Web Content and Social Networking Experts

Want to sell a million books?

So, you want to sell a million books. Here's how. Do your book project backwards. Yes, you read that right. Don't write the book and then try to sell it. Here's how it works. Well, in thumbnail anyway.

• Research the topics that sold a million books over he last five or ten years.
• Pick one you like and that has not been done lately.
• Create a new slant, a new opinion, something new and fresh is what you want on a proven theme.
• Research the market viability of the idea. If it looks good.
• Get a agent on-board and get the idea fine tuned. If this is to be un-agented get together people in the business you trust and do the same thing.
• Complete these profiles of your buyers:
  • Demographic
  • Psychographic
  • Geographic
  • Behavioral
  • and Preference Study
• Start researching the book.
• Start thinking about marketing and advertising.
• Fulfillment. How will you get the product to the customer if a paper book. If an eBook this is not a problem.
• Obtain testimonials and recommendation for the back cover, your Website, online, and inside the book as well. Get people known in the field directly related to your book or people known to the public.
• Start writing the book.
• Get going on prepublication publicity and marketing.  
• Finish the book and get it to the printer / agent / publisher.
• Publish the book.
• Ramp up your marketing efforts with
  • article marketing
  • online marketing
  • the book's Website
  • the book's Facebook page
  • socially networked press releases are ready. Send your press release to
    • bloggers
    • libraries
    • newspapers
    • television
    • radio
    • and other pertinent media outlets.
• Continue to market online, schedule personal appearances, put together a book marketing tour, and anything else you can dream up.

That should do it. We said this was done backwards. By starting with the end in mind, you create a book project with a high probability of achieving the one-million seller list. Which is the whole point.

Are you a Facebook consultant? Facebook's future is uncertain. It's time to diversify.

Facebook's future is far from certain. For several reasons all of which are real. so, if your income is ties to Facebook, it is a good idea to diversify.

• Mark Zuckerberg has stated that he's not interested in money. He is interested in changing the world. Those sentiments won't help him run a one billion dollar corporation.
• One of the risk factors identified in a recent financial analysis of Facebook is Mark Zuckerberg. He's only 28 years old, and his business acumen is considered a risk factor in Facebook's success.

So, it's up to you. Facebook won't fold or fail anytime soon, but be advised it is always a good idea to have a diverse occupational resume.

What is the greatest predictor of success in your Facebook posts?

When you write a post on Facebook it will be judged as good, or not, depending on it's relevance to your brand. So, when we say content is king. We mean content is king to the reader when it is relevant to the reader, and to your brand. Your brand is already relevant, or the reader would not be reading about it.

Do you see a pattern here? Is the word "relevant" starting to get repetitive? What have we been saying here for almost three years?

1. Write for the reader.
2. Target your content to the needs of the reader.
3. Write in crisp, clear language that the reader understands.
4. Don't write fluff.

So, the bottom line here is simple. If you want readers to read your Facebook posts make the content relevant to the reader and be about your brand. They want to read about you and your products. They do not want to read touchy-feely, small talk, or cute, but irrelevant, material. They want solid, related, well written content.

Give them what they want and you will be successful. Here is a quote from, Facebook to Brands: You're Posting Stuff Wrong

"By far, the biggest predictor of engagement was that the post was on a topic relevant to the brand," said Sean Bruich, head of measurement platforms and standards at Facebook. "It impacts everything, from lightweight likes to more invested shares. It's actually one of the most important things a brand can do. People are seeing the content because they liked the brand, and it makes sense that content about the brand will get them engaged." "

Whether you are on Facebook, a blog, writing a newspaper article, or a book. It is the content and it's relevance to the reader is the currency of success. When your content is relevant, it's king. When it's not, you and your social networking campaign suffer the consequences.

Write relevant content. Don't fight it. It is what your audience wants.

Is your social networking campaign a failure? Not worth the effort you say? Be careful! It may doing just fine.

Lots of people are "numbers people." They want to see in black and white the return on investment (ROI) of their time. That's a good thing we intent no disrespect to that point of view. But (you knew there was a but coming) what is being measured?

• Are you measuring Website hits, and don't see an up tick?
• How about blog hits, and see not a lot there either?
• Ditto for Twitter and Facebook?

Take heart, you may well be very successful online and see no great shakes in any one place. While, it may well be true that no single measurement is what you would like it to be. Be very sure that you consider this in the aggregate. Carefully consider retweets, mentions on Facebook, how new clients are "first hearing" about you. How do your know that? You ask them. Don't just say, "Where did you hear about us?" Ask, did you find un online? Where? Did someone tell you about us? This begs the question where did that person hear about you.

Look Deeper

Do some digging, we think you'll find that your online and offline social networking activities are doing just fine on your behalf.

When it comes to social networking. One size does not fit all.

On Saturday, May 12, 2012 I spoke at the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association (CAPA) yearly conference CAPA-University. My talk was on social networking. One of my first comments was that social networking is an individualized endeavor. What works for you may not work for another business or organization. Why? You have different products, different customers, different needs, different goals, and a different end game.  

Goals? End Game?

Goals are meant to be reached and left behind. Your end game is what you are always striving for. Goals are tactical, your end game is strategic.

The interesting thing about your end game is that you may never reach it, and have no intention of reaching it. This is true when your end game is to run a successful business that is an enjoyable place to work. This is something you work at every day. Your goals, in contrast, are short term. They are designed to be attained.  

Goals Are Stepping Stones

Don't do any social networking without a goal. As your goals are 90% or 95% complete, start working on your next goal. This way, you never run out of content because it is your content that moves your social networking campaign forward. And that, my friend, is the right direction. No matter what your end game.

Games, gaming, fun, training, making money add games to your social activities website for sexy sales & dollars

We've been talking about content for years here. In that time we've mentioned games and gaming only rarely. So, we're over due for more on this popular topic. People just love games, and games can be used for far more than having fun.

So, when you think of games being used in your social networking activities, your company or organization, hospital, your military unit, etceteras, keep an open mind.

Games and Healing They can help kids with cancer get better faster. the children know more, so they are less afraid. Best of all, they pilot a ship thought the human body and laser zap cancer cells. More children survive. Powerful stuff gaming.

Games as Training

Still think games are only for fun? They most certainly are not. They can be used to train people. Who? How about United States Combat Troops? Yes, games are used to show our fighting men and women on how to enter a building under fire, how to search rooms without getting shot, and much more.

You can use games in your training programs as well. Use some creativity, make learning fun. Then place the game online so it can be accessed from anywhere anytime for a refresher, or for new hires.

Types Of Games

Not all games are shoot 'em up, or throwing stuff at other stuff games. Not at all. Consider role playing games where players assume an identity and play as that character. Then there is Second Life SecondLife.com/ where you create an avatar and interact with other avatars - people.

Talk to your people, get a game developer on-board, and make your training effective and fun. Having fun is the best way to train anyone on anything.

Your Game is Saleable, Use It to Make Money

After you get your game - training successful, you can sell. Yeah, you can make a profit on fun. Does gaming look better to you now? Thought so.

The future of digital photography? An image in which you can focus anywhere by clicking in it? Yes. This is truly unbelievable technology.

Here, we usually writing about content, the Web, and social networking. Well pictures can be thought of as content, and besides we used to do professional photography, write a m0nthly column for a photo magazine, and tough it for years. so, there is a real soft spot in our heard for all things picture taking.

Forever in Photography

Never has a photographer been able to take a picture that focused on more than one single distance from the film plane, or chip plane in digital cameras. Until now that is. With his, "plenoptic" digital camera Ren Ng has changed that.

See for Yourself

Follow the link below, and scroll down to the image of the flowers. Now place you mouse anywher in the picture and click there. That portion of the image will come into sharp focus. Move to another locatin and do the same thing. It too, comes into focus. Unbelievable, but true. You can actually have sharp focus anywhere in the image that you want it.  

Tryly Astounding Technology

The next digital image revolution? at Yahoo! News

Here's how to create superb content. Watch this video by Jeffrey Gitomer.

Jeffrey Gitomer has been one of my favorite professional for some time. His videos are always excellent. The one you see below, breaks the ceiling. In a couple of minutes he tells us how to write content for LinkedIn, your blog, and more.

If you have not heard of Jeffrey Gitomer, he is a sales guru, superb speaker, and businessman. You can learn more about Jeffrey at Gitomer.com/.

This video is truly superb, let me hear what you think about it by clicking in the title of this post and leaving a comment.

 

 

 

 

 

Time for a change. Johnny Nogood. Short fiction with a delightful twist.

We've been talking tech on this blog for for almost 900 posts. All related to the net, the Web, content, social networking, and other things of interest to businesses and geeks.

 It's time for a break. For something that's just plain fun.

 So, here's 200 words of short fiction that's sure to make yo smile. You can read it in less than a minute. It's safe to say that the ending will surprise and delight you.

If you like this sort of thing, let me hear from you.

 

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Johnny Nogood

 by

Wayne English

 

No one liked Johnny Nogood. Cheat his mother out of a her last dime. That kind of a guy. Johnny was out walking. You know? Looking for action. Looking to make a buck. When he saw the kid. Maybe eight, nine years old.

As Johnny got closer he heard the kid crying and carrying on something awful.

“Please let me find it. Please God.” He wailed, face all streaked with tears and dirt.

“What’s-a-matter-kid?”

“I lost a twenty dollar bill, Mister. My sister’s medicine. A brand new twenty. Please Mister, please help me find it. It’s late, the store’s closing. Please, Mister, she’s real sick.”

“Tough luck kid.” Johnny was already walking away.

The kid watched, a look of surprise and shock on his face. What a loser, the kid thought, a real zero.

It was late, that much was true. The kid, too smart to walk back to the shelter with a couple dozen twenties on him, hailed a cab.

 

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If you like Johnny Nogood, you'll love Shift World. Where your dark future is  just around the corner. 

Don't waste time following the net, use ifttt, and the net will follow you.

This must be our week for new tools. Well is a good one. How would you like to be notified every time someone on Twitter mentions you? That got your attention, didn't it? Oh yeah, we use ifttt to email us every time there is a mention of @WebContentRx. And is that ever easier than having to check this tool and that tool. Yes it is.

You see, we are much in favor of proactive solutions to problems. Any solution that puts you in control is vastly preferable to a passive solution. So, iftttworks the way we do. No more hunting for mentions. and this is only the beginning ifttt will do a lot more than that.

And, yes, ifttt is a free tool. We do not recommend anything that we do not use and try very hard not to recommend pay for play tools because we don't know your business, customers, and needs. This way you can check our recommendations out for yourself without having to pay for the privilege. When we recommend a tool that you must pay for we tell you up front.

We like ifttt and think you will like it as well. Please let us hear from you. What you think is important to our success, and to other who follow this blog. So, don't keep your opinions to yourself.

Are you using Google UTM Tags to track your links? You should be.

Here's another acronym for you. As if you need another one. UTM. Short for Urchin Tracking Method. What this means to you is that now you can literally track the links that you send in email, CPC, a banner add, etceteras. The website, Destination URL Builder, will actually write the link for you. All you need do is cut and paste.

UTM Tags allows you to add information to links and then track the effectiveness of those links in Google Analytics under Traffic Sources.

The short and sweet message here is that this is worth the time it will take you to use it. Especially if you want to track things that have been difficult or impossible to track until now.

How We're Using UTM Tagging

We created a Campaign Medium (Campaign Medium is explained in the Destination URL Builder link) for email. This way every email we send contains the tag so we can track how many times our emails result in a clickback to our Web site.

To use a simple form to set up UTM linking, visit ROI Revolution, Google Analytics Destination URL Builder .

A few minutes reading and filling out the form will get you started on your way to tracking, and determining, the effectiveness of your links. Always a good thing.

One last thing, you will need a Google Analytics account. Now to worry, it's free, as is UTM tracking.

For more information on UTM tracking, Google Analytics: UTM Link Tagging Explained

Still writing press releases the old fashioned way? Include social media in your next press release. Here's how.

Are you still writing your press releases in black and white? Those days are gone. Use email to send a press release enhanced with social media tools. Include:

• links to your social networking campaign
• a link to your Web site
• an entire Web menu, just like you would place on your web site
• a video
• your blog. Yes! Your entire blog.

Want to See One?

Here's a press release we wrote for our book. It is now part of our Website. You may find it by clicking, Services --> Press Releases --> Social Media Enhanced Press Release at WebContentRx.biz. To see our blog simply scroll the the bottom of the page.

Note: what you see by following the link below is for demonstration purposes, so our clients may see what's possible. You may not want to include everything we have here.

See Our Social Media Enhanced Press Release

Want to get the most from your videos? Don't keep them to yourself.

Some time ago we uploaded two videos to YouTube on how to use statistics in your Web content, and on how to get the most from Twitter.

Statistics

When used well, statistics are an excellent tool to make your point. When done wrong, they will hurt you and hurt your marketing efforts - a lot.

Using Twitter Well

Twitter is an excellent tool, of that there is no doubt. The trouble is that many people just can't see how anything with a 140 character limit can be so effective. So, this topic is a natural for anyone in the social networking field and for anyone who uses or wants to use Twitter.

Do Not Keeping Things to Yourself

The title of this blog is automatically sent to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and our blog at Amazon. Further we send keywords to Technorati Tags as well. In addition to the fact that YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. That translates to a lot of eyes. Now, we've uploaded the videos to Facebook as well.

See what we've done? Our videos are getting wide spread dispersal. The message here is to take your social networking campaign into proactive mode. Do not be passive. Put your content into the world and then tell the world it's out there.

Here is our video on statistics. Below that is a second video that will also be on Facebook soon. It shows you how to get the most out of Twitter.

Statistics Can Be Dangerous, Here's How to Use Them Well



How to Get The Most Out of Twitter

Online do not think marketing. Do think relationship marketing.

Online don't sell. Get to know people. Make a relationship first. the marketing comes later. The selling comes not at all. Sounds strange, we know. You are thinking, "What a waste of time, I need to sell stuff." We know. We get that.

We are not saying don't do business online. Far from it. What we are saying is that online you can be easily tuned out. No one is going to read, listen to, or watch your beautiful sales spiel. No one. Online people don't much care what you're selling until they know you, and know your products. Then your selling will just happen because you are known to the buyer and have credibility.

Take time to get to know people and let them take time to get to know you. Humanize yourself by telling them about you and your company and your products. Build relationships because it is the relationships that will sell your goods and services.

Listen to their comments. Can you use them to better your brand, company, or products. There is no better way to make friends than by being a friend.

So, get to know people. Get yourself online. If you out there people will get to know you. They will find you. That's what networking is all about whether its online of offline.

Interested in using Pinterest? Here are some good demographics of who is there and how it's growing.

Pinterest, the social photographic pin board, is growing very nicely. So much so that it is one of the social networking sites that you will want to consider for your needs. To that end, here is a short but informative article on just who is on Pinterest. If this demographic is important to you, give close consideration to adding Pinterest to your social networking campaign's mix of sites.

Be advised though, that here you will need high quality digital photography as that is what Pinterest is all about.

Pinterest Demographics

Want to make money? Here is a way to make $50 per referral.

SocialOpp.com will actually pay you $50 for every friend who joins when they list you as the person who referred them.

Yes, You Read That Right

So, if you have a lot of friends you have the potential to earn a lot of money. Check it out. Oh, one thing though, it costs $99 to join. So, you will find out right quick who your friends are.

Want your blog to be a happy blog? SSTTP is the answer.

Want your blog to be happy, well liked, and well read? Silly question. Who doesn't?

Short Sweet and To The Point

Yes, my friends, as with most things in life the answer lies in simplicity.

• Short. Keep your blog posts to less than 600 words. Shorter is better. Use 600 as your absolute maximum.
• Sweet. Write in crisp, clean, easy to understand words.  
• To the Point. One issue per post. State it. Deal with it. End it.

Follow this simple guide and you won't be sorry.

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"If you don't pay attention to the needs of your audience, they won't pay attention to you."

              

Short Fiction at its Best.

Does your in-house communications need improvement? Consider Enterprise Social Software.

Social networking tools are not only for reaching out to clients and others. When you need to improve inter-company communications they may just work for you there as well.

Enterprise Social Networking

These tools are collaboration tools. Have you got a team spread across town or the world? Do they have problems in communicating with each other? Look into these tools, one may be right for your needs. For a list of products follow this to a link at Wikipedia.

What is social networking? Why is it in the best interest of your business or organization to use it? The answers may surprise you.

You hear people saying all the time that social networking is sales; it's marketing. Quite correct, but let's get closer to the nitty gritty.

The Telephone

Lets first talk about something you've used all of your life: your telephone. It offers you two vast benefits, and I'll bet you a cup of coffee that you've only thought of one.

1. It provides real time voice to voice communication.
2. It provides a medium in which your message can not be altered, changed, or edited in any way.

Think about number two, and what that means. Your message is delivered without intervention by anyone. There is no newspaper editor, no book agent, publisher, no one stands between the message you send, and the message received. No one.

Enter Social Media

Social networking offers you number 2 on a vast scale. If you have ever used a press release, an article, book, or any other traditional method of communication this is literally a priceless way to communicate. You receive these vast benefits for the cost of using social networking tools.

Social networking is the most significant advancement in communications since the invention of the printing press. Never in human history have you, your company or organization, had this ability. And because social networking is still new, it is misunderstood, still changing, evolving, and will continue to do so. What it will not do is go away.

Social Networking is a Tool

Like any tool, you need the right one for the job. Many people choose a social networking tool first, and they try to make it do their bidding. That's not the way to do this.

First, do your homework. What do you want from social networking? What do your customers, clients, employees, vendors, manufacturers, suppliers, shippers, advertisers want from your social networking campaign? Answer those questions, and many more, then pick the tool. Then create the content. Then tie your Website and social networking campaign together, then tell the world.

Then it will work for you.

Don't stay in the dark on this. Social networking is to your business what a Website was years ago. Social networking, and your Web site, will only grow in importance to your success.

Let us hear from you.

Email marketers. Here is a real time tool from Yahoo to help you avoid spam engines..

    In our last post we talked about email marketing and how to protect your email from being removed by spam filters.  Here is a tool from Yahoo that we like.

    We like this tool because it shows you good words and spam words in an ongoing display. It's good stuff.  http://visualize.yahoo.com/mail/

 

Are your email marketing efforts disappointing? The reason may be in your subject line.

In any email campaign spam engines must be considered because they can remove an email before it's delivered. they to this be looking at the subject header of the email. Certain words there will render your email undeliverable. You must avoid these words if your email marketing efforts are to succeed.

What to do?

Sure, you can send an email to yourself and see how it does, but wouldn't you like something stronger and more effective? It's far better to avoid any words that trigger deletion. So, where do your get a list of words? Funny you should ask.

Here is a link to an excellent list at The Marketing Resource Index. This link is something you may want to keep in a safe place. It can make all the difference in your next email marketing campaign. Even it your next campaign is your first one.

Burned out with social media? Hate social media messages? Which do you hate the most?

Social media messages are everywhere. What do you hate the most? Why?

Are you marketing to Millennials on Facebook? That may not be a good idea.

Millennials, Generation Y those in the 18 to 29 age group, do not stay in touch with their favorite brands with Facebook. While they do go to brand pages, they mostly do so for discounts and free samples.

Read ‘Millennials’ tone deaf to marketers’ Facebook pitches at the Hartford Business Journal.

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Authors, writers, ePublishers, Mobipocket Creator is the tool for you.

If you're an author you may be asking yourself how you will create eBooks. Have we got a tool for you! It's called Mobipocket and it does some very good things that save you a lot of time and aggravation.

• It creates whole eBooks from a Word file, text file, Portable Document Format (PDF), or Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) file.
• It's wizard creates your table of contents. This is just wonderful for those of you who want to do hand coding because it eliminates you of a great deal of drudgery.
• You can add a personalized cover page as well.
• Include books marks to specific parts of your publication.
• Ten applications are include a Photo Album, Date Book, Recipe Database, Simple Generic Database, more
• Integrated is a browser that lets you preview your book in a Web browser.
• There are three security options: no encryption, encrypted, and password protected.
• Also Digital Rights Management (DRM) to protect the copyright on your work.

You get all of this, and more, for a free download. This is good stuff. Download Mobipocket Creator Here

GoodReads.com a fun social networking site for writers, agents, publishers, editors, and readers.

Our new and favorite social networking site is http://www.goodreads.com/. Here you can tell the world what you are reading and see what your friends are reading. We like it. We like it a lot.

This site offers some good thing to writers, agents, publishers, and readers.

• You can see what other people are reading, important for anyone in the writing business.
• Use GoodReads to separate the good titles from the not so good titles. Always a good thing.
• Do you need to do research, or find a good business book? Here you can see what others consider good and what's not so good.
• From a broader perspective, you can see what people are reading. Look for trends, maybe?

GoodReads for those of us in the writing business is a good place to have an account in our opinion. What do you think, post a reply.

Clients to avoid. Yes, there are clients you don't want to do business with, but if you do don't play their game..

Here's our list of things to watch for when evaluating if you want to work for someone. We suggest you avoid doing business with people who display one or more of these points.

• Those who are rude, condescending, or vulgar. Their treatment of you will not improve.
• Those who want to get together for lunch to "pick your brain." This translates to you getting an eight dollar lunch in return for a a couple hours of free consulting.
• Those who pay late.
• A committee. A toaster designed by a committee ends up a giraffe. Tell the committee that you will work with only one person. That you will ignore input from everyone else. Do it, say the words. If you don't - you'll wish you did.
• Anyone who tells you that you will report to Mister A, work for Mister B, and have your work reviewed by Mr. C. Never, not ever, report to more than one person.
• Anyone who cannot write down your duties, responsibilities, and expected outcome simply.
• Never allow the client to saddle you with people who have less than ten years experience. Working with lightweights only puts you in the position of not being able to get the job done.
• Never work for anyone who refuses to put your payment, benefits, and travel arrangements in writing before you start work.
• When clients want you to pay expenses, like renting a helicopter. Don't do it. Your job is not to pay the client's expenses and hope to be reimbursed.
• Anyone who talks for 20 minutes and does not say anything.
• Anyone who refuses to answer a question that you've asked three times.

When Management is Always Changing Their Mind.

Once onboard, you bring the finished project to the boss only to find that it gets changed. So, you do the changes and bring it back, and it's changed again. So you change it again, and bring it back again. Now its gets changed back to what you were originally asked to do.

To fix this, say something like, "What you're asking for is what I gave you originally. If you keep changing your mind, we will never get this project done." It works because you put the responsibility on the other side of the desk. Why do people do this? Who cares? Control maybe, or maybe they just like to change things. You are on the hook to get this project finished. when it falls apart you are the one who get the blame. Don't play this game.

EPUB an excellent book by Elizabeth Castro on writing ePublicatons for the Apple iPad and other eReaders

Elizabeth Castro has been my favorite author of books on HTML. Her book on ePublishing, EPUB Straight to the Point is for you.

Here you will find how to use Microsoft Word, InDesign, or your favorite HTML or text editor to create your ePublication files. 

If you're interested in ePublishing, this book is for you.

Are your email marketing efforts disappointing? The reason may be in your subject line.

In any email campaign spam engines must be considered because they can remove an email before it's delivered. they to this be looking at the subject header of the email. Certain words there will render your email undeliverable. You must avoid these words if your email marketing efforts are to succeed.

What to do?

Sure, you can send an email to yourself and see how it does, but wouldn't you like something stronger and more effective? It's far better to avoid any words that trigger deletion. So, where do your get a list of words? Funny you should ask.

Here is a link to an excellent list at The Marketing Resource Index. This link is something you may want to keep in a safe place. It can make all the difference in your next email marketing campaign. Even it your next campaign is your first one.

Today you're more than an author, your an eBook publisher. Tomorrow, maybe a Lone Wolf Publisher?

Have you seen the price of eBooks lately? Not expensive are they? That's because there are so many of them. The automation of publication, distribution, and eCommerce means that everything takes place with little human interaction. Employees are expensive. Computers aren't.

So How do Your Profit?

By publishing eBooks, or course. You can do so with a minimum of effort. We are not saying that writing, research, publicity,marketing, sales, and social networking are easy. They are not. Today, the surprising thing is that you are no longer a writer; you're an eBook publisher. And soon you will be even more. You will be a Lone Wolf Publisher.

Lone Wolf Publishing

This is how we refer to to the future status of writing - publishing. As a Lone Wolf Publisher you will be able to do everything from your computer. This is literally desk top publishing, advertising, marketing, fulfillment, Ecommerce. Everything. You will do this for little cost and high reward. If you can sell books, that is.

Lone Wolf Publishing brings challenges. You will need to cut through the clutter of all the other books out there, and cultivate your niche market. For that you will implement a social networking and perhaps an advertising campaign as well. Also done from your computer.

Currently Portable Document Format (PDF) files fill the need for a solid technology to publish in. However like anything else there's a problem.

The Problem

As this technique does not use ePublishing, but PDF files (at least currently) you will need to address the unpaid duplication and transfer of your work. Traditionally, copy protection and password schemes not done well, and will likely not do well here either. So, we may have to accept the lost revenue as a consequence of doing business, or not use this idea at all. After all, that's only what it. Might be a good idea; might not.

Want More Information? Attend Our Program at CAPA-U

We will be discussing this at my presentation: Embracing Publishing Changes By Using Social Marketing at the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association's yearly conference, CAPA-University. Saturday, May 12, 2012 at the Hartford Steam Boiler Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Download the 2012 CAPA-U brochure.

Want to sell a million books? Choose a topic that appeals to a million people.

Many writers have it all wrong. They write a book and then try to sell it. It is far better to look at your book as a project with definite parts.  Note some of these points will vary if you are publishing an eBook, or perhaps if self publishing.

• Market research. What is selling currently, and what do you expect to be selling when your book hits the market? Here is a clue. A glut of books on any particular subject tend to indicate that another book in that field will not be popular. After all the market is glutted.
• Research who your target buyer is, how you will notify your audience that the book exists, and where it can be purchased. Begin thinking marketing and advertising, agent, and publisher if going the traditional route.
• Chose your topic.
• If nonfiction do your book proposal before you write the entire book. Should no one want be interested in this project, cut your losses and move on to a project that is lucrative.
• Online and offline research and perhaps interviews.
• Collation of all your data.
• Make a rough outline that contains everything you want in the book. This will be cut down later as you see how much material you have and what does not fit or is not pertinent.
• Finalize the outline, including the timeline or sequence of events. Put everything into chapters, each with a working title.
• If you will use a quotation at the beginning of each chapter add them now.
• Get your graphics photographs lined up, edited and saved. Know where each will appear in the manuscript and how you will indicate such. 
• Begin writing.
• Get started on cover design.
• Finish the book. Send the manuscript, cover, graphics, photos to the publisher. 
• Market the book aggressively online, offline, write and send press releases, and line up an author speaking tour. Now its time to sell.