Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Q & A Questions on CreateSpace, Kindle Books, Coloring Books, Selling Books



I received a great email just loaded with questions on publishing, coloring books, CreateSpace.com, Kindle Books, all kinds of things. I thought the best thing to was record a video and share the answers.

Question: I like your Youtube on creating children's books in powerpoint. We followed that video for the Mandalas. You use the same format, correct?
Answer: I use PowerPoint and I use Adobe Indesign. My go to program is Indesign but most people don't have that. But almost everyone has PowerPoint, combine that with Kindle Kid Creator and it is pretty easy to make a book.

Question: Do you put your ebooks on for free for a couple of days on Kindle?
Answer: What you are talking about is the Kindle Select Program. No I am not a big fan of that program because it locks you up for 90 day periods of time and restricts you from releasing content. I am big on releasing content

Question: I notice that on kindle you can put your ebook up for free for a couple of days and it does not really cost you anything, however when I checked out Createspace it gave me a negative when estimated my book on for 99c, so that is not a good idea.
Answer: This is the Kindle Select program, CreateSpace does not have anything like this. CreateSpace creates an actual physical product while Kindle does not. You can't really give it away if it is real

Question: I notice some people are putting their colouring books on kindle. Something about they can colour online on their ipads.
Answer: I have done this also because other people were doing it. Amazon is kind of frowning on this. There is no way to color that I know, mostly they just become picture books. There are coloring apps for smart phones and tablets, don't know if you can feed a pdf into them or not.

Question: Would you put a colouring book on kindle ebook and for how much?
Answer: I think maybe, if it is more of a picture book then maybe so. You use the 35% royalty and sell for $2.99, otherwise you pay for the download

Question: Is it not easier to pirate the colouring books that way?
Answer: This is a common question, I don't worry about books being pirated, just keep moving forward. Most book will never be something that people want to pirate. I don't know how they would do this from a Kindle.

Question: What file do you use for Createspace, also mobi?
Answer: CreateSpace uses high res pdf file for both the interior and the cover, Kindle uses a html for the book and jpg for the cover.

Question: Do you just charge the full price when you put it on Createspace?
Answer: Yes I do, usually around $9.95

Question: I looked at Amazon and there seem to be a lot of complaints about markers bleeding through the pages. Does Createspace give you a choice of
Answer: They do but it is just between white and off white, I use the white. I put images on just one side of the page, seems to work fine, this is how I deal with it.

1. Thickness of paper
What they have is what they have

2. Opportunity to perforate the pages?
No, I wish they did

3. What would be a good thickness?
80lb text? but you would have to print them with a regular printer. Not a fan of a garage full of books. Print on demand is amazing.

4. Is starting an account with Createspace free?
Yes it is, all cost come out of the royalties, same with Kindle

Question: if not, what do you know about Ingramspark?
Answer: It would be the option if books stores are in your marketing mix, I have a good video in the resource area http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/p/resources.html

Question: Is starting an account with them free?
Answer: I think it it, but there are costs for each book, see the video or the site

Question: Do they give the above two opportunities?
Answer: Do you mean Kindle and paperback, they do, but there are restrictions

Question: Do you sell many adult coloring books?
Answer: Yes I do, Mandalas books and my Geography books

Question: I notice that you have two sizes: 8.5X11 and 6X8   Which one sells best? Is the 6x8 for kindle?
Answer: This month yes, the smaller size sold more

Question: What is the best way to sell children's books on kindle?
With a good marketing plan, I release a lot of my book content on blogs, websites, Pinterest, and then wrap my own ads around the content.

Question: Which way makes the most money? I attempt to write and my daughter sketches.
Answer: I sell way more print books than Kindle, it depends on the book and your market. I recommend releasing on both platforms, except maybe for the coloring books

Question: Do you have a membership group? How much does it cost a month to join?
Answer: Yes I do, just started, it is in BETA, $19.month, $119/years and then a coaching program
http://bruce-the-book-guy.usefedora.com/courses/publish-your-book-membership-site

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Make and Sell a Product for Your Website in 15 Minutes, MML Live Presentation



Live stage presentation by J. Bruce Jones at the 2016 Make Market Launch It conference in San Diego on how your can make and sell a simple product from existing content for your website in about 15 minutes.

My main questions on making products?
• Does anybody care about my product?
• What is working

I follow two rules in making products
• 200 visitor rule
• Re-purpose your existing content

• Presentation is on taking an existing pdf file and turn it into a product, host it and sell it on one of my websites

• For this presentation I am using the site Gumroad.com. Think of Gumroad like an electronic bucket, handles hosting, sales page, delivery, e-commerce, deposit money in bank, free

You can sell pdf files, mp4, mp3 audio, zip files, clip art, small courses, and physical products

Gumroad takes care of all the back-end and it is FREE
Designed for selling simple products very easily. They also have a variety of sales and pricing options that gives you a lot of ways to sell your content. Gumroad.com is a great place for testing a product, something I call product sketching.

Demo
• Signing into Gumroad
• Show monthly sales, yearly sales, sell your products on a variety of sites including YouTube
• 2 kinds of products, 
   - Stand alone products, pdf, video, courses
   - Product testing or what I call Product Sketching

Today we are going to learn how to make and sell a pdf product of the best selling book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishers
• In Gumroad click on New Product, Add product, Upload the Digital Product, Name the Product
• Choose file, upload from computer

Customize your Product
   - Add cover picture, could be a video
   - Add text, I am using the back cover text
   - Add $, also pay what you want options, add a +
   - pdf stamp

Publish your Product
   - add category, add tags, Book Marketing, Self publishing, Kindle,
   - Sharing Your Product, Tweet, FaceBook

Selling Your Product
  - Add the product to http://www.BruceTheBookGuy.com
   - Make a blog post
   - Text, picture, add embed code-customize the button, publish
   - Add some Google+ love

• I market my books by wrapping ads around book content, so add an ad in the sidebar area.
• Blogger Layout: Title, sales line, image, 225pixels, link, publish
• Show overlay for selling

• Add an Affiliate Link, simplest link,

Close
This is a way to sell simple pdf files, video, audio, small courses. Make a small product and test, see what happens, then adjust.
• Visit Gumroad.com Blog for additional info

Check out http://www.gumroad.com

Thursday, March 17, 2016

Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing PDF Book Download

Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing PDF Book Download

In Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing I take you through the steps that you will need to successfully launch and sell your book.

One of the most common questions I get asked by new authors is “What’s Next?” They have pushed the published button and launched their book on Amazon.com and then go, what do I do now? Books don’t market themselves just because you are on Amazon. You need to be involved on a regular basis with getting your book out to the world and getting people to buy it. This is true wither you are an indie author or you have a publishing company behind you. Books need to be marketed in order to find customers.

This pdf book contains the lessons I have learned in creating and marketing over 40 of my own books.

The PDF book includes:

3 Simple Things I Would Do to Market My Book

Part 1, Book Marketing Checklist
• General Book Marketing Concepts
• Start Marketing Your Book the Day You Start Writing
• Selling on Amazon
• Book Launch Prep & Build Out Your Media Kit
• Preparing for Your Book Launch and General Marketing
• Going for Best-seller Status
• On-line, General Book Marketing
• Making Your Book Trailer Video
• Off-Line Book Marketing

Part 2, Book Launch Action Plan
• Level 1, Marketing My Book with Little Effort and $0 Dollars
• Level 2, I Can Go a Little Bigger and Make a Little More Effort
• Level 3, I Want to Kick It Into Higher Gear, Try to Really Push It

Part 3, Book Marketing Resources


J. Bruce Jones
I am the author and publisher of over 40 books and I love teaching other people how to make and publish their own books. There is nothing like seeing an author hold their own new book in their hands. To learn how to successfully market your book, buy and download a pdf copy of Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing today.

Buy and Download a PDF Copy of Book Marketing Checklist
  Buy my product

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Learn How to Make and Sell a Product for Your Web Site in 15 Minutes




Video presentation by J. Bruce Jones on how you can easily make and sell simple products for your website in 15 minutes. Below is a transcript outline of the presentation.

• I have created and sell today 50+ products on line, Including pdfs, clip art maps for businesses, small & big multi module online courses, books, posters and home goods.
• Selling on-line for 20 years

• I do two things, Sell and Test new product ideas 

My main questions?
• Does anybody care about my product?
• What is working

I believe in the
• 200 visitor rule, if you can get 200 interested visitors to your website and you have something clearly labeled for sale and a clean line of purchase you should be able to sell 1 item. This is my target
• Re-purpose your existing content

• Over next 15 minutes I will do a demo on taking an existing pdf file and turn it into a product, host it and sell it on one of my blogs

• I Sell on Gumroad.com and many other places


HOSTING
• Demo Gumroad: Electronic bucket, handles hosting, sales page, delivery, e-commerce, deposit money in bank, Gumroad. com is free.
http://www.gumroad.com

You can sell pdf files, mp4, mp3 audio, zip files, clipart, small courses, and physical products

Gumroad has a variety of sales and pricing options from free to subscriptions, to pay what you want

Gumroad takes care of all the backend. They take 5% +$.25
Designed for selling simple products very easily


MAKING THE PRODUCT
Sign in to Gumroad.com
Show monthly sales, yearly sales, sell your products on a variety of sites including YouTube
2 kinds of products,    
   - Stand alone products, pdf, video, courses
   - Product Sketching

Today we are going to learn how to make, using the pdf file from Book Marketing Checklist, and sell it on line
• New Product • Add product, upload • Digital product • Name product
• Choose file, upload from computer

• Customize your product
   - add cover picture, could be a video
   - add text, I am using the back cover text
   - add $, also pay what you want options, add a +
   - pdf stamp

• Publish
   - add category, add tags, Book Marketing, Self publishing, Kindle,

Product is live, Gumroad.com is a great place to testing a product, product sketching

• Sharing the product, Tweet, FaceBook, set up an easy Affiliate program.


MARKETING and SELLING THE PRODUCT
• Add the product to http://www.BruceTheBookGuy.com
   - Make a blog post
   - Add, text, picture, and embed code-customize the button, publish
   - Give it some Google love

• Add a product ad on the side of the blog, I market my books by wrapping ads around book content, Content Marketing
• Blogger Layout: Title, sales line, image, 225pixels, link, publish
• Show overlay for selling

• Add an Affiliate Link, simplest link

• Close: This is a way to sell simple pdf files, video, audio, small courses. Make a small product and test, see what happens, then adjust.
• Visit Gumroad.com Blog for additional info

Check out http://www.gumroad.com for more info

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Key Elements in Your Author Media Kit, Book and Author Photos, Social Media, and Book Info

In part 3 of your book launch and media kit we go over the actual pieces you will will need. Most of these elements can be assembled on a page on your website so anyone who is promoting your book can access them.

Key Elements in an Author Media Kit
Your Author Media Kit is an essential part of your author/book website and your marketing. It has all the elements that you need to promote your book. Not only is it for building up the elements that you will need to send out like promo book covers and such. But it also has the resources that fans, the press and anyone else needs to be able to download when they are promoting you.

Author Bio
Have several different length bios for different uses
• A very short bio you can use at the end of a blog post, remember to include your web address.
• 50-100 word bio
• 250-500 word bio




Take a picture of you with your book. Associate the two together.


Author Photos
Spend a little money and have a professional photo done. Also be sure to have some images done with you holding your book up near your head. Have several different sizes produced, 300dpi for print uses and 72dpi for web use. I would also have some larger ones and also a thumbnail size. I like a 2”, 4” and 6” image in both 300dpi and 72dpi. A head shot with and without your book.




Book Photos
Same as the author pictures a 2”, 4” and 6” image in both 300dpi and 72dpi. Be sure to ask your book cover designer for these images.
(Make this part of the original book cover project.)

Any awards, testimonials and reviews. Have a running Word document where you save these.

Contact Details
Phone, e-mail, Skype, website address, social media addresses

Interview Questions
Sample interview questions, these can be very helpful for the interviewer.

Social Media Links
All of your social media connections, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc.

Recent Speaking events, maybe a video or two if possible

Your Book Info
• Info about the book, specs, ISBN number, pages
• Book description
• Photo of the book, several sizes and resolutions, 300dpi and 72 dpi, including one with you holding the book
• Where to buy your book, print and ebook with links
• Book Reviews
• Sample chapter

Resources
Online photo editing sites
• Picnik.com http://www.picnik.com
• FotoFlexer.com http://fotoflexer.com/
• Lunapic.com http://www.lunapic.com/editor/
• Online-Converter http://www.online-convert.com/


Good Examples of Author Book Media Pages
Media page for Michael Stelzner’s book launch
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/launch/media.html

Joanna Penn, from the Creative Penn, one of the top in this area
http://www.thecreativepenn.com/
Here is her media area http://www.thecreativepenn.com/contact/

Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week Guy
http://fourhourworkweek.com/overview/

Mardie Caldwell, has an excellent example of a interview questions pdf
http://www.mardiecaldwell.com/press-kit/

CJ Lyons, Thriller writer
http://cjlyons.net/contact/for-media/

Stephen R. Covey, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, though
Dr. Covey has passed, but the site that promotes his books is set up very well and is a good example.
https://www.stephencovey.com/

Laura Stack, The Productivity Pro
http://theproductivitypro.com/newsroom/


Monday, March 14, 2016

Building Your Book Website, Social Media and Announcements for Your Book Launch

You have started working on your book launch and assembling your media kit. Along with some of the media graphics and video from the previous post you also need to start building out a web presence. Blog or website, set up a page and highlight your book.

Book Website and Social Media
___Build out your book media page on your website.

___Choose keywords and hashtags on your book topic for social media.

___Put an ad graphic for your book on your site, link it to the Amazon sales page. Use the 2” thumbnail image from your kit for the book graphic. Make it an affiliate link if possible.

___Produce an author One Sheet pdf book info sheet with author bio and contact info.

___Produce a free pdf sample chapter that you can e-mail out and attach to your site. Add any related graphics, attached your One Sheet to the back.

___Continue to post in your Facebook Group, Blog and various Social Media sites.

___Pull together some kind of free gift, a pdf report, some short videos, an e-mail series that you can use as a bonus for buying the book. This is called a lead magnet, it is a thank you for signing up. Direct people to sign-up on your list to receive this content after they have bought the book. One of the fields in your e-mail sign-up form is for the book receipt number. Your buyer list is a great list to gather. These are people who will spend money on your products.

Announcements
___Write and edit your press releases.

___Prepare your launch announcement or any articles that you might be releasing to your Blogger and Influencers network.

___Put together a virtual book tour with your Blogging network. Have articles and posts ready to go when you launch. These relationships need to be built over time so that these people will post for you.

___Record some interviews for your website and marketing using Skype or Zoom.com.

___Making a book announcement video.

___Fill out Amazon Author Central page once your book is live.

___Link to your Amazon Author Central Page.


The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
 
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Book Launch Prep & Building Out Your Book Media Kit

You are ready to launch your book, how do your start, what are some of the first steps? There are lots of ways to launch your book, but one of the ways that is often overlooked is having a library of marketing materials at hand that you can access. These can be used for your website, social media, for interviews, and the local press. The best time to make these are just as you are releasing your book. This is usually when you still have access to your book and/or cover designer and can have them give you the pieces. Better yet make these materials part of the book cover project before you loose touch with your cover designer.




Graphics
___Produce some book cover promo photos made in 3 sizes 6” wide, 4” wide, 2” wide, rgb format, at 72 and 300dpi. Request these from your cover designer, make them part of the design requirements.

___Find a local photographer and produce some promo head shots.

___Be sure to have some promo head shots with your book cover.

Promo Videos
___Prepare a book announcement video, include a call to action at the end.

___Prepare a book trailer video, include a call to action at the end. You can do this with smart phone if that is the only camera you have. The quality these days is amazing. Be sure to stand close so that you get good audio.

___Upload the trailer and announcement videos to YouTube, include a good title, live http web links, good healthy descriptions and keywords. Also include a short bio and your social media information.

___ Connect your videos to all social media sites using the share and embed buttons. These can also be uploaded to your Amazon Author Central page.


The above text is from the International Best Selling Book by J. Bruce Jones, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle. J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books and training courses for authors who are self-publishing their books.

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
 
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Friday, March 11, 2016

10 Lessons I Learned from My International Best Selling Book Launch for Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing

#1 International Best Selling Book!!! I got it, Yea!!!

What a great day Tuesday was, a huge thank you to everyone who helped me launch my new Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing book. It became an international best selling book over night in the US hitting #1 and Australia hitting 3 #1s, and the next day hitting #1 in Canada. Plus making the bestseller list in the UK, and Germany. This is also my first book with a video course tie in that is linked inside the book, making for a cool bonus.

What did I learn from the launch of my new book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing yesterday?

Your platform is super important, build that mailing list. Also having a Facebook open group and being part of Facebook groups is a huge help, big chunks of sales came from FaceBook Groups. Click here to see my FB group, Facebook.com/groups/How to Publish Your Book

Book Marketing Checklist Launch Plan

Have a written game plan of what you are going to do and the sites your are going to post on and connect with. It can be hand written, but launch day is crazy busy and it is hard to keep track of it all.

Have help. I had someone step in and help with all the behind the scenes stuff during the launch, pushing me to keep promoting, looking for lists and connections that I didn't realize I had. Single sales make a difference when you are moving up the rankings. Think about a team, even just one extra person makes a huge difference.

Have some kind of bonus or tie in for the book for the launch. I have a video course linked from inside the book that I actually didn't promote as well as I could but I still have a bunch of new sign ups in my How to Publish Your Book School. So offer something, a pdf report, bonus content, maybe some videos that you have on a page on your site, any of these will work. link them from inside the book to your website

• I need to be much more conscience about asking for Amazon book reviews from people who bought. I got four excellent reviews but could have gotten more if I had asked a little better.

Look for sales in other countries, it is much easier to rank in Australia and Canada than you think and all the #1s add up. Build some connections in your FB groups to people in other countries.

How much time it all takes to do this, all the posting and linking and connecting. I need to do much more pre-prep next time. I spent several days getting ready and I have continued spending time with all the follow up.

Don't forget the next day, sales are still going on, promote, promote, promote and remember to go look.

• Be sure to screen capture all your ranking numbers in Amazon’s Product Details area on their sales page. Remember some of this happens in the middle of the night, your extra person can really help with this.


To learn more about how to market and launch your own book check out my How to Market Your Book on-line course. I take you through all the steps. Click here to learn More.

You can also read about my getting my first #1 Best Selling Book at the bottom of my 10 Steps to Publish Your Book page here on this site, http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/p/shows.html


Go and change your author bios on all your social media and web sites with your new status. I now say J. Bruce Jones, #1 International Best Selling Author, is a  blah, blah, blah

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing Hits #1 International Best Seller Status


What a great day Tuesday was, a huge thank you to everyone who helped me launch my new Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing book. During the day it became an international best selling as sales came in over night hitting #1 in the US, Australia and Canada on Wednesday and a best seller in the UK and Germany. Thank you everyone.

For the launch I actually used my own book to help me with the plan, using the Level 1 and 2 engagement levels. Some of the things I did were to post the launch announcement in all of my FaceBook groups, made a Youtube book trailer, set up a Pinterest board, updated my Linkedin account, and put an announcement here on the blog. I also pulled all my different email lists together and sent an announcement out.



Most of the sales were on the Kindle side. Usually when you are doing a book launch you are working with just the Kindle ebooks because you can reduce the price to just $.99. I will keep that price for a few more days and then start raising it. I ended up selling a total of 79 books on launch day with 71 in the US, 5 in Australia and 2 in the UK and 1 in Canada. Today I picked up some additional sales in Canada and went to #1 there also. What really pushed me over the top was coming back around midnight and re-posting in all the groups. I also had some great help from a colleague who kept pushing me to keep selling and helped with some of the book categories.

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Monday, March 7, 2016

[BOOK LAUNCH] Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, with a Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included Launches Today March 8

J. Bruce Jones announces the release of his new book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, with a Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included!

In my new book I take you through the steps that you will need to successfully launch, market and sell your book.

One of the most common questions I get asked by new authors is “What’s Next?” They have pushed the published button and launched their book on Amazon.com and then go, what do I do now? Books don’t market themselves just because you are on Amazon. You need to be involved on a regular basis with getting your book out to the world and getting people to buy it. This is true wither you are an indie author or you have a publishing company behind you. Books need to be marketed in order to find customers.


This book contains the lessons I have learned in creating and marketing over 40 of my own books. The book includes:

3 Simple Things I Would Do to Market My Book

Part 1, Book Marketing Checklist
• General Book Marketing Concepts
• Start Marketing Your Book the Day You Start Writing
• Selling on Amazon
• Book Launch Prep & Build Out Your Media Kit
• Preparing for Your Book Launch and General Marketing
• Going for Best-seller Status
• On-line, General Book Marketing
• Making Your Book Trailer Video
• Off-Line Book Marketing

Part 2, Book Launch Action Plan
• Level 1, Marketing My Book with Little Effort and $0 Dollars
• Level 2, I Can Go a Little Bigger and Make a Little More Effort
• Level 3, I Want to Kick It Into Higher Gear, Try to Really Push It

Part 3, Book Marketing Resources


J. Bruce Jones
I am the author and publisher of over 40 books and I love teaching other people how to make and publish their own books. There is nothing like seeing an author hold their own new book in their hands.


Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing is available at Amazon in Print and Kindle

To Buy a Copy, Please Click Below
Print: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

Kindle: Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing with Complete Action Plan

2 Great Services from Amazon to Promote Your Book


Amazon has a lot of features beyond just selling your book. Two of them you need to look at and take advantage of are Amazon Author Central and the Kindle Select and Lending Programs. I am not a huge fan of the Kindle Select program because it locks up your content for 90 day chunks, but a lot of authors have had success with it. But I like the Lending Program.

Amazon Central is one of the other features and it is your own personal website inside of Amazon. It lists your book, connects you with comments, be careful of this, and gives you stats and information about where and how your books are selling. It is free and every author is eligible to have one.  In fact Amazon gives you one even if you don't sign-up, but you should. To access the Amazon Author Central page click https://authorcentral.amazon.com/


Amazon Author Central Tasks
___Filled out Amazon Author Central page, bio, images, videos, link your blog, Every author is eligible for the free Central site, be sure to use it.

___Link all your books to your Author Central page.

___Your Author Central Bio is also your Kindle bio, make sure your have one.

___Add your Author Central web address to your book’s front matter and on your website. This can be a live link in your Kindle book.

___Sign up on the international Amazon Author Central pages.


Kindle Select and Lending Programs
___Kindle Select Program is a program offered by Amazon for Kindle books. If you are willing to give Kindle exclusivity of your book for a 90 day period they will let you price your book for free for a mix of 5 days during the 90. A lot of authors use the program to help jumpstart their book sales. You can only use this program if you don’t have any of the book content anywhere on the web. Not posting any content is a decision you will need to make when you are starting your marketing. Many authors have found pretty good success with this program. You are only limited for 90 days and then you have to renew.

Personally I am a big fan of posting your content on your website as soon as you can to start getting exposure to Google and your fans but not everyone agrees on this. The Select Program doesn’t apply to physical paperback books. You can read more about this program when you upload your book on the Kindle KDP site.

___I always sign up for the Kindle Lending program. You often make more money lending your book than you do selling your book.

    Kindle Select and Lending program along with several other options are located on the Kindle upload pages.

Resources
•    Amazon Author Central, https://authorcentral.amazon.com/
•    Amazon Affiliate, https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/
•    Kindle Select program, https://kdp.amazon.com/select


This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com, now available in Kindle and Print

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. I create books and I help others get their books published through my consulting and training programs. Check out my course page for more info on my training courses

Saturday, March 5, 2016

10 Tips for Selling Your Book on Amazon Successfully


Amazon.com is most likely where you will be selling your book. This site is also one of the best book and product research tools ever invented. They can tell you tons of information about your market, your readers, what they like and don’t like if you spend some time checking it out. By using what you learn you can adjust your book to key into your readers wants and needs. Marketing isn’t just pushing out lots of info about your book it is also making sure your book answers the key problems that your market has.

Make Your Book Work on the Amazon Sales Page
___A good cover that is easy to read as a thumbnail, remember we see most of our books now as thumbnail images from Amazon searches. Can readers figure out what your book is about when it is 1.5 inches high.

___Having a good title and subtitle, is it descriptive and works with search.

___A good healthy book description. Incorporate your categories, keywords and the main points about your book into the description. Drop in your Table of Contents. Many authors don’t do this. Remember books are found with search, can yours be found.

___Publish both Kindle and CreateSpace paperback versions. If you have time produce an audio version. Give your readers your book in every format.

___Link your website with a book cover thumbnail image to your Amazon sales page, make it an affiliate link. At the bottom of the Amazon sales page you will see the signup link for being an affiliate

___Use the social media links from the Amazon sales page, they are usually over on the right

___E-mail Amazon with your book categories for the international Amazon sites.

___Set up your Amazon affiliate account, use this link for your website and any posts about your book. Gives you a little extra juice.

___Use the Amazon social medial affiliate Facebook and Twitter links. Post regularly.

___Ask for book reviews. Book reviews are a big part of having success on Amazon and Amazon looks for them

This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com, now available in Kindle and Print

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. I create books and I help others get their books published through my consulting and training programs. Check out my course page for more info on my training courses.

Friday, March 4, 2016

7 Ways to Start Building Your Book Marketing Plan and Building Your Platform

Today's post continues my article on building your book platform and connecting with influencers. This is excerpted from my new book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing.

Marketing your book starts the same day that you start writing it. Most authors don't do this, but if you can it will give you a great advantage when it come time to release it. Check out the earlier post Connecting with Influencers and Building Your market and Platform.

The goal here would be to pick a couple of methods and get started building your platform

Social Media Homes
___Build an Open Facebook group around your topic, you can also do a Fan page, this can be a very powerful tool.

___Build social media locations for you or your book, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Linkedin, Snapchat, Instagram and YouTube. Pick a couple to get started.

Offline Connections
___Connect now for the future with local bookstores, coffee shops, and other outlets where you can sell your books. Depending on what your topic is there are many non-traditional places to sell also. Retail stores, professional services, speaking, conferences, etc.

___Build a list of local media, TV, radio, and print that you can connect with. Connect with their social media sites, start to get on their radar. ID who the personalities are and connect with them.

___As you get close to publishing your book pull together your Book Media Kit. Write your author bio and book descriptions. Collect cover images, bio images, videos, everything we will use to launch your book.

___Start building out your author/book website with all of this content. Have it ready to go for when you publish your book, collect e-mail names.

___You should be putting up regular posts related to the book as you work on the writing. These can be story lines, sample sections, describing the writing and publishing process, images and related content. These posts will be used to build interest, Google search traffic, and for building up your mailing list. Be sure to follow the Kindle Select rules on duplicate content if you are going to use this Amazon program, see below.

Resources
Register your website url with companies like DirectNic.com, GoDaddy.com, or Hostgator.com

Build out your website using blogging platforms like WordPress or Google Blogger. Or web site builders like, Wix.com, Weebly.com, and SquareSpace.com. There are many available these are just a few.




This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. I create books and I help others get their books published through my consulting and training programs. Check out my course page for more info of my training.

Thursday, March 3, 2016

Marketing Your Self-Published Book with Winnie Anderson and Bruce Jones


The second of my three part podcast and video series with Winnie Anderson and The Let's Talk Tech Show is now live and it focuses on marketing your self-published book.

Included in the show:
• Building a platform for your book
• Using Google to build an audience by releasing your content
• Being sure your book is edited
• Launching your book
• Writing books people want to read and off line marketing.

We also covered when to start your marketing, cover design and building a media kit. It was a fun interview and covered a lot ground. This show along with the other three also has a pdf handout.

You can listen to the full episode at TheLetsTalkTechShow.com
http://theletstalktechshow.com/marketing-your-self-published-book/

Included with the show is a the pdf handout and resources and for a limited time a pdf copy of my new book, Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Click here to download the notes and the book.


Here is the full three part publishing series with Winnie Anderson

Show One, on general self-publishing and why you should have a book, podcast
http://theletstalktechshow.com/tips-for-successful-self-publishing/

Show Two, marketing your book, tips and strategies, podcast
http://theletstalktechshow.com/marketing-your-self-published-book/

Show Three, Tips on formatting your Kindle book, video
https://youtu.be/B8vxK2JCG3M


Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Connecting with Influencers and Building Your Market and Platform

Excerpt from Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Available at Amazon.com

One of the best ways to build your book platform is to figure out who the main influencers are in your market and connect with them. This is a technique that takes a while to do, 6 months to a year is not unusual. You just don't run into a room and say here I am!! You need to connect, engage, contribute, promote and build a relationship. The goal being to increase your exposure and awareness in their market. Influencers usually have large networks, that is the reason they are influencers. The goal being that when you do come to launching your book you have built a relationship where they can help you. Where they want to help you spread your message

Connecting with Influencers

___Research bloggers and people who have influence in your market. Come up with a list of 10-20 people or sites

___Connect with these people using social media, Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, their YouTube Channel, Pinterest, Periscope, etc. You also want to be where your audience is. You want influencers that are connecting with your target audience. Twitter is especially important here as Blab runs over Twitter.

___Subscribe to their blogs, Facebook, Linkedin groups and email lists.

___Start commenting and engaging with them on their blogs and social media sites. Try to get on these people’s radar, start building a relationship. This will become much more important when we come to launching your book.

___Blab and Periscope are both excellent ways to get in-front of influencers. Especially Blab, which is one of the new personal broadcast platforms. Start a Blab yourself where you talk about your topic, and join Blabs run by your influencers.

To read the second half of this article be sure to click here, 7 Ways to Start Building your Book Marketing Plan and Building Your Platform. In it I talk about Setting up your social media home and offline connections.


This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. I create books and I help others get their books published through my consulting and training programs. Check out my course page for more info of my training.

When and How Do I Start Marketing My Book?

When do I start marketing my book? You start marketing your book the day you start writing.

Ideally marketing your book starts the day you start writing it. We often don’t even know we are writing a book when we start assembling content. But the key is to start reaching out to the world with your ideas as soon as you can. For most people this is a hard concept to get our heads around. We don’t know what we are writing and we often don’t want to release anything until we feel it is perfect. But to gain exposure and to start building our author platform we need to start releasing content as early as possible. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact it most likely will not be. But it takes a while for the world to find us and connect with us. If we start releasing our ideas and content Google will notice and start sending people our way if we give them a place to send fans to. The goal is to build an audience of fans who know and like us and who are there when we release our books.

___Work on building out your author platform.

Your author platform are all the ways that people connect with you. Some are just loose social media connections, some are stronger and are on your email lists and the strongest are actual buyers of your stuff. But they are all the people that can potentially buy your book.

Start Your Platform
___Begin building an author website or blog

___Begin building your email list of interested fans

___Register an author URL for your website, NameNameAuthor.com will work if you can’t get your name

___Set up your social media sites, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, Twitter, YouTube and any others that you think your fans will be at. You want to be in their world.

This is Part 1 of two posts on getting started with your marketing, Click Here for Part 2


This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com

J. Bruce Jones is the author and creator of over 40 books. I create books and I help others get their books published through my consulting and training programs. Check out my course page for more info of my training.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Let's Talk Tech "after show" w/ Bruce Jones - self-publishing and book marketing, Live March 2, 2016

We had a fun Blab show with Winnie Anderson​ and The Let's Talk Tech Show talking about publishing today. We talked on images, copyright, finding editors and picking book categories. A great way to follow up the pod cast series.


I Be sure to sign up over on the right for the free handouts that went with my recent podcast series with Winnie.

20 Lessons I Learned on Book Marketing from Publishing Over 40 Books, Part 2

Over the years of creating and publishing over 40 different books I have learned quite a lot. Below is a list of some of the main lessons. So lets get started with some general concepts and ideas about book marketing. In future posts I will be digging deeper into many of these
  1. Your book marketing begins the day you start writing your book. We often don’t even know we are starting a book project, but we need to start building out our author platform as soon as you can. Your author platform are all the ways that your readers and fans are connected to you. We will be talking more about this shortly.
  2. Amazon doesn’t do your online marketing for you. You have to market your book.
  3. It is important to build some kind of central web home for your book, this can be a website or a blog. Facebook and Twitter are not homes for your book. You want to have a place online that you can blog from, host content, collect email names, have your bio and your book description and info, and have connections so readers can buy.
  4. Build a web site around your own content and sponsor your site with your own books.
  5. Build your author platform!
  6. Build out your marketing wheel. Have a central home where all your social media and other properties can point to. From this home have a clear path for buying your book.
  7. Give Away to Get. Give away sample chapters, maybe even full books, related content, and information. Deliver however your reader wants. Fans need to touch and feel your content.
  8. Web Traffic Matters, only about 1% of visitors will buy, but you need to bring in the other 99% to get those one. Be out there, be public and bring in readers.
  9. Build a mixture of online and off-line marketing.
  10. Book marketing is a continual process, do something everyday.
  11. Publishing on Amazon is important, start here first then branch out.
  12. Amazon book reviews are important, ask your readers to add a book review to your book.
  13. Have the best cover you can afford,
  14. Edit, Copy Edit and Proof Read, pay an editor to clean up your book. It is one of the most important things you can do.
  15. Good healthy book descriptions are important, use all the space they give you. Books are found by words in Google and Amazon search but only if the words are there to be found.
  16. Your Table of Contents are your book’s benefits, don’t do Chapter 1, Chapter 2, be descriptive in your list of chapters.
  17. Try not to end up with a garage full of books, use print-on-demand and e-books. Keep your costs to a minimum. You can always print later.
  18. If you think you are going to be selling your book in stores be sure to buy your own ISBN number, also look at IngramSpark.com instead of CreateSpace.
  19. Create an event around the release of your book. Build some buzz about it using all of the tools available.
  20. You don’t need to advertise in traditional media to have a successful book
 See Part 1 of this Post: Book Marketing Concepts for Self-Publishers



This list is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com 

General Book Marketing Concepts for Self-Publishers, Part 1

One of the most common questions I get asked by new authors is “What’s Next?” They have pushed the published button and launched their book on Amazon.com and then go what do I do now? Books don’t market themselves just because you are on Amazon. You need to be involved on a regular basis with getting your book out to the world and getting people to buy it. This is true wither you are an indie author or you have a publishing company behind you. Books need to be marketed in order to find customers. This book is about many of the tasks that you will need to do to launch and have a successfully selling book.

Who am I, my name is J. Bruce Jones and I am the author and creator of over 40 of my own books, many of them best sellers at different times and the graphic designer for many more. I am a huge fan of self-publishing, I love it. We live in an amazing moment in time where we can publish, manufacture, distribute and sell our own ideas in book, video or audio form to the world. In this book I will layout and share with you what I have learned from the past number of years from my own book making and marketing efforts. Most of the ideas in this book are directed to indie and self-publishers but they will also work with books published by traditional houses.

I will be talking about books that are published as paperback using the print-on-demand side of Amazon, called CreateSpace.com and also the e-book side using the Kindle platform. There are many ways to publish your book but for success you will need to market and that is what this book is about. This book is set up in a checklist format that you can use to set up your own marketing.

In the follow up post I will list out the main lessons that I have learned from publishing over 40 books

 Click here to see the main lessons I have learned: 20 Lessons I Have Learned from Publishing Over 40 Books




This text is an excerpt from my latest book Book Marketing Checklist for Self-Publishing, Complete Book Launch Action Plan Included! by J. Bruce Jones Available at Amazon.com