Tips Guides

When you craft your book to be a bestseller, everyone involved i.e. you (the author), the publisher and the bookseller, are sure to make good money. A bestseller is the result of countless small decisions. Individually, none of these decisions would determine the overall success of the book. It is the collective whole of many good decisions that gives you a shot at creating a bestseller.

As an author, writing a bestseller is challenging and you need to mentally prepare yourself for the challenge. Your book is more likely to succeed, if it is written for being published as a ‘lead book’ in a particular market segment rather than as a book simply meant for a market segment. Your book need not be very large. However, it should provide solid, complete and comprehensive content to qualify as a bestseller. The terms solid, comprehensive and complete are relative and refer to whatever you as an author have set out to accomplish in your book.

Before you publish your title, you need to do a lot of homework along with your publisher. It is critically essential that you acquire a full understanding of your target market segment. If you are unable to understand, what your target audience desires from you, failure is imminent. There is a tendency to define book markets as being comprised of people with identical/similar needs. The fact is that the content needs of people within a market segment vary quite substantially. Therefore, your bestseller, even when remaining focused, should be able to accommodate the needs of the broad spectrum of readers within the targeted market segment.

Different people adopt different approaches to reading books. Some people simply browse through a book till they find something interesting. Others may prefer sequential reading. Your bestseller should make it easy for the reader to find whatever he is looking for. Depending on the category of your book, you can include a brief table of contents, notes, illustrations, tips, sub-headings, cross-references and examples. You can provide an outline at the beginning of each chapter, in addition to tabs, appendices, glossaries, running heads etc. to help the reader quickly find the desired information. Every page should be packed full with information in a well-designed manner that is logical, elegant and easy on the reader’s eyes.

When you want your book to be a bestseller, it is critical that you break new ground in your writing. It means including ideas that are new, different and unique and meant to deliver more than what the book promises. The fact is that there are very few ideas that are completely new. In book publishing, ideas from every aspect of life are borrowed and modified as an ongoing process in the creation of new books. The crux is to develop and incorporate a few new ideas to clearly differentiate your book and make it stand out in the pack available in the market.

Even if your book is well authored, its chances of being published as a bestseller are dramatically enhanced when you have well-established connections with vendors and other industry experts.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about books. When shopping for books, we recommend you shop only at the best bookstores for used books, autographed books, and vedic books.

Poetry they say is an extension of your soul, a pouring of your spirit. All that is within you is expressed in words, be it love, pain, sorrow, care, etc. It is a great way to express oneself, if you have the talent to do so. There is a great difference between writers and poets. Poets are moody (a little more than writers) and they put feelings into words. When people read poetry, there are many who identify themselves with them. Many share the same thoughts and ideas. Poetry is soothing to your spirit and makes you become very introspective, which is good. Once in a while, we all need to think about other things in life, besides ourselves.

And one you have written these great poems, how about showing the world what a great poet you are? A simple way is to get your poems published in a magazine. Magazines are widely spread all over the market. People buy them because they are informative, cheap and easily accessible. They are fun and exciting too. The pictures and titbits are simply amazing. There are hundreds of magazines available in the market today, from Cookery to Health, Women fashion to sports. A wide and excellent range of magazines is available.

Poetry has a potential to make its way into magazines. If you are looking at literary magazines that are normally printed in universities, schools or colleges, then you could send your poetry to them and ask them to print it for you. It is even better if the subject of the magazine is in line with your poetry, but you can use it as an insert as well. This would work as well, because after reading something that is educational or serious, one gets to read this little script of a poem. And it could make you feel light, and see the world in different colors. Life has different sides to it, and we must have an open mind. A poet can help us understand the seriousness of life in a simple way.

You also have some commercial books that include magazines like Readers Digest, where you can send your poems. Sometimes you even get paid, if you agree to write for them regularly. These books have a mix of all kinds of articles. Poems are like a breath of fresh air.

Never ever agree to people or any publisher who asks you to pay for your poetry to be published, they are definitely bogus. Your poetry is of value. And you know that you have delivered well. So, don’t compromise. Be bold and push for your poetry to be published as a work of talent, where you should get paid.

If your poetry is, for example, on women or on love, then you could insert them in a woman’s magazine or a general type of magazine. Poetry speaks to a wide section of people, and it is not only for the elderly or literary experts. There is a lot of poetry that is easy for us to understand and feel. Imagine how much more meaningful a magazine would be and how much more enjoyable it would be to read, when poetries are published in it.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant about magazines and comics. When looking for magazines and comics, we recommend you shop only at the best magazine and comic stores for magazines, used magazines, and comics.

There’s a few thousand different books and e-books you can buy in stores either on or offline, or download online. I personally like e-books better because of their simplicity and price, which is usually free! And they are just like regular books. They are yours to keep and you can read them whenever you like. One of my favorite sites to go to is called Free-eBooks dot net. I go to this site for just about any e-book I’m looking for online.

And all the books on this site are completely %100 free so you don’t even have to worry about prices. They offer just over 2 pages of Optimization books, an astonishing 20 pages of Marketing books. Of course there’s probably a mish mash between the two keywords but still, that’s a pretty good amount of FREE e-books to search for on this site. Some other really good sites you know you can count on for e-books is Amazon, Adobe, and PlanetPdf. Out of these selections Amazon offers a really large selection but of course most of the e-books on Amazon aren’t going to be free, but the rest will be.

The best two best stores in my opinion, offline, to get marketing books or any sort of search engine or optimization books is Barnes & Noble and Borders. The next time your in or around one of these two stores try searching in the Business or Internet/Computer section. If you cant find what your looking for, just ask!

Now on to the actual books. Which ones are highly recommended? Which ones are bombs? Well I suppose for a free e-book this doesn’t really matter as much, because it is free. But if your like me, and your the type of person that doesn’t like wasting precious time, then it does matter to a certain extent. Here’s some really GREAT books to get your hands on:

Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site by Bill Hunt
Search Engine Optimization for Dummies by Peter Kent
Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone
The Ultimate Guide to Search Engine Marketing: Pay Per Click Advertising Secrets Revealed by Bruce C. Brown

Out of these books Ive either heard good things from people Ive worked with, have read some of them myself, or they just received REALLY good reviews. I’m more of a “dummy” follower myself. Of course there’s a lot more books you could check out but this is just the jumping off point if you didn’t know where to start and with what books. Remember optimizing and marketing your site are two really important things when you have your own site.

Marketing + Optimization = better chance of visitors. If no one knows about your site (marketing) or you don’t build your site on certain fundamentals you should be following, then most likely your not going to receive the amount of traffic you would really like. Even if your not selling anything per se, you still want visitors to your site!

Example I have a Cooking website. I’m not necessarily selling anything on there (although i do have 2 affiliate programs) but I still want people to go to my site for the other things I have on their such as my CPM banners, feature blogs/posts, contextual ads etc. There’s no real point in having things on your site to make you money (either directly or indirectly) if you don’t have the traffic to back it up.

Take a site that optimizes and markets the “correct” way and another site that does none of this. Which one do you think is going to get the most visitors? Which site has the potential to make money? The one that’s more optimized and marketed definitely will! Go read the books and do the work that’s necessary for you to succeed. It may take some time but I guarantee if you take all the steps needed, you will get to where you want. Your site just as well could be a HUGE money maker! Good luck!

This author is the proud owner of http://www.searchenginemarketingpro.biz.

What do you think is the quickest way to set yourself apart from your competition in the fitness industry?

I’ll give you a hint: It’s the same thing that can take your career and notoriety to a national or even international level almost overnight.

It’s the same thing that helped put fitness experts Bob Green, Bill Phillips, Shawn Phillips, Tom Venuto, Jon Benson, and myself, Tom Terwilliger on the map and we’re all trainers just like you.

The answer is– your own published book.

It doesn’t matter that not all of them were best sellers. What matters is that doors opened and paths were paved for each one of these authors once their books hit the market place.

How do you think your current and prospective clients would feel if they knew they were working with a bona fide fitness author using the same specialized training system you wrote about in your book? What if instead of just telling their friends and colleagues about you, they could actually give them a copy of your book? The publicity benefits are endless including the possibility of being on Oprah for goodness sake.

So I think we can agree you need to have a published book out there.

But here’s the problem. Most of us allow our own little inner voice to talk us out of taking the action steps that would propel us forward and instead we inch along month after month and sometimes year after year doing what’s comfortable.

But at least we’re doing something,right?

That’s how we justify it. And the truth, the “one small step at a time” approach does works in some cases. It’s how most of us learned to walk, and ride a bike, and how we got from the 4th grade to the 5th. It was the educational system process. We have been trained to think in terms of linear steps. We have been trained to think inside the box.

I find it interesting however that many of the ultra successful thought leaders, authors, and even entrepreneurs today never achieved the level of “formal education” that you might expect.

The amazing career of the self-help guru, Tony Robbins who has advised presidents, superstars, and sports heroes and whose personal power-building seminars have reached people in 70 countries is a prime example. Tony built a financial empire with no formal education or credentials - just an incredible drive to succeed and an ability to think outside the box.

My good friend, Harv Eker is another prime example. Harv has reached over 500,000 people worldwide with his financial blueprint training with no formal business degree, training or education.

Perhaps their ability to think outside the box is more a bi-product of not having pursued a formal education. The greatest commonality between Tony and Harv is that they are both best selling authors. And although their books didn’t launch their careers and they both had momentum already, it did help them break out of the stratosphere.

The bottom line is this, no matter how well your career is already going you can take it to a whole new level with your own published book and it doesn’t have to be a best seller.

So knowing the benefits for both you and those you need to reach–what is stopping you from becoming apublished fitness author?

Most people would answer that question with something that sounds a little like, “I don’t have time to write a book.”, or “I don’t have the money to get started.”, or “I don’t have enough experience.”, or “I don’t really have anything special to contribute of write about.”, or “I have no idea where to start.”

I would answer them with a resounding BS! All that is, is their own little inner voice pulling up all the old excuses that has kept them from taking action in the past. It shows up in the form of resistance. And in my experience the more resistance you encounter when considering a course of action the more you need to know that it is the direction you should be moving.

In his book, The War of Art author, Steven Pressfield writes of resistance, “Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify, seduce, bully, and cajole. Resistance is protein in that it will assume any form, if that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, than double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of s**t.”

So the only real question is who will win– you and the people you can reach and help with your book or the little inner voice that puts up the resistance?

Tom Terwilliger is a former Mr. America, certified NLP Master Practitioner, Life Strategies and Personal Fitness Coach, Motivational Speaker and founder of Coaching Leadership Excellence. Learn more at Inner Game of Confidence and Access To Fitness Experts

Step back in time to 3000BC to see where paper origins lie and thank your lucky stars that this process has evolved over the years to a point where we can whip out a sheet of paper from a ream, whack it in the printer and let the ink cartridge do its thing. Originally known as papyrus, versions of this commodity have been found throughout civilisations since the beginning of time.

Bast, would be cooked, pressed flat with a hammer and then dissolved in water until it became a pulp. A wooden framed screen with a fabric base would then be laid in a puddle with the fabric just under the surface of the water and the pulp poured on top and hand smoothed. After removing the screen from the water, the ‘paper’ would then be left to dry by an open fire or in the sun. Once dry the paper is easily peeled away.

This method was extremely time consuming as a separate frame would be needed for each individual piece of paper, or the maker would have to wait until each piece was dry before making a new sheet. Not the best method if you have lengthy documents you want to record and not a method that would have seen paper being able to be fed through a machine to be assaulted by an ink cartridge.

The Chinese were also fairly instrumental, if secretive, in the development of paper and by 105 AD had developed a method of making paper from textile waste. It seems the ancient world knew more about recycling and re-using then people put into action today. The Chinese also brought about firsts in the paper making world with dyed paper, sized and coated paper as well as paper that was resistant to the damage of insects.

Chinese paper making techniques had reached Japan by 610AD and the original methods are still largely used today, albeit now with bamboo. From Japan, paper making spread to Asia, Tibet and India and was soon picked up on by the Arabs. They evolved this method into their own. Although it was slightly inferior to begin with they finally were able to produce a fine quality paper with a starch coating that any ink cartridge could have coped admirably with.

Paper took on ever more importance as trade continued to expand and administration needed more paper to keep up. However, it was still considered to be quite a skilled art even by the 14th Century.

By the 16th Century paper mills had spread throughout Europe. Machinery was now available to make the job easier and resulted in much better paper being produced at a much speedier rate. The vatman would be responsible for making the sheet from a mould, the couch squirt worked in conjunction with the vatman and placed the sheet on felt, the layman removed the still damp sheets form the felt and the apprentice who fed material to the vat.

The Reformation towards the end of the 16th Century led to further increases in paper making and raw materials became scarce. However, thanks largely to the industrial revolution of the 1800’s, paper making done by machinery became a much finer art and paper was produced pretty much to today’s standards.

It’s easy to take paper for granted. There is no shortage, it is relatively cheap depending on the quality you want and there is always a stash by the printer ready to receive the sayings printed by an ink cartridge. But next time you grab a sheet, give a thought for the art that has gone into creating this product over the years, feel that sheets smoothness and smell that distinctive fragrance. It won’t change anything but do it anyway.

Publishing expert Catherine Harvey looks at the way modern papers are more receptive to an ink cartridge and paper improvement in general.

Before the internet, in order to create your own products for distribution, you needed a staff. Since all products were physical, they had to be created and then distributed through the mail or other service.

With the internet you have many more options for creating and distributing products. You can make them digital or physical, you can create software or ebooks, and even create audio or video using just your computer.

Before you get started though, you need to make several decisions so that your product becomes a success. Ask yourself these questions, and use your answers to create a successful product.

1. What will be the topic of your products?

Is there a specific topic you are an expert in? Do you have a hobby you’ve been very successful at and can share your knowledge? Is there a topic you are passionate about?

Regardless of what your skill is, there’s probably a market for it. The first step in getting started here is to do your research, once you’ve chosen your topic, find out if there is a market for what you do. You can search for your topic in the search engines. Look for forums, social networking sites, and other sites that offer products similiar to the ones you want to create. If you find sites like these, you have a market.

2. What format will you use to create your products?

Although writing is one of the easiest ways to communicate your information to others, writing a book isn’t the only way to create an information product. With sites like Lulu, Cafe Press, and Create Space, you have the option of creating different types of products to meet the needs of your audience, including video and audio. You can also create strictly digital products that can be downloaded from your website.

3. What tools will you need to create your products?

If you plan to write books or ebooks, you’ll a word processing program, as well as a program to create PDFs. A PDF is a universal format that can be distributed to anyone and read on any type of computer. If you plan to self publish your manuscript as a book, you’ll need to convert your document to PDF before publishing.

With video and audio, you’ll either need a video camera, or some type of software on your computer to create your audios and videos. You can do a search at any of the freeware websites to find software for creating your projects in these formats.

4. How will you distribute your products?

Once you know what format you will create your product in, you’ll need to decide how to distribute it. This means taking orders, as well as processing payments. The secret here is to automate every aspect of the order, payment, and distribution process so your products are available 24/7. It will also save you a lot of time, and you can use your time to market your products. The companies I mentioned before can help you here.

5. How will you market your products?

The type of product you sell can largely determine how you will market your product. Will you create a website to send your traffic to? Do you plan to pay for traffic, as in pay per clicks? Articles and press releases are a great way to get the word out about your business and drive traffic. You can also advertise your business using classified ads, as well as share your knowledge on forums and social network sites.

There are many ways to market your business that will get you the traffic to sell your products. Create your marketing plan before you create your products and then launch as soon as you are ready to begin distributing your products. Then you will more quickly see success.

Like these tips? Then visit Marketing for Writers for more free tips and resources to help you create your own products. Learn how to market your products writing articles: $100 a Day System.

Jinger Jarrett’s book “Internet Marketing for Free: The GUIDE,” is available on Amazon.