Comparing Ebook Publishing Options

Continuing this week's theme on ebook publishing, check out this chart of popular ebook publishing platforms. Which platform you choose depends on a couple of different factors:

• Ease of publishing. Platforms like Clickbank and E-Junkie allow you to use PDF formatted books. This saves you a lot of formatting hassles that you might encounter with ibooks or the Kindle platform.
• Upfront fees. Some of the publishing platforms have initial fees. For example, Clickbank (which is an extremely popular platform for publishing information products) charges a $49.95 setup fee.
• Payout thresholds. Always consider the payout threshold — you don't want to have to wait too long to get your money!
• Do you need marketing help? Platforms that provide visibility for your ebooks — and/or an affiliate network — can help you sell more books. If you don't have an existing mailing list or "tribe" to sell your ebook to, consider a platform like Kindle that offers you additional exposure.

Ideas to Increase Sales of Your Ebook

One of the key principles of the "Turn Your Content Into Cash" teleseminar I'm doing next week for Bronze members of BeAResumeWriter.com is selling information products -- including ebooks.

Here are some ideas to market your ebook:

1. Get your book reviewed by review clubs. Each book store (E.g. Kindle store, Nook store, iBookstore,) has an active community of people who’re happy to review books for one another. 

2. Get bloggers to review your book. Pay them to review the book if necessary. (Note: This isn’t a bribe, as you’re only paying for the review, regardless of what the review actually says. However, they should disclose the fact that they’ve received a free copy of the book.)

3. Get on the radio. You can build your own media list, or buy an ad in the Radio Television Interview Report (RTIR) to promote yourself as an expert.

4. Contact career-related podcasts and offer to be interviewed. Send them a free copy of your ebook first so they can make sure they like what you have to say. You may be asked for a sample of you on audio so they know you sound good when recorded. Look at PodcastDirectory.com for some ideas.

5. Do a search for similar books. Look at who’s promoting them and contact those websites. Offer a generous affiliate payout if you’re selling on Clickbank, or try to find some other “in” with them.

6. Tap into a pre-existing community. For instance, if you’re selling an ebook for CIOs, get involved with online CIO associations and forums. Build a reputation for yourself, then promote your book.

7. Try to push your eBook to the top of your category, if you’re on an eReader platform. Have all your readers buy your book on one day and give them a bonus if they do so. This can send your book skyrocketing into the top charts, which gets you even more visibility.

8. Start your book cheap. Start your book at $0.99 cents, even if you eventually plan on selling it for $4.99. Starting it off cheap lets you get a bunch of reviews and initial traction right off the bat.

9. Buy ads on reader-oriented websites like Goodreads. This gets you in front of people active book lovers who’re already in the habit of buying books all the time.

10. Guest post on other blogs in the careers industry. Contact bloggers you know and ask if you can write a free article for them. If you don’t know many bloggers, write a brief line about yourself and what makes you credible and offer to do a free content piece for them. (For more posts about guest blogging, check out this page.)

11. Create a compelling affiliate program for your book. Be unusually generous. For example, offer a 100% payout for the first 3 books, or offer a $50 bonus to anyone who sells ten books. This can attract a lot of new affiliate talent towards your book.

12. Comb your LinkedIn and Facebook network. Look for people you know that have audiences, host events, or have a large online presence. See if they’d be willing to promote your book. Make sure to phrase it as a win for them as well by offering to help them in some way.

13. Send your first chapter to BookDaily (http://www.bookdaily.com/). This site gives avid readers one free chapter every day, on books topics they’re interested in. If you wrote a business book for instance, your first chapter can be sent out to everyone who’s interested in business.

14. Lookup conventions and conferences in your industry. Go to all of them. Meet other influencers in your niche and see if you can work together to promote one another. Who knows? You might also sell a few book copies.

15. Head to Twitter and search for questions that someone who needs your book might ask. For example, if you have a book about improving cover letters, you might type in “need a cover letter” or “do I need a cover letter” and so on in Twitter. Find people who recently asked relevant questions and shoot them a message.

16. Keep publishing! Publish lead-in books. If your main book is a $6.99 book, consider publishing a slew of $0.99 or free books just to get more traction and to build more of a brand. All of those sales will feed into the sales of your larger book.

17. If you’re publishing the book on Clickbank, try driving some traffic from Google AdWords and from other sources, like ads on Facebook. Paid traffic can convert extremely well. This works much better for Clickbank than Kindle, because Clickbank books tend to sell for a lot more money.

18. As a long term strategy, create a blog. Post high quality content to that blog every week. Get ranked in the search engines and build a loyal following. This is a great way to sell books on a recurring basis, as well as a great way to launch new books.

19. Create a competition. The competition should be related to content within your book. Prizes can include free consultations with you, two copies of your book (one for the winner and one for them to give to a friend), your help on their next project, a personalized plan for their project, etc.

20. Use Google Alerts to keep tabs on your topic. If someone writes a new blog post about something related to your book, be one of the very first people to respond to the post. Link to your Kindle book from your “name” and “website” field.

Five Tips to Prepare for 2013

I love end-of-year planning. Heck, I love planning in general. (The special report for December on BeAResumeWriter.com is on planning and goal setting!)

Taking just a little bit of time at the end of the year to prepare for the next can make a tremendous difference. I'm one of those people who believes strongly in the idea of writing down your goals as a way of making them come true. In the next few weeks, I will be creating my plan for 2013, including the goals I hope to accomplish.

Don't just meander into the next year. Launch into it with gusto and purpose. These five ways of preparing will help you start your new year off with a bang.

#1: Extract Lessons from Last Year
Reflect on 2012. What were your biggest wins and your biggest losses? What made those wins or losses happen? Look for core lessons that you can take away. What can you learn from your mistakes? What changes do you need to make in your resume writing business to maximize your successes?

#2: Talk to Your Mentors
The end of one year — or the beginning of the next year — is a great time to talk to your mentors. Reach out to people who are more successful than you, or people who've done what you want to do. Talk to them about your greatest challenges, as well as what they'd do in your situation to grow your company. Incorporate their advice into your plan for the year. (I'm always happy to talk with resume writers who have specific questions or need advice!)

#3: Talk to Your Customers
Ask your resume customers for feedback on your service or your products. Talk about what they like and what they don't like. Also ask them about what they'd like to see from your company in the future. (Are they interested in learning more about LinkedIn? Do they want more support from you than the occasional resume update?) Your customers can be your best source of new ideas going into the new year. After all, the only real vote in business that counts is when your customers "vote with their wallets."

 #4: Identify Your Biggest Opportunity
Don't focus on your biggest challenges. There are always going to be fires that need to be put out and emergencies to be handled. Instead, focus on your biggest opportunity. Identify the biggest growth potential arena in your business, then focus the bulk of your time and energy on growing that arena. (For example, one of the biggest threats to a single self-employed resume writer is if something happens to you and you can't work. So putting in passive income/recurring revenue programs before you need them is a HUGE opportunity!)

#5: Set Measurable, Metric-Based Goals
Finally, set measurable, metric-based goals for yourself/your resume writing business. Ideally, you should set one BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal). This can be a revenue number or a number of clients you want to stretch to reach!

If you perform these five steps, you'll plunge head first into 2013 well prepared and positioned for success!

Connect with Your Colleagues ... Even If You're an Introvert

At yesterday's Career Thought Leaders Career Brainstorming Day 2012 session, we talked about assessment tools resume writers and career coaches can use with their clients -- and one of the most-frequently used tools is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). (You can take a free online test to determine your four-letter personality type here.)

If your results indicate that you are an Introvert, you may find it difficult to connect with your colleagues — but this connection can be essential to your success as a resume writer.

You may think that being introverted means that a person is shy. That's not necessarily the case. Introverts do tend to prefer one-on-one conversation over group meetings. They also tend to require a significant amount of quiet time to think and reflect.

Introverts are motivated internally. They are thinkers and can become so locked inside their own head that they appear cut off from others. These tendencies can make it difficult to meet people, make connections, and network. Yet connections can help you build your business.

When you meet the right people you...

• Can build a team of experts to support you to succeed
• Can forge powerful partnerships and increase profits and success
• Leverage relationships 
• Lead people within an organization (for example, a team of subcontractors)
• Build a community of followers, prospects, and customers

In short, relationships are essential for success. Yet introverts can struggle to meet people and forge these powerful and profitable relationships. Here are a few things you can do to meet more people if you're an introvert.

How to Meet People and Build Connections

#1 Set goals

Set a goal to meet one new person each day. This is easily done online — for example, on LinkedIn. (In most communities, you have to make a concerted effort to run into someone who will be a valuable connection for your resume writing business -- for example, another resume writer, a career coach, a therapist, a Realtor®, someone who works in a career services department.) But you can use LinkedIn's  "People You May Know" function to find at least one person to connect with on LinkedIn.

Remember, relationships build a business. The more people you know, the more opportunities you're exposed to.

#2 Build connections

As you begin meeting people, start asking those you connect with on a personal or professional level who they know. You can leverage 5 connections into 25 if each person you meet introduces you to 5 new people. Your network will begin to grow and you'll be meeting people who are like-minded. It's a wonderful way to build a support network.

#3 Set time aside 

Set time aside to recharge and refresh. This is particularly important if you're taking time to get out and meet new people. For example, if you spend an hour networking online, then make sure to schedule an hour of downtime that day too. It's too easy to become overwhelmed and burned out if you spend a lot of time networking and neglect the downtime an introvert requires.

Introverts have a spectacular ability to brainstorm, problem solve, innovate, and build a business. Yet the ability to meet new people and leverage relationships is a challenge. Appeal to your ability to connect with people on a one-on-one basis and start meeting more people in a relaxed and comfortable manner. There's no need to force yourself into a public speaking situation or into a large-scale networking group. Work to your strengths.