information on a single sheet of paper.

Visit Published & Profitable’s Active Garage Resource Center where you’ll find examples of many of the worksheets described in previous Author’s Journey installments, as well as other resources to help you speed your journey. And, if you have any questions or suggestions, or examples of your favorite Info-products or Info-Product marketing, submit them as comments, below.

Tagged as: active garage, info-product, marketing, marketing information products, production calendar, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger parker, Writing for Business

The next logical step, after planning, writing, and promoting your personal branding book, as described during the past 29 weeks, is to create a series of information products based on your book.

Information products are often referred to as “back end” profits, since the profit goes directly to the author, and the profit is generated after a reader’s initial purchase of a book.

The purpose of these information products is to build profitable, long-term relationships with prospects who have read your book and now know, like, and trust you. The key words in the previous sentence are profitable and long-term:

• Profitable. The relatively low selling price of most books, coupled with the costs of production, printing, marketing, and distribution, severely limit an author’s profit options. However, there is no limit to the profits that authors can earn from selling information products based on their books.
• Relationships. An author’s ultimate profitability is determined not by a reader’s first, or, even, second, follow-up sale, but by the author’s ability to create an on-going relationship that generates multiple sales from readers of their book.

Today, with the Internet, it’s easier than ever for branded, nonfiction authors to create and market information products to their tightly-defined markets. However, authors must prepare the groundwork well in advance of their book’s publication.

What are information products?

The best definition of information products comes from The Official Guide to Information Marketing on the Internet, by Robert Skrob & Bob Regnerus, with a Foreword by Dan Kennedy. (An Entrepreneur Press book.)

In the Foreword, Dan Kennedy wrote:

Information marketing, then, is about identifying a responsive market with a high interest in a particular group of topics and expertise, packaging information products and services, matching that interest (written/assembled by you or by others, or both) and devising ways to sell and deliver it.

Dan concludes: If you can name it, somebody is packaging and profitably information about it.

Information product decisions

As we have seen throughout my Author’s Journey, success is ultimately based on an author’s decision making ability. At every step along the way, authors are making decisions, choosing one title over another, deciding how much information to include in each chapter, and deciding whom to approach for pre-publication marketing quotes.

With regard to information products and back-end profits, authors must make 3 types of decisions:

• Copyright. Who owns the rights to the book’s title and contents? When authors choose a trade publisher, copyright ownership is usually split between author and publisher. Although, on the surface, this sounds innocuous, it can lead to future problems in terms of using the book title and key ideas to generate information product profits that are not shared with the publisher. One of the reasons many authors choose to self-publish is freedom from potential copyright hassles.
• Format. What are the best formatting choices for information products? How should information be packaged and distributed? Authors often approach formatting decisions, i.e., printed paper pages electronic files, CDs and DVDs versus streaming audio or video. However, a better way to approach formatting decisions is from the perspective of: Which format does my market desire?
• Topics. After making the correct copyright and format decisions, the last topic involves choosing the specific topics, or titles, for information products. Should an author focus information products on providing the latest information, implementation assistance (i.e., tips and worksheets), or should the focus be on creating customized versions of the book for specific vertical markets?

There is no universal right or wrong way to answer the above questions. In most cases, information product decisions, like planning, writing, and book marketing decisions, ultimately involve serious tradeoffs.

An author’s decision to accept a trade publisher’s, hypothetically, $20,000 advance for a  hardcover book that will be sold in Barnes & Noble and Borders, plus airport bookstores, must be weighed against their 100% ownership of the brand created by the book and freedom to control audio and video rights, and create a profitable “train the trainer” program that can be sold around the country.

Sometimes, of course, it’s possible to do both! But, this won’t happen by accident!

If an author’s goal is to create a personally branded franchise that can be leveraged around the country, rights have to be negotiated with the publisher. Or, the author should plan on max’ing out the credit cards, or taking out a second mortgage on the house, in order to self-publish their book.

Closing thought

For too long, authors have approached writing books from an ideas, or purely “writing,” point of view. A few authors, with a more enlightened point of view, have viewed books as the result of a partnership between writing and marketing.

But, now, as competition for traditional retail shelf space has intensified while the Internet has opened new avenues for self-publishing and self-marketing have opened up, it’s become increasingly obvious that it is difficult to separate books from information products. Today’s most successful authors view their books as tools for subsequent sales of information products; authors are now publishers; but can only succeed as publishers when they plan, from the start, to make the transition

Tagged as: active garage, business books, marketing books, profiting from books, published and profitable, publishedandprofitable.com, publishing, roger c parker, roger parker, self publishing, Writing for Business

During the past 10 weeks, I’ve been discussing different approaches to marketing your book, including list-building incentives, one sheets, and obtaining pre-publication quotes. (Here’s where you can review all previous installments.)

This week, I’d like to tie the previous 10 installments together, and close Part 3, Planning, by discussing the importance of creating a book marketing plan as early as possible.

As you’ll see below, the reason to start early is to set-up systems, like a blog with incentives and auto-responders, so that everything will be placed well before your book is published. Committing to a plan, even if you only spend an hour a week on marketing activities, will save you money and stress in the long run, paving the way for a successful book launch.

A marketing plan doesn’t have to be complicated to be effective! I believe in work worksheets, like the samples shown, but you can also create your own marketing plan worksheets using the tables feature of Microsoft Word. You can also use an online calendar, like Google’s, to assign starting and completion dates for each task identified in your book marketing plan.

4-stage book marketing

There are four distinct stages, or phases, of a successful book marketing plan:

• Announcement. As soon as you sign a contract with your publisher, or- -if you’re self-publishing- -your printer, it’s time to announce your forthcoming book online and offline.
• Pre-Launch. During the pre-launch phase, while you’re writing your book, you should be setting up the online structure for marketing your book and building a network of marketing partners whose efforts will culminate during your publication week book launch.
• Launch. The week of your book’s publication, you won’t have much time left over for beginning new marketing endeavors; hopefully, you’ll be too busy with interviews and events designed to call attention to your book’s publication.
• On-going. Things will settle down to a “maintenance” stage after your book’s publication. Your primary activities will involve keeping your book in the news, (and search engines), by commenting on reader feedback, encouraging reader reviews at Amazon.com, and blogging about new ideas that have emerged after your book’s publication.

Stage 1: Announcement

Here are some of the marketing tasks you should be addressing during the Announcement stage, right after you formally plan your publication agreement:

1. Social media. Announce your book’s title, publisher information, and publication date on your blog, and social media like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
2. Press. Prepare a press release and add it to your current website’s press center, as well as submit it online and offline to appropriate media.
3. Special markets. Prepare a list targeting special, i.e., non-bookstore, markets that are likely to be interested in your book, and announce your book using postcards and special market catalogs like Brian Jud’s Premium Book Company.

As in the stages that follow, the best way to assure that the tasks are completed is to prioritize the tasks, and assign definite (and realistic) starting dates and deadlines for each task, as shown in the worksheet samples.

Stage 2: Pre-launch

The Pre-launch phase is the longest and, in many ways, the most important. Here, you’ll be preparing the structure that will roll into action as your book’s publication date approaches. Tasks include:

1. Building anticipation. It’s never too early to start discussing your book using a series of podcasts, teleseminars, or videos describing why you’re writing your book, the topics you’re covering in your book, and how your target market will benefit from your book. Each podcast, teleseminar, or video enhances your search engine visibility and begins to attract prospective book buyers.
2. Online marketing. Unless you’ve already set up a blog for your book, it’s important that you set up a blog with an incentive and autoresponder to capture the names and e-mail addresses of prospective book buyers. Online marketing also includes setting up an Author’s Page at Amazon.com, which can include audios, videos, and an RSS feed from your blog.
3. Marketing partners. One of the most important pre-publication tasks is to identify others who sell to markets similar to yours, so you can set up a series of Launch Week promotions to introduce you and your book to their clients and prospects. The more work you do for your marketing partners, like creating landing pages and marketing messages for them to forward during your Launch Week promotion, the easier it will be to encourage marketing partners to promote your book’s publication, building advance sales and publication week sales.
4. Virtual book tour. Bookstore signings, although valuable in your area, may not be as important as virtual book tours that consist of teleseminar interviews hosted by bloggers and marketers with a strong Internet presence. Elizabeth Marshall is one of the most experienced resources for setting up virtual book tours.
5. Book covers and one sheets. It’s never too early to “encourage” your book publisher to begin working on a front cover design for your book. You’ll need a tentative book cover so you can produce downloadable and attachable one-sheets that describe your book, it’s contents, and its benefits to website visitors and the press.
6. Pre-publication reviews and testimonials. Finally, you should be building your expert network as early as possible, and preparing a “quote package” that you can send to experts in your field, soliciting their pre-publication comments and testimonials about your book.

As always, slow and steady wins the race; consistent weekly progress, beginning as early as possible, creates the best results.

Stage 3: Launch week.

With systems already set in place by the time your book’s publication date approaches, you’ll be able to focus on putting your best foot forward as you promote your book in the following ways:

1. Teleseminars and speaking. Hopefully, your book’s publication week will be occupied with a full schedule of local and online events. Each night, as you prepare for bed, you should review the talking points you want to weave into your interviews and responses to audience questions.
2. Acknowledging key supporters. As soon as your advance copies of your book arrive, you should send copies, accompanied by hand-written notes, to all who contributed pre-publication quotes and reader testimonials.
3. Encouraging reader reviews. Whenever possible, you should encourage family, friends, and key supporters to submit Reader Reviews to online bookstores like Amazon.com and others. You can also encourage these in your blogs and newsletters.

Traffic to your blogs and websites should be growing during your book launch week, as autoresponders and other online tools do the work while you reap the rewards of the marketing systems you’ve put in place.

Stage 4: On-going

Things settle down even more after the publication of your book. Promotion never “ends,” and you’ll undoubtedly discover new marketing opportunities as you move forward.

During the on-going, or maintenance, stage, a single blog post a week calling attention to your book, possibly referencing current events or new information, may be enough to maintain your book’s momentum and search engine visibility.

Setting yourself apart

The above 4-stage marketing approach, with the emphasis on the third, or Pre-Launch, stage will provide you and your book a significant competitive edge over your competition.

Many authors simply ignore the realities of book marketing, trusting their publisher or the fates to market their book for them. Most authors still begin to promote their book too late, i.e., after their book appears!

But, you can be far ahead of your competition if you’ve done your homework during the Announcement and Pre-launch stages. The benefit? While others are just getting started, you can be working on your follow-up titles, or leverage your book into highly-profitable back-end products and services.

As always, a little planning goes a long way!

—

Tagged as: active garage, blogs, books marketing, books promotion, business writing, publishedandprofitable, publishedandprofitable.com, Social Media, teleseminars, videos, Writing for Business

In this segment of my Author Journey series series, I’d like to encourage you to speak your way to book publishing success by speaking about your book at every opportunity.

Speaking is one of the best ways you can promote your book while planning and writing it. It creates a special bond with your audience, paving the way for book sales and lasting relationships.

Speaking builds anticipation for your book’s publication. Whether your audience is a local chamber of commerce or a networking group, or a convention, speaking provides you with immediate feedback about your book’s title and contents.

Each speech also provides you with a deadline to prepare or refine your message and an opportunity to build anticipation for your book by promoting your speech.

As often is the case, of course, you may benefit more from the speech than those in the audience. Each time you speak, for example, you become more comfortable as a speaker and your delivery is likely to improve. Each time you speak, you’ll probably identify rough spots- -awkward words and phrases- -that you can replace with shorter, easier to say words and phrases.

And, don’t forget what you’ll learn from the audience’s questions! One relevant, unexpected question can provide you with a fresh perspective or open up new avenues for you to explore in your book, or your next book.

What should you talk about?

Your speeches should revolve around your book, approached from different perspectives. Options include:

• Testing the content waters. Previewing the topic, and approach, you’re taking in your book and testing the ideas developed in different chapters. You could prepare one “generic” speech introducing your book, plus a couple of other speeches focused on individual chapters.
• The writing experience. Many of the people in the audience may be envious of your position at the podium in front of the room; they’re likely to never write a book themselves. You can tap into their vicarious identification with you by sharing your perspective on what it’s like to want to write and actually act on the impulse.
• Reflections on your book. If your book has already appeared, your speeches, or a portion of them, can discuss what reviewers and readers have said about your book, sparking dialog and questions, plus providing a compelling reason for attendees to buy their own copy of your book so they can comment and join the dialog.
• Updated information. After your book has appeared, your speeches can provide you with an opportunity to describe new information, interpretation, and trends, that have occurred after your book’s publication.

To help you prepare your speeches, for a limited time, I’ve added a copy of my Author Speech Planning Worksheet to the other resources on my Active Garage Resource Page for you to download and print.

Use the worksheet to plan your speech around your audience’s goals and needs, and keep your speeches as simple as possible. The shorter your speech, the more time there will be for audience comments and questions.

Making the most of your speeches

Here are some of the ways you can leverage your speeches into book sales and marketing funnel profits:

• Introduction. Always prepare you own introduction; don’t depend on someone else to know what to say when they’re introducing you. An inappropriate or inaccurate introduction can launch your speech on an awkward, confidence-destroying note. Prepare your own brief, 2 or 3 paragraph introduction, and e-mail it to the event organizer ahead of time. BUT, in addition, bring along a printed copy of your introduction.
• Networking. One of the best ways you can leverage speeches into a book sales is to circulate before your speech, introducing yourself to members of the audience. A little mingling goes a long way, helping you find out what the audience members you meet are looking for in your speech. In addition, pre-speech mingling builds comfort and familiarity that will pay big dividends when- -during your speech- -you look someone in the eye, they’re likely to smile or nod encouragingly.
• Handouts. Always prepare and distribute handouts; you never know who will be in the audience. Your handouts can be as simple as an outline of your speech, FAQ-type questions and answers about your topic, or a brief backgrounder about you and your writing project. Your handouts can also be thumbnails of presentation visuals, if you’re using them, or relevant resources, like reprints of articles, blog posts, or a list of appropriate websites. Always conclude with a one-sheet describing your book with URL links to your blog or your book’s description on Amazon.com.
• Landing page. Consider preparing a special landing page for each major speech, or topic that you frequently address. A landing page is a special page of your blog or website that doesn’t appear in your site’s navigation. Create a special, easy to say and spell, custom TinyUrl link to the landing page, i.e., http://tinyurl.com/DoverChamber. Use the landing page to access bonus content not available elsewhere on your site. In addition, build your list by inviting attendees to receive sample chapters of your book as you’re writing it.
• Pre-publication offers and advance sales. Create a promotion, perhaps in concert with your marketing partners, offering special incentives to those who order your book at Amazon.com before it is published.
• Press and media. When appropriate, post a draft of your speech in your site’s press, or media, center, along with your photograph and a photograph of your book’s front cover. Make it as easy as possible for your hosts to promote your speech and leverage your words after the speech.

Video

Whenever possible, arrange to have your speech recorded in both audio and video. (Always check with your hosts, of course, to make sure this is appropriate.)

Even if you don’t use the recording on your website, you’ll benefit from seeing and hearing yourself from the audience’s point of view.

But- -more important- -remember that videos don’t have to be long to be effective. A 20 or 30-second highlight from your speech is all that’s needed to add excitement to your website and generate more speaking invitations by presenting you as an experienced speaker.

Are you using speaking to sell more books?

Although few claim to enjoy, or look forward, to opportunities to speak, the reality is that speaking is one of the best ways to ensure the success of your book; speaking helps you plan and write a better book while building anticipation for your book’s publication. Speak about your book at every opportunity, and leverage each speaking opportunity to the maximum. How often do you speak about your book? What are some of the lessons you’ve learned? What’s keeping you from speaking more often? Share your experiences as comments, below!

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, book title, publishedandprofitable, publishedandprofitable.com, roger c parker, roger parker, speaking

Now is the time for you to begin using video to market and sell your books and build your personal brand. Video is easier than ever. In fact, the cost of getting started has dropped to zero.

That’s right: free!

I’d like to show you can start building your online video presence today, even if you haven’t had any previous video experience!

What do you need to get started?

You probably already have what you need to get started. You need:

• A Twitter username and password. The solution I’m recommending, Screenr.com, is based on your Twitter.com username and password. Screenr will automatically notify twitter each time you publish a video. After that, you can manually ReTweet your video on your blog and website. You can also embed the HTML code for the video.
• Microphone. You’ll also need a microphone, or headset, connected to your computer. Headsets are better because they free your hands to advance the visuals. If you already use Skype, you’re all set.
• Presentation software. I recommend using a presentation program like PowerPoint as the foundation of your initial videos. PowerPoint makes it easy to plan, illustrate, deliver your videos, pacing the delivery of your message.

You can, of course, use MindManager mind maps, or a desktop publishing to illustrate your points as you describe them.

What is Screenr?

Screenr.com is a web-based recorder integrated with a hosting platform and close ties with Twitter.com.

Screenr eliminates the need to:

• Buy, download, and install new software
• Learn new software
• Choose a hosting platform
• Upload files after recording
• Manually create links to each video

Screenr is part of the Articulate Group, an established e-learning firm. Articulate publishes leading e-learning software. You may already be familiar with their Rapid E-learning Blog and their Articulate Word-of-mouth Blog.

What can you do with it?

As I see it, the most important tasks Screenr helps authors do for free is:

• Build anticipation for your book as you write it, walking readers through your book’s table of contents as you discuss your goals
• Preview the front and back covers of your book as soon as they are finalized, showing different options and discussing why you made the decisions you did.
• Prepare for your book launch by sharing the details of your book launch with your marketing partners
• Walk readers through each chapter, describing the goals of each chapter as well as previewing the illustrations and reader engagement tools, like exercises and questions, to help readers put your ideas to work

The number of ways you can use Screenr to promote your book is only limited by your imagination. You can also use Screenr to share audio and video testimonials from experts and readers. You can share new information as it becomes available. And, you can drive readers to your website and build your e-mail list by showing the bonus materials you offer to readers who register.

How do you use Screenr?

Start by visiting screenr.com and watching their 1-minute video. Then, register using your Twitter.com username and password. Screenr will verify and remember your Twitter information.

To begin your first recording, press the Record Your Screen Cast Now button. This takes you to the Screenr record screen, where you’ll be prompted to resize your screen to highlight just the portion of the screen you want to record. In my case, I set the recording screen to the size of my PowerPoint presentation, as shown in the picture.

When you’re ready, press the red Record button. When you’re finished, press the green Done button.

Screenr then takes you to the Publish Your Screencast page, where you can:

• Preview your screencast
• Describe your screencast in 117 characters, or less
• Tweet! your screencast and add it to the screencasts displayed on Screenr
• Delete your screencast, so you can start all over

What’s the most important thing to remember?

If you’re new to video, the biggest surprise you’re likely to experience is how quickly 3 or 4 minutes go by! Because time flies when creating a short- -i.e., 5-minute, or less- -video, you have to limit the number of ideas and points in your videos and you must limit the number of words used to address each point.

To master the power of conciseness, I encourage you to follow a 3-step process:

• Step 1. Use PowerPoint to create a structure. Begin each video by creating a short PowerPoint presentations, like the one shown here, to storyboard, or organize, your ideas and provide a pacing tool for narrating each slide.
• Step 2. Prepare a “script” for each presentation. Use your favorite word processing program to select the words to accompany each of the PowerPoint slides. The script is not for you to read word-for word during your video, but simply to drill the main ideas into your brain and guide your discussion of each point.
• Step 3. Record, preview, delete, and re-record. Don’t expect to get it right the first time. You’ll probably require multiple takes to get it right, but, that’s OK. (That’s what Screenr’s delete button is for!) Do it again and again, each time eliminating a few ideas or unnecessary words, or replacing long words with short words. Pay attention to the elapsed time indicator as you record, if you find yourself spending too much time on a slide, do some editing!

Like so many of the other skills needed during your Author’s Journey, video success is a matter of doing it over and over again until it’s right. As you work, your comfort with this new medium will quickly advance.

My first video, for example, took me about five hours to prepare. My second video, however, took less than 3 hours! Most important, the more I work with Screenr, the less time I need. I need less and less time because I’m becoming better able to judge the number of words needed to accompany each slide.

Have you been putting off video until you “have the time?”

If you have, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to build your personal brand and sell more books. Screenr is not the only option, of course, and- -at some point- -you may select a more powerful video platform. But, right now, it offers you an easy way to get started creating an online video platform and building anticipation for your book without spending any money. Share your experiences with Screenr, or any other online video solution. Share your experiences and lessons-learned with other Active Garage readers as comments, below.

Visit my Active Garage Resource Center, where you can download the script I created for my second video, plus additional worksheets for previous Author Journey topics

Tagged as: active garage, author's journey, book launch, microphone, presentation, publishedandprofitable, publishedandprofitable.com, recording, roger c parker, screenr, Twitter, videos, writing success cycle