Blogging, Writing, and Publishing

Does your specialized market have written guidance or requirements such as state or federal regulations, policy or procedures or any other publication of rules? If so, you might be onto something. So, you've got backing at a certain level requiring an action by your audience. You can piggy back on these necessities to bring a compelling need for your market to "act now". 1. Research the most significant points of the regulations, policies or procedures. Write them in bullet form so you can easily put them to use. Don't try word for word, most regulatory language is just too lengthy to work with. You just want to skeleton to build your body around. For example, a regulation states that sensitive government information is to be stored in an approved save (this is a paraphrase). 2.Search for implied opportunities. Regulations spell out requirements, but there are also some soft guidance or other opportunities as well. In my experience, people seem to work under best ...

If you have published your first book, you now have the experience to publish more. If new books are within the same genre or specialized area; great for you. That just means that your first customers just might be repeat customers. If you can come up with additional books or products relative to the needs of your current audience, then you may have guaranteed future success. Additionally, customers who come to know your business through current marketing efforts will hopefully buy all of your book and product selections. Here are a few ideas for adding books to your publishing library: 1.  Try turning you print book into an eBook as a spin off product or vice-versa. For example, I began selling my ISP Certification-The Industrial Security Professional Exam Manual as an eBook. Since the certification exam offers an online testing option, I planned on customers buying the book and practicing taking the test online. I created the book us...

This is where it gets dicey. I am recommending just the opposite of what all the online marketing gurus are suggesting, but please read completely before you make a decision about your next marketing move. Don't Pay for Expensive Social Networking Ads While popular brands and products can earn money through such advertising campaigns, small niches may not. That's the idea of social networking; a niche marketer should be able to make sales without spending money. Facebook, LinkedIn, Google and others offer services to help you get to the top of the search engine results. Many advertise with Google using Adwords or Pay Per Click. When customers use a keyword search, your website is featured prominently in the search engine results. Additionally, some create an advertisement that displays in the search engine’s results margins. When potential customers click on either the advertisement or the search engine result, the advertiser pays the agreed u...

Effective book marketing involves becoming a rock star in your specialized industry. You may have found your place in a specialized niche. Though the general population may not know you, you should be well known within a specialized industry. The funny thing is the fame could be possible from all the free campaigns you should be involved in and never paying for advertising. Personally, while niche publishing, I’ve seen no results from some of the wasted funds committed to advertising and marketing meant for wide customer bases more traditional products. When is such traditional advertising effective? When there is an appeal to a massive audience. Those in this position can spend millions of dollars for premium advertising space knowing that their product will sell and they will recuperate the expenses. For example, everyone in the civilized world wears clothing, lives in some sort of dwelling, enjoys some form of entertainment and expects a certain quality of life. Watch TV, listen ...

Residence classes This is a real opportunity to build credentials and create a real academic presence. Traditional education opportunities are solid and recognized ways to get your message out. Teaching provides a return on investment but takes hard work and persistence to get started. Also there are two different avenues. You can host these classes yourself, or you can get them sponsored. Host the Residence Class Yourself Just like self publishing you can control the product. You have the freedom to create and do not need to seek approval from anyone to get started. You choose to set up the class time, the material, the advertising, and everything else you need to start a successful course. It also means that you have to bring in the resources yourself. For a residence class, you will need a classroom or similar environment, curriculum, projector, screen, training aids, certificates and supplies. There is a terrific possib...

Book sales happen when the book is a good product, you have a sound strategy, a detailed plan and a point of sale. You may even have developed successful spin-off products. So what else can you do to capitalize on this momentum? Why not another book and more spin off products? The opportunities for success may continue to manifest and you may find yourself ready to quit your day job. Some remarkable experiences may come up that provide new ideas for you to grow as a professional and offer additional messages to your customers and potential new customers. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to maintain newly created momentum from your writing and marketing? 1. Remain open to new ideas, but stay focused on reality. Several people have contacted me about other great opportunities. One offered a great salary to join his organization part time. I was flattered, but it required travel and would take me away from what I love doing. 2. Keep focused on your core competencies, abilities and go...

Experience, commitment and practice are the best qualities to prepare the professional for the necessity of good old fashion networking. Networking is especially necessary in industries like publishing where customers, colleagues and co-workers value trust and quality. A career in writing and publishing and challenging enough, especially in a specialized area or niche. The work is important, and readers count on the niche publisher to provide needed books and training. The publishing and writing professional requires a high degree of interaction as paths cross in collaboration or through online sales. Online sales require time to develop trusting working relationships and getting to know important connections in a timely manner is important. So, how do we accelerate this networking curve? 1. Foster relationships online and in social networks. Get to know customers, fellow publishers and business unit managers related to your expertise. Develop trusting relationships that allo...

     “Okay, I’ll demonstrate flying through these passages before these clouds get too low,” Steve yelled over the roaring engine. “Do you see the break in the mountains ahead? Fly to those, staying as far right as you can.”       “I’m staying to the right, and I don’t mind telling you this is a little nerve racking.”      “I’m with you, but this is the only way to some of the villages.” Steve knew John would have a hard time at first. “Just remember to stay to the right. That way if you find you may have mistakenly flown the wrong passage, you will have ample room on the left side for maneuvering.”       “Well, I can tell you that this barely leaves enough to turn. I’d hate to have to make a hasty U-turn or other emergency procedures,” said John.       There was only a mile of flying space between mountain–plenty of room for turning a car around, but an airplane is another...

Marketing Pan Am style If you belong to any social networking groups, Linked In, Facebook, Twitter and etc, you are probably anticipating next week’s TV pilot episode of Pan Am. Particularly relevant is how you may have become aware of this new TV series; primarily as a result of social network marketing. The huge awareness is driven not by huge TV commercial plugs, but by social networking using the following 5 methods: 1. Create awareness on as many social networking sites as possible. As covered in “ Get Rich in a Niche ” it’s not the expensive advertising that gets potential customers, but rather opportunities available to target a potential audience and create a community for them. Pan Am has a page on Facebook full of pictures, videos and important TV show facts. They also have a Twitter account with regular tweets referring to the show. 2. Introduce each of your products. Pan Am successfully introduced each of their characters individually with a small back story via posts and ...

How to create a book trailer video I’ve seen some great video ideas and am recently joining the many who post videos about their books or companies. So far, I’ve really enjoyed the fun and adventurous videos I’ve created that feature an idea and not books. These videos include Zombie vs. Ranger and How Not to Get a consulting Job. These videos are meant to be fun and entertaining and don’t even mention my products until the end. However, I still can’t discount the effectiveness of a good old fashioned (well recent fashion anyway) video featuring a specific product or book. Great graphics and the right type of music can combine to create a compelling reason for a viewer to take action. This action could include buying a product, visiting a website or signing up for a newsletter. Whatever call to action you want from your video, make sure to make the video worthy of watching. Here are five great tips for making a video trailer: 1. Invest in video software. There is great software that t...

According to Porter's Five Forces Model, you can successfully start your writing, consulting, publishing or other niche business on the internet. You can enter your hobby, interest or business into the market place with opportunities to earn great amounts of money with little risk and cost. Porter’s Five Forces are Buyer Power, Supplier Power, Threat of Substitute Products, Threat of New Entrants and Competitive Rivalry within your industry. These are the elephants in the room. Successfully identify them and your business plan will begin to mature. Buyer power is higher when buyers have more choices. Businesses are forced to add value to their products and services to get loyalty. Many loyalty programs include excellent services that customers demand on-line. Customers want to solve their problems and many times they are more successful on-line than on-phone. Also, we see internet savvy businesses springing up offering more valuable goods and services at lower costs. Supplier powe...

I stumbled across a great way to communicate with my audience; humor. Laughter makes us feel good and what a better way to teach than inject some opportunities to giggle, laugh or get crazy. There are a few ways to market other than just writing. I've been populating my blogs with video, cartoons and mock advise columns. Take a look at these two blog posts for an example of videos you can shoot. http://www.redbikepublishing.blogspot.com/ if you scroll down, you will see a video called, Don't Be This Consultant. I filmed it to publicize  Get Rich in a Niche . The next video is called Zombie vs Ranger . I put this video together to sell the Ranger Handbook . I filmed both videos myself using my Droid II Verizon Motorola phone. I also created a comic for my security niche. It speaks to some of the frustrations a security manager might experience. It helps create a bond between me and the customer. This bond could lead to more trust. Next is an advise column (hopefully ...

     The best marketing is free. You can generate a buzz about you and your books or products using these five steps . These steps help produce impact full results and increase sales. They won’t cost you anything and are the core ingredients to viral marketing. Develop spinoff products -If you already have a book in any form whether conceptual, unfinished, in production or out of print, you have a platform for spinoff products. These products can be related T-shirts, stickers, follow on books, study cards, training slides and much more. Download our spinoff tip generator to help you use your existing or future product to create more opportunities. Speak and teach-People are hungry for knowledge. If you’ve become an industry export, hobbyist or some sort of aficionado, you have something to teach. This is especially true when you’ve published. Whether with a traditional publisher or self-published, you’ve got a book out and you can teach at least two topics. Publishing gi...

I just read one of my business reports and am finally coming to the realization that Red Bike Publishing is more than just a vehicle to provide my security books. Red Bike Publishing began as a means of providing books to my small niche customers . I began writing books for an audience that was just too small for traditional publishers to engage with.  Their business model could not allow them to print such a small amount of books; it would cost too much. I began writing and publishing my books with great success. Along the way, I found many spin-off opportunities to include publishing other's books. Now it looks like event though I've written and published five of my own titles (using almost 20 ISBNs for differing formats), I've also successfully published six other titles. Three of those titles have contributed to tremendous sales. To date Red Bike Publishing is proud to have provided over 600 books to our customers in calendar year 2011. Guess what, none of our books...

I would like add one additional important bit of information to the four steps of using keywords . These key word ideas will help you draw more traffic to your website. However, they should be used with a bit of finess with amazon.com. Of course, I am writing about "Tags". Tags are an excellent way to draw amazon.com customers to your amazon.com book pages. Where keywords that you might use with the google link, bring customers to your website and further to your amazon.com book page, Tags will help you bring your book to the eyes of those who search for books exclusively on amazon.com. I added one additional step to my Tags idea. When filling out Tags, look at your competitor's books and if it relates, add their tags to your book's tags. If you bought Get Rich in a Niche-The Insider's Guide to Publishing In Specialized Markets , you would understand where to find tags on your book page. In short, scroll down to the section that says "Tag your book"....

Authors and self publishers should have an informative website and an easy to use point of sale. It's important to understand how to draw your audience to your website and your point of sale. To do so, your market should be able to find you and your books. The best way for your audience to find your website is to use comprehensive keywords. Keywords are what drive search engines to your books. Blogs, websites, Facebook pages, LinkedIn updates and Twitter posts should be as keyword rich as possible. When your market or prospective customer searches for expert advice, solutions or just good reading material, they might use Google or other search engine to direct them to a good source. Using good keywords will almost assure that the search engine will bring them to you. A good source for researching keywords can be found a h ttps://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal . Use this website to help you discover which keywords people use to find products they are interested in...