Create An E-Book | How to Blog a Book

Publishing Options for Your Booked Blog

March 29, 2012 By Nina 1 Comment

Once your booked blog has been professionally edited, you must decide how you will publish it. You have a variety of options for turning your blogged book manuscript into an actual book.

Traditional Publishing

If you’ve come this far—spending time and money on professional editing services, you have likely decided not to go the traditionally publishing route. However, nothing stops you from changing your mind and deciding you want to see what an agent or acquisitions editor might say about your booked blog manuscript. In fact, I usually advise people who have a small but nagging desire to have a publisher back their project at least to give it a try. At this point, go ahead and write that query letter and proposal, have these professionally edited by a book proposal editor, and send them off. See what happens.

You will want to send the query off to an agent first if you plan on approaching mid-sized to large publishing houses. Small publishing houses take unagented work in most cases; some mid-sized houses do as well. However, an agent can prove helpful in all cases. I see mine as my business partner; she looks out for my best interests when it comes to my contract.

The advantage of traditional publishing remains the same as always:

a bit of clout or credibility (someone has put their money behind you)
some money up front for your work (not a lot in most cases, but something)
help funding the design of your book and the printing
help funding the editing (although you’ve already done that)
a little bit of help with promotion
some distribution into stores
a business partner

The disadvantage, of course, is that you earn a lower—much lower—percentage on each book sale. You also lose control over your book; the publisher, editorial staff and design team will make the decisions about your book. And you will likely not be able to publish anything else on a topic similar to your book until your publisher has decided not to take on that project as well. (This is called “first right of refusal” and is a clause in most contracts.)

Self-Publishing

If you don’t want to do all the things that go with self-publishing, though—like hiring a designer (or an editor, if you didn’t already do that), figuring out how to get your book printed, purchasing an ISBN, getting your book converted into an ebook format, handling distribution, etc., traditional publishing may be the best route for you. If this stuff doesn’t bother you, or it actually turns you on, maybe you want to go the indie publishing route.

I make no claims to be THE expert on self-publishing. My expertise lies in helping you get your book written. That said, I have self-published a few short books, one of which was a blogged book. It’s not too difficult, but it does take time, effort and attention to detail. You have to be a good manager. The advantages of being a self-publisher are:

You have total control over the process and your work.
You get to choose your cover and interior design.
You get to choose your book title.
You earn more per book.
You can choose more creative ways to promote you book, like giving away books for free.
You have the freedom to write and publish what you want when you want.
You can bring a book to market quickly.

If you choose this route, you can produce a print-on-demand (POD) book, a fairly inexpensive option that allows you to print just one book at a time in many cases or none at all. Many authors today are using Amazon’s CreateSpace to do this; I have used them, but I was not that happy with the quality of their books as compared to a digital printer I used previously. You can also use Lightning Source, a well-respected and well-established POD printer that has been around a long time. However, their services do cost more.

You might also choose to print your booked book using offset printing. Doing so is considered “true self-publishing,” but it requires printing large quantities of books. Personally, I find this a high-risk option, and I don’t want to have those books stored in my home somewhere.

Of course, the cheapest option is to get on board with the biggest publishing trend and produce an ebook. By far, this is the most inexpensive self-publishing option, since you really only need a cover design. You can have an interior book design, but it isn’t necessary. You may need someone to help you convert you booked blog manuscript to the right format for uploading, and there are great services available for distributing ebooks, like Amazon’s Kindle or Kindle Select, Smashwords.com and Bookbaby.com.

I can’t stress enough, however, that whatever indie route you take you make sure you get a professionally designed cover. Covers sell books. Although you can get an ebook cover art for as little as $50 (Smashwords.com has a list of people who do ebook conversions and covers.), you might want to research some other options. For instance, Digital Book Launch offers a $200 book cover option, and the company is know for its marketing know how, which is the touch a cover needs to catch the attention of potential readers and then get them to take your book to the register. (And, yes, I am an affiliate for this program because I think it’s an awesome and affordable service for authors.)

Many subsidy or author services companies offer cover and interior design services as well. Beware that these may not be as high quality or unique as what you will get with a book designer who owns his or her own company. (The same holds true for their editorial services; they tend to be rather “light.”) These companies, like BookLocker, iUniverse, Xlibris, PublishAmerica, and Lulu, call themselves publishers, but they are what used to be called vanity presses.

Which brings me to another important point: If you don’t want to go the traditional publishing route, or can’t find an agent or publisher to take on your project, and you don’t want to be an indie publisher, which basically means you become a publisher, a subsidy or author services company might be your saving grace. The offer all the services you need to get your book into print (and sometimes also into ebook format) usually at an affordable price. Just know that the editing and design may not be the best or most unique. And their name will be on the side of your book, but that does not mean they are your publisher; it just means you bought their services. They say they pay you royalties. That’s kind of pushing it in my mind.

Creative Publishing Choices

Now, last, but not least, there are a few more options. Fast Pencil offers some of the same services you can get at a subsidy publishing company, but you can now use your own ISBN. Plus, you can load up your own cover design, and their system has several built-in interior design options, which makes it fairly affordable. They also have an inexpensive ebook conversion program. Additionally, they have a blog-to-book program that will take your blog and convert it into a book, but you will then have to do the editing and design within their technology. (Disclaimer: I am an affiliate for FastPencil; I have been working with them on and off and was waiting for them to develop the option to use your own ISBN. I will be publishing something with them soon now that they have it.)

If you want to build your fan base or author’s platform—gain traffic and unique readers—while trying to get the backing of a traditional publisher, check out PubSlush.com. Unlike popular sites like kickstarter.com, where you submit a project and ask people to preorder your book so you get funded, at PubSlush you post your book project and start asking people to preorder your book, but when you reach 1,000 supporters, guess what? PubSlush publishes your book for you. In other words, when they see that your book has enough reader interest, they put all those preorder to work in the form of editing, design and promotion—all the things a traditional publisher would do for you. So, you get one more round of polishing on your manuscript, professional design, promotional help—and you don’t have to be an indie publisher if you don’t want to be. Pretty nice. You already have a following of readers, so send them on over to PubSlush.

I have probably not covered all the different publishing options available. And new options show up all the time. These will at least get you thinking about how you want to publish your booked blog.

And that ends March and it’s focus on booking a blog. Guess what? In those 30 days, I blogged a short book.

On to April: Blog a Book in 30 Days

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Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book), Create a POD Book, Create an E-Book, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: book covers, booked blog, ebooks, self-publishing

Chris Garrett on How to Blog a Book or Book a Blog

January 5, 2012 By Nina 4 Comments

My last post featured the first part of my interview with Chris Garrett, co-author of ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income, in which he discussed how to convert blog readers into book buyers using attraction, retention, conversion, and referrals. Today, in part two of the interview, which I conducted at BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Los Angeles, CA, in early November 2011, Chris speaks more specifically to aspiring authors, writers blogging books and bloggers who might want to book a blog, or repurpose their material into a book.

I was quite honored to spend time speaking with Chris, who is an online business consultant, teacher, coach, new media industry commentator, writer, speaker, and all-round web geek. He has been involved in several start ups and has written for some of the web’s best-loved blogs as well as co-authoring four other traditionally published print books and many ebooks. (See the end of this post for a full bio.) He definitely knows how to look at the idea of blogging a book and apply all he knows about blogging, writing books and new media to this endeavor and offer relevant tips and advice. Below, find my questions, and Chris’ answers, in part two of this two-part blog post:

I tell people who want to begin blogging a book to go through a full evaluation process to make sure their book has a chance of succeeding both in the blogosphere and in the online and brick-and-mortar book stores. What are your thoughts on getting started blogging or writing a book?

A lot of people say they have a book in them, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a book somebody would want to read. You are going to save a lot of pain, heartache and effort if you work out if the book you want to write is one the market is going to accept. Plus, there’s a confidence that comes in doing your homework. The more confident you are the more likely you are to carry on, because writing a book is not easy. It may be simple, but it doesn’t mean it’s easy. The most important thing to know is that if you do your research you understand the audience you’re speaking to; I think that’s vital because you can have great content but miss the mark.

I know you haven’t actually blogged a book, but if you were going to give advice to writers doing so, what is the most important tip might you offer them to help them build their readership?

It’s the point I made earlier: You don’t drive traffic. It’s not like being a cowboy. It’s not getting on horse with a Stetson and driving people to your blog. They have to come of their own free will. You’ve got to attract rather than drive. You have to go where people are, and meet them where they hang out. You’ve got to find what they want and need, what’s going to get their attention and deliver that. You might have to give ¾ of what you know away to get that attention and to get people to know and respect you enough to trust you with their money. Because at the end of the day if they are going to take action by investing time and money in what you have to offer they have got to be sure about you.

Do you work with work with any aspiring authors, and, if so, what do you recommend to them as far as their books?

A lot of my friends are authors—some of them New York Times bestselling authors—and a lot of my clients are authors or prospective authors.

The first thing I recommend is probably the most important: Look at what successful people have done before them and what is working right now. Things that have worked two years ago will not necessarily translate to now. So you have to look at both. And also look at what people have done that have gone terribly wrong, especially in their specific market or niche.

The second thing I tell them is to have a plan. Someone was telling me that they thought they were going to be able to retire early because they got a book deal, and most people know that is crazy talk. Unless you are JK Rowling, you aren’t going to retire early. This writer had no plans for what would happen once their book hit the shelves. They were so focused on writing and launching that they never thought, “What’s next?” They had no back-up plan, no follow-up plan. Basically, they thought their life was going to be transformed once their book went on sale.

Also, authors need to be realistic. Unfortunately, today the publisher can only do so much to help you and your book succeed; you have to do a lot more. And the best book tour is not going to make your book a best seller without a lot of marketing, a very, very good subject, a well-defined audience, and a lot of effort. Even then it doesn’t mean you are going to be able to live off it the money from your book sales. But people see Amazon Kindle sales are making a million dollars a year and think, “This is for me.” They believe once you get to Barnes & Noble you are a millionaire, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Writers and authors need to need to research what is working, plan and be realistic.

Lots of long-time bloggers would like to turn their blogs into books—or “book a blog.” What would you tell these bloggers about repurposing their posts into an ebook or printed book?

I’ve found that there are certain markets where there are readers who are very receptive to the idea of you putting a book out, and there are markets that are very resistant to any sort of monetization at all, any sort of business influence. The strangest niches I would have never expected have worked super well. A lady told me the other day that she has a blog where she writes about a hairstyle of the day. All the content was on her site, and she packaged it up into a PDF. It sold really well. It blew me away because I never thought people would pay for an ebook full of photographs of hairstyles. She had a receptive market that really loved it and told all their friends.

At the same time, I’ve seen people in tech fields who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a workshop but won’t buy an ebook. They will buy a textbook off the shelf, but they won’t buy an ebook. They are technical people who should be okay with it.

Market research is very, very important. But if you’ve been blogging for a while, you have an audience; you have a really good focus group. They are going to tell you what they want, what they don’t like, what they are struggling with. You just have to open your ears to it. If you deliver what people want and need, you’ve got a lot better chance of success.

You can put the content out there and see what your readers’ reaction is, what they share, what their comments are, what they tell you about, or the follow up questions they ask. That’s the first test. This action lets you know you have an audience. You know if the audience wants that stuff. Then you have to find out what they are willing to pay for, which is sometimes a different thing.

Does pricing come down to trial and error or is there a better way to know what blog readers will pay for a book or other product?

Sometimes it’s trial and error. The more you know about your audience, the better.

If you know what else they are buying, that can work really well. You can either ask them, or you can be an affiliate. You can review items and tell your audience about things they could buy in return for a commission. Dollars and cents is the best feedback ever. If they are willing to tell you via buying something that they are interested in paying for something then you know there’s a market there.

More About Chris Garrett

Although Chris Garrett has been “online” since the 1980?s, it was in 1994 Chris first became addicted to the World Wide Web. Since then he has helped thousands of individuals, non-profits, small businesses and blue chips such as Heinz, Toshiba, Hugo Boss, Lacoste, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and Durex, amongst others, make the most of the internet.

In 2005 Chris left the advertising agency world and founded a company to help smaller businesses and solo-entrepreneurs profit from their skills, knowledge and experience, achieve more with Online Media, and grow audiences of people who know, like and trust them. See how your business could benefit from working with Chris on the services page here.

As well as coaching and training companies and individuals, Chris also regularly speaks at conferences around the world about internet salesmanship, writing compelling content, and social media for business. He has spoken at events such as BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the Successful Outstanding Bloggers conference in Chicago, Think Visibility, Affiliate Expo, Wishlist Member Live, WordCamp, the Netherlands Social Media Congres and the Institute of Fundraising, along with the dozens of webinars, teleseminars and virtual events he holds or contributes to annually.

Chris was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1974. He lived in the UK for most of his life but now lives back in Calgary with his wife, daughter, cat, and a three-year-old Cocker Spaniel.

www.chrisg.com

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Filed Under: Booking a Blog (Repurposing Content into a Book), Create an E-Book, How to Begin Blogging a Book, Increasing Traffic, Publicizing Your Blog, Selling Books and Information Products, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: blogging a book, book a blog, Chris Garrett, repurposing blog posts, strategic planning

What the hoohah about e-books means for bloggers

March 25, 2011 By Nina Leave a Comment

I recently published several posts about indie e-book publishing here, here, and here. Seems lots of authors–mostly novelists–are making big money selling e-books cheaply (99 cents and $2.99).

What’s that got to do with blogging a book? If you don’t get noticed by a publisher while blogging your book but you do gain readers, this proves you have a market. Thus, you should find you have readers in the e-book market as well.

I suggest you take your blogged book over to Smashwords.com and produce an e-book that can be distributed in a variety of e-book formats. Take it over to CreateSpace.com and produce a POD book and a Kindle book, too. (In the near future, Smashwords will allow you to produce a Kindle book there as well.)

Then keep posting to your blog to keep readers interested–and buying the e-book or POD book.

Rinse and repeat. In other words, start a new blogged book.

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Filed Under: Create an E-Book, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: CreateSpace, e-book distribution, e-book market, e-books, Smashwords

Turning Your Blog Into a Book

December 17, 2010 By Nina 1 Comment

Have you finished blogging a book? If so, there are lots of programs available these days that can turn your blog into a book. Many of them, however, produce a book that looks exactly like your blog. In other words, each page looks like a blog post.

Personally, that’s not what I want my physical book to look like. I want it to look like a book not a blog.

If you haven’t produced a manuscript in some other form other than on your blog–by which I mean in Microsoft Word or some other word processing program–then you have two choices. You need to either start copying and pasting those posts into a word processing program or you need to find a program that will turn your blogged book into something that looks like a real book.

Check out Fastpencil.com. This program claims to do just that–turn a blog into a book that looks like a book. Plus, it’s not overly expensive for a service that produces a print on demand book and ebooks in a variety of formats at the same time. You also could choose to compose your manuscript in the program and copy and paste into your blog. I haven’t tried doing this, though, so I don’t know if this would create any html errors. If it doesn’t you could easily use this reverse process and then produce your book and ebook with Fastpencil.com.

That said, if you have created a manuscript as you write your blogged book, you can choose any number of printing options.

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Filed Under: Create a POD Book, Create an E-Book, What to Do When You Complete Your Blogged Book Tagged With: blog-to-book options, Fastpencil.com, publishing a book, turning a blog into a book

Turning Your Blogged Book Into an E-Book

June 21, 2010 By Nina 1 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.