Gary Webb's Blog, page 2

Top Book Niches for New Authors – Writing That First Book Quickly

I was just listening to a training by Derek Doepker, the bestselling author of many books on a variety of topics.  In that training, he quickly stated and passed by the idea that we an find some great ideas about the kinds of books that will sell best by paying attention to the kinds of New Year’s resolutions that people are making.  Since the idea seemed so interesting to me, I decided to find out more.

Here is a list of the top ten New Year’s resolutions for 2015:

1.  Lose Weight

2.  Get more organized.

3.   Spend less and save more (Includes getting out of debt)

4.  Enjoy life tot he fullest

5.  Stay fit and healthy

6.  Learn something exciting

7.  Quit Smoking

8.  Help Others Fulfill their Dreams

9.  Fall in love

10.  Spend more time with family.

Other lists can be found that give a little bit of a different twist on these, adding or subtracting one or two resolutions from the list.  If you are an author at heart, then another one would be how to write a bestselling book.

That first resolution is related to one of the highest demand book categories on Amazon.  I would go to the Kindle Store, Kindle ebooks.  After that, I would type “weight loss” in the search bar.  Amazon would then show me the bestselling books in that category.  I could use a tool like KindleSpy to see how well they are doing and what features I might want to include in my own book.  Or, which I might want to avoid.

How to Write the Book

Let me suggest that you could probably make a list of ten suggestions to help fulfill any of these resolutions, expand on each one by writing five pages, and then sell it on Amazon with very little effort.  Here are some other suggestions to help you make your bestseller dreams come true.

Literally, you need to do what I said in the previous paragraph.  If you write for about two hours per day, you should produce between 1,000 and 4,000 words.  Your 50-page book should be about 12,500 words.  You could be finished writing your book within 12 and a half days.

Before you start writing, spend one hour coming up with the ten suggestions.  Perhaps that means you make a list of twenty, but then pare it down to ten.  Carefully word these suggestions because they will form the framework of your thinking about the book and also the meat of what your readers will receive.  Arrange your list of suggestions into what you consider to be a logical order.

Spend about 30 minutes doing quick Google searches for the best ideas on how to implement that suggestion.  For example, to lose weight, one suggestion might be to drink more water.  Tell them how to calculate the amount of water they need to have.  Warn them that eight glasses a day is not enough for most of us.  Let them also know the factors that might mean they need even more than the calculated amount (higher temperatures, increased activity, etc.).   Give them a list of times when it would be common to add water to their daily routine (just after waking, before beginning a meal, etc.).  After explaining each suggestion at the beginning of a paragraph, you can explain why that works.  Got it?  The same strategy applies to other subjects just as well.   When doing your Google searching, you can copy and paste the best ideas into separate documents for each suggestion, then review, consolidate, simplify, and expand upon what you’ve found.

Now, it’s time to write.  Start with a clean document for each suggestion.  Based on what you’ve learned skimming through the Google articles, make a list of steps to accomplish that suggestion.  Each item in the list should be a very short sentence or a short phrase.  This should either be the first sentence of a paragraph or a bold heading for each new paragraph.  Let’s say you have ten suggestions for the book, each needing five pages of material.  If you add five to ten steps that become paragraphs, each paragraph would be just 125-250 words on average.   So, here’s how the process would look:

Of course, the book isn’t ready for Amazon, until you select an appealing title, get a great eye-catching cover, have the text edited and formatted, and then go through the upload process with Kindle Direct Publishing.   You can learn more about these factors in my book PREPARE! PUBLISH! PROMOTE! Book 2: Publishing Books for Growing Sales.

Amazon Headline Sabotage!

Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.  Maybe no one called my attention to the change.  For whatever reason, I missed something that many of you might have noticed quickly.  Amazon has been removing the orange headlines from Kindle book descriptions.  In fact, I cannot find any books that still have them in place.  That, my friend, is a rip off.  It defies logic for Amazon to deliberately sabotage its own advertising.  That’s what a book description really is; it’s advertising on the book page.  For that matter, next to the title and book cover, it might be the most important advertising of all.

A few weeks back they did another rip off that was even more obvious.  They did away with having the full description showing on the book page.  You have to actually ask for more.  Sadly, the little bit of book description that is seen often doesn’t draw much attention and can easily be overlooked by readers.  At first, I thought they had eliminated the descriptions entirely.  Then, I looked closer and saw it tucked away between some other nonsense on the page.

Since Amazon, Facebook, and so many of the online big shots ignore us, I doubt it would do much good if every author and publisher complained.  Somehow, I can’t help sharing my disgust.  I think these changes are more harmful to the self-published authors than anyone else.  Major publishers are buying advertising on social media as well as on Amazon itself.  They get the visibility by paying the big bucks for it.  Most beginning authors do not have those resources to invest.  No matter how good their content, it doesn’t matter if readers aren’t attracted to the book by other means.

However, you can still use some HTML code in your descriptions, and I believe that will still help a little, if anyone happens to click on the “Read More” link.  Otherwise, it can still be overlooked.  All we can do is to try our best!

Looking for a Great New WordPress Theme?

Maybe you aren’t satisfied with the look and layout of your website.  I’ve been struggling with several of mine because I just cannot get them to do what I want.  As I’ve looked around, I’ve seen other sites that make me turn a little green.  They are amazing!  Such tremendous features, but I can’t even get that with a dozen plugins.  I’ve gone to the extreme of asking one webmaster what theme he was using.  He responded that it was something he built for himself alone.  I offered to buy it from him, but he said he couldn’t do that.  

Today, I found an interesting free online tool.  When you see another website that seems like it might have been built with WordPress (and many of the best ones are!), then you just type the url into a blank.  You wait a few moments while it analyzes the site.  Maybe it’s the website of your strongest competitor!  Then, Bammm!  There you see it…  Lots of information about the site, including the WordPress Theme that was used to build it.  I hope it will be as helpful to you as it was to me.  Here’s the link:  http://www.wpthemedetector.com/.   

5 Simple Steps to Promoting Books

Although I am in the process of writing a book about book promotion, I still don’t enjoy that part of the process as much as writing itself.  But, without promotion, you can become a writer, like those who keep private journals, but you won’t be a successful author.  Promoting books reminds me of circus barkers and slick talking used car salesmen.  It just isn’t what I imagine when I think of an author.  But if you are a self-published author, you are responsible for this dimension of the process, just as much as writing the manuscript.

Your success as an author depends on the lives you are touching with your work.  Sure, that also translates into money.  So, don’t waste too much time and effort without at least a simple overview of what’s involved in the process of book promotion.

1. Identify a list of promotional platforms that you will be using.  Which social media outlets will you be using?  What promotional or book review websites will you use?  On what blog sites will you seek to do guest article for a blog.  Will you be using your mailing lists?  If so, how and how often?  Asking friends to promote your book on theirs?  Will you do local newspaper articles and radio interviews?  Will you be speaking to book clubs or to library groups?  Could you do a guest appearance on a friend’s podcast? 

2. Develop a budget for promoting your books.  You will need to have some funds designated for ads on paid promotional websites and newsletters.  Perhaps you will want to do a video book trailer but lack the skils.  You might need funds to pay a virtual assistant to do that work.  You might need some poster-style images to go with blogs, social media postings, and your book landing page.  You may also need to pay for personal photographs for book covers, blogs, etc.  You could need to invest in a microphone and/or a digital video camera to be able to do podcasts or video spots.  You could also need money for a contest to expand your mailing list.  Growing a list and selling books can enhance one another. 

3. Prepare ads, images, and promotional materials to distribute.  It is best to have most of this done before you start your launch.  That way, you are struggling to produce advertising copy and designs in the midst of trying to get the word spread as far as possible.  You should plan to have images of your book in different settings, even if it is only an ebook.  You can have paperback images done to make it appear more valuable to readers.  You might want to get someone on fiverr to do a voice over for a slide-type of video to put on Facebook.  Get your ideas together and develop the materials in advance!

4. Set up your web presence on Amazon, Facebook, and your author site.  You should have joined each of these and to have joined the groups, communities, circles or other collective approaches to addressing your audience.  You shouldn’t havvve to be doing this preparation during the time when your posts, tweets, and other blurbs should be filled pages.

5. Establish a daily schedule for your first month of marketing your books.  Ideally, you should be spending some time every day promoting your latest book.  If you have other books, they should not be neglected during this time because the new release may cause your new fans to want to buy some of your other titles. Set yourself a schedule to spend as much as half of your working time doing promotion.

These are essentials that must not be ignored.  They are not a complete marketing plan, but they are a start in the right direction.

It’s Really Hard to Get FREE Promotion on a Nonfiction Book

I’ve written a number of books now, but I still have some of the same problem that I had at the beginning.  Where do you turn for inexpensive alternatives for book promotion.  Most of the sites carry more fiction and occasionally stick a nonfiction one into the mix.  They charge for posting a book, just as much for nonfiction as fiction – even though fiction titles often bring in far more sales.  So, what’s an author to do?  From time to time, I will give you some sites that I’m finding, and I hope you’ll share the ones you think are most effective – either free or a great deal.  I’ll start with my own promo website (not that I’m biased).  PublishingPoints Discount Books offers completely free promotion for nonfiction books.  We offer no support for fiction books

If you submit your book to PublishingPoints, you can expect to have your book promoted on the website, on our daily e-newsletter, on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Pinterest.  We hope to eventually expand our services beyond the present ones by having podcast and video interviews with authors to allow them to discuss their books.  We will also have guest blogging by authors (so they can backlink to their landing pages or to a fanpage.  We will set up website directories where you can browse books by topic rather than just using the search bar.  If you would like to submit your book, just click the image above to go to the website, publishingpts.net.  Authors should join the site, then login.  Then, they should be able to click “Promote Your Book.  Provide the requested information and click to submit.  If you have additional questions, just contact me via gary@mgwebb.net.

So, What Are You Learning?

Self-publishing is the School of Hard Knocks

I guess I’m not the only one to make that discovery.

The worst thing about the school of hard knocks is that no one ever seems to graduate.  There are no progress reports to measure success, at least none that last for long.  Every success seems temporary, but every apparent failure is long remembered.  Self-publishing is filled with gurus who are ready to share their profound discoveries with you – if you have plenty of money to send their way.  Yes, they are successful, but often is is from draining the bank accounts of other authors who aren’t doing as well.  If only they could use that credit card one more time to buy the latest $2497 course from “bestselling author” Joe Blow…  If only!  In the meantime, these authors struggle, driven by a compulsion they cannot explain to their marriage partners on the good days, or to themselves on the worst.  

They read books on how to promote their books, only to discover that the author has several bestsellers but doesn’t make enough money to pay for the expensive courses either.  But that doesn’t stop the determined author.  No, he plunges forward to watch another webinar that will unlock the mysteries of making six figures a year, a month, or maybe even in a week!  Of course, at the end of the webinar, there is an offer for a course that only costs $297.  Don’t let that worry you.  They accept VISA, MasterCard, or American Express.  After all, they guarantee it will bring your dreams into reality.

How does the eventually successful author learn?  He does become a drop out from the school of hard knocks.  He stays involved in learning all he can, any way he can, wherever he can.  The main thing he does is write.  Then, he looks over all the red annotations from the editor and weeps.  He makes corrections and learns some.  He learns productivity and consistency.  He learns to help others enrolled in the same demanding school.  He makes friends and even begins to sell a few books.  

When he turns to look back at those miserable years, and all the hard lessons, he may have a tear or two.  But, they aren’t the tears of the hopeless.  He weeps over the day he learned to format a book for Kindle.  He remembers the day he wrote 2800 words in the same day (and the editor kept most of them).  He looks back for just a moment, only a moment.  After all, the keyboard is calling.  He must finish that chapter today!

The Costly Mistake of Publishing an Unedited Book

I have not had guest posts on this blog, but I’m realizing that I should.  I’m still new at self-publishing myself, so I have a lot to learn.  I’ve had bestsellers, but I haven’t made the NYT list yet.   Today, we have a wonderful guest blogger, the owner/editor of her own highly successful editing firm.  You’ll want to pay attention to what Shayla Eaton has to say here.  I think she’s writing to me…

Imagine working for years on your book.

You’ve stayed up late every night. You’ve crawled out of bed before the sun rose just so you could get in another chapter. Your family thinks you’re nuts, and you have to agree.

But this is your baby. It’s your book, after all.

You’ve finally finished writing it, and you’ve gone through several rewrites, catching inconsistencies and adding in better descriptions along the way.

You’ve told people about your book, and you’re ready to get it on shelves and screens. So you go to hire an editor and find out that it could cost you, let’s say, $1,000 for a 50,000-word nonfiction manuscript.

“That’s outrageous!” you’d cry. “I was thinking, maybe a couple hundred bucks—tops.” Now, you know that this editor is a professional. You know he’s edited more books than you’ve read in your life, but he’s too expensive.

So you find someone who will edit your book for a fraction of the cost. We’re talking cheap. You’re feeling great now! You get the book edited and save on your budget.

You push the publish button on Amazon, pat yourself on the back, and wait for the money to roll it.

And then the Amazon reviews trickle in: “Was this even edited? Ugh! He’s supposed to be the authority on this subject, and he can’t even spell? I’d give it zero stars if I could.”

“But,” you’d say, “I had it edited!”

I tell people that I perform two types of copyedits: one is a first-time copyedit for an unpublished book, and the second is a reedit for an already-published book, because someone cheated his client.

Remember the adage, “You get what you pay for”? Well, it’s especially true in the editing world. If you want quality, then you need a high-quality editor. Nonfiction books are meant to make you a credible source—you are supposed to be the authority on a particular subject. Yet the moment you publish a book with misspellings and grammar errors, you lose your credibility and you gain some harsh but deserving Amazon reviews.

If someone is going to give you a low rating for a book, it should never, ever be for a poor editing job. It is your responsibility as an author to ensure quality every single time.

Saving money to hire a low-quality editor actually costs you more money. How so? Because now that no one will buy your poorly edited book, you have to hire a professional anyway. So that’s two editing jobs when you could’ve paid for one.

Find out what a professional editor charges for your book (you will probably need to give him your word count or let him review the book). Ask multiple editors and write down the costs.

Once you have an idea of the average cost, try these options:

Try a Kickstarter or GoFundMe campaign
Save up the old-fashioned way; whether that’s putting cash in a jar or creating a savings account just for your book
Ask the editor(s) about payment plans; I use the 17 Hats app for my invoices, which allows me to create a payment plan for my clients

Your book is your baby. Don’t murder it just because you don’t want to give it the best care it deserves.

Budget for a professional editor. Your readers will thank you for it.

Shayla is a connoisseur of the writing and editing process, having edited over two hundred books and countless articles, blogs, social media posts, and web copy. Starting out in a small publishing firm as a copywriter after college, she quickly worked her way up to copy editor and into marketing, where she began to hone her skills on the inner workings of the publishing process. She took this experience and began her own business with one goal: providing authors with honest feedback and superior work in writing, editing, and marketing. She is the author of The Curiouser Crusade, an e-book to help writers finish their novels in six months. She loves coffee and is an admirer of all things creative and bookish. www.CuriouserEditing.com

The Self-Publishing Jack-of-all-trades

The greatest problem for any self published author is having responsibility for every part of the process.  Everything from generating the basic idea of the book to delivery to the reader/customer is your job!  Sure, you can “farm it out” to others, but the result is still your responsibility.  As self-published author must deal with book production, writing, editing, formatting, book cover design, promotion and marketing.  

In addition, you must overcome the natural prejudices many people have.  They may believe that all self-published authors are just rejects from the traditional publishers.  That means you are often seen as a second-rate author who just didn’t measure up to the “real authors.”  You will need to change their minds by providing quality content and merchandising in every dimension.

The first tip is to set expectations that are achievable.  There is a fine line separating wishful thinking and realistic goal-setting. Do not expect to get rich because of your book sales.  That requires doing some great research before you write your first word.  Your book should be written with the future readers in mind.  What are their needs?  What are the things that bring them the greatest pleasure and satisfaction?  What are the greatest obstacles that they face?  Knowing your audience is crucial to choosing your topic, but also for shaping your content most effectively.

Readers lose interest if your book is disorganized and impractical. Organization is the key. That’s why every book should begin with an organization system.  For some authors, that is a mindmap.  For others, it would be a traditional outline.  For many, especially self-help writers, a simple list of chapters may serve you well.  

When writing the chapters, be sureyou give then good titles, titles that will grab the reader’s attention easily and hold it till the end.

To keep your book organized, you can use sub-headings and bulleted points.  If you would like to use pictures or illustrations in your book, make sure that they fit the style and subject of the book. Photographs and illustrations should increase the reader’s understanding and supplement the text, not to distract from it.

Avoid editing while writing.  They are very different skill sets that do not efficiently work well together. This can be called premature editing.  Save editing for the end, and usually for someone else.  Another set of eyes will see your manuscript differently.

Pay attention to the format of your writing.  Make sure your words are not compressed. Do not put too many words on a line. Normally it would contain about 50 to 60 characters, spaces included. About 250 words per page would be more than enough.  The details of this part of the publishing task are too complex for the novice author.

Since the tasks are so varied, it will usually be necessary to outsource some of the work.  Cover design and editing are the two most common tasks that are hired out to others.  Formatting the book is another.  Since these are part of the process, it is important to adequately plan a budget from the very beginning.  We will discuss some of the costs and sources of additional help in future articles.

 

Deliver Tons of Content for Magnet Offers.

Make Wise Use of PLR to Save Time

Many authors enjoy writing their books, but they also know they must build an email list to stay in contact with their readers.  That’s not so much fun.  When they find the best way to do it is by giving away free content, they begin to groan inside.  Writing their book was fun because it is their topic, but doing something very short but worthwhile as a free enticement for new list members isn’t something they look forward to doing.

One common solution is to use PLR (Private License Rights) content.  The actual license rights vary considerably, but many of these short ebooks, reports, or articles are great time-savers for writing your own short free “bribes.”  In fact, you can combine several PLR sources, your own quick research, and material left over, but not included in your book, to make a high-quality free gift for your new subscribers.  It is not recommended that you just do copy and paste from these PLR documents, even though you have a legal right to do so.   Since PLR material is usually sold to dozens, or even hundreds of others, you may find that your book shows up as plagiarized if someone runs Copyscape on it.  Nevertheless, you have still haved hours or even days of research in bringing together a high-value item to reward your new subscribers.  Also, with a re-write, you are able to include links to other books you’ve written or courses you have produced.  

Where can you get PLR?  Although some sites offer free PLR documents, I haven’t really tried them because I assume these are usually the most widely circulated items on the Net.  One such site (IDplr.com) has both a free and paid membership, so you might want to check that out.  In that case, you might compare the offerings with some of the other sites I’ll share.  Buying individual packages from XXXX may be too expensive for just doing a re-write.  I would suggest that you purchase some of the larger collections offered online.  Perhaps you could try one like DIYplr.com.  They offer some smaller bundles that aren’t expensive.  They also have occasional special deals that are a bargain.  A similar site, For the Love of PLR eBooks, has little batches of ebooks that normally cost about $7 for ten to twenty-five ebooks.  You do get to see the titles in each batch.  One mid-range site is the PLR 450 Hustle Pack where the package cost is normally $9.95. Another possibility is to buy one of the really large collections at a very reasonable price.  Some of those include Phil’s 1,200+ eBook Pack.  The price may vary some over time, but it is normally under $30 for that many eBooks!  

In addition to using these PLR resources to create incentives for mailing list subscribers, it is possible that you might want to use the research of others as a basis for writing other ebooks for sale.  Whatever you do, realize your personal responsibility for the final product, including the accuracy of its information.  

 

 

Spreading the Word

Get the Word Out

Beginning today, links to this blog will feed to Twitter and Facebook so that I can connect better with those I’m trying to help.  I will also start devoting more time to adding content that will help self-published non-fiction authors to produce better books and promote them more effectively.  If you believe I may be of help to you, please contact me through this site or subscribe to my email listing for regular updates.

Please help expand this outreach by recommending it to friends, by contributing comments, and also taking advantage of our book promotion website.  To do that, just click the menu link for “Promote Your Book.”  If you are interested in doing guest posts, contact me through gary@mgwebb.net.  Also let me know if you might like to be a part of our podcasts beginning in July.