Publish. Profit. Independence. E-Book

Dr. Robert C. Worstell

• Herausgeber: Evrensel Basim Yayin
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Find independence and financial freedom from one of the simplest home businesses you can start from scratch- or less...Learn Tips and Tricks to make self-publishing pay well.I fell into this by accident. There I was writing away, only to find that I made more money publishing other people's stuff than I did with my own.This journey led me into working out the details and shortcuts which made it all simple. Meanwhile, I started making enough income to cover all my bills. Surprise, surprise.Since I just write how-to manuals (beyond my attempts at novels) you get the benefits in this:How publishing books help you earn recurring income from work you do just once.Simple ways to have the freedom you never get from working for someone else.Find peace of mind by becoming your own boss.Discover the joy of only working with bestselling authors - who are now working for you.Literally make money while you sleep in countries you've never visited - from people you've never met before.Meanwhile, your life is your own.Earn more income by building a larger audience.Get Your Own Copy Today!Scroll Up and Click Buy Now

Leseprobe

Publish. Profit. Independence.

How to Earn Extra Income and Financial Freedom by Publishing on Your Own

by Dr. Robert C. Worstell

© 2013-2016 Robert C. Worstell. All Rights Reserved.

Table of Contents

Bonus

Introduction

Update:

Forward

3 Views on Publishing - To Hell with Authorities

Strategies on How to Find Online Income - Become a Publisher

Learning to write by studying bestseller fiction books. Novel? No – classics.

Your Audience, Your Responsibility, Your Advice

Author Vs. Publisher - Creating Your Stable of Books

The first year’s fiction bestsellers study list is released!

A year’s worth of Classic Fiction to Study - and Entertain…

How to Promote Your New Book via SEO

Notes on Book Publishing

The only Constant is Change - ebook publishing continues to shift.

Self-Publishing Authors Should Always Be Looking for More Distributors - and Bundles and Affiliates

How to Drive Yourself Sane - Checklist for Self-Publishing

You may have thought self-publishing ebooks was bad - try audiobooks…

How to Publish an Ebook, Audiobook, Video Ecourse at the Same Time

DIY Audiobooks for the Self-Publishing Authors - a Review of Sources

What’s the difference between professional self-publishing digital products and everything else?

The “Eyeball” Marketing Strategy for Self-Published eBooks

How to Get Your Audiobook Linked Up With Your Kindle (and Hardcopy) Books on Amazon

How to Step by Step Publish on Google Play

How to Self-Publish Your Backlist - Simply, Quickly, Painlessly.

Focus on Value Instead of Delivery

How to publish public domain books and profit nearly forever

Some copyright notes - where to check for public domain issues

Lulu gets finicky about publishing ebooks - tsk, tsk.

Self-publishing to iTunes - Simple or Extreme?

How to Set Up a MAC for Self-Publishing to Itunes

How to Build a Public Domain (Self) Publishing Assembly Line

How to Make Higher Royalties From Your Books

How to Post Your eBook to Multiple Distributors - Ease and Profit

Leanpub Joins the Mix - Extending the Top Distributors List

Budget Corks: How to Keep Your Money Instead of Watching it Drain Away

Book Marketing That Actually Works - Part I

Book Marketing That Works - Part II

Summary of Getting Started: Lists and Sequences

A Comparison of Distributors – Who's on First?

Postscript 1: Tracking ebook links for fun and profit

Postscript 2: Why this book at all?

Postscript 3: Nearly Four Years Later

Resources

Other books in this series

Related Writing Texts Published by Midwest Journal Press

Free tools

Paid Tools

Recommended Courses

Related Sites:

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Introduction

This story unfolded differently than expected. But that seems to be the way of any journey.

My research on how to write and publish a book resulted in – a book.

About the same time, several others had gone before mine, and a celebrity published his own version just before mine hit. (with lots of self-congratulatory fanfare and five figures spent on PR alone.) I had applied what I'd learned and scraped together. Reading all the "bestsellers" showed that there was a huge gulf between the actual and what was being reported - even by that celebrity who had supposedly self-published before.

The world of publishing was being torn apart by independent writers who had found holes in the system. Practically, there was a virtual Gold Rush happening and lots of advice on how to "game Amazon" to get a bestselling book "overnight." Amazon had been forced to accept giving self-publishing authors a higher royalty by Apple and B&N. Kobo had also gotten in on the scene, which was practically started years before by Smashwords' Mark Coker – as a scratch to his own itch.

Traditional publishing houses were scrambling, since Indie authors could and would publish at much lower costs – the Indie's simply didn't have the huge overhead to support. They could and would take the chances to get known as an author and get their books sold.

That was one of the first lies I'd found (and swallowed at first.) The truth is that most books don't sell well, if at all. In any Gold Rush, the money is made by the people who sold services and goods to the fever-struck miners.

I had already been publishing (unprofitably) on Lulu for years, so had all these books laying around. One day I woke up to the fact that I could simply convert these and publish in epub format through Lulu to iTunes and B&N. Kobo could be published to separately. I struck my own vein – now the ore just had to be dug out and processed.

To cut this story short, I found out how to earn income by publishing books. That's what this book is about.

There are two axioms you should know:

Writing feeds the soul, Publishing pays the bills.

Writing is an art. Publishing is an applied science.

My work in this field was to discover how anyone, with little investment beyond the computer you have now and your Internet connection (plus sweat equity) can create and expand a home publishing business which is profitable enough to fire your day job boss (provided you are frugal and practical in your finances.)

That's what I did. That's what you can do, too.

There's a lot more details to this. That's what prompted this book.

Because there's no decent reason for you to have to figure all out for yourself. As I've stood on the shoulders of giants to see further, I'm now offering you a leg up.

Robert C. Worstell Jun 2014

Update:

In the four years since I originally cobbled this together, there have been changes (no kidding...)

One of these is that GoogleBooks was killed as a self-publishing outlet. We don't need to go into the wherefor's of this. While I've gone through to update references to it, I still hold this book as the report of a journey as I figured out the details of self-publishing. As such, it has its own merit and appeal.

As one reader said to me, “...this is a hidden gold mine of references and tools.”

This book shows the times and also the mental processes I went through as this scene evolved. You are going to go through your own processes.

Test everything you read in this book (or hear from self-styled “guru's”.) Test. Everything. That is the only way you are going to know if it works for you.

Nothing matters because I could get it to work, or someone else did. The question is: is this stuff workable when you apply it?

Otherwise, I've worked to remove the unworkable and the now irrelevant.

Have fun with this. If you have questions, email me directly (like by joining my list – see the links front and back.)

RCW – Jun 2016

Forward

Just to bring you up to speed - a segue:

Eating my own dog-food, this book was blogged. It's in the sequence of how I discovered things. I've edited it somewhat, but realized that it's still a journey, so as I improve things, I change my recommendations.

Mostly you are going to be following along as the world of indie publishing as it changes, and I evolve my publishing strategy with it.

So this is really a journal. And the articles are arranged in date-order so you can track the changes and evolution.

Unfortunately, this means I may repeat myself more than a few times – repeating what is the key points or providing revision to earlier tactics or methods.

At the end, I'll give you some simple summaries of what's working as I publish this. Checklists and whatnot. That will be final for me, as this book concludes my basic research in this area. Things will continue to change, but at the end you'll see what's working now.

Hopefully, I've banged on the key principles of self-publishing so you can make it work for you. That's the key point – no book or blog or video is worth a damned thing until you've proved it useful and workable (and profitable) for you personally.

We pick this scene up at the point immediately after "Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors" (now “Really Simple Writing & Publishing”) was itself published and started languishing on the virtual bookshelves. You'll see I was already getting tired of what passed for "conventional wisdom" that was still leading the blind from one ditch to the next...

3 Views on Publishing - To Hell with Authorities

Chapter 01 - Tuesday, February 5, 2013

There are 3 views on (self-)publishing - leaving out those who don’t publish at all.

Traditional publishing, which is top-heavy and expensive and almost impossible to get a contract with - and has agents to take a percentage of your already low royalties.

Guru’s and perfectionists who hand out advice which can’t be followed by more than a few. They advise to spend money you don’t have to achieve standards which are so high to also be nearly impossible to meet (again, without a huge social following, lots of money to hire outside help, and a suck-up attitude.)

People who just honestly want to tell their story.

The first two don’t really want the competition of everyone and their brother producing their story.

And so they arrange all manner of blocks in their way. Most of these have to do with the age old traps of Approval, Control, Security, and The Club.

What self-publishing has done is to make it possible for everyone to have their book, or several, or as many as they want.

And there is room for as many as want to do this. For the long tail stretches to infinity, but there are only a few who can stand on the short head and stay there.

This is what the first two categories are based on. And they are each incredibly defensive of their positions, because they know that they are trying to balance on a narrow ledge which is crumbling.

What I have objected to all this time is pretending to give help, but instead simply raise artificial barriers to anyone else actually succeeding in this. There’s a “bestseller” out there right now where the authors have spent a great deal of money to get PR and all sorts of interviews in order to spread their view of how to self-publish.

Unfortunately, few others can follow their footsteps simply.

That’s the rub.

I’ve been trying to follow their advice and at every single turn, I’ve found that it doesn’t work.

Sure, I’ve been able to publish over 4 dozen books on Lulu which never really earned me much more than some pin money. But they were honest works. Now that I’ve moved over into ebooks, the sales of these same books have increased tremendously and look to soon be able to cover all my expenses in these area - meaning I’ll start showing a profit.

There is a point where you simply have to let go of things which don’t work. Especially where a person (or several) just keep giving bad advice.

Instead, a person has to listen to themselves and do what they know is right. Right for them, not someone else.

Look all the interviews in the world don’t mean a thing. Being on the NYT bestseller list doesn’t mean a thing either. Neither, as it’s proving out, does being a “bestseller” on Amazon - as that system is rigged as well.

The key point a person has to live with is how many people they've helped, whether they feel good about all they’ve done for others, how they sleep at night.

I could care less about celebrities, whether they are social media moguls or elected politicians. Please just keep them off my lines. They don’t help me get or keep a job, they don’t help me raise my beef cattle, or fix fences, or bring rain for our drought, or help my grass grow.

In short - they’re worthless to me.

Much like what passes for “news” these days. You can turn them off and live simpler, more peaceful lives.

So I am.

The bottom line was writing a book the way it was “supposed” to be done instead of how I was needed to write it. So I quit that online community which was just a suck-up to that celebrity, and “uncircled” that guy so I never had to hear from him again.

There are people who are interested in hearing my viewpoint on things. And those are the people I’ll deal with.

That is the actual way you write your own story - in a series of essays. It doesn’t matter if your language is good, or your style is good, or your headings and hyphens and periods are in the right places.

It matters that you get your story out so others can benefit from the lessons you’ve learned.

And that is all there is to writing (and publishing) a book.

Strategies on How to Find Online Income - Become a Publisher

Chapter 02 - February 18, 2014

Writing feeds the soul; publishing keeps the lights on and the refrigerator stocked.

That's a truth I've recently found which put me on the road to real financial freedom.

I've found that I will generate more income by working as a publisher than a writer. I found that there are really tons (hundreds if not thousands) of decent quality, decent value books which are not easily found because they haven't been marketed.

This includes both public domain and private-licensed-rights (PLR) books. (The term "book" is really just a decent sized collection of text, with or without images, sound, video, etc.)

For public domain books, the fact that there is competition fighting over the sales of long-dead-authors' books shows how much they are still in demand.

There are 3 things which set any public domain book you re-publish apart, which is the same for modern books:

Cover, Description, Price.

By user survey, people ignore reviews. Only Amazon makes a big deal of these things. On all other ebook distributors, it's primarily those three points.

The fourth point is to have more books in that series or by that author - or both.

All of this is compounded with my recent, and continuing, studies of the specific skill of copywriting. I have Bob Bly to thank for setting my head straight on the basics of this. Too many others are following a handful of "Magnetic" marketers who are essentially using a partial understanding of copywriting to pitch their wares. And many of these are simply using hacks from swipe files without understanding why those headlines and phrases work.

Fortunately, we are saved.

1) Human Nature hasn't changed since it was developed. (The Internet has only sped things up.) 2) Classic bestselling books about how to influence people to buy were based on substantial studies of hundreds of successes in order to derive the basic principles.

If you want to actually succeed in online marketing, you need to know copywriting, and you need to collect these masterworks for your own library.

A very interesting land-rush is on, where the bulk of the books out there have not been converted to quality ebooks - the epub version which is on the bulk of the smartphones and tablets out there (as well as ereaders.)

And if you really want to succeed in ebook publishing, you want to be in two certain marketplaces:

iTunes

Google Play

Why not Amazon? Because these two distributors cover the lion's share of all the smartphones and tablets out there. When you go to load an app, what do you get? A suggested ebook that you'd probably like.

Amazon has started its own "app store" which does what - keep you Amazon-centric.

Go right ahead and publish everything to Amazon. I'll cry all the way to the bank as I get downloads and payments from 5 other distributors who are selling my books for me every month.

There's your secret tip for today.

OK, here's an Amazon tip: Want to sell more books? Make the printed version available as well. Since only 30% prefer ebooks, both a paperback and hardback edition of any book is vital - and makes your ebooks look like a great bargain. Just make sure these are all print-on-demand... - - - - Backwards from this, you create web presences for each book you publish - at least a page, if not a whole site. Classic books will give you tons to write about, since they've been around for a good while.

And each of these web-presences need to point to your own membership site, where you can create a "velvet rope" section to offer special discount versions to your loyal readers. This is called "building an audience."

E-mail continues to be the most trusted way to shop and get recommendations. So you need to be building your list and giving it great value on a continuing basis.

Those web pages you build need to be properly SEO'd (meta-tags, etc.), but otherwise, you'll spend your time getting tons more content out rather than worrying about any individual site's standings.

Because if you need more clients, you simply need to create an offer you can get joint-venture affiliates to join in on. They then send your offer to their list.

I only recently found out that this was the success of "The Secret" underground DVD. It never came out as an actual movie, because it didn't have to. And then Rhonda Byrne was able to have a couple of books jump to bestseller status because of the name and brand recognition.

While you don't have to have a runaway hit, the alternate strategy is to have a ton of books available which can be easily discovered.

The above is my strategy for that - and will keep me more than busy for a couple of years by my current reckoning - just in publishing alone.

Learning to write by studying bestseller fiction books. Novel? No – classics.

Chapter 03 - Monday, June 17, 2013

So begins yet another writing adventure.

Found a great book, via Feedbooks, of a classic - “The Technique of the Mystery Story.” This gave me a complete inspiration to help writers learn to write better. This came up earlier when I was researching for “Just Publish! Ebook Creation for Indie Authors.” During that, I created a great tool for fiction writers, “Becoming the Fiction Storyteller of Your Dreams” - just to help people overcome writing difficulties and study up on how storytelling worked in its basics.

It came to me in studying Stephen King’s “On Writing,” – that writers should be reading daily. The next problem is what to read. Louis La’mour is understood to have studied the classics to perfect his own writing style.

Lobbing around Feedbooks gave me another insight - the classic and still-popular bestsellers.

What if these were assembled into a bi-weekly email delivery of the most popular classics. Every other week should allow you to get through whatever was sent (on average, anyway) and give options of getting a download version for your smartphone/tablet, and/or a paperback. Whatever you find easier to use.

The variety of styles and genres should get a writer well-rounded on their studies.

A funny thing was that in comparing the most popular book on Feedbooks, Gutenberg.org, and Goodreads - I found something like 4 years worth of books to deliver on a bi-weekly basis.

Heckuva lot of work, though.

But you’re worth it, aren’t you?

Here’s the page I’m starting for this. Turns out I never got a page for that “Becoming a Fiction Storyteller…” So this new page on bestseller fiction books will help you with that. All set up to list the books as I get them polished up.

Just for you - and as well… wait for it… this gives yet another book in the making. Something along the lines of “Becoming a Mystery Writer”. Might even have to do a course on it’s own for that one.

Just sayin’...