The instructions are straight forward. Amazon literally walks you through the process. You do have to reformat your material a bit, taking out page breaks except between chapters and deleting any headers or footers for page numbers.

It is possible to include photos but remember they’ll be in black and white unless the reader has Kindle Fire.

I’m not artistic so I hired out the book covers. So without further ado Here’s the link to Pamper Yourself Like a Princess and the book cover

An author also markets her book. Business Planning, the topic of our latest book for SkyHorse Publishing, The Pocket Small Business Owner’s Guide to Business Plans isn’t necessarily a glamorous subject. We wrote the book with a humorous touch, included examples of each section of the business plan and came up with two catchy sidebars. Well we think they’re catchy.

BEA, BookExpo America is coming up in a few weeks. It’s a trade show directed to booksellers. I went several years ago because I was requested to give a speech at one of the awards programs. It’s a huge show with nearly every major publisher in attendance.

Orders are booked at the show for books that will be published in the upcoming seasons. We need to come up with several marketing ideas that will promote our book on a national basis. Our publisher can then use those ideas to sell more copies.

it might seem like February 2013, our date of publication is way off into the future, but in reality it’s just around the corner.

We did have a last minute snafu. All my fault. When I combined the five files into one, I forgot to start the first chapter of each one of the sections on a new page. I didn’t realize that until we had printed an entire copy.

The problem is that when I went in and made the changes it added a page per section, so the pagination was off. And then we ran out of paper.

We got it out a week early in any case.

We made one mistake. The park has a very tall fountain — 560 feet — in the middle of a man-made lake. While there wasn’t much of a breeze, we were sitting downwind of the fountain and got sprayed. The fountain is only on for 15 minutes on the top of the hour, so when we arrived we didn’t realize that we were close enough to get damp. Had to move everything rather quickly.

Sometimes when you’re so involved in a project you don’t see it clearly anymore.

We’ll let it rest and go back and combine all the files into one file. We separate them so we aren’t working on the same content at the same time.

We also have to double space the manuscript, check all the headers, label the graphs and charts and remove them from the manuscript.

We decided to use a different type of business and industry for each sample instead of writing an entire business plan for an imaginary company. The problem with that is if we choose a tech company then all the other entrepreneurs who don’t have a tech company won’t think the book applies to them.

After the contract and receiving the advance — yay!– the next step is completing the author questionnaire. The information is used in several ways. The description in the publisher’s catalog will focus on why bookstores should carry the book. Some of that is based on the questionnaire. The information is also used in the media kit for the book which accompanies review copies and the basis for press releases.

The questionnaire covers:

The author’s qualifications, degrees, certification or awards.
Other books the author has written.
What books compete with the new book
Why the book is different or better than the competition
Personal media contacts
Media clips
Blurb about the book
Author website or blog
Any original research
Interesting facts about the author

Dee

Yes, we did get an advance.

Yes, the book will be distributed and sold from bookstores.

Yes, it’s a real publisher with several New York Times Bestsellers

This is going to be exciting.

Dee

Your company requires the best web hosting possible. And along with hosting, your first chore, registering your domain, should be at the top of your to do list. Good domains go fast. If you’re confused over which web host you should choose there are sites which provide Web Hosting Reviews.

Article Marketing is used to interest people in visiting your site and to create backlinks. It also establishes you and your business as experts in your field. An article of between 350 to 700 words is written on a subject that is relevant to your business. That article uses keywords that are commonly used to search for the subject. The article is distributed to article directories, newsletters, and authority sites. Your name, company name, and website link are in the bio box of the article and included whenever it’s picked up. You can use ghostwriting article services to write the articles if you don’t have time.

Set a reasonable number of goals, one is probably not enough and twenty would be way too many. The goals relate to a time period as well, a year, or perhaps six months, is a good target. One way of setting goals is to describe your freelance business one year from now.

Goals, objectives, and strategies are incorporated in a business plan that is used for internal purposes rather than raising capital. It’s an important exercise for management to go through and then incorporate the results in a working business plan.

Brainstorming is a good way to get started on goals. Make a list of all the achievements you could make in the upcoming year. Just list them. Don’t make any value judgments on whether they’re achievable. Now rate each goal in five different categories: effort, money required, like and dislike, talent required, and payoff.

Effort is simply the amount of energy and time that will be expended to achieve the goal.

Money required is the investment that will be made. For example if you will require a website to showoff writing samples and give background on yourself that means it will be necessary to invest money for hosting and a domain name. Nearly all businesses require some investment of capital, if nothing else for Internet access and phone lines. Use ballpark figures.

Liking or disliking the tasks required to achieve the goal has an impact on whether the goal will be achieved successfully.

Talent means whether you have the abilities required. If you have no artistic talent then graphic design isn’t for you, unless you have such great contacts for clients that it makes sense to outsource the design function.

Payoff is the reasonable amount of money that can be earned. This is a guestimate of what you believe will be the payoff if the other factors – effort, investment, like or dislike, and talent hold true.

This is a simplistic way of rating the goals. It may turn out that the goal with the highest score also requires the most money to accomplish and that just doesn’t fit in with your budget. Or perhaps the lowest rated goals are the goals you have the most talent for and require the least effort. The point is rating the goals gives you a starting point.

I have written for a number of the companies and sites below. I won’t recommend or not recommend them. It’s a subjective value judgment on my part and may not be at all applicable to you. All the ones I’ve written for have paid as they have said they would when they said they would. If you have questions, post them on writers’ boards and see what other writers have to say about the site.

A number of the sites rate or grade the writers. The logic is to let the writer know how well they’re doing. Some of these same sites also pay the writer based on their rating. The higher the rating the more they will get paid. That’s a bit of conflict as far as I’m concerned. The site wants to keep the writers writing for the current pay level so there isn’t any motivation on their part to grade the writer’s work highly. Personally I don’t look at the rating or grading.

You can’t post articles you’ve ghostwritten for someone else because you don’t own the rights to those articles any more. Most of the websites that pay for articles won’t accept articles you’ve sold as private label rights (PLR) more about PLR later. But you can post articles you’ve used on your own website, blog or that you’ve submitted for distribution to online article directories.

Copywriting is writing ad copy. Sounds simple but it’s a very refined technique. It takes talent and experience to produce copywriting that converts your visitors into buyers.

Press Releases are a newsworthy announcement about your company sent out to the media both online and offline. Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of thinking that publicity generated by press releases is free advertising and the press release should be written as an ad. That doesn’t work. Think of why a reporter would consider the information in your press release as interesting to their readers.

Advertising is paid placement of information that promotes your company. You have control of what is included, or not included in advertising. Banner ads, pay per click, paid article submission on blogs are all methods of advertising. And of course there’s always print, TV, and radio advertising.

Don’t overlook printed promotional materials such as business cards, brochures, flyers, and handouts. Professional looking printing can be achieved even on a budget.

Social Networking is the darling child of the internet. It has grown gang busters over the last few years with no end in site. Social networking can be used to market products if done carefully. Social networking sites, such as myspace, facebook, youtube, have strict rules about blatant promotion. Other sites such as hubpages, and squidoo are a bit more lenient.

Niche Marketing is used to refine your marketing efforts to a micro niche. Pets is a huge market, birds take that market to a narrower level, and grey African parrots to a niche market. Key word selection is critical in niche marketing as well as picking out niches that get lots of searches but don’t have a lot of competition.

Blogging isn’t probably thought of as a marketing method but it certainly can be. Setting up blogs on free blog hosts takes time but no out of pocket cash. Once the blogs are set up they can be used to promote your products, provide customer information, as backlinks and to drive traffic to your website. Blogging can be an effective tool in your marketing box.

Finding Content good content, to use for your website, article marketing efforts, and blogging is critical for success. You can hire writers, use article directories to choose articles on your subject, write the content yourself or use private label rights material.

Affiliate Marketing isn’t just for the big guys like amazon. Setting up an affiliate marketing program means you pay a commission to those people who have signed up for your affiliate program. If you want to know which companies use affiliates check out commissionjunction.

Search Engine Optimization are the methods used to increase the ranking of a site in the search engines so it shows up high. That’s important because people searching for a subject usually will choose one of the sites on the first page to visit, usually one of the first 3 or 4 sites listed. The higher a site rates the more traffic will be generated from the search engines. SEO Consultants use a number of techniques such as meta tags, directory submissions, and backlinks.

Keyword phrases is important in marketing. If that phrase is found in the title tags and the content of a webpage, that particular webpage would most likely show up high in the search results. From Sydney SEO to China to Europe, no matter where you’re located in the world SEO Services are important to the success of your website and business. Learn as much as you can about search engine optimization even if you do decide to hire a firm to provide seo services.

Website Design is important to every business whether they have a physical presence or are strictly an Internet based business. A poorly designed site can lose sales and chase visitors away. A site that uses too many flashy bells and whistles can come off as unprofessional. Web Site Designers use many tools to develop a site that represents your business.

Sitting and staring at a blank computer screen while you struggle to get started on your article can be frustrating. Here are three methods that work.

1. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Tell Them. Tell them what you told them. In the first paragraph state what the article is going to be about. Make a list of 3 bullet points that will be covered in the article. Write a paragraph to explain each bullet point and why it’s important. The final paragraph is a summary of what has been covered in the bullet points.

2. State the problem. State why the problem is important to the reader. Provide a general solution. Provide a specific solution.

3. Introduction of the problem. 3 or 4 tips to solve the problem. Conclusion

Private Label Rights – Writing

You’re probably familiar with private label products at the grocery and drugstore.  The national brand of say, cold medicine, is sitting right next to the drugstore’s own privately labeled cold medicine.

Private label rights (PLR) written content is similar.  The content is sold to more than one person.  The writer specifies the rights that are being sold and how the content can be used.  The buyers of PLR use the material as web pages, blog posts, or articles in newsletters for example.

Articles, reports, and ebooks can all be sold as private label rights content.  Usually a batch of five to ten articles on the same subject and of the same length is sold as a package.  The price for the package can range from $5.00 to $25.00.

Choosing hot popular topics, or evergreen topics like weight loss, is the key to success when writing and selling PLR content.  How do you find these topics?  Look at what’s in the news.  Look at what the bestsellers are on amazon.com.  See what the most active auctions are on ebay.com.  Scan lifestyle and fashion magazines for popular topics.  Visit the websites of the same magazines and scan their back issues to get a feel for what topics are popular at what time of year.

Does ghostwriting or PLR pay more?  That depends. If you ghostwrite ten 500 word articles for a fee of $20.00 each, that’s a total of $200.00.  However if you sold those ten articles as a PLR package at $25.00 a package you could make $1,250 if you sold 50 packages, or as little as $75.00 if you only sold three.

Take into consideration how long it will take you to write the articles.  If it’s a topic you know well and don’t have to research, it may take you as little as four hours to write the ten articles.  On the hand if you are not familiar with the topic and have to do quite a bit of research, it may take several days to write them.

The strategies of online marketing are similar to offline. You have to know who your customer is, figure out ways to reach them and with what message. With the internet, this process becomes a little easier as it is streamlined. Using a variety of online analytical tools, you can determine how best to reach your target audience. After doing so, there are so many different resources that you can tap into to ensure that your marketing campaign continuously reaches out to potential new customers. Best yet, this can be automated so that you only have to monitor the progress of your marketing campaign instead of executing each step on your own.

An important benefit of online direct marketing is the many different ways in which you can use the internet as a means of presenting your products or services. You have your choice of websites, advertising, banner advertising, blogging, social media — such as facebook and twitter — and more. Through web sites and blogs, you can make available more information than your potential customers would ever need to access to show why they need to become your client. Through visual and written advertisements, you can capture their attention. By utilizing keyword maximization skills as well as search engine optimization, you can ensure that you come up in web search rankings frequently and relevantly. And you can also buy ads that correspond to popular online searches so that when a potential client is doing a search, information on your business can appear.

Finally, a large benefit for online marketing versus traditional offline marketing is how much you will save in time, money and effort. Advertising through various internet web sites is often far more inexpensive than nearly any offline resource. Buying ads that appear in blocks on related web sites or as responses to search engine queries is far less expensive that buying spots on network television or even local television.

In addition to those cost savings, you save time through the ways in which your marketing campaign can be automated. When you don’t need to perform every step of the marketing process yourself but can instead depend on automation, you will save both time and effort. The benefits of online direct marketing practices are nearly endless and can lead to the maximization of your success.

Another benefit from net forums is that they are populated by regular members. The same people participate. You get to know them and they get to know you, so the sense of community grows. This can be a valuable source of moral support. Chances are, even though marketing over the Internet involves reaching out to potential customers and providing goods or services to existing customers, you can end up feeling isolated. It’s good to have an informal environment where you can talk shop with other like-minded individuals.

Some forums have a “for sale” category and it’s allowable to post your services and products in that area but not in any other. Other forums have a classified section or special offer section. There may be a fee to post or it may be free. If you do post, do so sparingly. It’s annoying to members to have to wade through 20 posts about the same product. You could even be banned for spamming that way or at least have your forum privileges revoked for a time.

A side benefit to the for sale categories is that it gives you an idea of what products and services are popular. Look at the responses under the different threads. An ad on private label content on high blood pressure may have only one or two people interested while content on stop smoking could have 50. If you’re a writer you’d come to the conclusion that stop smoking articles have a broader market.

Got a question about Internet marketing? Just starting out and have a lot to learn? Or maybe you have a lot of experience and want to share? Join an Internet marketing forum. Not only can you do all that but you might just find that you enjoy being part of a net community of like minded people. And sell a few products along the way.

Reading articles about Internet marketing is all well and good, but sooner or later you’re going to want to ask a question or two, and you’d want someone out there on the Internet to actually answer them. That’s what Internet Forums are for. You ask a question and most likely get an answer. And one of the best parts is that it’s free.

In most cases you have to join. You’ll decide on a username and password. You’ll need an email address for confirmation. You might want to set up an email you only use for forums. Forum members can post information and discuss whatever interests them. Most forums are public, in that the posts can be read without joining. Forums are generally organized by category.

Within each broad category, individual members create the topics. Someitmes the board owner will create the categories and the members the topics. One member starts a ‘thread’ by making a statement, or more often than not, asking a question. Someone else responds to the question, and someone responds to the response, etc. If you have a question, the more specific the question the more helpful the answer will be. Don’t post something like “How can I make Money Online?” but rather “How Can I find CPA programs?”

Keep in mind the answers may be valuable, or a hard sell to buy a member’s product. The answer can also be completely false. Some forum members can be extremely belligerent, even insulting. Some forums are a free for all. Fortunately, most forums are moderated. That is, the site basically hires a referee to keep members from abusing each other, and depending on the site’s policy, maybe even keep them on topic.

Use common sense when deciding whether an answer seems reasonable. Contribute your own knowledge by answering questions for others. Abide by the rules of the forums. Some allow links in signatures if to your own site or blog but not an affiliate link. Others require that new members have a certain number of posts before they’re allowed a signature.

1. The title is one of the most important role in the effectiveness of your article. It has to be both search engine and people friendly. Use your keyword phrase in the title. Here’s the hard part and the same time make the title attract readers. You can have the best content in the world, but no one is going to read your article if your title is boring. If the search engines can’t find the article it won’t be read either.

2. Make sure that your article is structured in an easy to read manner. Unlike when it comes to paper, people tend to scan information when it comes to the internet rather than reading it all the way through. Use subheadings to walk the reader through the content of your article. Save an important subheading and information for the last one. You want your readers to read your article completely all the way through. If they don’t, they won’t get to the link to your website in the author bio box. And they won’t click it.

3. Make sure that your article is valuable and informative. Give a juicy tidbit of information. It entices readers to get to the end of the article. If the article is full of insight and good content, readers are more likely to want more and click the link. Build a reputation as an authority on the subject rather than just regurgitating information that can be found everywhere else.

4. Finally, make sure that the summary, or introduction, for your article is both catchy and memorable. The title may be the most important aspect of your article, but you need to be able to back that up with an excellent introduction. That introduction gets them to read the rest of the article.

Article marketing is an excellent means of promoting your website, products or services on the internet. Following these four tips for article marketing will help you jump start your way to success in this exciting internet marketing endeavor.

Step Number 1: Strategic Planning…
Ask yourself the question, “what am I good at?” You need to discover how your business is different from the rest by discovering the advantages that you have over your competitors.

Step Number 2: Situation Analysis…
Learn about the market that you are in. This can be achieved though various studies such as SWOT analysis, conducting an industry analysis, and analyzing your competition. The more you know about the industry you are in and how you can succeed in it, the better.

Step Number 3: Customer Analysis…
Learn about your customers. How you are going to effectively market to someone that you know nothing about? You need to know their likes, dislikes, hobbies, jobs, family life, etc if you are going to market to them effectively. In fact, some businesses do invent personalities that act as the target customer and develop a plan of marketing to them.

Step Number 4: Market and Product focus…
Segment the market. You can’t sell to every segment in the marketplace. Choose the ones that give you the best chance for success. Differentiate your business from your competitors. This is often times referred to as the “Unique Selling Point” or “USP”.

Step Number 5: Product positioning…
When customers think of your product, or company, what image do you want to present? You need to know how to position your business in your customer’s mind. If you haven’t learned about them yet, acquaint yourself with the 4 Ps of marketing: product, position, promotion, and price.

Step Number 6: Pricing Strategy…
This is also one of the 4 Ps of marketing. You need to know how to effectively price your goods or services. A good way is to take a look at what the competition is charging. If you are new to the business, you will need to undercut their prices.

Step number 7: Position
This is the second P in the 4 P’s of marketing, also known as position. Does your product appeal to upscale buyers, those looking for a bargain, more value for the money, or cutting edge.

Step Number 8: Internet Promotion
This is how you are going to advertise your business on the internet. There are plenty of different methods at your disposal including newsletters, search engines, article marketing and pay per click advertising. Experiment with each of them and try to find what best suits your business.

Most article directories allow the author to use a credit box at the end of the article with a couple of live links. A good way to capture the reader and motivate them to click on your link is to offer a teaser of more information through the link. Another way is to offer a free report on the same topic as the article.

Spend a little time on your author bio box. Use it to establish your credibility as an expert. Be friendly. Build trust with the reader.

Take the time to proof your articles. One way is to let the article sit for 24 hours and then go back to it with fresh eyes. If you’re terrible at proofing see if someone else will do it for you. A clean grammatically correct article shows you value your reader’s time and that they are important to you.

Duplicate content penalty doesn’t apply to articles of blog posts. If it did, newspaper syndication companies, like the Associated Press, wouldn’t use it. Here is what Google says about the penalty.

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

Write as if you were talking with a good friend and answering her/his questions. For example: If you have a dog care website one question you could answer is “How do I know how much protein is in dry dog food?”

Handle one question or topic per article. Go to yahoo answers for ideas for questions. Go to article directories and see which categories have the most entries. Leaf through hard copy publications to see the topics of their articles.

Building a list can be accomplished in several ways. One of the most effective is offering a free report in exchange for the visitor’s name and email address. Since the visitors volunteered their contact information, any email you send them is considered solicited, or requested. It’s less likely you will be accused of sending SPAM.

Single opt-in means that the person has requested once to be on your list. They provide their email once. Double opt-in means that the person has opted in, requested, to receive email from you, once at your site, and again when they respond positively to a message from you to confirm their request. Confirmation is the second time they opt-in.

There is the possibility that the person won’t confirm their request the second time, so you may lose a few subscribers. However that risk is offset by the fact that since the visitor confirmed their request twice it’s less likely any email from you will be considered SPAM.

There are companies who provide double opt-in email distribution services through autoresponders. Aweber is one of those companies and is the company we use and recommend. GetResponse is another.

An autoresponder is software that automatically responds to any email sent to it with a message. The message is written by the person who owns the autoresponder email address or who hires the autoresponder company.

It’s possible to set up a series of emails that will automatically be sent over a prescribed length of time. That’s called an autoresponder series. The series of emails you send subscribers, your list members, should be informative and interesting. Good content is the key to keep your list members from unsubscribing. That’s where quality writing comes into play.

Continue to provide your list members with quality content and they’ll be more responsive to any of your offers. Articles and list building are just one way of how you can earn money writing.

Articles for the most part are open to all writers for seed.com.  More than one writer may write the title. Once the article is written, it is submitted and either accepted or rejected.  If it is accepted it is paid for through Paypal. The site is new so a lot may change.

There is some confusion as to whether Seed can accept an article on a revenue share basis only and not pay the stated upfront fee. The agreement says they can.

“By submitting Your Content, You give AOL the opportunity to review Your Content during the Holding Period (defined below) and, if it complies with the Publishing Terms and AOL accepts Your Content, to determine which type of available license described below AOL elects to acquire. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT ONCE YOU SUBMIT YOUR CONTENT AND AOL ACQUIRES A LICENSE TO IT, YOU WILL NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO REMOVE YOUR CONTENT FROM THE PROGRAM.”

http://www.seed.com/publishing-agreement/

From their agreement:

“AOL will pay an upfront payment for an Exclusive License, a Calculated Earnings (as defined in the Payment Terms) share payment for a Limited Exclusive License and a lower percentage Calculated Earnings share payment for a Non-Exclusive License”

Article are reviewed and either rejected or accepted within 5 business days from the due date.  Not the date you submit the article but the date the article is due.  Some due dates are 30 days out.

I wrote three quick tips for seed.com two were rejected and one was accepted.  I got paid immediately.

The downside to this site is the competition between writers.  You don’t “claim” an article and then have exclusive rights to write it.  Any other writer may take that same article title, write it and submit it as well.

Seed.com then selects the article they like the best.  I’m not one for writing on contingency or submitting an article for an upfront payment only to have the site decided I’m only going to get paid a revenue share.

You have to apply, provide a writing sample and be accepted to provide articles to Constant Content.

Edited to Add:  I checked the site today and saw that no application is required.  You fill in a short form with your name address, phone number and so forth.  There is a short 5 question grammar quiz.  It is not difficult.  You pick the word that doesn’t belong, or needs to be changed.

For example:

She wrote a article today that was over 500 words long.

Which one of these words doesn’t belong?

wrote

article

a

long

The answer is “a”  it should be “an” article.

Your articles are displayed to members looking to buy articles.  They are not visible to search engines or to the general public.

You set the price and whether you want to sell exclusive rights or publication rights.  Members buy the articles, pay Constant Content and once a month Constant Content pays the writers.

The articles are reviewed for  grammar, sentence structure and overall quality. They may be rejected by the editor of Constant Content.  If they are you, don’t really find out why.  You may resubmit but that’s difficult since you don’t know what to correct.  Rumor has it 3 rejected articles means you’re bounced as a writer.

Members may also post what types of articles they would like written, the length, keywords to use and what they’re willing to pay.  Writers then submit their articles to Constant Content who then forwards them (if approved) to the member.

Constant Content retains 35% of the fee and gives the writer the remaining 60%.

A quick review of the articles available show fees ranging from $7.00 to over $100.00.

Most of these products are informational, either an ecourse, software, or ebook.  Quite a few of the affiliate products pay more than a 50% commission. The smart product owners offer banners, buttons, sales copy, and even articles that you can use to promote the affiliate product with.

Clickbank is one of the most established programs. Commission Junction is another source. Both of these make the payments to the affiliates so you don’t have to worry whether the product owner will pay. PayDotCom is a program which uses PayPal as the payment method. The product owner makes the decision to pay the affiliates and has to authorize PayDotCom to do so.

Many products offer their own affiliate program independently. Look for one with a solid history of payment. You can find these products by searching for the +product brand name +affiliate in the search engines.

You can also become an affiliate of Amazon to sell books and consumer products such as jewelry, televisions, or other consumer products. The percentage commission is much lower, but sometimes the retail price is high enough to make up for it.

Use the Article Sets to set up a blog, website or squidoo page using the articles as the content.

Offer a ‘free report’ comprised of an articles in exchange for the visitor’s name and email address. Follow up with several emails that have good content (again you can use articles) and a sales pitch for the affiliate product.

Use Forums, Lists, and Discussion Groups to Promote

One of the fastest ways to make money selling affiliate products is to think about the forums, lists and discussion groups you already belong to. What are the questions being asked?  Is there a problem that people need a solution for?  What are the hot topics?

Set up an affiliate account at Clickbank. Go to their marketplace and search for products that will solve the problems, or are the answer to the questions being discussed.

Post an informative response and include a link to your blog/website where you offer the affiliate product. A softer sell is to post a review of the product on your blog and then post a response to the list/discussion forum stating that you’ve reviewed the product and they can find out more on your blog. You can also set up a squidoo page and refer people to your squidoo page.

Promoting affiliate products is just one way to make money writing.