You may think that writing your book has been the ultimate
challenge, until you want to get it published when the real
nightmare begins.
Getting published with one of the big names is indeed a daunting
task; there’s the submission process, followed by the
prohibitively long waiting time, and last but not least, the
uncertainty of the outcome.
Meanwhile, you, the author, have bills to pay and mouths to
feed. You then start looking at alternatives including POD
(print-on-demand) services and you think all your problems are
over since you can now become a published author without having
to wait for one of the big publishing houses to make a decision
or even consider your manuscript.
Not so fast! Many authors out there do not have a spare $1,000
or more to spend on POD services to get their book in print. For
those who can afford that, there are further obstacles and
additional marketing expenses to consider before they can start
generating sales and deriving an income from their book.
If the book sells, you probably still have to wait several weeks
before the publisher pays you! However, if the book does not
sell, let’s hope that the money you poured into getting your
book printed and on marketing activities was not the rent and
food money for the month. This is the reality faced by many
authors trying to make it.
This article will look at a viable alternative for the vast
majority who not only want to get published, but also want
faster results because they need to survive. We will
specifically focus on utilizing the Internet and show how anyone
can get their book published as quickly as possible and on a
very low budget.
• With your manuscript finalized, the 1st step is to convert it
into an appropriate digital format that can be delivered
instantly over the Internet to anyone in any part of the world.
One of the most common formats is Adobe’s PDF format where a
free reader is available for download. Having your ebook in this
format will ensure that almost everyone can easily buy and read
your ebook hassle-free.
• You need to buy yourself an appropriate domain name for a
website dedicated to marketing and selling your ebook. You
should be able to shop around and get one for approximately
US$10. Once you have your domain name, shop around for a good
web hosting company where you can pay a low monthly cost. You
want a professional image, so avoid using those free web hosts
because they will usually insist on placing banner ads on your
site. You want to advertise YOUR ebook and not somebody else’s
website. A reasonable cost for hosting should be approximately
US$10 a month.
• To sell on the Internet you need to have a way to collect
payments from your customers. You must implement an easy way to
accept credit card payments for online orders and the process
must be totally automated i.e your customer places the order,
makes the payment, and then download your ebook – SALE
COMPLETED! And you are probably asleep while all that was
happening! You need this capability immediately, not in 2 or 3
weeks time. A reliable payment processor is the way to go. They
will process the order and payment and in 2 weeks you will get
paid. Click here for more information.
• The next step is to get your website designed and also an
attractive ebook cover. You may have heard the saying, “Don’t
judge a book by it’s cover”, but unfortunately, the majority of
people do! An attractive cover is essential to draw your
audience in, so do not under-estimate the importance of your
book cover. You can get your ebook cover designed for just
US$30. Click here for more information.
• To keep your website design cost low, and yet have a
professional look and feel, you might want to consider one of
the ebook mini-sites available with various themes and colour
schemes that may be suitable for marketing your ebook. Click
here http://www.millionebooks.com for more information.
All the above will set you back between US$250 to US$300 but you
will be able to go LIVE within days!
Once your site is up and running and your payment processing
activated, you just need to focus on driving traffic to your
site. Marketing online and offline will take up the rest of your
time and the more activity you have, the more traffic you will
generate and hopefully these will convert into sales. We will
look at marketing in another issue.
Read about "How to Create Wealth with eBook Mini-sites". Good
luck.
Copyright © 2004, MillionEbooks.com. All rights reserved.
http://www.MillionEbooks.com
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Permission is hereby granted for this article to be freely
published and distributed in e-zines, included in ebook
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is not modified in any way and the copyright and web links are
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