You’ve just gone through the work and the excitement of completing your first book or e-book and you are ready to showcase it to the world. Now, you have to get the word out and try to get some buyers for it. This by the way, is just as strenuous if not even more so than writing the book in the first place. You will realize soon enough that you have to dig deep within yourself to market what you have created to others to make the sales. One author I know when once asked how his books managed to sell so well said. “It’s easy. Write it, put it in a place where people can buy it, and then promote the heck out of it for about 3 years.”In this article I don’t plan to discuss the myriad of things you can do outside of the Internet to promote your creation such as book signings, getting a table at trade fairs to showcase your book and give away autographed copies, trying to get retailers to sell it (if you’ve created a bound version of it), etc. The tips provided below are written to help you get maximum publicity for your book or e-book online.Let’s start with building your online selling strategy. Where will you put your book to sell it?The most popular choice on the Internet is Amazon. This is a very good first step for many books, particularly e-books. Amazon owns Kindle Books, the defacto leader in E-Book marketing and distribution. The whole world has heard of Kindle and there are literally millions of Kindle Readers out there that people can use to read your e-book not to mention that Kindle book reading software is available for computers, tablets and even mobile devices – so it is very easy to distribute and make your creation accessible to others. Amazon also owns “Create Space”, a second entity that can turn your E-book into a bound book that can also be sold on Amazon-Kindle and through distributors globally. If you want to “pay-market” your book through Amazon? You can do that as well through building one of their economically priced advertising campaigns.Going through this process also gets you an ASIN number for your book or an ISBN number for your book if you wish to go that route (needed for selling hard-copy books through Create Space but not for e-books just sold on Amazon-Kindle). You can enroll your book as well into the Kindle KDP Select program which is like an online library that people pay a monthly subscription to and you can get additional royalty payments for your book from here – based on number of pages read. You can also get promotional banners from Amazon that you can put on your website or blogsite and even send in e-mails to people to further promote your book.Bottom line is that starting out, Amazon – Kindle has a lot to offer a new self-publisher. You can literally get your book out there in under a week and start making money from it if people purchase it.But you will need to do further work to get your book to actually sell and start earning you revenues. Your book will get onto Amazon OK, but it has to be seen and desired in order for you to make sales. There are books that have sat there for years without any sales at all so don’t think your done once you get your book published and onto the site. You have to help the sales happen by promoting it. So below is a list of things you should also be doing yourself online to get people to your Amazon purchased page to buy your book.

Be sure you build out your Author profiles on Amazon Central and on book review sites such as “Good Reads”. On Good Reads, also be sure to get your book into their “Listopia” program – so learn how to do that. Find other similar Author sites and get your name out there as well.

Consider getting out an online press release on your book as well. Make sure it has back links to where people can view and purchase your book. Take a look at “Reddit” as one possible site for this.

Promote your book on different social media platforms such as Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, etc.

Consider building a YouTube channel and creating a promotional video for your book with linkbacks to where your book can be purchased.

Create your own “Author” blog-site to further promote your book. Traverse the Internet to get linkbacks to your site or book through guest posting, article writing, etc.

Get an automated e-mail marketing and autoresponder system in place and use it to help promote your book – build your e-mail subscriber lists!

Consider getting a podcast series going on iTunes where you can have “podcast discussions” about the content of your book. FYI – Once you get some of these built, stick an image of your book in front of them and upload these to your YouTube channel as well as “Video Podcasts”.

Keep posting and guest posting and getting yourself out there with people. The more people that know about you and your book, the better your sales will be. Build relationship bridges with other authors (EzineArticles and Good Reads are good places to do this), with book reviewers, people knowledgeable in your “book space”, etc. Get known out there.

Build a Facebook business page for your book and put your author “Good Reads” button onto your Facebook pages that can bring people back to your Author page at GoodReads. Promote your book on Facebook using the “Boost Post” feature – this is a very economical marketing platform with great targeting capabilities.

Be sure to get on Google+ and build out your profile there. Then, search for and join several communities relating to your topic area and also relating to other authors – become a positive content contributor to these communities.
In summary, if you can get through all the above steps for promoting your book online, you will be well on your way of starting to build the base needed to start earning revenues for your book. Best of luck to you in your writing career.

The most memorable literary event I’ve ever attended was held at an art gallery in London. I’d been a judge for some writers’ awards. It was a black tie event so everyone was dressed up to the nines.Half-way through the evening, the doors were sealed, security guards appeared and a “surprise guest” was announced. Salman Rushdie walked in looking defiant, gave a speech, mingled, and promptly disappeared again.It was in the early 1990s, just after he had gone into hiding. But I still remember it like it was yesterday. I can still see those canapés dusted with gold icing, the artistic bowls they were served in, and the strategically-placed minimalist sculptures. We were mesmerised even before Salman entered the room. When he did, we were blown away. The thought and planning that went into that event were phenomenal.Equally, I’ve known of some pretty dire events. At the worst end of the scale, a multi-millionaire business author and TV personality hired a mansion in an exclusive part of London and sold tickets, promoting it as an opportunity to mix with high net worth entrepreneurs. She had a large cake made, with the cover of her book on it, and set up a “mini-bar” and a sound system.What happened next by all accounts was a cross between a football scrum and a school disco. More people showed up than expected, and jostled with each other for space. Wine had to be served from boxes in white plastic cups. Vases were broken. The neighbours complained about the goings on next door, and the landlord was called. Of course, no permission had been given to hold an event of this scale on the premises. So everyone was asked to leave. Not quite the impression you would want to give, unless perhaps you are one of the Gallagher brothers.Generally though, book launches tend to follow a pretty standard format whether they’re held in bookshops, libraries or galleries.A glass of Merlot awaits you when you roll up. You stand around mingling with the great and the good for an hour. The author makes a speech thanking everyone who has helped them. A request is made for you to buy the book if you haven’t already. Half an hour later, it’s time to go home. You’ve enjoyed yourself, but there’s very little to distinguish one event from another.So the question is: how can you host a memorable book launch that really stands out, regardless of your budget? Any author can do this if you apply the same degree of creativity that went into writing your book in the first place:1. Find a venue that complements your bookA bookshop or library is a safe, but conventional, option. If you’re looking for something more prestigious, then pick an upmarket venue like an art gallery, a museum, or a university function room. If it’s the height of summer, then consider a BBQ in a park or garden. If you’re a speaker, then why not tie in your book launch with a talk you’re giving? If you’re a children’s author, can you hold the event in a park, a school or a zoo? If you have the resources, how about a boat, a place of historic interest or a castle? One of my clients wrote her book on her laptop while sitting in Costa’s, so it was natural for her to host a signing there. You don’t have to spend a fortune to make an impact.2. Set the mood for the eventHow can you set the mood from the moment your guests walk in? Do you want candlelight, day light, or fluorescent lighting? Will your guests drink from plastic cups or glass goblets or champagne flutes? Will you offer them Beaujolais or bubbly? Will they have cheese on cocktail sticks, or something more exotic? Will they be served on paper plates or silver platters? Will the room be decorated in bunting or photographs that tie in with your book? Roller banners, with your business logo or your book cover, are a very cost-effective way to make an impression.3. What will your photos look like?Imagine a photograph of yourself signing a book at your launch. Would you prefer the event to have a serious or a fun feel? Would you like attendees to wear dress suits or jeans? Should it be upmarket or informal? Is this a no-children affair or a family event? How about a theme where people wear fancy dress? If you’ve written a novel set in the 1920s, could you play jazz, serve Mint julep cocktails, and ask the women to wear flapper dresses? I remember a children’s book launch where the author dressed as a big yellow bird with stripy legs. These photographs will be around for a long time to come. You and your attendees will post them on social media and share them. How will you like to feel when you see these photos: proud and happy, or slightly awkward?4. Determine your grand finaleA finale is essential for any book launch. Often, a speech or a reading from the author will suffice. But you can be more inventive than this. One of my clients taped copies of his book beneath the seats of 150 people who attended a property event. They had no idea until he told them to look under their seats. He then asked everyone to look at a certain word on a certain page inside their books. The person who had the book with the word highlighted in yellow won a £500 prize. The event was fun. Everyone then stood up and gave him a standing ovation.Another author I’ve worked with enticed people to pay £65 for his book and attend his event, by offering a seminar to teach attendees how to create a successful million dollar business.How can you surprise or wow your own audience so that you over-deliver on their expectations and they remember your event for a long time to come?5. How can you attract the media?A client of mine wrote an anti-evolution book and invited Ireland’s Minister for Science to launch it (though it caused such a controversy that he didn’t). “Darwin” showed up at the book launch, linking arms with a Gorilla. The author had a glass bowl filled with 15 tennis balls which he announced he would dump on the floor to see if they would arrange themselves in a perfect circle. Of course they didn’t. The author had media coverage in over 50 outlets.Another property author held a book launch at an event near Marble Arch, in London. She held an auction that raised thousands of pounds for a shelter for homeless people, and the event had coverage in various papers including The Times.Why were journalists interested in these events? Because they were different: they weren’t traditional book launches.6. Your invitation should excite your attendeesMany authors send out invitations that have an undercurrent of fear and insecurity. You can almost hear the cogs whirring in their head: “What if no one comes?” They say things like: “Please bring along your friends, neighbours and anyone else you know”. What can you offer them that will make sure they’ll move other events in their diary just to be there? Strike a confident tone with your invitation: you are offering a never-to-be-repeated opportunity for a limited number of people. When the tickets are gone, they’re gone. They’d be foolish not to come. Offer more than just a book launch and set the tone of your expectations. Take for example, the author who recently held a launch at The Ritz in Mayfair, telling attendees to “dress to impress!” and bring along a business card to share with others.7. How can you have impact and influence beyond this event?It’s been like sales day at Harrods. People have been desperate for you to sign their books. They’ve loved your idea. But once the wine or champagne has gone, and guests start to drift away, what impact will you have? You’ve had a great event. But what can you do to ensure these people buy your future books, come to other events that you host, or want to work with you? Can you give guests a reason to sign up on your Facebook page, your blog or your newsletter? Can you hand out flyers offering them a free consultation with you? Can you ensure that everyone has your business card or contact details? I’ve had clients who have trebled their speaking engagements after publishing their book, authors who have generated weekly leads for their business several years after their launch, clients who’ve got their own magazine columns. What impact will you have?Pay attention to all these small details and you should have a book launch that really sings!

When writing and publishing non-fiction books, there’s tremendous earning potential just through book sales. This is particularly true if you become popular in a broad interest topic, and particularly if you’re prolific with your writing and publishing.However, unlike fiction, non-fiction offers you a huge amount of earning potential beyond simply the sales of books. In fact, in many ways, when a reader buys a book from you, that can be the very start of a customer relationship that can even be worth tens of thousands of dollars in income.The reason for this is when publishing a non-fiction book, you’re generally solving someone’s problem, or answering someone’s question:

How can I make my garden look better?

How do I get more leads and sales for my business?

How can I get fit and bulk up?

How can I increase the value of my home?
… and so on.So your book will answer their questions and help solve their problems. And the better the book, the more it starts your relationship with the reader in a positive way.Of course people who buy your book are interested in the topic. They may be superficially interested, or they may be hugely motivated to dive much deeper into the topic. With such readers, your book is just the start of your relationship with them.So that’s where your relationship with your readers becomes more of an “information publisher and coach” rather than just an author.I’ll be talking through five ways you as an author can build an entire portfolio of offers that can increase your income significantly, by turning a simple book publishing business into an information publishing and coaching empire.Here’s several examples of authors who have done just that:Dan Kennedy is quite prolific as a book writing, with a focus on helping small businesses with their marketing. But that’s just a tiny percentage of his income.His books introduce readers to his website, his paid newsletters, his courses, and his consulting. For example, he mentions that just one reader who purchased one of his books from a $1 bargain bin in a store, turned into a client who’s now paid him well over $100,000.Anthony Robbins is a hugely well known motivational coach who publishes books and these introduce new coaching clients to him. His information and coaching business is vast, and even though the books bring him a small percentage of clients overall (the majority come through infomercials) they’re highly qualified.Melonie Dodaro publishes a popular book about successfully using LinkedIn to grow your personal and business brand. And that book leads the reader to her website where she offers more in depth courses, in-person coaching, and services.Of course it’s important to realize that a large percentage of people who get your book will look at it only briefly if at all. It will be a small percentage who really dive into your book and then visit your website, take up the free offer you make to readers in return for their email address (very important!), and then check out your other offers.However that small percentage will come to you very much sold on your way of communicating, so they’ll be hugely receptive to other offers of yours. In some ways, they’ll transition from your book to your website already fans of yours, and this makes selling to them so much easier than attempting to sell to someone who’s never heard of you before.Okay, so let’s dive into more detail about ways to turn a book reader into a hugely valuable customer, while at the same time offering tremendous value to them every step of the way (since every time you over-deliver to a customer, it makes them more likely to buy from you again, and to recommend your products and services to others).Expand on Your Book With In-Depth Training CoursesIf the subject you’re writing about is particularly narrow niche, a 100 page book may cover the entirety of the subject. However, most books, even on very niche subjects, can go more in depth and be turned into a fully-fledged training course. And in particular can be communicated in multiple media formats: audio, video, and tool kits (more on this later).So you need to transition your book readers to your website. A great way to do this is to offer them bonuses if they visit your site at private page (just for book readers) and sign up with their email address. This way, they get access to great bonuses that aren’t available to regular website visitors, and you get their email address for regular follow-up.And you follow up on them by email with great content, and also some offers (don’t overdo it however of they’ll stop reading your emails). This is a great opportunity to start presenting them with your courses and other offers, and also to encourage them to become a regular reader of your blog by emailing them links to your latest posts (or the best post from the last seven days) once a week.Now, a training course can be delivered purely online as a download. Or it can be set up as a private member area (more on this in the next section). However, by also sending your customer something physical through the post, you can generally charge quite a bit more as it has a higher perceived value.Plus, it creates a stronger emotional bond with the customer. Rather than just data on a hard drive, it’s something that has pride of place on their shelves.So for example, you can deliver everything immediately online, and also send customers:

DVDs with training videos.

CDs with audio.

Printed out and bound manuals and transcripts.
The DVDs and CDs can be very light to post, whereas manual and transcripts can start to get rather heavy. However, the more you deliver, the larger the “Thud Factor” as it’s called. The thud sound you get when a huge package is delivered at your door. So the higher the thud factor, the more perceived value a course can have, so the higher the price.And with a training course, depending on how in depth it is, the intended target market, and how valuable the subject area is, can sell for anything from $30 to $5,000.While a $30 course may be introductory, a $5,000 course could be the equivalent of a Masters degree in your subject area, and a percentage of your customers are going to be interested in that if they’ve been happy with previous purchases from you.Often, offers to customers start at the lower end of prices. And then customer then gets higher priced offers as they purchase more and more products. Whereas other customers may want to jump straight to the most expensive course. So having these all publicly available to buy can be helpful.So sales of these courses will come from:

Your email list.

Your website traffic.

Promotional partnerships where other sites promote your courses.

Online advertising campaigns.
Making Predictable Income with Membership Sites & NewslettersA membership site is a private area on your site with fantastic information. Often membership sites also include tools that members can benefit from, and even private discussion areas where members can get in depth answers quickly.The reason for having a membership site as well as training products is because it’s regularly updated, and can have an interactive element to it. In return the customer pays either monthly or annually to keep access to the site.And a newsletter is effectively a “real world” version of a membership, where a newsletter, CD, DVD, or combination of these, is sent to the customer once a month. The customer then again either pays monthly, or even annually. And this can be either instead of, or more likely alongside access to a membership site.Two Examples:

If we return to the example of Dan Kennedy, he has a monthly newsletter that goes out to thousands (more likely tens of thousands) of business owners. He’s said that he consider his newsletter the core of his business, and this alone produces millions in annual revenue for him.

An even more successful example is Lynda.com which was recently sold to LinkedIn for well over a billion dollars. Lynda is a job skills training site that is over 20 years old, and has training videos on hundreds of different subjects.
You’ll find in fact that both of those examples, and with billed monthly offers in general, a free or low-price trial period is required. There’s a resistance by customers to being billed monthly, so you can overcome that resistance with a low-price or free trial so you can prove the value you’re giving them.And one huge benefit of billing customers monthly (automatically onto their credit card) is it creates very predictable monthly cash flow for your business, which takes a lot of worry out of entrepreneurial life. It also means you have a captive audience that you can promote other products and services too, and since they’re already buying from you, their response rate will be high.Charge For Your Expertise & Time With CoachingIf you’re an expert in the subject you’re writing about, then beyond just offering books and training products for your audience, you can work with them on a one-to-one basis to answer their questions directly and offer a much more personalized approach.This could be offered as consulting or personalized training (much the same thing, although they have slightly different connotations), and can be very helpful to clients that are confused about certain areas of your topic, have very specific questions, or just want to move forward quickly.This is often offered at an hourly rate, or even a day rate, and is generally done remotely over the phone or through Skype, or can sometimes be done in person in certain instances.You can even take this further if you choose, and actually offer services to customers where you do the work for them. For example, if you published a book on small business marketing, you could offer marketing campaign management for clients, and depending on the size of the project, could cost the client more than $100,000 a year.The example above of Melonie Dodaro publishing her book about LinkedIn as a lead generator for her business, helps attract clients to her coaching and marketing management services.Selling Tools is Much Easier Than Selling InformationWhen selling information, there’s always a resistance from the person you’re selling to as information takes effort to internalize and to implement. That said, if the information is about a hobby the person reading may be truly passionate about it. But for information about solutions to a problem, there likely isn’t that same passion. The easier you can make it, the better.So if you can find a way to give your customer a tool they can put into action and that solves their problem with minimal effort on their part, that can sell very well. Because in an ideal world, people want things done for them, so the less effort they have to exert to solve a problem, the happier they’ll be.If you’re selling a training course, you can include tools as part of it. You can then start to present the product as a toolkit which can make selling it a lot easier. Here are examples of tools you can sell as part of a course, or even as their own offers:

Software

“Fill in the blank” templates

Spreadsheets for quick calculations

Quick start guides
Now some tools can take a long time (and a lot of money) to develop, particularly software. So make sure you know your audience well if this a route you’re going to take.Put Together High-Priced Seminars and RetreatsTo maximize your income while at the same time catering to multiple client types, it’s important to have low priced and also high priced offers. One of your lowest priced offers is of course your book.Then you can offer more in depth information, leading up to high-priced coaching, consulting, services, and tools. And towards the highest end of prices is putting together seminars and retreats where your absolute best and most valuable information is presented to customers.Plus, people often greatly enjoy the social aspect of seminars, and it can be a fun getaway. It can also be a great way to network with people that have similar interests.When putting together seminars, you have two main options:

High priced and exclusive.

Low priced with the maximum number of people you can get.
The high priced option may even sell for thousands of dollars, and you may have quite limited seating. This is often offered to your best customers first, so they get first refusal.Whereas the low priced option is designed to get you the biggest captive audience possible. Often then you sell your highest priced offers to that audience, since selling from the stage can be the most receptive place to make those offers.This can lead to what’s known as the stampede effect, where you make an offer from the stage (especially if it’s time or quantity limited), and people see audience members going up to take the offer, so the fear of missing out kicks in and other people rush up too. Such offers at seminars have been known to bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars over a weekend.By thinking strategically, you can leverage your book and increase your profits through more than publishing.

If you want to be a ghost writer, be prepared to work for a high cost, expensive services clientele. It takes something in the ballpark neighborhood nowadays of figures in the five to ten to fifty thousand dollar range to hire a great book ghost writer. You can hire a book editor, a book doctor or a book coach for much less than that. Prices for editing and assistance with you yourself actually writing your book run for far less.I have worked directly, myself, on some upwards of 50 book manuscripts for a wide variety of client authors. I don’t do screenplays; I have edited them, and I do an adequate job, but you really need to know the film industry to create the very best in scripts and screenplays. So I leave that sort of project to experts, optioned screenwriters and produced script writers for TV, who are on our team. What I specialize in is books.I can whip out a great, revised and edited book for an author client without having to worry about whether or not it’s misspelled, has grammar or syntax issues, or is colorful enough to grab a literary agent’s attention. Well, that is one way to put it. To be honest, I work over the top to produce the best manuscript I can possibly give each of my author clients, and that can mean working like a dog sometimes. It depends. Some clients hand me easy background notes, book outlines, chapter by chapter outlines – I’m the one who requests them from each client – and some clients don’t. They need to either write out a full manuscript and have me edit it for them, or book coach them into writing it out, or book doctor an existing manuscript by performing content and/or developmental editing on it for them.So when you’re a book ghost writer service, you can handle both ends. When it comes to screenplays and scripts, I have other people work on them. The right thing to do is to specialize for a while, I believe, and then when you’re bored it’s time to move on to a different specialty. I know a ghost writer who grew tired of writing screenplays, so he moved on to the prose writing and editing of book manuscripts. It doesn’t hurt to step out of one field and into another. I started out editing people’s book manuscripts for free, also for low cost, and I then stepped into the field of book ghost writer services in the early 2000’s. It’s been lots of fun for me, and a real roller coaster ride.My daydream is to continue with getting author clients over to the correct literary agents and commercial book publishers. It’s more than just a dream, I’m able to do that. I have people on our team who handle that, and they have the right connections. But I’d like to shift eventually over to doing that myself someday. It’s more lucrative. A book ghost writer on our team landed a $75,000 advance for a book where she only wrote the proposal and query letter. The book was published, selling quite well. She used the advance to make a down payment on her new house.She’s very gracious and is always willing to bend to the needs and desires of her clients. But she won’t take on the “wrong kinds” of non-marketable book projects. Only the ones she sees as potential winners, which have a great chance at being marketed appropriately. So I need to enter that field myself someday down the road. Right now, I’m taking it easier, mostly farming work out to writers, editors, marketers and others on our team, and trying to get my own three books, the ones I wrote myself, published. I smuggled one of my author client’s books into The Library of Congress, early on in my career, and we have placed several more of them over there through the years.I’ve gotten my books into Google Books, Smashwords, Amazon, bookstores, and plenty of my author clients have been published on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, other media outlets, brick and mortar stores, online venues and the Public Library System, as well as around the world. Our books and some of mine have landed in France, Great Britain, Rwanda, China, Canada, Germany, Spain, South America… it is rather the glamorous side, the life of one book ghost writer running her ghost writing services. But there are also many pitfalls and drawbacks. The main one is getting out enough advertising to bring in the clients. The second most important aspect is finding ways to get our author clients to sign a firm Contract, and then stick with the project. I’ll write another article about those two topics soon, I promise!

IntroductionAt the time there were no ‘verified purchase’ labels and no checks so lots of people were buying ads that gave them 2-3 reviews for $5 (just a few pounds sterling). This gave readers the impression that these books were well worth buying. The etablets devices had limited display features so the quality of the book formatting did not matter as much as it does today.People had to download a sample to get a proper look at the book so in the case of a ‘free’ book, it was easier just downloading the whole thing than the possibility of virtually downloading it twice.The e/iBook market has very much changed:- In excess of 70,000 titles a month are being released every month making it far harder to get your book noticed.- Readers are expecting a high standard of formatting. Each listing now has a specific link to complain about formatting- Readers can get a preview of the book without downloading- Major outlets have put restriction on sites that list free sites, so fewer books are being promoted at some of the more well-known ‘free’ listing sites and there is more competition for the places on offer- Review policy seems to be very inconsistent with some major online outlets Some support staff are saying that authors cannot review other author’s books, others say their reviews are welcome.Below are quite a few methods to promote your books on a ‘free’ day and reasons why you should, but you must first understand that for continued success, your book needs to optimised and readers need to be willing to pay for it.You can get yourself lots of publicity but at the end of the day if readers do not like what you are offering or the book does not resonate with them then the book will not sell. To illustrate this, we have all come across books and films that have had huge marketing budgets but ended up a flop because the product just was not right.So How Do You Get Noticed And Are ‘Free’ Days Still Worth It?The best way to set up your Giveaway is through a websites that exist to enable this of which there is an increasing number online.Whether ‘free’ days are still worth it depending to a certain extent upon what you intend to get out of them and what else you have done to promote them.3 Main Reasons To Have A ‘Free’ Day1. Increase your relevancy score (‘customers who bought… etc)2. Gather reviews3. Boost in short-term salesThe first two reasons are the most important. There is a train of thought that major online outlets would far rather you have 100 ‘free’ books downloaded where the readers all buy similar books as opposed to several thousand downloads where the readers have absolutely nothing in common.Internal Review Request LinkThis is the most basic promotion tactics that everybody should be doing but unfortunately lots of people are not and they are really missing out because of it. It will also seriously affect one of the reasons for your ‘free’ day.You should always have a link at the back of your book with a link back to your listing requesting that the reader leaves an honest review. The most likely time people are going to leave a review is after they’ve just read your book. The link encourages them to leave a review and makes it as easy as possible for them.Statistics for book downloads in the different categories: In addition to the sheer number of downloads there are online ePublishing services that also give you a great relevance score i.e. high percentage of people who often download books like yours. This leads to you getting recommended in all sorts of ways by major online outlets, e.g. ‘Customers who bought… ‘. If these major online outlets spots a book that is getting lots of downloads from people with similar profiles (e.g. buying lots of similar books to yours) then they will promote heavily after your ‘free’ day promotion.N.B: There is a service elsewhere which offers a minimum of 10,000 downloads and major online outlets did not seem to have any issues with it. However, people are now getting warning letters from major online outlets stating that this particular service is using questionable methodsFree/Low Cost ‘Free’ Day PromotionReviews/Reviews SwapsWhen you have a ‘free’ day there are lots of websites, social media pages plus groups that may/will feature your book.Lots of the social media pages and groups will also allow you to list your book inviting people to review as well as download or allow you to directly ask others to swap reviews.Free Day Listing SitesAlthough individually not as effective as they used to be, there are many sites that will feature your book on a ‘free’. However, they are starting to get a bit choosy with so many books coming out. Some of them have a guaranteed placement but for a small fee. There are lots of these sites to choose from so the cost will be more in terms of time than money.Ads For Social MediaAlthough not always recommend using certain providers to purchase reviews, it can be helpful advertising your book on social media pages that the providers service offer. Some of these gigs will display your ad on pages that supposedly have many thousands of people. If you go down this route then it is suggested that you take note of their reviews and visit any page links they provide.Social Media AdsThe main well known social media social allows you to create your own ads and display them for a fee. The better the response to your ads then the lower the relative cost. Therefore targeting relevant people makes your advertising far cheaper and far more effective. The major social media sites have their own targeting options based on its accumulated data. There can be reservations as to whether it is accurate, relevant and up-to-date. For example, it is not known if somebody who accidentally clicked on a site that was ‘liked’ by a friend five years ago would come up in this targeting.A far more accurate method of targeting which only includes people who are actively taking part in relevant groups. Everybody on major social media sites has a User ID and with some have an Editor facility you can input User ID’s of people you know are interested in your type of book. Using the right tools you could have a list of 1000’s of people.However, as with all books, getting them in front of the right people does not always mean that they are willing to download/buy them.Giveaway PromotionThis can be a bit more expensive than the others depending upon what you want to give away. You can select a whole host of ways they can enter your Giveaway such ‘liking’ or ‘tweeting’ your book/giveaway. You can add in any option you want. At the end of the Giveaway you have all of the entrants e-mail addresses so you can contact them with details such as when your new book or a future books is coming out. You also have people actively promoting your book using social media.There is a whole host of ways to get people to your selected platform. There are many sites whose sole purpose is to tell people of giveaways that are taking place. They readily accept submissions as the more people they can attract to their site the more money they can make through advertising or however else they monetise their site.Some of the entrants will be freebie grabbers who will not be interested in your book but they are not costing you anymore for the prize and they are advertising for you. If you make your prize relevant to your book then you’re likely to get a more targeted list.You could also again setup adds on social media in the same way that you did in the last section to attract people.GiveawayIf you an have account with the main books promotional sites then there are lots of people you can contact enlightening them of the fact that a free e/iBook version is on offer You can be fairly confident that these people are interested in your book otherwise they would not have entered in the first place.Press ReleasesIf you have lots of faith in your book then you could try an online press release. You may be under the impression that press releases are very expensive and difficult to do. You can actually get some press releases sent for free, and get them written very cheaply e.g. $25 (about £20).Video Video TrailerThis may come across as far beyond your capabilities but many video trailers are just PowerPoint slides set to music. You can download royalty-free music for free or buy it very cheaply at sources, add it to your PowerPoint slides then record a slideshow using the PowerPoint software and even share online with sources such as SlideShare.Contact Lists This @rticle provides for the reader lots of ideas to promote your book on a ‘free’ day as well as at other times. For some of the sections mentioned above the Author has collected and compiled the data over a long period of time including lists of contact links to use when you are ready for having a ‘free’ day.For ideas (and to share) please visit the author online who has spreadsheets available to help progress.

Let’s start with a quote from Suw Charman-Anderson in a Forbes article published on June 19, 2012.”All this seems to say that success is a matter of luck and is outside of the author’s control. That’s an attractive hypothesis because it takes the onus completely off the author, but it’s not completely true. What does make a difference to sales, especially for first-timers, is getting good reviews in online bookstores, such as Amazon. Your book won’t appear high in search or top 100 lists, and nor will it be picked up by recommendations algorithms without them. Instead, you’ll be stuck in a vicious circle wherein no one sees your book so no one takes a chance on it, which means it gets no reviews and doesn’t rise up in the search results or appear in the recommendations.”The only way to break this cycle is to get reviews, and that means promoting your book. You have to get it in front of friends and family, book bloggers and reviewers, and even random strangers on the internet. Whether you do that via social networks like Twitter or Facebook, or emails to your friends, or giveaways on Goodreads and LibraryThing, you have to do something. There’s just no way round it. Even publishing a second or third book won’t break the cycle, it will just mean you have two or three unknown books that aren’t selling.”Ms. Charman-Anderson makes a very succinct and accurate observation. Four years after this article was published, I think it’s fair to say that most authors are aware of the importance of book marketing, exposure, reviews and rankings. One need only visit a book promotion Facebook group or Twitter page to recognize how many authors are competing to gain visibility through social media, book bloggers and reviewers.Does Book Marketing Pay off?But is any of this actually working? Perhaps, but I imagine the actual number of books that are reaching mainstream readers is very small. To demonstrate this point, I recently visited one of the most prominent book promotion groups on Facebook. At a random date and time, I looked at the first five book listings when I opened the discussion page. Five days later, I checked the rankings for each book on Amazon. I purposely did not include the actual names of the books or authors to avoid embarrassing anyone.This is what I found:Book #1: #3,212,608 in booksBook #2: #238,283 paid in Kindle StoreBook #3: #560,430 in BooksBook #4: #205,932 paid in Kindle StoreBook#5: 1,098,578 Paid in Kindle StoreBook number one and number five are clearly struggling to gain visibility. While the rankings of book number two and number four have some traction, it’s important to keep this in context. In fact, while insight into Amazon’s ranking system is difficult to ascertain, some sources estimate that an Amazon Bestseller ranking above 100,000 indicates that a book is selling less than one copy per day. I imagine these authors are exerting a lot of effort to sell very few books.Book Marketing Without the Sweat EquitySo what does it all mean?Social media, email lists, book signings, book club meetings, writer’s conferences, social gatherings, review solicitations… the path to success for a self-published author can be exhausting. The puzzle of successful book promotion must revolve around the massive potential of a unified self-publishing community. At the Hidden Author, we believe that harnessing the purchasing power of the self-published author’s community, and promoting great books to readers who are unaware of the quality product that is available, is the key to creating the momentum great books need to reach critical mass.After all, wouldn’t you rather write instead of sell?

When publishing a non-fiction book, if you have an existing promotional platform in that market, then you can launch any new book with a bang. A promotional platform could be:

A popular blog

An email list with thousands of subscribers

A Twitter account with a good number of responsive followers

A YouTube account with a significant amount of subscribers
… or any combination of these (plus audiences on other platforms).However, we all need to start somewhere, and if you don’t yet have a promotional platform, this post is all about building those platforms so that you don’t need to depend on Amazon to promote your book, but can drive sales of your book whenever you choose.You could of course pay for advertising to get your new book in front of people, but this post will instead focus on free methods for capturing people’s attention. And since with non-fiction there’s tremendous income opportunities far beyond book sales (courses, consulting… ), promotional platforms can be used for a lot more than just driving book sales.Promoting Your Book Through a Minisite or Promotional PageThe core of your promotional platform is your own website. Some people advocate creating a new site to promote each book you write. However, such a site would generally only be two or three pages, and such a small site isn’t going to get any traffic without advertising. So let’s put this minisite idea aside for now.Since it’s recommended you publish multiple books on related topics, and especially if you’re offering courses and other offers related to those books, having a site you build up significantly about the topic, with lots of great content, well, that can work very well to attract visitors and create new readers and customers.It’s vital you publish fantastic free content on your site regularly as this attracts visitors through:

Google

Social sites (as people share your content)

Links from other sites when they recommend your content/site
This all helps build up your platform, and is known as content marketing.An example of a site that supports sales of his books is by Steve Scott.Getting Interviewed on Podcasts for Rapid PublicityMillions of people listen to podcasts every day, and there’s podcasts on every topic imaginable. Whatever you write about, you’ll find relevant podcasts for that topic.So just like people listen to the radio when whatever they’re doing doesn’t require 100% of their attention, more and more people have replaced that with podcasts. Either through iTunes, or by simply downloading audio files from websites.If you’re a first-time author, wait until your book is published before you start contacting podcasts. Because their priority is that you provide great content to their listeners.You can promote a little bit, but it’s all about providing value, to help make that podcast great. Then people listening will want to find out more about you, and a percentage of them will become customers.Or if you already have books published and have established platforms, it will be easier to get the attention of podcast publishers since you’ll have credibility you can leverage.And that’s what’s so important — coming across as credible to the podcast owners so they feel confident that you’ll provide value to their listeners. If your first podcast goes well, it will then become easier as you can mention that to new sites you contact.So simply contact podcast publishers, through email, or even through social channels like Twitter or Facebook. Don’t bombard them, but try to get their attention, and it certainly helps if you listen to their podcast and become familiar with them before you contact them.As a podcast interview example — returning to the example of Steve Scott, he was interviewed on Smart Passive Income about how to publish for profit.Guest Posting for Credibility, Publicity, Traffic and SalesWhile posting fantastic content on your own site is absolutely vital if you’re looking to build up an audience, publishing incredible content on someone else’s site gets in front of their audience, and can attract new website visitors, book readers, and customers to you.Be aware that guest posting on a low traffic site won’t give you much benefit. And this is especially true if the link to your site (or book) is at the bottom of the article you publish, rather than at the top. Sometimes this will be negotiable, other times not.But you really want to aim for getting published on very high traffic, high quality, and relevant sites. Sometimes this is easier said than done, but the rewards can be significant.In some cases emailing sites directly about this may be required, but in fact many sites often publicize the fact that they’re looking for new writers, so often searching Google for “write for us” and some keywords relevant to your market, can bring up some useful results.For example: write for us habitsNew York Times bestselling author Chris Brogan wrote for Lifehack and he says “… It was most definitely one of the pivotal points in my blogging career because it exposed my ideas to lots of sympathetic and interesting people… “Have Active Social Accounts and be Part of the ConversationIf used effectively, social accounts can reach a wide audience, present you with a lot of credibility, and drive book sales and create customers.In this section I’m referring to the main text and image social networks like:

Having a Twitter account

Having a Facebook page

Having a LinkedIn profile
There’s also lesser social accounts that can be helpful in certain circumstances like Pinterest and Quora, although spending too much time on second tier social accounts is not recommended.You can see hundreds of social networks listed here.Now, it’s been said that:

Facebook is for traffic

Twitter is for networking
Obviously that tweet can be taken with a grain of salt, but since it comes from someone whose website gets millions of visitors every month from Facebook, there’s more than likely a kernel or truth in it.So different social networks are for different purposes, and be sure to publish great content to them (this is easy if you’re writing great blog posts), become part of the conversation in your market, and in time you’ll get seen as a thought leader and influencer.Now, this isn’t a non-fiction example, but best-selling independent fiction author Amanda Hocking is very active on Twitter and Facebook interacting with readers and promoting her books.Use the Second Biggest Search Engine in the World: YouTubeA five minute video can get tens of thousands of views, and send visitors to your website and to your book page on Amazon.Now consider if you have 100 videos on YouTube.Okay, some are going to do well, whereas others are going to be largely ignored, and you generally can’t predict success, so if you take this promotional approach then being prolific is important.But with so much traffic on YouTube, if you can come up with relevant video ideas that can funnel traffic from YouTube to your site and books pages, that can help attract a lot of readers and customers, as long as your YouTube account is tightly relevant to your books and site.Publicity the Old-Fashioned WayIt’s important to realize that your audience may not spend a huge amount of time online, so podcasts and guest posts may pass them by entirely. Not everyone has a smart phone, and even those who do, many of them aren’t that interested in constantly browsing the internet.So speak to them where they are. This includes radio, newspapers, magazines, even television.You can start by contacting your local papers and your local stations, get some media experience, and grow from there. You can of course contact journalists and publishers yourself, or hire a PR professional if the cost is justified when factoring in your publishing goals.For example, this author had a full scale publicity campaign that helped with sales, but not to the extent expected. However, the credibility that comes from being on the radio, in newspapers, and even on television, can open a lot of doors.Drive Huge Sales With Timed PromotionsUsing your existing platform (if you have one), and promotional partnerships with other sites and authors, you can get a lot of people promoting your book all on the same day, or at least the same week.And often such timed promotions offer the customer a bonus bundle if they buy from Amazon within a certain time.To receive the bonus bundle, the customer often needs to forward their Amazon receipt to a special email address, and in return they get tons of valuable bonuses sent to them as downloads.This helps focus the customer to buy now rather than later.And the reason for this is lots of sales in a short space of time can get your book to number one on Amazon, or at least the top of your category. This is hugely credible to help with future promotions (“#1 bestseller”) and also builds momentum for your book right from the start.As you can see, the bonuses get more and more valuable as more copies are purchased, with larger offers being aimed at businesses.Get Lots of Reviews by Giving Away CopiesA book without reviews doesn’t get much attention, since it’s a risk buying a book with no reviews as you’ve no idea what you’re getting. But if no one buys the book, you won’t get any reviews.So it’s vital you jump start the process by giving out review copies. This forces you to make the book the best it can be in the time you have available before launch.And your book can be given to top reviewers in the market, to friends, associates, fellow authors, review sites…Ideally, if people post their review on Amazon and also talk about your book on their site or social channels, that’s ideal. With this in mind, it’s vital to start the relationship building process for reviews long before the publication date.Publishing More Books Helps Sell Even More of Your BooksAn analogy I like to use is that each of your books is a fishing rod in a river. With one rod, you may catch a fish occasionally. And of course in this context a fish is a book sale.But with multiple fishing rods, you catch many more fish. Obvious, right?Well, having multiple books has a multiplier effect since it casts a broader net to attract readers. It’s also likely that readers who like one book are interested to see what else you’ve written. And if you write numerous books on related subjects, you’re likely to turn a reader of one book into a reader of several.And although you can’t predict this, with enough books published (as long as the quality is high), one may well become a breakout success, and totally change the scale of your book sales. So again, being prolific is hugely important.Why Your Email List is One of Your Most Valuable AssetsOne of the most powerful assets you can build online is an email list of subscribers who enjoy hearing from you.You build this list by offering visitors to your website a gift (ethical bribe as it’s known) in return for becoming an email subscriber. They have the option to take themselves off the list instantly of course any time they choose, since you’ll be managing your list through a service like MailChimp.You can also segment your lists by:

Free subscribers (no purchase history with you)

Book customers

Course and consulting customers
This can help you target offers for different audiences.However, what a lot of people do wrong with email lists is just send out promotions. Well, if you subscribe to a newsletter and only get offers, why would you stay on the list?If you blog regularly, you can email your list once or twice a week sending them to your latest blog post, or the best blog post of the week perhaps.This way they enjoy hearing from you since you’re providing value, and you’re sending them back to your site each time, which makes them more likely to take up one of the offers you advertise on your site.And if you don’t overdo it, you can also send offers direct to your email subscribers. That can be hugely powerful, but it’s generally best if it’s a special offer. Sending run-of-the-mill offers to your list may burn them out and then they stop reading your emails.Returning to the example of Michael Port, his main site and also bonus site are both focused on building email lists for regular follow-up.

It’s no question, more books published equals more buy buttons, fans, repeat readers, and sales!Will you catch more fish with one fishing rod, or 20 fishing rods?Silly question, right!Now, this article is all about how to create non-fiction books quickly that have tremendous value for the reader. And although the title of this article says 48 hours, those 48 hours don’t need to be consecutive!You can spread them out over a week or two. Of course, if you spread them out over too long, it defeats the purpose of writing quickly. So a balance is good.And even if you’re not a fast typist in the least, there’s solutions for that too.Let’s get started…The Kind of Books You Can Write QuicklyAs mentioned, non-fiction can often work well for quick publishing because the structure is easier to plan and the content is easier to create. And if you know the subject well already, that greatly helps speed the process along.However, if it’s a subject you need to research, or in particular if it’s a subject you’re not familiar with at all and that will take you a while to understand, that may not be suitable for a fast writing project. You may need to consider that more of a long-term background project instead.That said, interviews with experts can be used to get all the information you need to create a non-fiction book on a topic you’re unfamiliar with. With perhaps both of your names on the cover. Such “joint venture” books are common.Which Topics Work Best for Short Books?This interview with Steve Scott, a hugely successful independent author offers great advice on a wide number of topics. What’s of particular relevance to you at this point in the process is how to choose topics that greatly increase your chances of being successful with short books.His advice is as follows:
Start with a big, popular topic. If you can’t think of one, then browse Amazon and even book stores for ideas. If you’re already familiar with the subject, all the better. However if you can get up to speed quickly then that can work too.
Remember that people really want things to be quick and easy, so if you’re offering a solution, the quicker and easier it is for the reader (and the more you can broadcast this, even in the title of the book), the better.
Then split this huge topic (in his case: habits) and break it up into micro-topics. Again, trying to offer a quick and easy solution. For example: 10-Minute Digital Declutter: The Simple Habit to Eliminate Technology Overload.
A micro-topic is deep rather than wide. Importantly, if you’re writing multiple books on a related topic, over time you fully cover the subject, and also the more books you publish the more they help promote each other. This helps build up a series and a brand.
If you can be topical, more the better. Let’s say a new type of diet has become popular, if you can ride the coattails of that popularity with your own book (because people are going to be searching for the name of the diet), that can help bring in sales quickly.
If you’re building out an entire information-publishing funnel (courses, consulting… ) then think about how your books fit into that, and how they will help to introduce new customers to you.
Don’t just copy what other people are writing about, even if you’re writing on a very similar subject. Put your own unique spin and personality on it. This is easy if you’re already familiar with the topic.
The more you know your audience and your competition, the more likely you are to write something people want to read.
How Long Will the Book be?A good rule of thumb for shorter books is between 15,000 to 25,000 words, although 10,000 is an option too if you can’t get to 15,000. However, if the word count strays too low (5,000 words for example) it really ends up as more of a blog post than a book, so may not be the right medium for what you’re publishing.So like the vast majority of non-fiction books, it’s either a reference, or it helps solve a problem. Or, it may even be a crash course in the subject (which is another kind of reference).Now, the length of the book does depend on how quickly you can write of course, but as you’ll discover there are other ways to create a book quickly if you’re not a fast typist.The Structure of Your BookThe following structure is suitable for most non fiction books:

Cover

Legal notices

Table of contents

Introduction

Chapters

Conclusion
What we’ll focus on in this post is the introduction through to the conclusion.Now, lots of relatively short chapters help to make the book easy to read, and give it more bulk. And you may want to consider a relatively large font and perhaps quite wide margins to help pad out the book too.You can download sample chapters from books in your subject area from Amazon to see how other authors are approaching this. Sometimes the word count per page on kindle can be surprisingly low.And it’s well worth including an image at least at the start of each chapter (after the title), or even quite regularly throughout the text as appropriate. This is especially relevant if you’ll be including screen shots for a tutorial.Remember that images on Kindle E-Ink display in 16 shades of gray so make sure everything looks as you’d like it to before publishing.And these two resources can help you find a lot of great free images for commercial use:pixabaymorguefileThere’s also Flickr Creative Commons but you generally need to include attribution when using those images. So somewhere in your book you would need to include a link to the photographer’s page on Flickr.Planning Your Book to Speed up WritingA vital step to help your writing go as quickly and smoothly as possible is to plan your structure at the start.All you really need to do for this is to make a bulleted list that includes:

Your chapters

The sub-headings in each chapter

Bullets that list what you’ll be talking about under each sub-heading
For example:
Chapter Name
Sub Heading 1

Key point 1
Key point 2
Key point 3Sub Heading 2You may want to make the bullets short, or even quite detailed, and this process helps clarify your thinking and approach to the book, and makes writing it so much easier.Options for Writing QuicklyOnce you’ve mapped out your structure, if you’re a fast typist and know your subject, all that’s required is keeping the structure in front of you, and then writing your book as you turn one bullet at a time into a few sentences, or even a paragraph or two.Do remember — the bullets are more of a prompt than a hard and fast structure so you may find as you write that the bullets get written out of order, or you may even combine several bullets into one paragraph.But this ongoing prompt in front of you helps you stay on topic and focused, and helps avoid your book from meandering around the subject (which can be frustrating for readers).However, most people can’t touch type. You may still be a fast typist just using a couple of fingers, but if your typing speed is going to become a bottleneck to your book getting written quickly, there are a number of alternatives…Software That Automatically Transcribes Your SpeechTranscription software like Dragon Naturally Speaking that aims to turn your speech into text instantly.The more time you spend training the software just after you’ve installed it, the more it will get to know your voice, and that should help accuracy of transcription.Other factors that can make a big difference are quality of microphone, and how clearly you speak.It’s also worth noting that unless you specify the punctuation as you speak, a lot of punctuation won’t be included, and sentences often run into each other. This can make the editing process rather slow.But if you can get a demo version of this software (or similar software) it may well be worth you seeing how you get on with it, and whether it’s helpful to you or not.Paying for a Transcription ServiceAlternatively, if you have the budget (or a willing friend or family member to help you), you can have your structure in front of you while you simply speak out your entire book.Of course, this may mean your book reads very conversationally and may need quite a bit of editing to alter the style a little so it’s more suitable for readers, but this can be an easy way to get a lot of text onto the page quickly. Also perhaps make sure you don’t ramble too much and keep your speaking focused.Again, you’ll need to know your subject if you’re going to take this approach. And it’s important to realize that an hour of spoken audio at a normal talking speed is around 8,000 to 10,000 words.This is why it’s so important not to ramble and go too off topic. If you find yourself speaking for more than three hours, the book may end up considerably more than 25,000 words. This is good in one way, but in another way it creates a lot more editing work, which slows the process down, which may make the 48 hour turnaround unrealistic.Editing and PublishingOnce you’ve written the first very rough draft of your book, editing, more editing, and then finalization is required. And this is truly the part of the process you don’t want to cram into a 48 hour window, otherwise quality of final work can suffer greatly.Once you’ve got your words onto computer, sleep on it at least once before you start editing. Editing the same day as writing often doesn’t work well.So edit at least twice, with at least one night between each editing session. It’s even better if you can get someone else to take a look too. Either a professional editor if your budget stretches to that, or a friend or family member who’s well read and with a strong grasp of grammar, spelling and writing styles.Then when you’re happy with your manuscript, format the text just as you’d like it to look, and then add further formatting like borders, page numbers, headers, footers, images, and whatever else is appropriate.Next of course comes the cover image, some legal boilerplate text, and the table of contents. An index isn’t generally required for short books and could make a lot more work.And at that point, everything is on the page. So have one more read through, get it edited, add changes to the design and layout, and then you’re all set to get it published on Amazon (and elsewhere too if you choose).Now, as mentioned at the start, 48 hour turnaround is possible. But 48 hours of work over at least a week is a good rule of thumb.Keeping that in mind will help focus you and avoid this book project stretching out for weeks and even months. Keeping a quick turnaround in mind does help to focus you and helps you to avoid attempting to create something that’s perfect, rather than good enough.And again, there’s more benefits to being prolific than attempting to create one masterpiece. Plus, you can always upload an updated version of your book if you have something you want to update or expand.ConclusionThere you have it! A quick start guide to quickly publishing non-fiction books in 48 hours.