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The End: This Blogged Book Manuscript is Finished…or Not

June 25, 2010 By 1 Comment

This actually brings us to the end of this blogged book. Amazingly, I began blogging in February and I have completed the whole book before the end of June—just five months later. I do have some additional material I plan to add to the physical printed book, but I do not intend to ever place that in the blogged version.

So, what happens to this blogged book now? You will find occasional posts here about blogs that have become books. You will find information pertinent to books being blogged or how to blog books that I come across and feel I want to share with my readers. This information may also get incorporated into the physical book.

You may also find me creating information products into the mix, if I have the time or energy to do so. I’m a firm believer in creating a business around a book.

This blog will, indeed, also become a physical book. My agent likely will peddle it after she finishes trying to sell my current book. If nothing happens with it, I will produce it as an e-book.

So, keep watching the blog for additional posts, which will be fewer and farther between, and for notices of new products and services.

Until then, I’m patting myself on the back for finishing a book—23,076 words—in five months. As I said at the beginning of this blogged book, that’s a good enough reason in and of itself to blog a book—you get your book written.

With that in mind, I hope you will sit down and start blogging your book. Let me know when you’ve finished yours. I’ll create a resource page of people who have followed the advice in these blogged pages and finished a blogged book.

Good luck and happy blogged book writing!

Filed Under: What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: , , ,

Create Related Information Products for Multiple Streams of Income

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

When you finish blogging your book, consider writing short posts to promote new information products you create related to your book. Information products, such as special reports, videos, recordings (mp3s, CDs or DVDs), e-books, workbooks, teleseminars, webinars, home study courses, or on-line courses can provide great income sources.

Your book shouldn’t be your only source of income; if it is, you might fin find yourself in the poorhouse. Therefore, use your blogged book to create multiple streams of income.

Look at your manuscript and see what parts of it could be expanded into information products you could sell. You can create a page on your blog site or on your website with a shopping cart so readers or visitors can purchase these items at any time and download them. You may need to sign up for a service like www.aweber.com. This allows an auto-responder to send the purchased items immediately.

You might also provide these free as a way to entice people to sign up for your mailing list. For example, you can offer a free e-book or special report if they agree to be on your mailing list.

In either case, don’t consider your blogged book as your only or last bit of written copy. See it as your first and as a constant source of continuing information and income. Consider it the kernel of a total business.

Filed Under: Create Information Products Tagged With: , , , ,

Market Your Blogged Book to an Agent or Publisher

June 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Okay, so you’re a traditional publishing holdout, and this blogged book exercise managed to get you to write your whole manuscript but didn’t get you discovered. Now it’s time to get that proposal written and approach an agent or a small to mid-sized publisher.

In this case, you must do two things: write a fabulous query and write a phenomenal proposal. A query letter contains three things: a lead paragraph that entices an agent or publisher to want to read your manuscript, your pitch plus information about the length of your book and any special features, and why you are the perfect person to write the book.  The proposal contains the nine essential elements a publisher will use to determine if your book fits their list, if they feel a market exists for the book and if they feel you are both the right person to write the book and the best person to become their business partner. To learn about these elements, go back and read the earlier posts about the sections of a nonfiction book proposal. You can find the first one here; subsequent ones follow.

Put your book proposal together and have it professionally edited. The nonfiction book proposal represents the most important selling document you will ever create. They say you only have one chance to make a first impressions; that holds true when pitching a book. Let a professional help you make the best first impression possible. Make every word count and present an error-free document. Also, be sure that the editor you choose knows what goes into a nonfiction book proposal. Don’t just use any editor.

Also have your query letter professionally edited and proofread.

Then send out the query letter to agents and publishers. Large publishing houses typically only want agented submissions. You can submit to small and some mid-sized publishers without an agent.

Once you get a positive response from an agent or publisher, you can send in your proposal with a cover letter.

Check publisher’s and agent’s submission guidelines. For submission guidelines or to find agents and publishers, check Writer’s Market or Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors, and Literary Agents.

Don’t give up if you are rejected many times. Even the best authors have been rejected hundreds of times. I’ve heard this advice: When you get a rejection letter, just say, “Next.” Or say, “I must have sent that query to the wrong address. Next time I’ll send it to the right address.”

Filed Under: Landing an Angent or Traditional Publisher, Query Letter, The Proposal Tagged With: , , , ,

Turning Your Blogged Book Into an E-Book

June 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you don’t want to go to much expense, you can simply convert your blogged book to an e-book yourself and sell it from your blog site or from a website. This doesn’t make it available on e-readers. It does, however, create an information product from which you can earn money.

Creating this type of e-book is pretty simple. You do need some design savvy, though. You must create an e-book that looks nice and has some decent graphics, especially if you plan to charge a fair amount for the book. After that, you need only get yourself a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional. Save your finished manuscript as a secure PDF, and you are ready to sell it.

Many people ask if this PDF needs to be password protected. You can do that if you like. I’ve never yet purchased one that was. Most people treat these just like books, which are purchased and then lent out if they are well liked.

If you want to create an e-book that is ready for most e-readers, try the service offered by Fastpencil.com, which claims to create e-books for ALL e-readers. You also can try Smashwords.com. You can format your book for the Amazon Kindle here.

If you are still wishing for that traditional contract, check in next time for more information on pursuing a traditional publishing contract.

Filed Under: Create an E-Book Tagged With: , , ,

Turning Your Blogged Book Into a POD book

June 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you want to self-publish your blogged book, you can choose several methods for turning the blog into an actual book. First, however, you must have a manuscript.

As I mentioned previously, the easiest way to blog a book and end up with a manuscript entails writing your posts in Microsoft Word and then copying and pasting 200-300 words at a time into your blogging software. If you have done this, you now have a complete manuscript.

If you haven’t done this, you will need to copy and past all your blog posts into a Microsoft word document.

Consider adding any information to your manuscript that relates to reader comments and your replies. Also, if you plan on adding fresh copy or features to your printed book, this is the time to do so—prior to handing the manuscript over to the editor, POD printer or book designer.

Once you have a manuscript document, divide your posts up into chapters. Then edit them to make sure the posts all flow together smoothly and read well. You don’t want them to be choppy or to sound like a bunch of 200-word posts. Now these short posts need to sound like sections in a longer chapter. Your post titles should read like subheads.

At this point, you need only convert the manuscript into a book design format. Simpler said than done—especially for writers.

Most POD publishers like Adobe InDesign for this purpose. You can purchase it, learn how to use it and then design your own interior pages. It’s a good idea, though, to get help with your cover. Covers sell books; you want to be sure your book cover looks professional. Cover photos can be purchased with subscriptions to such services as istockphoto.com. You can hire a book designer to design your book for you. Many POD publishers offer packages that include cover and interior design.

Be sure to hire a professional editor to give your book a final polish. Even great writers need both a great editor and a superb proofreader. You might also need an indexer. Don’t let your book fail because you skimped on these things and let you book appear unprofessional because it contained errors.

Many independently published books fail not because they have lousy content but because their authors failed to do the work necessary to ensure their books have the same quality as their traditionally published counterparts.

Any number of POD publishers can help you get your book completed. Pick one with a great reputation. I recommend a small publisher right in my home town because I can walk in and work with them (www.robertsonpublishing.com). However, more and more options crop up every day, including brand new and exciting companies like Fastpencil.com.

You might also want to check out the companies that simply convert your blog to a book without changing a thing. Even the comments will appear in your printed book. This is a great option if you want your printed book to appear identical to your blogged book.

Once your book has been printed, you can purchase as many copies as you like…or none at all. The POD printer should make the book available in all the on-line books stores; a good POD printer also should give you the option of getting your book in the Ingram catalog, which is used by most bookstores. They may also give you some marketing materials, like bookmarks, business cards, postcards, or even a webpage. Make use of these, and put the information about how to purchase your book on your blog and website.

In other words, start selling those books!

Next time, I’ll tell you a bit about creating an e-book.

Filed Under: Create a POD Book, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: , , ,

Content is King…So Get Writing!

June 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

In the blogging world, wisdom has it that content is king. That means, they ultimate way to drive people to your blog (or website) involves producing great copy. The more superb and useful content you produce, the more readers and traffic you will see coming to your blog or website. So it’s time to get writing!

I see more and more bloggers offering great, free content on their blogs as well as on social networking sites ever day. They amount of content they produce amazes me. They could be writing books…and maybe they are. In any case, the content they produce offers added value to any and all that read their words. I for one know that I often find myself clicking through to discover who these people are and what else they are writing.

With that in mind, I’d like to encourage you once again to blog that book! Or to just continue blogging away and offering great content in your blog that attracts readers (and agents and publishers). However, while I feel strongly that content, indeed, is king, I would have to admit that many other things must be done to differentiate your writing from the other writers and bloggers out there—and every day more bloggers decide to enter the Cyber publishing world.

So, how will you differentiate yourself amongst the million voices all striving to get the same attention and readership? How will you reach out to an audience already drowning in noise? That’s a question asked by Mellisa Tamura from ZenCollegeLife at www.Smartbloggerz.com. She says, “Good content alone will not do the trick – there has to be something more then just hoping that people will read your blog entries.” She offers 10 proven ways to get more readers, more attention and more traffic to your blog. You might want to check them out. I’ve covered most of them, but her post provides a nice recap.

Filed Under: Increasing Traffic, Publicizing Your Blog Tagged With: , , ,

Increasing Traffic by Commenting on Blogs

June 12, 2010 By 2 Comments

Another way to publicize your blogged book or blog involves commenting on other bloggers’ posts. You know how you love it when readers leave comments on your blog posts, now it’s time to do the same.

Go out and read other blogs that have related content. These are the blogs you identified as complementary or competing blogs. If you found books that were competing or complementary books, see if the authors of those books also have blogs. Read their posts on a consistent basis and leave comments.

Do not spam these bloggers, however. By this I mean, don’t simply leave links to your blog in the comment box. Actually say something worthwhile. Leave useful information. Tell the blogger what great information they have provided, and then piggy back on their information with superb information of your own.  The link to your blogged book will appear automatically if you opt to have your name linked back to your blogged book.

Don’t ever opt for an anonymous comment. Always opt to have your website or blog address used in conjunction with your name. Then when your name appears with your comment, readers can click on your name and be taken directly to your blog.

Not only do all these links increase traffic to your blog, they also increase your Google ranking. The more often you leave comments, the more chances you have of getting blog readers from other popular blogs to come check out what you are writing and the higher up your SERPs.

I know reading other blogs and commenting can be time consuming. One way to handle this in a time-effective manner involves using Google Alerts. You can also subscribe to the blogs you find most relevant to your subject.

Filed Under: Increasing Traffic, Links and Linking, Publicizing Your Blog Tagged With: , , ,

Offering Links to Your Blogged Book Posts on Linkedin

June 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Publicizing your blog posts on Linkedin poses a simple task. Once you have an account–a much more detail-oriented task–you simple go to your profile page and under the “edit my profile” tab click on “post an update.” (This is a small option under the box with your name; it’s off to the far right.) Before you hit the “share” button, you also can opt to check the Twitter settings button and have your update go to Twitter at the same time, thus killing the proverbial two birds with one stone—or two social networks with one click.

On Linkedin you have the option of sharing links. So, by all means, add the links to your recent blog posts.

This is a great way to let people know you are blogging a book. If you are writing a book that has great information for professionals, Linked in is THE place to share.

Filed Under: Publicizing Your Blog Tagged With: , , ,

Sharing Your Blogged Book Posts on Facebook

June 4, 2010 By 1 Comment

Facebook is another social network. Many people consider it just a place to keep up with friends and family, but more and more people are finding it an extremely useful place to generate business. With this in mind, the savvy book or blog marketer wants to be sure to post blog posts to Facebook regularly.

Once you have set up your free account by creating a profile, uploading a photo, and making sure you’ve included relevant links to your blogged book, you can begin manually uploading links if you like. You can do this in your status up date bar where it asks you, “What’s on your mind.” Simply say something like, “Did you know that sharing your posts on Facebook is really important for authors of blogged books?” Then, below that bar there is a place to insert a link. Hover over the icons and you’ll see that the fourth one (next to the event icon) says “link.” It looks a bit like a piece of paper. If you simply include the Internet address in your status update, Facebook automatically links to it for you.

You can make your blog posts automatically post to Facebook by choosing clicking on Networked Blogs on the left side of the page. Then click on Register a Blog at the top of that page. Fill in all the required information. You will then need to verify that this is your blog either  by asking others to verify this for you or by pasting some HTML code into a widget text box. This is really pretty simple. Just copy the code. Go to your blog’s widget area and then choose a text box. Past the code in there and hit save. Then go back to Facebook and hit the verify button. You can go back and remove your text box immediately after this.

Then go to your Account information and click on the Application settings. Click on “edit settings” for Networked Blogs and be sure that under “additional permissions” you check the box there that allows posts to be published to your wall.

Now go to your Facebook home page and click on Networked blogs. Find your blog on the left and click on its name. You’ll see your current blog posts on the left and a list on the right. Find “Feed Settings” and click on it. Under “Personal Profile,” check the box that says “Auto-publish to personal profile.” You can test this out to see if the most current posts appears on your wall.

Below this you can also have Facebook arrange to tweet your posts to Twitter. (I’m trying out this service for the first time.)

This should work. I’ve had trouble in the past getting my posts to actually appear on my wall. This last step, however, should solve that problem.

Filed Under: Publicizing Your Blog Tagged With: , , ,

Tweeting Your Blogged Book Posts to Twitter

June 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Twitter is a social network that focuses on 140-character messages that answer the question, “What are you doing?” The service can be accessed not only from a computer but from an instant messenger service, mobile texting and other venues.

Sometimes “tweeting,” which is what posting to Twitter is called, is called “microblogging, because it works in a similar manner only with the character limit. Once you post a tweet, other people can “retweet” it to their “tweeple,” or followers, thus creating a viral affect.

It’s easy and free to use Twitter. Creating an account takes just a minute. Just complete your profile, upload a photo and write a short bio. Link your account to your blog website.

Now post your Twitter address on your blog with the Tweet This plugin. Then your blog readers can follow you on Twitter. Also add the AddToAny: Share/Bookmark/Email Button plugin, or a similar one, so you and your readers easily can tweet your posts on Twitter.

Every time I publish a post, I use view it and then use the AddtoAny share button that appears at the bottom of my post to tweet it (and share it on Facebook). It automatically shortens the URL and I can add a little message to go with the title. So, for this tweet, it read, “Tell the world you published a post. Here’s 1 way: Tweeting Your Blogged Book Posts to Twitter http://bit.ly/9bv73T via @AddToAny.” (AddToAny will provided analytics on your shared posts for you if you install the code.) When I sent this tweet, anyone following me on Twitter could click on the link and read this post if they happened to see it.

There is an etiquette to using Twitter. You’ll want to Google this as well. Learn how to follow other people and what type of information to post. There’s a way to gain followers; I don’t recommend the get-followers-fast schemes. Just provide a lot of good information, get involved in conversations, and follow some people back who seem interesting to you.

Filed Under: Publicizing Your Blog Tagged With: , , ,
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