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Author Archives: Robert Worstell
Why It’s Great to Be An Indie Publisher Now – Profit Forever
Why I Love Indie Publishing – Perpetual Passive Income Makes My Day. Oh, that’s right – I already wrote about this… I was reminded when I was looking to see if anyone else had been writing about publishing public domain … Continue reading
Rambling Prose and Lack of Focus Explain Why Tradition Publishing Fails
Traditional publishing Won’t Use the Tools That Make Indie Self-Publishing Work – They Can’t Afford Them. (art: Tobias Mikkelson) Found a great piece with gold nuggets in it. His rambling prose is off-putting (how’s that for a typified descriptive phrase?) … Continue reading
Getting Booksales on Amazon – and Everywhere Else
There are two distinct venues for selling books – Amazon and Everywhere Else. (photo: Nicholas Eckhart) This separation was made clear to me when I worked to publish a large handful of books to Amazon that I’d already published elsewhere. … Continue reading
Getting Your Book Discovered, Finding More Sales, Having More Fun
Writing and publishing Your Book isn’t even half your job – the rest is getting it discovered so it sells and pays you back. (photo: Jayp0d) The third leg of the stool every author sits on is Discovery. (The first … Continue reading
The Espresso Network – the 7th Book Distributor.
Found a new place for Indie Authors to Publish their books – the Espresso Network. (Photo: Illinois.edu) This was an interesting find – and wound up with another way for you to self-publish books. Yes, of course it’s free. The … Continue reading
Getting Your Books Discovered with Social Book Networks.
Social Media and Book Discovery only work when the Search Engines are involved. (Photo: Phil Roeder) While social media/networks are all the buzz about how to promote your book – as usual, the conscious work at ignoring what passes for … Continue reading
Posted in Business, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Social media, Twitter
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A New Test of Successful Book Publishing and Marketing – From Scratch
Starting a new and successful book from scratch and marketing it – all as a test and lesson (Photo: Thomas Leuthard) We’re starting a new book, with a supporting book series, and are going to show you from start to … Continue reading
How to Edit a Book Into Shape and Stay Sane
The Route to Producing a Book Requires You Organize to Maintain Your Sanity. (Photo: Matt Elwood) This is always the rub. Editing is what most writers hire out. It’s also known as proofing. But it’s a craft on it’s own, … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, book launch, Calibre (software), E-book, google, iTunes, LibreOffice, lulu, napoleon hill, publishing
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Another distributor for self-published authors – Feedbooks
Found this outlet for new authors (again) – original works can publish on Feedbooks Strictly speaking, it looks like almost anyone can publish there, since I see that there are many public domain books published at various prices. Why don’t … Continue reading
Secret to starting big projects? Finish what you’ve started.
It’s hit me again, just as I predicted: Incomplete (self-publishing) projects will haunt and distract you from anything else you want to start. (Photo credit: unknown…) This includes small projects as well as (and very definitely) any big projects. If … Continue reading
How to Really Profit from Self-Publishing – Follow the Disney Route to Success
Use public domain to inspire your own works – that’s their greatest, and most profitable use. The real reason for works returning to the public domain is to inspire the next generation. The long-dead authors no longer need to profit … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon.com, book, E-book, iTunes, LibreOffice, lulu, Private label rights, public domain, publishing
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When to Cave Over a Fake Copyright Claim
When they have a lawyer and you can’t afford one. (Jurisdictionary – lousy packaging, great course.) Hopefully, you don’t have a lot invested in that book. Might be a crying shame, but get over it. The two questions you have … Continue reading
Is there any Real Money in public domain (self-)publishing?
Why you can make a financially free lifestyle with public domain (self-)publishing, but getting rich (quickly) is elusive. (Photo: Jeneraly) For several years, I’ve been evolving the business plan of re-publishing public domain books as an off-shoot of self-publishing, Recent … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, Copyright, E-book, Internet, iTunes, Kobo Inc., lulu, public domain, publishing
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The Great Amazon Suck – Why Other eBook Distributors Don’t
How to Blow-Off Any Chance at a Fan Base. (Cover: Seattle Weekly) [Rant Alert] For all the hype about Amazon, you will seldom see any fan clubs for Amazon or its execs. (Just lots of those “smiley” boxes.) That became … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, book, E-book, iTunes, Kobo Inc., lulu, Nook, public domain, publishing, self-publishing
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Perfecting Passive Income Publishing for Profit
How to Make More Than Just a Living With Profitable Passive Income Publishing. (Image: WishIKnew…) It all started out by wanting to learn how to get books I’d written published and making enough to allow me to quit my day … Continue reading
Posted in author, book launch, epub, iTunes, Kobo Inc., LibreOffice, lulu, Market Samurai, public domain, publishing
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How much money can you make in Children’s books?
If your book becomes a bestselling children’s classic and it’s self-published, you can rake it in. (From http://www.slj.com/) Looked around and found this data from School Library Journal. On Lulu: a full-color interior, letter-sized, 32-page book costs $7.57 to create. … Continue reading
“Edward’s First Book” – A Children’s Story About Self-Publishing.
(Just a first draft. Illustrations to follow.) – – – – Edward would wake up at night because of the voices in his head. They weren’t unpleasant voices, but they did want something. They wanted to be heard. Not just … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, book, Book cover, book launch, Goodreads, LeanPub, lulu, publishing, self-publishing
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How to Create or Approve Your Book Cover
Creating or Approving a Book Cover – DIY All books need covers. Actually, this is the biggest introduction to any book these days – people really do “judge a book by its cover.” And if this has enough emotional impact … Continue reading
How to Sell Your Books Online, Old or New.
Selling books online doesn’t have to be hard, …but you have to know what to do when in order to be successful. (Photo: RIAN archive) Just because your book never sold well doesn’t’ mean it can’t. Just because most books … Continue reading
An Author’s Guide to Memberships – How to Sell Books Online
Writers: Get Your Books Selling Online Better – Build a Membership I’ve long said (over and over) that the key to any author earning real income came from writing well and prolifically having multiple books for sale on all possible … Continue reading
The Book Income Sales Web You Build
Your Online Book Selling Income is Closer to a Web by Design (photo: Josef A. Stuefer) When you sell your books online, you aren’t just trying to get them to sell on Amazon. This is actually a bit backwards (even … Continue reading
How I Got My Financial Freedom from Publishing Books
(artwork: keep_bitcoin_real – modified) You can publish your way to financial freedom. I did. It’s a story I haven’t really told before, but probably should have. I’ve been publishing books since around 2007, according records on Lulu.com – where I … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, Assembly line, bestsellers, book sales, Bookselling, iTunes, Kobo Inc., lulu, public domain, publishing
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How to Build a Profitable Business Plan – Selling Your Books Online
(photo: PlanToo47) Most Authors Don’t Have a Business, or Even a Plan Don’t worry about it. That’s why 97% of everyone on this planet die broke, including most indie and conventional authors. Charles Dickens ran a business. So does Amanda … Continue reading
Why Publishers Earn More Income than Self-Publishing Writers
(photo: Jeremy Brooks) Selling Books Online is What Publishers Do Best (Writers Write Best). I was looking over my “series of unfortunate events” post – which laid out how I got financially free once I started publishing books for a … Continue reading
How to Build an Ecourse and What to Have In it.
(Photo: Ruschi) Building an online course is perfect for giving enough value to get people onto your list (and into your membership.) That’s the key point -giving away real value. Cheap stuff doesn’t cut it. This is another post in … Continue reading
Posted in book sales, books, google, IBooks, Internet, iTunes, Microsoft PowerPoint, publishing, smashwords, Web page, YouTube
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Why You Don’t Have to Be a Bestselling Author to Get Financially Free
(Photo: Alfred Cunningham) To Make a Living as a Writer, You Only Have to Publish Books Well. Why keep beating your head against a perfectly good brick wall? Look over some facts: Some bad books sell well. Some great books … Continue reading
How to Use Common Sense (and Search Engines) to Market Your Self-Published Book
(Photo: daniel julià lundgren) Developing a Common Sense Marketing Plan for Self Publishing – Why So Hard? When something “makes sense”, it’s when the logic and emotion agree. This is the point of sales, actually. And sales are hard to … Continue reading
Rough Getting Paid – Single-book Author Income
(Photo: Ruth Sharville) Some authors have only one book in them – how do they make a living as an author? These people write and publish (or not) – then move on with their lives. Much like the old Zen … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, Business, E-book, google, iTunes, lulu, passive income, publishing
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How to Market Test Your eBook – Before You Port to Amazon
(Photo: Wikipedia) Test Your Book’s Sales Ability Before a Big Amazon Release Simple really: sell everywhere else first. Why? Because Amazon is known as the new book graveyard. That is why there are so many, many books written about how … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon.com, Goodreads, iTunes, LibreOffice, OverDrive, public domain, publishing, Shelfari
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Finding Your Bliss – Self-Publishing Case Study 01
A Case Study in Self-Publishing – Progress doesn’t come easy… We’ll start with the Step 0 of self-publishing: ensure you are working on your bliss – something you are fascinated with and could talk to an avid listener forever. For … Continue reading
Solving Distractions and Getting Your Book Ready – Case Study 02
(Artwork: Birger King) You have to handle distractions to finish getting your book(s) ready for publishing. It’s not just the social media. It’s life itself. I’ve gone over the successful action of working in batches, of having a proven assembly … Continue reading
Posted in affilates, amazon, Assembly line, booksales, Flickr, google, iTunes, LibreOffice, lulu, public domain, publishing, video
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Getting Your Book Published and Marketed: Actions List – Case Study 03
Any Man (and his brilliant wife) Knows – Things Get Done When You Have a List: Self-Publishing Truth. (Photo: Rob and Stephanie Levy) There are lots of details to get done when you publish books, let alone market them. And … Continue reading
The Author as Producer – it’s not just about ebooks anymore. Case Study 04
Becoming a Media Producer: Even Better Than an Author The point I have to pause here is to tell you that you’ve just morphed into something more powerful and more creative than you’ve ever been before. Books, especially ebooks, have … Continue reading
At last, you’re published – telling the world: Case Study 05
(Photo: “Riverside Stompers – Wolfgang Straka 2007 e”) Time to let the world know about your book. Technically, you’ve been published ever since you first submitted to Lulu to get your ISBN. The completely-published part was when you got it … Continue reading
Save Time, Save Money, Get Loved – Case Study 06
(Graphic: Coloroverboard.com) How to Save Time and Money – and Find Love. Well – link-love, anyway. We’re talking social media here. Many of these are interlinked with various programs that will send your status updates, and even post blogs for … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon.com, Backlink, Blog, E-book, google, HTML, iTunes, Market Samurai, Search engine optimization
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Getting Started on a Right Foot – with Online Book Selling: Case Study 07
(Photo: Augustus Binu) Your site is the right first step to take in getting your book selling online. There I was, running through all these to-do spreadsheet list actions – and I realized I’d skipped over a huge piece of this … Continue reading
What Begins Well, Goes Well – and You Can Always Start Over
So, I was all set to get back to publishing books – when I discovered I really should drop back and punt. (Not hand it over to someone else, but like you’re playing as a kid and doing both sides … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, Blogger (service), book, Ebook Publishing, google, IPhone, iTunes, napoleon hill, publishing
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Your Ebook self-pubilshing future just happened.
This is the future of ebook self-publishing – here and now. Why wait for the big corporations to get their ebook readers which will support epub 3 so you can have video and audio along with your book? What GalleyCat … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, audio, bittorrent, E-book, epub3, future, Internet, publishing, self-publishing, video
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How Rubber Meets the Real World – Case Study 08
Marketing books results in – publishing yet another book. Got back to work getting my checklist/spreadsheet executed. With the revisions I added. Now that the site was mobile-friendly for real, I then turned to the next most obvious distraction – … Continue reading
How I Fouled up Self-Publishing My New Book Series – Case Study 10
(…and what you can do to avoid this mistake) (Yes, I know – Fouled up isn’t the same as Fowl, which isn’t a cute chickie…) Your browser does not support the audio element. Video edition: OK, I got busy getting … Continue reading
When Your Case Study Becomes the Next Case Study (11)
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here This could have happened to you – or maybe not. The scene was this: I was listening to some podcasts while working (as radio these days is nearly … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon Kindle, Blog, Blogger (service), google, iTunes, publishing, RSS, YouTube
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Is it Time for Authors to Speak Up and Sell More?
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here The more authors get their content out to more people, the better chance they have of discovery. The more discovery, the better the book sales. I’ve long said … Continue reading
Posted in Amazon.com, Audiobook, book, iTunes, publishing, RSS
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Authors: How to Podcast On a Lean Budget
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Authors can get better discovery (and sales) for their books when they podcast. Sadly, the tips and tricks on how to do this for low cost or free … Continue reading
Posted in Content marketing, ebook, JPEG, podcasting, publishing, self-publishing
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The Greatest Evil in Self-Publishing – and 4 Methods to Fight It
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here The world’s greatest writers and composers have died because of it. It’s caused Wars to be lost and Nations defeated. It’s present in most people’s lives – and … Continue reading
Posted in book, ebook, napoleon hill, politics, self-publishing, success, think and grow rich
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The Curse of Printed Art Books – and How to Remove it (Case Study 09)
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here I can hear my Art Teachers “tut-tutting” in my head now. They were all very good at being constructive in their criticism. You knew you hit the high-level … Continue reading
Reverse Book Marketing – Audience First, then Book
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here The guide to reverse book marketing exists. I found this great talk between Robert Bruce and Brian Clark which has a reverse take on how authors should start … Continue reading
Posted in authorpreneur, book, Brian Clark, Copyblogger, DVD, Elvis Presley, Malcolm Gladwell, New Rainmaker, writing
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Cracking Video for Book Discovery – a Sidebar
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here Brian Clark’s two-year old podcast (see last post) set a high bar. But it makes more sense than all the advice I’ve run across so far – from … Continue reading
How to Start a Marketing Bonfire for Self Publishing Sales – Case Study 12
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here In the days before lighthouses, bonfires would be lit on the heights near a port to guide merchant ships safely to the harbor. If you stood on a … Continue reading
How I Was Wrong About Marketing (Case Study13)
If you cannot see the audio controls, listen/download the audio file here And this happens more than I care to admit. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Again, it’s conventional wisdom that I swallowed years ago and has been an unshakeable, … Continue reading
Posted in books, ebooks, Google Analytics, memberships, self-publishing, Web analytics
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