by Nina Amir

Successful promotion of any ebook begins long before the book’s the release date. Those one-day bestseller campaigns you hear about—or participate in—don’t happen because an author asked everyone to purchase the ebook on that day.

Those authors began telling people about themselves, their work and that book months, if not years, before their ebooks were released. They worked long and hard to get fans and followers to know, like and trust them—and purchase the ebook when they said, “Hey, my ebook is out! Purchase it today!”

And if they did their job well, you probably did just that — purchased the book.

That’s called platform building, or pre-release promotion. You can build a platform in many ways. (I discussed many of them in this post.) No matter how you do it, it forms the foundation of your ebook promotion.

Build a Platform by Blogging

The best way I know to build platform involves blogging. With the exception of blogging, most of the traditional ways to build platform won’t provide your business or your ebook with the online exposure or long-term online “discoverability” you desire.

That’s what makes blogging such a great platform-building option. It gives you both exposure and discoverability.

According to Nielsen BookScan, a data provider for the book-publishing industry that compiles point-of-sale data for book sales, the average U.S. book now sells less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime. That’s a pretty unimpressive number. Some say the average ebook sells only 150-300 copies per year.

A decently sized platform built from a blog can remedy those pitiful figures. If you produce a blog that provides great benefit to readers—and if you blog your ebook on that site and manage to draw enough readers—this alone can provide a platform that will ensure your book sells successfully.

Consider this: If you build your blog readership to one thousand readers per day, and if two percent of those readers purchase an ebook you author, that’s 20 books per day, 140 books per week, or over 7,000 books in one year.

Those are not pitiful numbers at all! That’s the benefit of creating a blogging platform.

You can have a smaller blog platform and see reasonably good book sales as well. Plus, you can supplement with other platform building and promotion elements. So don’t be put off by the large readership mentioned here. (And most books don’t sell 20 books per day.)

How Blogs Build Platform

If you want to understand why blogs work so well for platform building, you have to understand a bit about search engine optimization (SEO). A blog turns a static website into a dynamic one that quickly increases your business’ discoverability in search engines.

As you offer new content, your site moves higher up in the search engine results pages because each post contains keywords and keyword phrases that search engines catalog. This makes your site more easily found when someone searches for those terms in, for example, Google’s search engine.

For example, when someone conducts a search for something relevant to your company, such as real estate agents in Los Angeles, CA, they will find your business listed in those coveted top 10 items on Google.

Why? Because you have produced blog posts that contain the words real estate, real estate agent, and Los Angeles, CA (which is where your business is located), as you blogged.

The more easily you and your business can be discovered, the more easily readers find your blog (and your business or ebook). More readers for your blog equates to a platform.

Blog Your Way to a eBook Manuscript and Readership

You can also use your blog to write the first draft of your ebook and build platform at the same time. You can blog your ebook. When you blog an ebook you write, publish and build platform for that book at the same time.

That means you pre-promote your digital book by publishing part of the first draft on your blog in post-sized bits. You then edit this draft into a final version that you publish. As you do so, you create a built-in readership, or buyers, for that ebook.

As you blog your ebook, the blog posts you publish are filled with the keywords and keyword phrases related to the subject of your book, which are related to your business. As you do so, your blog gets cataloged for all this new content and rises up in the search engine results pages.

This attracts readers interested in your ebook and your business. You, therefore, attract readers interested in the book and in your business—and in you as the expert who is writing the book.

Blogging Gives You Expert Status

As you blog, you give away free information—in this case your actual first draft of your book. This allows your readers (and potential ebook buyers and clients) to get to “know, like and trust” you. This is critical when it comes to them purchasing anything from you—a service or a product—and forms the crux of social media marketing.

Consider this: According to a survey conducted by Technorati.com in 2010, blogging gave bloggers expert status. It helped them become known, liked and trusted. (For more information on how blogging gives you expert status, read this post.)

Authors are perceived as experts as well. So, what do you think happens as you blog a book? The numbers offered by Technorati increase because not only are you offering your expertise via your blog posts, you are authoring a book on your blog.

Expert status constitutes another spoke in an author’s platform. Readers purchase books from authors they perceive as experts in their fields. Why? Because they trust experts.

If blogging helps a person—any person—build expert status, imagine what blogging a book can do for you? (For more information on how to blog your business-boosting ebook, read this post.)

Promotion Based on Platform

Once you have completed your blogged ebook, you can use the platform, exposure and expert status to help you promote your book.

Create a promotion plan filled with creative activities that draws on the fact that your fans know, like and trust you and may, indeed, run out and buy your digital book on a particular day if you ask them to do so.

For example, you can ask them to:
• provide reviews on Amazon or Goodreads
• retweet info about your book on Twitter as part of a book giveaway
• comment on a particular blog post that features your book
• get involved in a game or program of some sort that features a badge highlighting your book
• vote for your book or your blog in contests
• retweet your tweets in a Twitter tip campaign

And as you continue to blog about the topic of your book long after you’ve finished blogging your ebook, you will continue to generate book sales from new and old blog readers.

Your blog continues to function as your best and most reliable ebook promotion tool. Not only that, any time you want, you can blog another ebook, thus building more platform and more sales for the old ebook at the same time. That’s called “The Long-Tail Effect.” The more ebooks you write, the more ebooks you eventually will sell.

The post Blog an Ebook to Gain Exposure and Successfully Promote Your Book appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Sue Painter

Many people say they want to create an ebook, an information product, or a special report – some type of digital content.  It’s similar to saying that one wants to become a writer – lots of people think about it but very few ever do.

I often coach people through the process of creating digital content.  What I’ve realized is that if one has never actually created an ebook or some other type of content, one often really doesn’t know where to start or how to build one’s content.

All digital content has bones – and these bones need to work together to create content that serves its purpose, which is to work for the end user (the customer who buys the product).

Back in time I studied anatomy.  Maybe all that study made me realize that every little part is important if you want functionality in the end.  When I showed up for my final anatomy exam, I was led to a table piled high with bones and told to use wires to build a complete skeleton from the pile.

Obviously, if any bones were left on the table, the skeleton was not going to hang together right.  Creating digital content is like that – all the pieces have to be in sync with each other.

So what bones are on the table and create the anatomy of an ebook, information products, and special reports?  Here’s a list to get you going:

• Target market identified
• Key words researched and selected
• Content
• Live links back to your website
• Resources
• Glossary
• Bonuses
• Your bio
• Table of Contents
• Memorable title
• Strong cover design
• Marketing plan completed
• Product launch scheduled

Pre-planning (find a place to pile your bones)

I recommend setting up a specific place to gather all the bones for each piece of digital content you want to create.

I personally keep all my ideas, marketing notes, research, and raw content for a particular product in Evernote.  I like Evernote because I can add something to the file no matter where I am and it automatically syncs among all my devices.  A middle-of-the-night idea that I stick into my iPhone will be there in the morning when I sit down to write at my laptop, or open my tablet at a meeting.

If Evernote is not your thing, you can also use a file on your computer, or an actual paper file folder.  Whatever organizational method works for you, create a place to pile up the bones of this product and keep all of them in one place.

Collecting the pieces (gathering up your bones)

I often recommend that a digital content creator should keep a list with all her ideas and out beside each one identify who this particular content is for.  To be successful in creating and selling your content you need to know who might find it useful or interesting enough to purchase.  You might find that with a little bit of tweaking you can create multiple products for more than one target market.

Knowing your intended target market is the backbone of your digital content.  You can use a certain tone and assume a certain knowledge base with certain target markets, but not with others.  One of the biggest mistakes I see when I review digital content that has not sold successfully is that the creator has written it for no one in particular. Get your backbone set – know who you are writing for.

In similar vein, once you know who you are writing for you can find out what keywords that market uses to search for what you’ll be selling. If the target market is the backbone of your content, your keywords are the foot bones – they will help you seek out and find how they search for what you are offering.

Creating useful content

Sitting down to a blank computer screen to actually write content is where many wannabe digital publishers fail.  It can be overwhelming to get your ideas and expertise organized and captured, but it doesn’t have to be.

I recommend asking yourself “what 5 things do I want my end user to absolutely get out of my product?”  List these 5 broad topics in your “bone bin” and then create at least 3 subtopics under each one.

Start putting information under each of these subtopics.  Go back and create an introduction to the broad topic.  Create transitions among the subtopics.  Most information marketers have content hiding in previous publications, speeches, blog posts, and audio or video files so make sure you glean useful information that you’ve already created once and use it.

If you get stuck try reading a previous blog post I wrote here titled How To Actually Get Your E-book Done.

Give your product its leg and arm bones, allowing it to reach out to your buyers.  While you are creating your content, think about how you can lead your customer back to your website or to other, related products.

As one of my own mentors taught me, always be leading to what you next want a prospect or customer to do.  The neat thing about digital publishing is that as you create this, you can insert live links into your content, connecting to your website, social media, or other product.

Planning out what links to insert and making sure that you have those in order is another bone to pick at, making sure your links are useful and operational before your launch.

Supporting Structures

While your “five broad topics” is the meat of your product’s content, supporting structures are a critical part of your product, too.  These include additional resources for your customer, a glossary of terms, bonuses, your bio, and a Table of Contents.

Your resource page can include any related product or service.  Make sure to include your own affiliate links to resources you are promoting.  List the resource, give a sentence or two about what it is and why you recommend it, and a live link.

If your content is lengthy or technical enough to support it, customers love having a glossary of terms at the back.  I often review content that is technical (let’s say it’s about how to do video) and find that the author has used acronyms and terms that are not explained.

Don’t assume that everyone can speak the language you do – spell it out at least once before using an acronym.  And give simple explanations in your glossary.  You can also provide links to lengthier information about any term if you feel that would be helpful.

Many digital products offer bonus materials, which are offered as a part of the launch.  Pulling together two or three bonuses can boost your sales – but make sure they are related.  Additionally, use one or more of them to lead your buyer to your next thing.  Offer a higher-end product, a strategy session, or something else that increases your know, like, and trust factor.

Be sure to include a bio in your product.  Let people know about you – your credentials, your expertise, other work you’ve done, where to find you. Offer your social media connections and ask people to link with you. Include a small headshot, too.

Now that all these bones are pulled together, step back and create a Table of Contents for your product. Customers appreciate being able to scan this before purchase, and can use the help to quickly find what is most valuable to them.  If you plan to publish your content on an e-book platform such as Kindle, a Table of Contents is very useful and provides live links to specific places.

Finishing touches

Put a lot of thought into the title of your product, and make sure it is memorable.  Also make sure it contains or is very closely related to your keywords for this product.  While you can start out with a working title, it almost is never right by the time you’ve completed the product.  You might get flashes of brilliance about the title as you create, so make sure you capture these in your “bone bin.”

When the entire product is completed, go back and evaluate your working title. See if you can come up with a title that is even more memorable and keyword searchable.

Here’s a tip:  Ask your target market for help in creating a title – give them 3 choices and an option to write their suggestions in and publicize it widely.  You’ll get great feedback and probably a few killer titles to select from.

Another critical “bone” is the cover design.  Other The Future of Ink bloggers have written about this (see Kristen Eckstein’s The Five Secrets to a Killer E-book Cover for some good tips).  Strong visuals along with a killer title gives you much more chance of sales and buzz.

Putting Muscle on Your Bones

Even if you’ve done a great job of compiling and linking together the bones of your content, it won’t work for you unless you’ve got a well thought out marketing plan and a launch schedule.  These two things move your product into successful sales – it’s like giving muscles to a skeleton – the skeleton can’t move without muscles attached to it.

Fleshing out a complete marketing plan and launch schedule is beyond the scope and length of this post.  Here are a few other posts I’ve written previously for The Future of Ink that will help you:

For ways to create buzz about your finished product, read 5 Fun Ways To Get People Talking About Your Digital Content

For help with marketing through affiliates, 5 Ways To Set Up Successful Affiliate Sales For Your Digital Content.

And for sales tips, go to Make Marketing Easy – 3 Tips To Help Sell Your Digital Content

There you have it – the anatomy of an e-product.  Just remember that your skeleton won’t hang together without all its bones, and it won’t move without its marketing muscles!

The post Anatomy of an Ebook – The Bones That Hold Your Digital Content Together appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Kathleen Gage
Using social media to market your digital products is a must do. This goes without saying for most people, but the difficult part for many people is knowing which social media to focus on and how to optimize what they are doing.

We’ve all heard that for a good majority of people the standard fair works:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube
• Google+

One that’s been under the radar is SlideShare. SlideShare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations. With 60 million monthly visitors and 130 million pageviews, it is among the most visited 200 websites in the world. Besides presentations, SlideShare also supports documents, PDFs, videos and webinars.

lmagine getting just a tiny slice of the SlideShare pie.

Until about a month ago I had no idea how valuable SlideShare could be for positioning my message and reaching my market. Now it is a regular part of my overall marketing strategy.

Here are a few tips to get the most out of SlideShare.

• Give your presentation a name with keywords your market uses in their searches.
• The content on your slides is automatically transcribed, which will boost your SEO. As with the title, use keywords throughout your presentation.
• Use images in your presentation especially on the title slide. This is more engaging to your viewers.
• Add a slide or two with a URL directing viewers to an opt in page. If your presentation is outstanding viewers will definitely want more of you.
• Put a promotion strategy in place before publishing your presentation.
• Promote your presentation once it’s uploaded on SlideShare. This will increase views which increases position.

The video below explains more about using SlideShare.

As you can see, SlideShare is gaining in popularity and usefulness. For anything you want to promote SlideShare is a must do.

The post SlideShare: The Over Achiever is Under Utilized [tutorial] appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed.

I’d like to thank Denise and Ellen for graciously hosting me, as a guest blogger, in celebration of the launch of my newest book, 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour.

In answer to the question posted in the title of this article; “Are there different types of virtual book tours?” my response is, “indeed there are!” While there are popular virtual book tour formats that can be easily replicated, in truth, the format for a virtual book tour is only limited by your imagination! In this article I’d like to share with you three popular virtual book tour models. You can decide which format you’d like to base your first, or next, virtual book tour on.

The first virtual book tour format I’d like to share with you is called the “one-hour teleseminar.”

This is where you get the word out to your colleagues, friends, and community to let them know that you are going to be speaking, via a conference call, about your book or that you will be interviewed by an industry expert. The goal is for you and your contacts to promote this event as a big, gala celebration, and get a large audience of people to listen in. Because the teleseminar can be recorded, you’ll also benefit by being able to provide people with ongoing access to the recording.

By speaking about your book, listeners will have the opportunity to hear your voice and your message, and connect with you. By being interviewed by a leader in your field, you will be seen as an expert by association and this will increase your credibility. Either format can be a lot of fun and a great way to get your message out across the airwaves.

The next virtual book tour format is called the “one-day blog blitz.”

This is a very exciting and concentrated way to conduct your virtual tour however; it takes a tremendous amount of energy and a great deal of organization. With this format, you line up multiple blog owners who agree to have you as a guest blogger (guest author) on their blog. You let them know the date of your blog blitz and ask them to confirm that they have it written down in their calendar.

This format is very powerful, especially when done in conjunction with a book launch or re-launch. By promoting your book to multiple, new audiences on the same day, you’ll generate lots of sales for your book and this can have a very positive impact on your ranking on Amazon.

I’ve conducted several virtual book tours for my books, but this is the first time I’m conducting a one-day blog blitz, virtual book tour. I’ve arranged with my tour hosts to publish the blog post I’ve provided them with, on a specific date and time. I will then spend the day travelling from blog to blog, interacting with the blog visitors and responding to questions and comments to my posts.

Each of my hosts will receive a different article to post to their blog. My plan is to weave a story, throughout the many blogs, by providing content that builds on content shared on the previous blog. This will provide great value to those travelling with us on the virtual book tour, and will demonstrate my level of expertise.

These strategies can be easily replicated and the format used as a template for conducting your own virtual book tour. Once the official date of your virtual book tour has passed, you’ll still benefit into the future, as your content will continue to be available to readers. Be sure to circle back to the blogs you’ve toured to, so that you can respond to new questions and comments.

To gain a birds-eye view of what I’m talking about, check out the various articles, and tour stops, on this very virtual book tour. You can access all of the tour stops at: http://virtualbooktour21ways.com/virtual-book-tour-schedule

Prepare your content ahead of time!

The focus of a virtual book tour is to extend your reach and provide you with opportunities to build relationships with new readers. You can provide your tour hosts with the written, audio, or video content for your blog posts ahead of time and have them schedule your posts to appear on a specific date and time. This will free you up to be able to interact with their blog visitors on the official date of your virtual book tour.

As you can see, this is a very intense format for a virtual book tour and a great activity to do in conjunction with a book launch. This will create a lot of attention on your book, on the day it launches, and increase the likelihood of your book reaching bestseller status.

The third virtual book tour format is called the “multi-day, multi-blog, virtual book tour!”

With the multi-day, multi-blog, virtual book tour, you decide how many sites you will travel to over what course of time. For example, you may decide to conduct a 12 stop virtual book tour, over the course of three weeks. This means that you could travel to a new site, each Monday through Thursday, for three weeks.

With this virtual book tour format, you’ll still want to provide your hosts with your post content ahead of time. This will free you up to focus on interacting with readers and responding to questions and comments, during your virtual tour. You may also want to write a brief blog post on your blog, each day of the tour, letting people know where you will be that day. You can then share a link to your daily announcement posts, on the social networks. This will generate interest in your virtual book tour.

When is the best time to conduct a virtual book tour for your book?

This is a question I often hear. Some authors feel that they cannot begin planning a virtual book tour until their book is published, while other authors, who published their book years ago, feel that they have missed the opportunity to conduct a virtual book tour.

Whether your book is just a twinkle in your eye, about to be published in the near or distant future, or was published months or years ago, as long as the content is relevant, you can take your book on a virtual tour.

Take your book on a more than one virtual book tour

Here’s another eye opening fact; you are not limited to conducting only one virtual book tour for your book. In fact, you can take your book on tour regularly! As an example, you could take your book on a virtual book tour annually on the anniversary of your book’s publication date, or on a date significant to the content of your book. This will provide you with the opportunity to share your knowledge, and your book, with more people. As long as your content is current and relevant, there are people who are going to want to know about your book, regardless of when it was published.

Which virtual book tour format interests you the most? Please scroll down to share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.

This post is being written in honor of a virtual book tour celebrating the publication of my third print book. You can enjoy the festivities by joining us on the tour to 21 blogs, in honor of 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. Scroll down to access the virtual book tour schedule as well as a link to the book on Amazon. Thank you and enjoy!

D’vorah Lansky, M.Ed., is the author of 21 Ways to Launch a Successful Virtual Book Tour. Visit her book blog and check out the full schedule for the virtual book tour, celebrating the launch of this exciting new book: www.VirtualBookTour21Ways.com

The post Are There Different Types of Virtual Book Tours? appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Kristen Eckstein

One of the biggest complaints I hear from self-published authors who found The Ultimate Book Coach after they published their books is, “My book isn’t selling. Can you help me?”

And 99.9% of the time when I look at their book on Amazon or their website, I can name several reasons why they’re having problems selling their books.

Here are 10 reasons why their self-published books don’t sell, and what you can do to make sure yours does.

1. Obscure subject—Books that do well are those in a popular niche. If you do an Amazon search and find hundreds of books in your niche, that’s a good sign. It doesn’t mean that niche is over-populated, it means that niche is hopping. Think of the diet and food industry. More diet books are being published every day, and they still continue to sell.

If you want to tell your personal story, ensure its success by tying your story into how-to steps your reader can take to change his or her life.For example, if you’re writing your story about surviving cancer, focus on a specific type of cancer (narrow your niche) and specifically tell readers how they can get the same results you did and how you got through it.

2. Poorly edited—Sure your close friends and family will buy your book to support you, but all it takes is one nasty Amazon review from a reader outside your circle to dampen your overall sales. If you have a list of devout followers who hang on your every word, you can get them to give your book five stars on Amazon. However, be careful as too many five-star reviews paired with a lot of bad one- and two-star reviews will tell the truth that your book is poorly edited.

Ensure your book’s content is clean and professionally edited by a book industry expert, and you’ll go a long way toward satisfying your readers and getting complete strangers to sell your book for you by recommending it to their friends.

3. Poorly written—Let’s face it, some books are badly written to begin with. Hiring a professional editor can help, but I’ve read some books that are nothing short of one sales letter after another trying to get me to purchase the author’s or the authors’ friends’ stuff. Affiliate links and recommending programs is fine in a book, it’s even a good tactic for increasing residual income.

But you can really tick off your readers if your advertising copy outweighs your knowledgeable step-by-steps. Ticked off readers leave nasty reviews. Do yourself a favor, and make your book more saleable by delivering solid benefits to the reader, not just trying to sell them more crap. Think of your recommendations for products and services as the icing on your content’s cake.

4. Unprofessional cover design—It’s been proven that a clean, professional, easy-to-read cover sells more books. Initially when self-publishing through vanity publishers started becoming popular in the early 2000s, these books had a bad reputation due to the other reasons in this article, but primarily due to poor cover design. Having studied cover design for over 10 years, I can spot a horrible template cover vs. one done by a graphic designer vs. a professionally designed cover by someone who specializes in book cover design.

And believe me when I tell you, your readers will know the difference as well. A good cover has a lot of elements that draw the reader in to click, learn more about your book and buy it. If you can only outsource one step of your book’s production, hire a professional book cover designer. You won’t regret it!

5. Bad interior design—Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign? There’s a reason book layout software exists. And there’s a big reason why traditional publishers use this software. MS Word is not a page layout program. This is one of the primary reasons self-published books get poor reviews or fail to sell, because books formatted in MS Word scream, “Look at me! I’m self-published!”

A professional book layout designer understands the need for different spacing in the margins, paragraph styles, bulleted lists and the importance of other styles staying consistent.

A huge indication a book is self-published using MS Word is if blank pages still have the header and footer printed on them. Especially if you want your book to bring you new clients, this screams, “I did this cheap to save money.” And your client will read, “I cut corners when I coach you or work on your projects.” With money harder to come by, people are more willing to pay more for a higher quality than waste money cutting corners that should never be cut.

6. Yucky formatting—In the world of eBooks, formatting is key. Bad spacing, words appearing at random, graphics overlaying text, whole chapters bolded and italicized… You name it, it could go wrong in eBook formatting.

The more complex your layout is, especially if you created a pretty print book with a professional designer first, the more you should invest in a good eBook programmer. These programmers specialize in eBook XHTML language (which can be different than your standard website code) and know what it takes to avoid most of these issues.

7. Rush the process—Producing a high quality book that sells takes time. The more corners you cut and the more you rush the process, the more it will show in your finished product.

There’s a reason traditional book publishers take an average of two to three years to take a book from rough manuscript to hard copy. They take the time to do it right. If you want to compete in the market, take time to create a high quality work, both in polishing your writing and producing your final book.

8. Bookstore Requirements—Having a book signing at a brick-and-mortar store can be a huge deal for an author. Not only does it feel great, but many Barnes and Noble stores get their guest authors to appear on local news stations and listed in newspapers.

This is free publicity! By meeting these rigid requirements, other marketing doors will open for your book. If your book doesn’t meet their requirements, you must focus on online sales and any you can sell out of the trunk of your car.

9. Expectations—Many authors set their expectations so high they’re sorely disappointed. You may sell one book or thousands, and what you need to ask yourself is, “If my message changes just one life, is it worth it?” If the answer is, “Yes,” you’ll be surprised once you touch that one life and sales begin to flow. If you expect everyone to come knocking down your door because you just hit the “publish” button on your book, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

If you’re not careful, this disappointment can quickly lead to depression and a sense of failure, and those are emotions hard to keep to yourself. Spread those feelings and no one will want to buy your book, no matter how good it is. Be realistic in your expectations, and surprised and excited at your success!

10. Marketing—If your book meets everything in the list above, it still won’t sell if you don’t market it. Even traditional publishers are reneging on their contractual obligations to market well-established authors’ books. It doesn’t matter how your book gets published, you must market it. You can do everything right, but if you don’t tell people about your book, they won’t buy it.

If you’re afraid of the big, bad “M” word, invest in some book marketing courses and teach yourself out of your fear. It’s the only way you’ll succeed as a self-published author.

Do these simple 10 things and watch your book sales soar! Do you have another tip? Share it in the comments below!

The post 10 Reasons Why Self-Published Books Don’t Sell – and What You Can Do to Ensure Yours DOES appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Lou Bortone

Lou (3rd right) and the band back in the day!

“Music biz? I thought you were a video marketing guy,” you may be asking… Yes, I spent over 2 decades in the television industry, but I bet you didn’t know that I was in a local rock band in and after college!

First, I was in a cover band called “Parallax,” and later, I was a drummer in a Boston pop group called Tour de Force. We achieved a bit of notoriety (and lots of radio airplay) on the local scene in the mid eighties.

We played shows all over New England, including a show at Boston’s prestigious Berklee Performance Center. Along the way we recorded a few records. (And, yes, they were still on vinyl back in the day!)

Our band took the recording process very seriously, whether we were recording in our home studio or renting a professional facility for a pretty penny. (This was back in the analog days, long before you could produce an entire album on your Mac!)

Learning about the meticulous, 24-track recording process was where I first experienced the delicate balance between completion and perfection. And while “done is better than perfect” was always one of my mottos, it was (and still is) very hard to let go of perfectionism.

When you’re recording a song, naturally you want it to be perfect. After all, once it’s done and “on the record,” you have to live with it. I recently unearthed some songs we recorded from that era, and I can still pick out the little tiny glitches or mistakes that haunt me to this very day!

That’s why we’d spend hours in the recording studio doing take after take, trying to get the vocals or the drum track just right. You couldn’t hide behind computers and software back then, so if you sucked, you sucked out loud!

Time is Money

Of course, we took great pride in our music and we really wanted to nail the song before we released it. However, at some point, we knew we had to call it “done.” Otherwise, we would have adjusted and produced and edited the song forever. This was especially true when we were paying big bucks to rent a recording studio – and studio time was expensive for a struggling local band.

That’s when I learned that completion is often better (and more pragmatic) than perfection. When the meter is running and the studio time is adding up, you’ve got to know when to say “that’s a take!” I’ve carried that lesson with me for 25 years…

Obviously, the same is true today for video production. You may not be renting a production studio, but you’ve still got to remember that time is money, and done is still better than perfect.

Better to have your video out there promoting you – even if it’s a bit rough around the edges – than to have a half- finished video project that never leaves your hard drive.Too many of us insist upon perfection at the expense of completing the damn project!

The truth is that no one really cares if your lighting is off or your hair isn’t perfect. People are watching your video to get answers to their questions, or to be entertained or informed by your content.

It’s the message they’re after, not your high-end production values.

Of course you should do the best you can and produce the best video possible. But don’t let that desire for perfection torpedo your project. Get it done and get it out there!

No one cares “who you’re wearing” as long as your message is relevant and you help the viewer solve a problem. You’re not going to the Oscars, you’re just delivering a marketing message or getting your content out there.

So focus on the message and leave the red carpet to Brad and Angelina.In the world of online video, done is still better than perfect!

What’s your take on perfectionism? How do you strike a balance between perfection and completion? I’d love your thoughts on this in the comments below…

The post What the Music Biz Taught me About Perfection appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Marnie Pehrson

When you’re naming a product or describing what you do, the terms you use are important. Each industry, hobby or interest tends to have its own terminology. Words that mean one thing to you could mean something entirely different to your potential consumer.

In your marketing materials, you’ll want to use terms that are familiar to your audience and that resonate with them. How can you tell what terms mean to other people? Do you need to be a mind reader? Not really. A little market research goes a long way.

Here’s an example. I was working with a Christian business coach who offered “prophetic insight sessions.” She felt this was the best term for what she does. The word prophetic meant something very specific to her based on her religious experience, and she felt married to the term.

Coming from a different Christian background, the term “prophetic” meant something different to me than it did to her. Also, since I’ve operated a cross-denominational site for over a decade, I knew that there are other Christian faiths that might have a problem with her use of this term.

As I said, my client was incredibly attached to the word. She did not want to give it up, no matter how I tried to explain that it could be problematic for her if she intended to market to Christians of various faiths and backgrounds (which she did).

So I suggested we try a little experiment. I posted a question on Facebook and got a discussion going about the word. In the video below, you’ll see the results.

As you can see Facebook is a powerful research tool. Using it, you can climb into the minds of your ideal audience and test titles, words, terminology and much more.

What are some terms that are familiar to you that might not be familiar to others? Are you using them in your marketing materials? It might be worth doing a little research to discover if those terms are resonating with your audience

The post How to Use Facebook to Do Market Research for Your Digital Products [Video] appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Lynne Klippel

Whether you are publishing an eBook or a print book, you are probably wondering about copyrights.  Authors are rightly concerned that their works are protected and want to make sure they are not infringing on the rights of other authors.

Copyright information is governed by each nation.  In the United States, the primary copyright law is the US Copyright Law of 1976.  If you are interested in reading the law in its original form, as well as accessing other useful information, go to www.copyright.gov

When I worked as a research librarian, I was surprised at how many copyright questions I was asked.  Little did I know how useful that would be for me when I became a publisher and an author.

Copyright can be very confusing.  Let me provide a general overview of the important principles of copyright law which will serve you well as you write digital or print books.  As with all things legal, be sure to consult an attorney for your specific questions.

Protecting Your Work

In the United States, original works are protected by copyright law as soon as they are created in a “fixed, tangible expression”, which means as soon as you complete it.  This clause includes works of fiction and non-fiction, literary works such as plays and poetry, graphics, and music, whether they are published or non- published.

You don’t have to send a copy to the US Copyright office or do anything else to establish copyright.  However, if you publish a print book, you or your publisher will want to register that book with the Copyright Office as well as with the Library of Congress.

While it is not required by law, it’s a smart idea to place a copyright notice in your document, just to remind readers that the material is protected.  For eBooks, you can place this notice at the bottom of each page.  In print books, this notice is place on the legal page, directly behind the title page of your work.

The copyright notice is listed like this:

1. The symbol © (the letter C in a circle), or the word “Copyright,” or the abbreviation “Copr.”
2. The year of first publication of the work.
3. The name of the owner of copyright in the work.

Example: © 2013 Jo Author

Your copyright will last for your lifetime plus the next 70 years.

Exceptions to Copyright Law

There are some works considered a part of the public domain, which means you can use them freely without copyright permission.  Public domains materials include:

1. Works created by the U.S. federal government.
2. Generic information, such as facts, numbers and ideas.
3. Works with expired copyrights- this includes older works from authors who have been dead for a long time- at least 70 years, if their heirs have not renewed the copyright.

There are several websites which list books in the public domain.  For a good list of public domain sites see Public Domain Sherpa.

For example, books by Jane Austen are now in the public domain. If I wanted to publish the Love Your Life Publishing version of Pride and Prejudice, that would be allowable under the public domain clause.

Honoring the Work of Others

The US Copyright law has a clause called the “Fair Use” clause.  This clause allows for the use of minimal portions of other’s copyrighted material without written permission.  This clause is very vague and can be quite confusing.  Fair use is intended to allow the quoting of material for parody, commentary, news reporting, and education.

General rules of thumb are that it is perfectly acceptable to include brief quotations from others in your book as long as you give credit to that author.  For example, if I was writing an article or chapter about myths, I may want to include this quote:

“Myths which are believed in tend to become true.”  George Orwell

You should enclose the quotation in quotation marks and include the author’s name.  It is not necessary to list the title of the work where the quotation was first published.

Notice that fair use allows for brief quotations.  A good way to ensure that you are not overstepping your boundaries, is to limit quotations to a sentence or two.  If you want to quote an entire poem, song lyrics, or paragraph, you’ll need to get written permission from the publisher or copyright owner.  To be honest, this is time consuming and can be a big hassle, so I suggest that you just don’t use large quotations.

If you really need to include a larger piece of information from another work, you can paraphrase it and put the information in your own words, crediting the original author.  Ideas cannot be copyrighted.  Copyright law covers the expression of those ideas only.

Here’s an example of a way to paraphrase an idea and properly credit the original author:

Author Andrea J. Lee, in her ground-breaking work, Multiple Streams of Coaching Income, introduced the concept of creating information products to the coaching industry. Her premise was that the one-to-one coaching model limited the amount of income most coaches could earn unless they expanded their offerings into products or group offerings.

One very important issue to be aware of:  graphics such as charts, photos, diagrams, and the like are protected under copyright law.  There really is not any way to use a brief portion of a diagram.  If you cut and paste a graphic from someone else’s book, website, or other written material, you are outside the bounds of copyright law.

To Sum It Up

Now that you’ve read this summary of copyright law, use these general guidelines to make sure you are protecting your material, and more importantly, respect the copyright of other authors.

When you do, you are demonstrating your professionalism and writing with the highest levels of integrity, within the bounds of the law.

It always feels great to do the right thing!

The post Easy Ways to End Copyright Confusion appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Laura West

Creativity is the lifeblood of entrepreneurial success. One of your main goals in creating content is to keep feeding those creative ideas, unique thoughts and perspectives and the Flowmentum ™ going for projects in action.

Every day you are coming up with ideas for articles, blog posts, information products, sales pages and new programs.  Your creativity is constantly being called on for a fresh thoughtful perspective.

But sometimes it doesn’t flow.

The ideas don’t come. The new perspective feels dull and reworked. What’s happening?

It’s the dreaded Creativity Killers.

They are sneaky and you may not realize it’s happening to you!

To help you out, I’ve created this special video of the top 6 Creativity Killers!  Now you can be aware and make the changes to open up your creative flow again.

I’d love to hear from you which Creativity Killers snag you?  Please post your comments below.  And…watch out for Part 2 where I talk about how to get your creative mojo flowing!

The post Top Creativity Killers for Your Projects [Video] appeared first on The Future of Ink.

by Nina Amir

Many writers and entrepreneurs wonder why they should blog an ebook rather than write it the “old-fashioned way.” I can think of many reasons, the first of which is that you can publish as you write.

That means you become an author and a publisher the instant you hit the “publish” button on your blog software.

Not only that, your writing gets read, which really represents the most important aspect of writing a book.

While at Blog World Expo (now called New Media Expo), I listened to a speaker ask a room full of bloggers how many were published authors. A small number of hands went up. The man on the stage said, “Each one of you should have raised your hand. Every blogger is a published author and a publisher.”

The Benefits of Publishing as You Write

Indeed, each time you write a blog post and hit the “publish” button, you publish your work, and that makes you an author and a publisher. If you choose to blog an ebook, before you upload a manuscript to Amazon’s Kindle, Barnes & Noble’s Nook or even Apple’s iBook, you become an author and publisher of an ebook in the process of writing and publishing it. And people start reading that book…before you even finish. No waiting.

If that’s not a good enough reason to publish as you write, let me offer a few more:

1. As you blog your ebook you improve your chances that more potential customers and clients will read what you write. When you blog a book you will notice your blog traffic increasing. The high-quality content focused on one topic is keyword and keyword-phrase rich. This makes it more-easily found by people searching for your topic on the internet.

Also, when you blog a book your blog page views will go up but your bounce rate will go down. That means more people find your blog, and once on the website they read more posts. That provides you with more opportunities to tell these potential clients and customers about your products and services.

2. You can build your expert status faster if people read your blog or ebook now—not later. A blog provides a great way to build expert status and credibility. However, a book takes your clout to a new level. Authors are always seen as authorities in their field, and if your readers know you are blogging an ebook your status will begin to rise in their eyes immediately.

If it’s taking you a long time to get that book written, or you simply aren’t finding time because you’re blogging and handling business as well, combine your blogging and writing activities so you can both blog and write your ebook—and build expert status now as you allow your ebook to get read (as you write it)!

3. Your blogged ebook may have more readers than the completed ebook. Today the average printed book only sells 250 copies per year. The average ebook on Amazon only sells about 150 copies per year.

A blog might receive 250 readers a day, 1,000 per week or 10,000 per month—or more. That means your blogged ebook potentially could garner you more readers than the finished ebook.

Create a Series of Blog Posts that Become an Ebook

That’s why you don’t just want to write any old blog posts. You want to write a series of blog posts that become part of your ebook. Plan out the content for a whole book, and actually blog the majority of an ebook manuscript—or two or three.

And let your blog readers know you are blogging a book. Provide an “about this ebook page” or some other “about page” with a table of contents so they can follow the posts.

Reap the Benefits of Your Ebook Before You Complete It

Most authors must wait to finish an ebook before it gets read and they reap the benefits of becoming an author. Don’t wait. Reap the benefits now…as you write and publish.

You’ll find blogging a book a thrilling publishing experience—one where the entire cyber world becomes your possible audience. You get to be in control of what you publish, where you publish it and when you publish it, which means when people read it. As a savvy entrepreneur, you will work smarter and start achieving the results you desire with your ebook (and blog) immediately.

And if you are more than just an entrepreneur—if you are writer—blogging your ebook will allow you to have what a writer really wants anyway: readers for your writing.

As a businessperson, that’s the point, too, isn’t it? You want your ebook content read so it leads potential clients and customers to your website and to you. A blogged ebook ensures that happens—now rather than later.

The post Blog an eBook So You Get Read As You Write appeared first on The Future of Ink.