How to Create Your Kindle Book
Hi Guys – Over the past few weeks I’ve been keeping my head well down because I’ve been working on my first ever book.
Now, I know what your thinking. You’re thinking “This is going to be about internet marketing, isn’t it?” Well, you’re wrong actually. For this project I really wanted to get away from IM and all that stuff.
As many of you will know for almost 25 years I was a Physical Therapist in my other life! But what most of you wont know is that when I was in my twenties I was a marathon runner. Yep! I pounded the pavements (sidewalks) with the best of them.
So, I decided for my first book I would revisit those days. You see, I think I have rather a unique experience with running as a sport or pastime. Not only do I have the actual experience of training for, and running, marathons from scratch, but I also have my medical knowledge and experience to incorporate. After all, I’ve treated hundreds of runners over the years, up to and including Olympic athletes!
So, I decided to write about my running experiences, and to write a book for those who are just starting to take up running as a hobby, pastime or sport. So, it’s a book for new runners. How to do it and do it safely.
To publish it I really wanted the experience of publishing on the Kindle. This is hot right now and I simply wanted to join in the buzz and the fun of doing it.
I think the Kindle presents a unique opportunity to boost most businesses. The Kindle Direct Publishing (“KDP”) program allows anyone (including me apparently – LOL) to create an eBook to sell in the online Kindle store.
Unlike the traditional publishing process, which I also looked at, the Amazon’s Kindle store gives you the opportunity to publish and sell books without having to find an agent; convince a traditional publisher to publish your book; to pay for a print run; or to maintain a supply of printed books while you’re selling them.
This is a huge advantage for anyone looking to publish any type of book.
These then are my first impressions, and a few notes, of what you should be aware of if you want to follow me into publishing your own book.
FIRST – Prepare Your Book
The first step is to have your book ready to publish. You can’t publish something that is only half done. You can’t even publish something that is 99% done! It needs to be complete, so finish it.
Your book will likely be something original that you’ve either written yourself or contracted a freelancer to draft for you. If you hire a freelance writer you must have all the appropriate rights to be able to publish the book.
If your unsure about this then check it out with a good copyright legal advisor. (Make sure that you have an appropriate “work for hire” agreement in place so that you actually have all the rights to the work you pay for.)
SECOND – In order to use Amazon’s KDP program, the book must in a particular format.
Thankfully, the program supports a number of different formats, so there’s a good chance that you won’t have much conversion or clean-up to do. Do pay attention to the required formatting rules, though.
I prepared my draft in Microsoft Word. One word of caution here, if you have your book in Microsoft Word™ document format, you need to make sure that there are no bullets, headers or footers in the document.
THIRD – Publish Your Book
Sign up for a KDP account. You can use your existing Amazon.com customer account (if you have one), or sign up for a new account. You’ll need to provide some personal and financial information to get your account completely set up but none of it is particularly over-the-top.
In order to publish your book you’ll need to upload a properly formatted file, a cover image, as well as the basic information about the author, and the book itself. You should try to have all this prepared in advance. It really eases the process rather than trying to think it all up on the spur of the moment.
You’ll also need to include a description of your book – this block of text is important because it’s what customers will see when they view the sales page for the book in the Kindle store. Try to make your description stand out – it will help sales.
Once you’ve provided all the necessary information, your book will usually be published into the store within 24 hours.
FOURTH – Publicize Your Book
This is the bit I have yet to do, and it’s probably the bit of the process that most authors forget about. Sales come through promotion!
There are a number of tools available from your Kindle account. But the most successful channel is likely to be the publicity that you can generate through your own social networks and websites. I think every book you have should have it’s own website… but that just me with my IM hat on.
Certainly, tell all your followers on Facebook and on twitter. If your book is designed to promote your business then ad it to your profile on Linkedin.
I hope you’ve found this insight helpful. Once I’ve gone through the full publishing and promotion process I’ll write some more and maybe produce a guide to get you through all the steps with the minimum hassle.
Until then… get writing!
Ian
Your Key to Internet Marketing Success!
Let me ask you a question: do you think it is easier to sell your product or services to a complete stranger or to a person you have had contact before; whether it’s an email conversation, forum participation, or even an existing customer relationship (i.e. He has bought something from you before).
We all know the answer! Without doubt, it would be harder to sell to a total stranger who does not know whether or not you are an honest seller, and whether or not they should trust your words, and believe that your product or services will truly benefit them.
This is precisely why you should build up a customer base — a group of people who trust you and will most likely buy a product that you offer to them. This will ensure that you have a recurring and consistent source of income. When you release a product or make an endorsement, you have a group of people always ready to hear what you have to say.
This is the Number 1 activity that you should be concentrating on in your internet marketing business… but it’s the one most find so difficult!!!!!
There are a gazillion methods to collect subscribers, but when it’s boiled down to the very essence, it’s all about proving value to the crowd and offering an incentive to make people become part of your mailing list.
A typical example would be a website choke-full of freely available, helpful and quality articles on a certain subject plus a “special report” that can be downloaded for free provided you give your email address. The rich content provides value, and the “special report” is the extra incentive.
Imagine if 100, 1000 or even 10000 customers are waiting to grab your newest products even before they are released! This is why it’s so vital to build a customer base because it simply saves a lot of time and effort.
Let me know your favourite method of list building in the comments box below and when I get 30 comments I’ll throw up a link to download my new list building course for FREE!!!!
Ian
I’m back!… and with my good buddy Robert Plank!
Hi Everyone!
You may have noticed that I’ve been away from the keyboard for a while.
Since before Christmas to be precise. The reason is that my father has been really ill and has been in hospital since then. Good news is that he’s on the mend and we got him back home just last week. So everyone here is really happy.
On another subject entirely. One of my good buddies – Robert Plank – has just released a podcast with some really cool and cutting edge info. It’s about How to Easily Generate Unlimited Content, Blog Posts, Articles, Sales Letters, Books, Reports and More, That Make You Money Forever.
A big promise I know but he really pushes the boat out with this one.
Get it now at his blog.
This is the link:- http://www.robertplank.com/014-content-forever/
Ian
So… You Want to Create Passive Income?
First up, what exactly is passive income?
Well, it is a form of income that keeps paying you after the initial effort to establish it is done. For example after an author completes an book he or she continues to benefit form sales of that book for years to come. Do the work once benefit forever! That’s passive income.
The goal of passive income is to capitalize on what work you have already done. It frees you up to spend time with family and friends, or to pursue another business ventures. Either way, it is a win-win situation for you and your business.
So, here are some ways that I’ve found where you can set into motion a passive income stream. It’ll take work on the front end to get things set up, but you are looking for an income source that will keep on giving so that’s okay.
Try these passive Income Strategies
1. Affiliate Programs – You are not limited to one affiliate program at a time. But, choose your programs wisely. Do some research to find one that is going to give you recurring income from just the initial sale. These are generally associated with memberships or subscriptions.
It’s as easy to promote an ongoing membership as it is to promote a one-off sale… so, go for it!
Set up a blog or website to promote it then drive traffic to it using CPM banners or PPC traffic. Once all is set up and you have developed a workable system, watch your hard work pay off.
2. Write Content – Sites like Squidoo and Hubpages are great for creating content and then making money from various methods including affiliate sales (see above) as well as advertising programs like Google Adsense.
Promote your content on your website and social networking sites to increase your page views and traffic. This will drive traffic and gain you ongoing payments.
3. Try Advertising – If you already have a website or blog you can use Google AdSense (see above) or another service where you promote certain services and get paid per click or conversion. Choose a program that works best with the subject of your website.
Google will automatically match your content to the adverts featured. Some blogging platforms (like WordPress) offer banner ad rotators either built into the theme or via a plugin so you can host your own banner ads.
This can be a great source of income if you have a site that already enjoys a constant stream of traffic.
4. Maximize Your Product Offerings – How can you do this?
You can take the content that you have been posting on your website. Combine this into an ebook form and offer it on Kindle. Turn the same content into an audio series that you offer to your customers as an MP3 download.
Want to tease them and increase sales? Give away a special report based on this series to those who sign up for your mailing list. Then create an email series to entice them to buy the larger audio course.
In this way one set of content can spawn audios, videos, workbooks, teleseminars, podcasts, ebooks and more. The initial work was done upfront with the content and very little needs to be done to turn it into something more.
Start creating your passive streams of income with these ideas today!
Ian
Create Your Own BIG success… with BIG goals.
Last weekend I was at a 30 year reunion for my graduation class at university. Not only was I attending – I had actually organised the whole event! Well, the evening was a huge success with loads of people saying how much they had enjoyed it. But there were also many who said they were very hesitant and anxious about coming along, because it had been 30 years since most of us had been together.
The fear factor can really stunt your life, and your business. By facing that fear and working through it 99 times out of 100 the experience is never as frightening as the anticipation.
If you’re an Internet Marketer, you already understand the importance of facing your fears and taking risks. Chances are you took quite a few just to get your business off of the ground. However, it’s easy to become complacent with taking small risks and facing small fears. Sometimes people avoid taking big risks because they are afraid of failure. Yet the big risks are usually the ones with the grandest payoff – like organising my 30 year reunion event!
Let’s take a look at a few ways you can move past any fears you might be facing and become someone who takes big risks both in business and in your personal life.
#1 Set BIG Goals
The first step to taking big risks is to set huge goals – the kind of goals that make you tremble, make you think there’s no way you can accomplish it… Set seriously frightening goals.
Make a list of the goals that you want to accomplish. Allow yourself to think completely out of the box and “reach for the stars” as they say. Don’t judge yourself and don’t allow fear to prevent you from writing down your goals. Just get them on paper.
#2 Consider the Best and Worst-Case Scenario
Take a look at each of the humongous goals that you’ve set for yourself. Now make a list of the things that terrify you about that goal. Then create a separate list of the things that excite you about that goal.
Now, imagine your life as if you’d never tried to achieve your goal. Write a paragraph that describes how your life looks. Write a paragraph from the perspective of someone who tried to achieve your goal and failed. Answer the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen if I fail to achieve this goal?”
Then take a look at the other possibility. How do you see your life if you successfully achieve that goal? How will your life change? Most often when you’re able to view a worst-case scenario, and a best-case scenario, you realize almost instantaneously that it’s worth the risks to try. And even if you fail the results are never as bad as you think they’re going to be.
#3 Create a Contingency Plan
Create a contingency plan or a “Plan B” as you’re planning how you’re going to achieve your humongous goal. Creating a contingency plan helps you feel safe in your efforts.
If your first attempts to achieve your goal don’t meet with success, then you have a Plan B; you have something to fall back on. Often, having that cushion gives you the comfort to go ahead and push forward and take risks, because you know that if it doesn’t work out something else will.
Imagine yourself as an aspiring tight-rope walker. Walking across the rope for the first time without a safety net is terrifying. However, if you have those safety nets in place, you’ll feel more comfortable taking that first step.
Remember that nothing was ever achieved without taking the first step – and taking a risk. Remember the first time you approached a potential boyfriend or girlfriend? How scared were you then? Bet it feels like no big deal now!
Push forward. Take risks and who knows what you might accomplish!
Ian
