Blogging, Writing, and Publishing

  You can publish your book yourself, or publish with others. There are so many options available depending on how much work you want to put into the process. Writing a book is a great experience that can help you further your business opportunities. Publishing with it’s many requirements and resources could prove to be more work than you want to do, especially if writing is not our primary business.   Self-publishing provides an increasingly valuable method of getting information to your audience. With self-publishing, you can write, outsource the printing, and market your book while controlling the process. This type of publishing can be done with very little money up front and, if done right, creates a great source of revenue. If you plan to self-publish, you will need some basic items and information. Books should have copyright protection and each book sold through distribution channels will need International Standard Book Numbers (ISBN). However, with Kindle Direct Publ...

  Build Trust-Build a Platform Just because your book is the only one available, it doesn’t mean people will buy it. No matter how hot the topic, you’ve still got to do the marketing of not only the book, but of yourself as the expert. Even if you have an incredible book, it will fail without the proper marketing. Think of all the books you’ve read. Perhaps you’ve read some obscure books that you thought were incredible. You tell your friends about the reading experience and they give you a shrug; they’ve never heard of the book and therefore lack your passion. Somehow someone wrote a great book and it fell into your hands by accident. Now, think of another situation where you’ve read a bestselling book. Advertising, word of mouth, reviews, and great marketing let you know it was available. You may have had an incredible desire to own the book. You finally receive the book and, with anticipation, you devour it. You find it is a good book, but perhaps not any better than the obscure...

  In a separate article I explained that some authors may decide to publish their books with a publishing company instead of using Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. If you are an author, consider finding a small publisher to help you through the process. Keeping in mind that when I say publisher, I’m not talking about submitting a proposal letter to a major traditional publishing house. I’m talking about through a company that specializes in self-publishing business models. While you may not want to worry about the business of publishing with KDP, they may be well versed in using it to your benefit. When looking for such a publisher, I recommend keeping a few things in mind. Find a publisher who matches your niche. That way, you can take advantage of the marketing efforts they are already doing to further your book’s success. For example, my company, Red Bike Publishing does very well at publishing content for security professionals. All of my efforts are marketing to the industry. ...