What Can We Learn About Success From Published Writers? By Danielle Hollister
Writers write? Right? Whether we're amateurs or professionals, we all share one common daily activity - writing.
So it makes sense that those successful writers would enjoy writing about their personal experiences in the publishing industry as much as they enjoy writing articles, reports, or books for profit.
Thankfully many best-selling authors and established experts in our industry willingly share their advice and suggestions for those beginners seeking to develop a profitable, fulfilling career as a writer.
I have read a lot of free reports, downloaded dozens of free tips and guides offered by online authors, published professionals and Internet marketing gurus. I have also purchased guides to writing for a living, books about how to become a successful writer, and e-books written by online experts.
I cannot tell you how to become a successful writer or whose book you should buy to learn guaranteed secrets to getting published. I can tell you my personal opinion and beliefs about what advice has proven to be valuable and what suggestions failed to provide me with any assistance!
First of all, regardless of whether I read a free resource or paid for a book of ideas about writing, a few frequent recommendations were offered by most successful writers.
1 - Write what you know about. Use your own life-experiences, passions, and interests to inspire ideas for articles.
2 - Create a how-to report about something in demand by the masses. Information sells, they say. Most commonly suggested topics include:
How to make money
How to save money
How to become a better... (parent, spouse, business person etc.)
How to succeed in... (life, business, personal relationships etc.)
How to get free stuff... (publicity, money, products, publications etc.)
How to reach your dreams
How to become more... (self-confident, financially secure, better-looking, slimmer etc.)
- and other topics that give people good ideas, viable resources, and unique opportunities.
3 - Establish your own personal website. Give your "how-to" report away for free. By doing these two things, they say you will be able to promote yourself without spending a lot of money and you will attract people to your website to get your free report, which will give you the opportunity to sell them your other services.
4- Produce an e-zine. By offering to deliver a "free" newsletter to someone's email box, you should be able to establish a list of readers. If your e-zine provides something valuable to your subscribers, you will continue to build a constant audience that you can promote yourself to every day, every week or every month (depending on the frequency of your publication.)
5- Write an e-book. Again your topic should be something you know about, some valuable tips you've acquired through your own life experiences or by extensive, documented research, or some unique, original ideas you can share with others to make their life better. Give your e-book away for free. (See #3 for the reasons why you should offer it free)
Maybe these ideas will work for you. Maybe they won't. Maybe they're becoming overused or over-publicized, thus decreasing their value, successful results and potential profitability.
Best of Luck to You! If becoming a self-published writer, creating an e-book or ezine, and/or getting published on the Internet are ideas that intrigue you, please be sure to come back to this site in the next few weeks. I plan to continue my coverage of these topics in more depth, featuring additional, related resources for you to investigate on the web.
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Ebook Publishing - It's Easy To Become a Published Writer By Robin Henry
Introduction - Ebook Publishing
There has never been a better time to earn money as an ebook publisher publishing online, despite the growing number of people entering the field. There are millions of people coming online every year and an almost insatiable demand for information about everything from acne to zulus.
If you are interested in joining the ranks of those of us who sell "information", it's fairly inexpensive to get started and can be very rewarding. There is a rich harvest of information on the Internet about how to research, write and publish ebooks for profit. This short article attempts to summarise the process and show you where you can find useful resources to help you on your way.
My Experience
I began publishing ebooks in 1998. I had always been interested in writing and while surfing the Internet found Ken Silver's excellent ebook, "How to Make $100,000 A Year In Your Spare Time Creating Profitable How-To Manuals" which got me started. I figured that if Ken (and others, some of whom probably had less ability than me) could make money selling ebooks, so could I.
Today my original title, How To Write Winning Training Proposals still sells weekly and I'm making strong returns on my packaged titles, Winning That Government Job and Writing Responses to Selection Criteria. My most recent title, Guide to Letter Formatting and Writing is making me a small, but increasing amount of income each month as I fine tune the advertising campaign and it becomes more visible to buyers.
My ebook income arrives 24 hours per day, seven days per week and costs very little to generate. When I get up in the morning I check my email and there are usually several emails from my credit card transactions provider indicating sales. Even after all these years, it still gives me a buzz to see them.
What You Need to Be an Ebook Publisher
What you need are:
a topic that is of interest to readers, usually something that solves a problem a word processor or some other text editing software to create the document a text to PDF file converter or an HTML compiler program to prepare your product for delivery an Internet presence ... even a one page sales page will do with your own domain name an e-commerce provider who will process your transactions and send you a monthly cheque a method of advertising on and off line
It's really very straightforward. You don't need to be a techno-whizz kid to do it.
Finding a Suitable Topic
There are numerous ways to identify suitable topics. These include identifying search terms that are commonly searched and comparing the number of searches with the supply volume. Other sources of useful information are such places as Ebay where you can research popularly purchased products or services.
Word Processing Software
Almost everyone with a computer has a capacity to create text files. Programs such as Notebook that comes with Microsoft Windows etc will do the job nicely.
There are also numerous shareware programs available for text editing.
Text to PDF File Converters
Some PDF creation programs are free and several are available on payment, including Adobe's own program, Adobe Professional. Any of these can be downloaded online which means you can get them working within 15 minutes or so. HTML compilers are popular among some quarters, but are more problematical than PDF, so I don't recommend them.
An Internet Presence
It's getting cheaper to get a domain name that is perhaps, also your site's keyword eg, www.computer-spares.com. And hosting for Internet sites is also very cheap. You get yourself a domain name and then a site host and, with the assistance of one of the free HTML software programs, you can create your sales site literally within hours.
An E-commerce Provider
Sign up with an e-commerce provider that allows you to sell information products and receive cheques or credit cards and you are in business. This also is relatively inexpensive with a once only setup cost and continuing costs directly related to sales. Some of these are far better options than local banks and financial providers who charge monthly fees for merchant accounts, especially when you are starting out and don't have a lot of monthly sales.
Summary
While it takes some time to write an ebook, when you have one, you can get it online and ready to sell within three or four hours. Once on line you can then focus on the separate topic of attracting traffic to your site and making your book visible to those who will buy it.
So, what are you waiting for? More information? My "So You Want to Be an Ebook Publisher" has more info here.
Copyright 2006 Robin Henry | First published May, 2006
Robin Henry is an educator, human resources specialist and Internet entrepreneur. He helps home-based businesses and individuals improve performance by applying smart technology and processes and developing personally. He runs his business Desert Wave Enterprises from his home base at Alice Springs in Central Australia, although at present he is on temporary assignment in the United Arab Emirates.
