Productivity and the Self Published Author

By Colin Dunbar

 

Another productive week!

I was mainly tied up with two book design projects. These are 2 PDF ebooks, one is a web site that was turned into an ebook, and the other is an original ebook. I also designed the e-covers.

On the writing side, I didn't get as much done as I would have liked. Mainly outlining and planning. On the plus side, I feel a lot more motivated to write again. This is actually something that intrigues me: ever since I posted about having writer's block, I've not once had a problem with writing (including posting here in my self publishing diary).

I have a new site planned, and have been wrestling with the site concept. I turned to a good friend of mine and asked for his help. His feedback put a new light on my ideas, and I'll be finalizing the site idea - it should go live soon. Thanks Ian.

Overall, it was a good week... until Saturday night, that is. We received one of "those" phone calls, you know, the kind that you don't ever want to get. My in-laws were attacked and robbed on Saturday. Even though they're traumatized (tied, kicked, jumped on, cut, burnt with a clothes iron), we are VERY grateful that they're alive. We now have to trust that the barbarians won't return.

Last week there was not a shortage of reading. I'm still busy with Writing Fiction for Dummies. Enjoying every word, and learning a lot! And, as usual, I read a load of articles.

Here's something I hope you'll like...

More than 50% of the people in the world have never made or received a telephone call.

The sentence "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" uses every letter of the alphabet.

The "sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick" is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language...try it!

No word in the English language rhymes with month.

Shakespeare invented the words 'assassination' and 'bump'.

"Stewardesses" is the longest word typed with only the left hand, "lollipop" with your right.

The name of all the continents end with the same letter that they start with.

The words 'racecar' and 'kayak' are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left.

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters from only one row of the keyboard.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."

The only 15-letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is "uncopyrightable".

A "jiffy" is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

If you have anything you'd like to share, or maybe a question you have, let me know in the comments.

Self Publishing Diary Update. Or not.

By Colin Dunbar

The 9-to-5 job, clients' projects, and a family matter to attend to made me slip on posting here. Hopefully it'll change in the not-too-distant future and I'll have more time to spend on my blog. I did manage to brainstorm an idea... if it works, I'll share the news here.

Self Publishing Diary Update

Very little was done on my own writing the past few weeks. I did manage to update my Showcase of Self-Published Books page. It's great to see how many people are self publishing their own books.

What I found on the Web...

The Book Marketing Maze: 22 Wrong Turns & How To Avoid Them

Jonathan Gunson

4.  Waiting To Promote Your Book Until After It’s Published

The day it launches is way too late to start marketing your book.

Planting The Sales Tree

In the vast majority of cases, building connections with people who will help and pre-release promotional work needs to start well in advance if you want to see early sales.

Solution:  Start today. 

But, if you did leave it until after launch, then start today.  It’s never too late to plant that tree.  It’ll just take a little longer to grow.  But if you’re just starting to write your book, that’s the time to start your marketing program.  Many authors think that as soon as their book is published it’ll be a fully grown tree. 

But publishing is merely the beginning.

SIDEBAR
My son bought me Jonathan's Blogging for Authors mini course. I'm really excited
to start reading it. Jonathan is a bestselling author who knows his stuff.
SIDEBAR

 

 Joanna Penn on Publishing a Book

Book Review, Self Publishing Diary Update & Other Stuff

By Colin Dunbar

There is no progress to report in my self publishing diary this week, but hopefully I have some useful stuff for you, including a book review of an awesome book.

All the goal setting, strategies, and focus go down the tubes when life throughs you a curve ball. When something like this happens, it seems one's instinct's become acute and take over, especially when it's a matter of life and death. (I may still put this in a book, one day).

Anyway, on to better things... good self publishing things.

Self Publishing Diary Update

What I decided to do is let you know what the projects are that I'm busy with. And then it's my intention to update the status of these here in my self publishing diary. For some of my books I'll only use a code (I like surprises and mystery).

My Little Book of Encouragement (MLBE). It was the great Zig Ziglar who said, "People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing. That's why we recommend it daily." Very real, very true words. My Little Book of Encouragement is to help us keep up our motivation, and encourage us when things don't seem to go according to plan. This book is about 80% complete, and my publishing target is to have it available the end of July.

Invest In Yourself (2nd Edition) (IIY2). In 2004 I self published this book, offline. This is a memoir about my home business endeavors. The first edition ran up to 2003, and in the revised 2nd edition I've added the years 2004 up to 2012. The revised part of the book is about 25%, and my publishing target is end of December.

DSPB. This is a how-to book, and is my big project. I moved this book down on my priority list as it needs my undivided attention. It's about 60% complete, and I haven't set a launch date for it yet.

There are other books in different stages of completion, but these are the three I'm presently working on (and the only books I want to put my neck on the line for, publicly).

I will be updating my self publishing diary with all the details on the progress of these books: writing, where they'll be self published, promotion and marketing, sales - the whole kaboodle. I trust this is going to be helpful to you, and would love to hear anything you have to say, suggest, or ask.

How's that for public commitment? Now I'm accountable (Or I land up with egg on my face. Not good.)

Book Review: Sell Your Book Like Wildfire

If I had to describe Rob Eager's Sell Your Book Like Wildfire with one word, it would be: Awesome!

In the Preface, Rob shares the following: "This book was written to serve as your personal guide to help you sell more books." And I can, with a clear conscience, say Sell Your Book Like Wildfire IS my guide. I'm using Rob's book to plan my self-publishing journey. Period.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Establish Your Expertise
Chapter 2 Light a Fire in Your Readers
Chapter 3 Make Your Mark with an Author Brand
Chapter 4 How to Build Book-Marketing Tools into Your Manuscript
Chapter 5 Start a Wild Fire with Your Author Website
Chapter 6 How to Capture More Media Interviews
Chapter 7 Turn Media Interviews Into Book Sales
Chapter 8 Feed the Beast: How to Use Amazon to Sell More Books
Chapter 9 The Skinny On Social Networking
Chapter 10 Working with a Publisher
Chapter 11 The Flammability Of Free: How To Drive Word Of Mouth
Chapter 12 Sell Books Through Public Speaking
Chapter 13 Create News Letters That Get Results
Chapter 14 Marketing Tips For Fiction

As you can see from the Table of Contents, Rob Eager covers all the essentials for an author to reach success, and sell your book like wildfire.

In Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, Rob covers the different elements, from your expertise as an author, to an author brand, to an author website - everything you need is in this book.

As Rob says, "I set out to try every strategy possible to sell my books. It wasn't easy, but within a couple of years I sold 13,000 copies on my own and built a nationwide following. I conducted more than 170 events across North America and spoke to more than 35,000 people.", you discover in the pages of Sell Your Book Like Wildfire, this book is written by someone who knows his stuff.

There is one section in this book that blew me away: Fifteen Ways to Build Marketing Tools Into Your Book (pages 59-66). I was astounded when I learned of these. Marketing tools IN your book... amazing.

If there was only ONE book I had to recommend to every self-published author (and traditional authors, for that matter), it would be Sell Your Book Like Wildfire. Get your copy now, and invest in your publishing future.




For my South African visitors, the book is available at kalahari:

Self-Published Authors Are Destroying Literature

Whoa, man... I read this article, and was going to respond with my own take on what this guy says, then I found the article at The Independent Publishing Magazine. Brilliant.

Self-Published Authors Are Destroying Literature

Open Letter Reply to Michael Kozlowski's Article - Self-Published Authors Are Destroying Literature

I would like to hear what your thoughts on this are.

Have you considered making your book available as an audio book?

Reach New Readers With The Magic Of Audiobooks

"Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value." ~ Albert Einstein

Self Publishing Progress

Thank you to every one of my clients - I am honored to have you entrust the design of your book (or e-cover) to me.

I thought I'd share a few of the projects I completed recently...

Weight Loss Injections. This was a PDF ebook re-design. My client was not happy with the original design of her ebook, and requested a re-design from me.

Step-by-Step Vegetarian. Another PDF ebook design, done from a basic Word document. I also designed the e-cover for this project.

Connect! How to WRITE Your Own Paycheck. A Kindle ebook I created for SiteSell. Also designed the cover.

Complete Guide to Grilling the Perfect Steak. Another Kindle ebook designed.

There were other book designs and e-covers that I completed, but I didn't want to turn this post into a showcase of projects completed.

My Self Publishing Progress

As this IS my self publishing diary I suppose it is relevant to share my progress with my self publishing endeavors. Right?

Firstly, I wrote and uploaded an article to my site: http://www.pub-my-book.com/what-goes-into-formatting-a-book.html  It was actually an article that I was pondering for a while, and eventually decided to get it written.

I also completed my White Paper, How to Review a Legitimate Home Business Opportunity. This was another project that I had on the back burner for a while.

My books. I've been working on 3 of my books, and I'm on target to get the first one finished by the end of June (possibly before the end of June). It's a small with short articles to offer the reader encouragement. All will be revealed soon.

What I Saw Online

With my last post about the paper book becoming extinct, I see that Stephen King's new novel will only be available as a paper book. Very interesting, as he was one of the pioneers who went the ebook route. http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/chapter-and-verse/2013/0520/Stephen-King-s-decision-to-skip-the-e-book-format-gets-renewed-attention

If you are a self-published author with a recipe or cooking book or ebook, you now have your own platform available... http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/chef-pad-addressing-the-cooking-vertical/

Here's something new for self published authors, from Bowker... http://www.selfpublishedauthor.com/