Free images and drawing resources

Some cool new resources

Photopea Online Photo Editor
Free online editor that supports PSD-Adobe Photoshop, XCF-GIMP, Sketch-Sketch App, XD- Adobe XD and CDR-CorelDRAW formats. It seems to handle a lot of formats. This is an online product.

https://www.photopea.com/


Inkscape, Draw Freely
Inscape is a professional vector graphics editor for Linux, Windows and MacOS. It is free and open-source. Includes flexible drawing tools, broad file format compatibility, text tools, and Bezier and spiro curves. This is a downloadable product.

https://inkscape.org/

375,000 Images from the Met Museum for Free

You can now use over 375,000 images from the Met Museum for free, yes that is correct. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City has announced that thousands of pieces of art images in its collection are now in the public domain and can be used without restrictions.

This is part of their Open Access policy. It allows you to use their images for commercial and noncommercial use, free of charge and without any permission.  Think about the children's books or coloring books you could make. The images are under the Creative Commons rules which govern how information is shared.

You can read more about the new policy at, https://mymodernmet.com/metropolitan-museum-of-art-open-access/

Here is the link for the Met Collection, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection, Click on Open Access Artworks, and click on the Open Access box in the search window.

This is a great resource for artwork for our books and publications. As they say on the Met site, Open Access Artworks, Enjoy more than 406,000, (looks like they are continuing to add to the collection), hi-res images of public domain works from the collection that can be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction. [Fantastic]

If you want to access more museum and collection images you can also search the collections on the Creative Commons site. CC has over 20 collections of images that are in the public domain and that you can use to create books, design projects, https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/collections. These images are classified as Creative Commons 0 or CC0, which is their public domain label.

Be sure to always learn about your images and what rights apply to each. Here is a good place to start, https://ccsearch.creativecommons.org/about

The 10 Best Entrepreneurial Book that Every Business Person Should Read

An excellent post from the ClickFunnels Blog on the 10 Best Entrepreneurial Books That Everyone Should Read. Lately, I have been working my way through books that Russel Brunson has recommended. You can see my review of one of the books in the previous post. In May John Parkes put up this post highlighting a great list of books. I have more to read.

1. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
2. Expert Secrets by Russel Brunson, (read it)
3. Play Bigger by Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead, Dave Peterson, and Kevin Maney
4. DotCom Secrets by Russel Brunson, (read it)
5. Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler
6. Great Leads by Michael Masterson and John Forde
7. The One Thing by Gary W. Keller, and Jay Papason
8. Remote by Jason Fried
9. Rework by Jason Fried
10. Good to Great by Jim Collins

 From Russell Brunson's One Funnel Away Challenge
11. Making Them Believe by Dan S Kennedy and Chip Kessler
12. The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes


You can check out the post here: The 10 Best Entrepreneurial Books That Everyone Should Read

J. Bruce Jones is an author of over 50 books and a product developer of lots of stuff, Want to know how to publish your own book? Check out my latest book Self-Publishing SECRETS, Create, Publish and Launch Your Book. Click here to pick up a copy.

Russell Brunson's Recommended Marketing Book • Making Them Believe • What I Learned Book Review

Recommended Marketing Books • Making Them Believe • What I Learned from reading this book.
Russel Brunson the co-founder of Clickfunnels, has a great list of recommended book for learning more about marketing. He talks about them in his training videos. I went out and bought the books and have been reading them. In this What I learned Book Review for Making Them Believe by Dan Kennedy and Chip Kessler, I learned a ton. This book is about a doctor from the 1920s and 30, Dr. J. R. Brinkley. Dr. Brinkley created a huge medical practice around a strange procedure of transplanting goat testicles into men who were having issues. It was all a hoax and eventually found out. But he was a brilliant marketer with a lot of lessons to learn and built a huge practice and became very wealthy. This book covers lessons that we still use today. Excellent read and lots to learn.
I recommend reading it. Thank you, Russell, for sharing.



Check out Making Them Believe by Dan Kennedy and Chip Kessler
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Them-Believe-Legendary-Testicles/dp/0982379382/

Creating Your Author Website or Blog

Creating an Author Website for Your Book. One of the essential components for your book marketing is creating an author blog/website. Both will work, I like the blog better because you can continually add new content. Your website gives you and your book a home on the web. It gives you a central place to focus your marketing. In this video, I talk about what you should have on the site and some excellent examples of some author websites.

Want to know how to publish your own book? Check out my Self-Publishing SECRETS, Create, Publish and Launch Your Book. Click here to pick up a copy.

Excellent Guidelines for Marketing Your Book

I read two excellent blog post recently on Jane Friedman's blog, janefriedman.com, about how to market your book. Most geared to first-time authors who don't really have any platform to speak of.

The first is by Jane Friedman and the second by Beth Alvarado. Both articles on Jane's blog.

A Book Launch Plan for First-Time Authors Without an Online Presence. This article contains four basic concepts to follow for authors.

1. Market and promote your book to people who know you. This would be your platform, your email list, FB followers, friends, family, customers.

2. Encourage your fans and readers to share your book with people in their network

3. Connect with influencers. Russell Brunson calls this your Dream 100.

4. Market to people who don't know you yet. A Facebook group on your topic is an excellent way to do this. Along with YouTube, social media and blogging.

The second article is 9 Ways (and 2 Rewards) of Marketing Your Own Book, by Beth Alvarado.

In this article, the author takes some of the lessons she learned from publishing some books with some pretty small publishers and apply them to her own marketing. She applies these lessons to the steps outlined by Jane Friedman in the first article.

Lessons such as building a list of book reviewers and then sending your book to them (influencers). Maybe look for influencers in your market that might not always deal with books. Getting your book nominated for prizes. Maybe advertise your book-you can do fairly inexpensive advertising on Amazon. Network with other writers. Conduct a book launch. Pushing your book out to the world in anyway you can.

We all have to market our books. Pretty much no one else is going to do it. Both of these articles are pretty good guides.

Need help getting started with your book?
Download a free Self-Publishing SECRETS Checklist, Takes you through the entire process, step-by-step, Click Here

Self-Publish or Traditional Publishing?

Self-Publishing or Traditional Publishing?

• What Do I Do? Self-Publish or Traditional Publishing?
This is a big one and a question I am often asked. There are two main routes, traditional publishing or self-publishing.

To go the traditional publishing route, you will generally need an agent. Not always but often, and it is the agent that approaches the publisher. This can be a difficult, and long journey. Publishing is a business and they want books that come with an audience and will sell. I am not a fan of this route. If you have a big following, then it is possible, but for most of us, this route is very hard.  In traditional publishing, your publisher gains control over your rights and content. If you control your rights you control your content. I teach using your book’s content for marketing and selling. I also want you to create other products by re-purposing your content. This isn’t available to you if you give up your rights and go with a traditional publisher. The author retains ownership and control of their rights and content. One of the best decisions Amazon made. The copyright stays with the author.

I am a huge fan and supporter of self-publishing. Self-publishing before had a bad taste to it, but not anymore. If you want to publish a book; you can publish a book. It is being done all over the place with great success. The gatekeepers have fallen. We have Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Smashwords.com, IngramSpark.com and more. No one is going to say no to you publishing your book. It is all up to you. Self-publishing has become easier and easier to do and very often free. For self-publishers, the world is opening up.

The writers I know, who have gone the more the traditional route, have found success with smaller, more focused publishers. Publishers who know their market and can work with an author. For me, it comes down to control. Who controls the rights and uses to our content? I like being able to use my content in any way that I want.

Self-Publishing
• No one can say no. If you want to publish your book, you can publish.
• Faster to market. I have done books in one weekend.
• Control of your content, you keep your copyright, this is super important.
• You can re-purpose your content for marketing. Create other products such as workbooks and journals. Make podcasts and videos.
• Free to publish or close to it. You pay the costs to edit, design and format your book, free if you do it yourself.
• You will have to market your book yourself. But even with most publishers these days you will have to handle the marketing.
• Higher royalties, estimate $2.50-$3.50+ vs. $.70 for traditional publishing.

Traditional Publishing
• You will need an agent to approach a publisher.
• Lots of people can and will say no to publishing your book.
• It can take a year to create and release your book.
• You lose your copyright and your rights to control your content.
• You will not be able to re-purpose your content. The publisher owns your material. This is important in marketing your book. You want to be able to use your content how you want.
• A publisher will do the production work for your project. Don’t pay a publisher to publish your book.
• You will most likely still have to handle all the marketing yourself. This can be a challenge because your publisher now controls your content and may not like your ideas.

Excerpt from the new book Self-Publishing SECRETS, Create, Publish and Launch Your Book, by Bruce Jones.

Need help getting started with your book?
Download a free Self-Publishing SECRETS Checklist, Takes you through the entire process, step-by-step, Click Here

Why Making a Printed Proof of Your Book is So Important

I am a big believer in creating a printed physical proof copy of your book. I usually do this just before the major editing. You see so many more things when it is sitting in your hands than when the book is just on the computer screen. Learn how in this new video

To get your own Free copy of the Self-Publishing SECRETS Checklist please click here

What I Learned From My Clickfunnels One Funnel Challenge, Amazing Experience

My wrap up video for the One Funnel Away Challenge 
My One Funnel Challenge Wrap Up Video and what I learned, I loved this challenge from Clickfunnels and learned a ton. I feel like I completed a masters degree in internet marketing in one month. I now know what to do to sell my products and how to do it in an efficient way. I am excited to move forward with more products.

• I learned how to break a product down into its current parts and future I would love to have parts. Build a product library

• How to use your products to solve a problem and how to solve the problems that your product solution creates. Fill those new problems with your products

• I have learned the structure of a funnel and where you plug your products into your funnel. What is the squeeze page, what is the sales item, the upsell, the bump, the bonus, where everything goes

• Testing, Testing, and Test, but now I know the numbers and what to test against, and how to recognize and fix the problems

• Hook, Story, Offer - Who, What, Why, How

• How to look at other products and break them down

• Publish every day, not easy but necessary

• Epiphany Bridge, your story and how to tell it.

• How to use your products in the process of selling your products, great lessons by just watching how they teach

• Email script structure, I now feel much more confident in writing emails

• The fantastic FB community.

J. Bruce Jones is an author of over 50 books and a product developer of lots of stuff, Want to know how to publish your own book? Check out my latest book Self-Publishing SECRETS, Create, Publish and Launch Your Book. Click here to pick up a copy.

Funnel Training and Writing Copy

• Julie, Building a Squeeze page, W3 M3 https://youtu.be/_eiUCpi7fxs
• Julie Q & A 1/3 Setting up email and pdf download, https://youtu.be/DPmvAYLs13o
• Julie Q & A 2/3 setting up SMTP account if you have bigger $297 account https://youtu.be/7mvJAU0mmnM

• Julie, Sales page https://youtu.be/Kv3u3N10O6Q
• Julie Orderform https://youtu.be/UpTAuqHX99g

• Julie OTO page, https://youtu.be/AV2-FNa9cK0
• Q & A https://youtu.be/nV7i5bCTb-8
• Jim training on OTO https://youtu.be/gMXIzkJ8Bj0

• Julie Member Area https://youtu.be/koApEvI72Is

Member site testing https://youtu.be/v_lfp4PicWg

• Funnel Builder Secrets Light, https://youtu.be/1io8eBwqXKI

Julie's Training Video https://youtu.be/slxadpeCqzU

Jim Features, Benefits and Meaning video  https://youtu.be/PLoFfoZnpMo
Jim EHooks and Headlines, https://youtu.be/PZ-rRxcQuFY

Headline Generator Script, https://members.funnelscripts.com/free/?fbclid=IwAR3-LkZUuOEwnBdW8l7BGceK_ea78NOh3YJAt3ftSYebJAg5Y4SkhUwHgaQ


A cool way to build an affiliate business, https://youtu.be/kRR3zdzeG9k

Perfect Webinar Script
5 Minute Perfect Webinar with Jaime Cross https://youtu.be/-V0TcptQqHA
MIG Soap Face Bar https://youtu.be/U3Xlwiex9jw

The Top Ten Tips Technique to Write and Publish a Book

The Top Ten Tips Technique to Write and Publish a Book
This post has been condensed from the full technique.


1. Write down the 10 best tips or lessons on or about your business, or your expertise. Keep these to one or two sentences each. #1 is your best then follow with 9 more. This can also be the number one and then number two and so on questions that you get asked.


2. Write out one paragraph for each tip or lesson, just one paragraph.


3. For each lesson expand that 1 paragraph to 3-4 paragraphs, flush out the concepts.


3B. Add an author bio along with a photo and contact info at the back of the book. Add a resource list at the back of the book, an intro for the front, a table of contents and any additional info that might apply to your book. If you offer programs or consulting, drop that in also, give readers a call to action. We are talking 28-36 pages when done. This isn't a manifesto.





4. Have your book edited and proofed. After your book is formatted and laid out have it printed out for review and re-edit again. You will be amazed at what you see in a printed version of your book.


5. Print out a Pre-Edited Proof of your book, at the correct size and bind it with a spiral binding. This will give you an excellent sample of your book.


6. Select a format for publishing your book. E-book on Kindle, print book on CreateSpace.com/Amazon or using a quick print shop


7. Create a Kindle e-book and cover
Format the insides of your book in MS Word or some similar word processing application such as Google Doc, Pages, or Scrivner for Kindle. Just work with the regular document and keep the formatting simple. For an ebook/Kindle, create the front cover using Canva.com, InDesign or the online Kindle Cover Creator and save it as a jpg. I have found 6” x 9” at 300dpi can work very well.


8. Create a KDP print book and cover
Using Adobe InDesign or MS Word set up your book page at 5.5” x 8.5” or 6” x 9” with ½” margins. Format your MS Word document in InDesign or in Word, add images and publish your book through KDP.Amazon.com.  For a printed book on KDP, set up a full cover spread with the back, spine and front covers plus a 1/8” bleed all around. Your book needs to have a minimum of 24 pages. Try for 36 pages and you will do fine. KDP also has an online Cover Creator that can simplify the cover layout.


9. Create a Quick Print book and cover
For quick print books that you create through a local copy shop or Staples, set your page size up at 5 ½” x 8 ½”.  This is an easy size to get printed at a quickie print shop. If you have access to Adobe InDesign that also works very well for creating a printed book. A local designer can help with this stage. Your PDF book is created from any of your source files. If you are using a local quick print shop like Staples you can leave out the spine. Set your cover spread up with a back cover and front cover at 8.5” x 11”.


10. Uploading and publishing your book. If sending your book to Kindle then save it as an html file for the web. If you are going to print, export or save as a pdf file. Also, export your cover file. Upload your book files to Kindle for ebook, or KDP.Amazon.com print, KDP is also the print-on-demand, self-publishing side of Amazon.com, or take the two pdf files to a local quick print shop. If hosting on-line at Amazon, add descriptions, author bio, categories, keywords and price. Kindle has cover creator applications for ebook and print.


11. Launch and market your book through the popular social media channels; Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Pinterest, your website, your email list and YouTube. The chapters can make great videos and blog posts. Give it out to potential and current customers. Make the book available on your website as a free or paid pdf download. Add a thumbnail of the cover and add a link to Amazon for purchasing.


12. Re-Purpose your book content. Your Top Ten Book will make a great blog and video content for your website. Each chapter is a blog post or a video. The script has been written. Take your chapter and it becomes the description for your YouTube video. Take each chapter, add some questions with lines for writing and you have a workbook for a seminar or workshop. Take each chapter and turn them into a short video course. Publish the workbook on KDP and reference the videos. As you can see you can do all kinds of things with this content.


© Copyright J. Bruce Jones 2019


Learn more about publishing your own book at
http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/


Come and join the FaceBook Group, How to Publish Your Book
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/

I Didn't Learn to Write Until I Was 53

We are up to the Epiphany Bridge Script and telling our own origin story for the Clickfunnels One Funnel Away Challenge. This story is used for marketing our products. The assignment was to either write or video our story based on a set script that we were given.


1. Backstory
2. Desires, Internal/External
3. Wall
4. Epiphany
5. Plan
6. Conflict
7. Achievement
8. Transformation


Backstory
So I didn't learn to write until I was 53, which anybody who knows me finds kind of amazing because of all those books that are sitting there behind me. But it's true. I didn't learn to write until 53 and it all starts back way back. My earliest memories about myself, the one that everybody already has an early memory mind goes back to about five years old. My earliest memory and I had three set three goals that I have used for my entire life. One was to own my own business. This is five years old. They did this. The other one was to do something in TV or film. And the third one was to write and publish books. I don't know why I came up with these three goals, but they were the goals and I set for myself at five years old and I have pursued them all the way through the rest of my life.


Desire/External
Now the problem was, uh, on all this is I don't know how to write. And somewhere around fourth grade, I was diagnosed with being dyslexic. But for me, English and writing are just awful. It was just a horrible experience. I don't understand nouns and pronouns. I don't understand how sentences go together. I don't understand anything. And I was that kid. I was always a kid in a school that was the kid who was allowed to do projects because they couldn't write the papers. That was me. So I made Viking villages and I made science projects and I acted out plays. I did all kinds of things. Because my teachers would feel sorry for me because I could not figure out how to put those words together. Um, I still want it to be able to learn to write and do, write and write books, but I just couldn't put it, it just didn't make any sense because my brain was messed up and this kind of went all the way through, all the way through grade school, all the way through high school, all the way through college.


Not knowing how to write. I changed my major in my senior year of college because I didn't want to do a thesis paper in the major I was in. I didn't want to do a thesis paper and I switched to art and I had been hanging around in the art department all along. But, I just didn't know how to do it. I had a professor who would flunk you if you put a comma splice in a, in a paper. I have no idea what a comma splice is. I have no idea today what comma splices are. And so I just eliminated all comma from my papers figuring, well, I don't have a comma that I can't have a comma splice. And so, that's the way it was. And it struggled and went through business and I'd have different bosses try to help me and people who helped me and try to do things.


Desire/Internal
It just, I couldn't write memos. I couldn't do it. I couldn't any of that kind of stuff. And, eventually that all came in as I became a graphic designer. And the problem with being a graphic designer as you worked with words all day long. And um, so as my client's got to know me because you have to do corrections all the time is they'd have to spell all the words. So I'd sit on the phone for hours while they would do corrections on newsletters and brochures and they would spell the words to me. And if I didn't get the word out, which would really sort of getting people upset, they didn't know me really well. Uh, they would get upset. And if they tell me your word over the phone, if I do not, even today, if I don't get the word out, the first shot, even a simple word, it's gone.


It's just completely gone out of my head. I have no idea what that word is, how to spell it, how to put any of it down. It just disappears. It will come back tomorrow, but it just doesn't do it. So it was just this sort of struggle, this internal-external struggle of trying to work in a world. And it happened to pick a career that, you know, works with words a lot. Of how to, you know, navigate writing papers, writing memos, correct. Doing corrections, dealing with words, right to spell. If you have to sit next to me in a meeting, it's kind of embarrassing. I've had people do that to go, what is he doing? Cause it's all scribbles and, scratches. In fact, you can kind of see it. It's just that. But internally I'm like just feeling like a fool or an idiot because I can't get the words out.


I don't understand language, didn't understand how things went, what they did. So it was just sort of a struggle to kind of put all that together, in, so that's, that was me, that's my backstory. That's who I am. Just trying to figure out how to, write and put words together and do all these things. But at the same time, I had this dream of that I want to write books and I want to do something with writing. I'm not sure why that came. I did. The other thing, I started my own business. I worked in a lot of TV stuff. I did all that kind of stuff that was fairly easy. But the writing was, was just a, just a real pain.

Wall
So, so as I got closer to my 50s, or in my fifties, I decided I just wanted to learn to figure this out.
Just see if I could do it, see if I could get words down. And blogging kind of came along. And so it gave me a good opportunity to start, to try to do something. So I just, I started to just push myself in writing. I was like, you know, I didn't know how to do it, but I had a number of things happen because of the graphic designer. There's a number of sort of epiphany's that happened or awarenesses that happen. One of them was learning about the power of an editor, so the editor takes and fixes stuff. And so I worked with a lot of editors doing graphic design and I started to come to the realization that I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to get my own words out because we're always correcting other people's words and the editors come in and fix their words.


Well, maybe they could fix my words too. So if I had things I wanted to say or I wanted to write, I could always hire an editor was sort of a moment, I can kind of actually maybe do this. And so I just started to push and push and there was a tech, I came up with some little techniques as I sort of just kept pushing myself to see if I could write a, one of them is this thing I called it writing a letter to your sister. So sometimes what I discovered in that, that period of time was if can remove yourself from yourself and kind of put it through something else, some other vehicle you it come out kind of sets a switch off and you can go the other way. So one of the techniques, the first real sort of a little book that I had to write was a software manual for some software products that I had is I wrote a letter to my sister and I basically just said, you know, Dear Katherine, that is my sister's name, Dear Katherine, here is my software product.


And that was enough to kind of trigger to get out this sort of little software manual. I had to write for myself and my product just to write. So it's like a little trick. I started to learn in my fifties some little techniques based on doing graphic design, based on working with editors, based on just watching other people doing it and started to just sort of push.

Epiphany
And I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and very interesting things that have happened. That's why I say I learned to write a 53 it's right around 53 I took this course from this internet marketing guy, Jeff Walker. So a lot of you probably know who he is. He's a, he's a pretty famous internet marketing guy and I took a course from him and he had a technique in there.


We all had to write a business plan. So that was going to be this assignment. We had to write a business plan and, but the way he delivered or assigned us to write this plan was he gave us little assignments, single paragraphs, just little bitty things, write this out. So I was like, okay, I can write that. It's not writing a whole big thing. It's just writing a little bit and I would write that little bit and the next day he gives you another little assignment. I write that little bit and write that a little bit and this amazing thing started to happen is that by the end of that process of writing this business plan for the course, all of a sudden some kind of switch went off in my head and I could, I could write like words started coming out.


In fact, they came out, I could feel them coming out of the ends of my fingers. I had to happen once. Learning how to play the Mandolin, whereas suddenly got it and like notes can just pouring out of the end of my fingers. This was words that came out of my fingers and suddenly I went from this thing that was like so hard to suddenly, there are just words just like pouring up. And I would sit there and just write and anybody who has gotten an email from me during that time where before I struggled to barely get one or two sentences out and I still do this. I still take the backs of thoughts and put them at the front. If I write out quickly the backend of the sentences at the front of the sentence and the runs, that's, that's dyslexic being dyslexic, you switched things around.


Plan
Well, we're just kept started to come. I was like all I can pour it outright and point out right. And I'd be just writing, writing, writing, writing. So I'd write these emails that were like this long like measured them in feet as opposed to, you know, inches. And because it was like something had happened in my head that just switched and I realized it and I just started to write and I just started writing, writing, writing, writing, writing and I realized that also another big thing that happened to me was a couple of things in here. One is the power of hitting the publish button, the power, whether you are on a blog and it has to be public, but by writing something on a blog. I had been doing a lot of blogging at this time. I had been trying to push is that when you hit the power, the hit the publish button, you realize the second you've pushed it, pushed it what it is you should have written like you have a transformation.


Even just writing little tiny blog posts, you hit that publish button and something happens. You're like, oh, that's what I should've said, there is a transformation. Like you go, oh, and they can go back and fix it and you can fix it and you can realize that there's something that happens in the power or releasing your stuff to the world, like pushing it out there. So I sorta had this thing that happened were suddenly words are pouring out of my head, out of my fingers. It really felt like they'll be coming out of my fingers and mixing that with the power of hitting the publish button and letting things go and learning not that I don't have to be perfect on stuff and maybe an editor could fix it and just, and just go. And so what happened is I started to write everywhere.


And I started to write, I started to take off days and go off to libraries. You don't have to have your library has study rooms. Didn't know that. But I do now. And I did then. I started to learn about them. You can go there and just write. I took, um, I did. There was one day I went, I was in a conference in San Diego and I wrote, I went to, I had a lot of time to wait for the airplane with the conference done, I had the time to wait for the airplane and I went to the Hard Rock Hotel Cafe and I wanted to write a book and I had all my notes ready to go and I said, I have six hours, I have to wait. Can I just sit here for six hours? You bring me coffee, bring me food, I'm going to sit at this table and I'm just going to work.


And they were like, yeah, sure, whatever. And they just would kind of bring me food. I had ordered another sandwich. I just kept writing. I was there for six hours. I just wrote and wrote and wrote, wrote, wrote and wrote. It was, it was wonderful experiences just to sit there and do that. And I just started to keep to do it and I realized also you can lose this. And so I was like, okay, this thing happened to me. I can now get words out. If I don't, it's like a muscle. If I don't keep working it and do it, I'm going to lose this. So it was sort of urgency to kind of get things going. And uh, so it just, it was just the most amazing experience. And what had been an awful thing became a wonderful thing, a switch. There was a transformation that happened in me from not being able to do this, this whole thing.


It was so hard to do to something that I just would go off for a day and write. I go to a library to write. I started writing on airplanes. I wrote a number of books in airplanes. I was going back and forth across the country a bunch at that time. I would, it's a, writing on an airplane is the most, it's a fantastic place to write because you can, you can write, no one bothers you just write. You know, it's limited time. If you're tired, you lean back in your chair and take a nap. Can you get back up and you just keep writing? Uh, it's a fantastic place to do it. And I wrote a number of books flying back and forth across the country.


So it just was sort of eye-opening and it's like, aah, and I had some amazing writing experiences, getting other people to write this sort of transformation that happens that when you go from the no, no, no world to the yes, yes, of letting yourself go of hitting that publish button, letting it go out into the world and see what happens. It's just, it was like incredible. So as this kind of went on, so that was like, I was around 53 when that hasn't moved on. I started to get better and better at putting words down and a number of things that I sort of developed at that time also is one breaking the perfection button. They, uh, came, a friend of mine who came up with a phrase of Perfection Freeze Progress. But some of it is realizing that when you have a thought when you're trying to write in your, you're used to with the pen is that we, we self edit ourselves in our own heads. We self edit, right? We stop our fingers from writing or typing and learning to just do that.


Conflict
Put those words down. I know you'll have conversations in your head with yourself when you're sort of trying to write something. I was writing some notes here. I put some notes here for this here and you're like, Eh, I don't want to write that. You just, it's learning to put that down. Like that is one of the hardest things to learn, I think is that we self edit ourselves and we'd go, I just want to say that doesn't want to say, I don't know what I want to say this is, it's going ahead and put it down because that's the power of the editing afterward. It's the, you have the power of publishing, but before that, you had the power that you can fix it, you can change it, you can edit it and so that's getting confidence in yourself that just put those words down.


Don't self-edit, like don't put this barrier up. It's like one of the toughest things I think to sort of as I learned to write and learn to deal with it and I and get those things out of my way. Get that stuff. That wall that you put up that prevents you in your own head and putting it down on paper. You haven't even shown it to other people yet. You haven't dealt with an editor, you haven't been with anybody. It's in your own self and putting that down and just letting it go and it's going, yep, that's okay. I'll just write. I don't know what I want to say but I'll just write, write that down and that's a big step and sort of moving it forward. I also developed a sort of a Top Ten Technique and I teach people this technique.


I'm not sure if you'd know me. You've seen me probably teach this. I've been on airplanes, I've done it on restaurants, I've done it all kinds of places. It's a technique that I kind of develop how to pull this stuff out of your head, how to use those initial thoughts and expand those thoughts and stuff. It's, I call it my Top Ten Technique. Um, and at some, it's a technique that I had sort of developed while I was going through this and it's helped me in writing a lot of books and doing kind of a lot of stuff. So, um, it's just, there is sort of conflicts that come up and walls that we put ourselves, but it's sort of a process of releasing all that stuff.

Achievement
So now we move forward 10 years. What's happened? Well, there's a whole shelf full of books. I have now over 50 books that I have published all different kinds of genres. I've also, um, helped a lot of other people get their books going, I have a large group on Facebook. I have, I've developed courses, I have books. All kinds of books, books on writing books and publishing something that was so hard for me. I now teach other people to do it. I have hundreds of people that have used my stuff and listen to what I've done. It's just been pretty amazing to watch people.

Transformation
It's exciting to watch them go through the process of learning, to write and to publish and to release. But it's really that transformation that comes, it has been some of the most amazing things to see people's lives, including my own, that have gone, who just had this internal dream. I wrote in one of my latest books, I wrote this phrase, I put, it sort of a dedication to myself in here.


And I wrote because I didn't really feel this because I've seen it happen so many times.



Publishing your book is often the fulfillment of a dream 

you might not know you even have, it can transform your life.

So let me just read that again.


Publishing your book is often the fulfillment of a dream you might not even know you have. It can transform your life.


It's, it changes your perspective on the world. It gives you organization, it helps you move forward. I've had some amazing experiences. I've watched people in a room who, somebody who I had helped get their book published, and they walk into a room of their friends with their book and just this unbelievable smile on their face. And there's this, they don't even know what's going on as all the people come around them. Congratulate them on their book. Because even though I'm kind of in a world that generates a lot of books, and we all have a lot of books and authors, most people don't have a book. And it's a huge deal to get one out. And so to be able to watch that happen, watch people's lives go in different directions, watch them. Gain the confidence to do things, to reshape things based on writing. So I just encourage you to push, pursue those dreams. Put stuff down on paper. Go ahead and publish. Hit that publish button. Uh, get things. Get a transformation that happens. It's unbelievable.

All right. See you next time. Bye Bye.



How to Tell Stories from Russell Brunson

Today's lesson in the Clickfunnel One Funnel Away Challenge is about the importance of story and how to tell a story and how to use it in the process of selling.



The assignment is to now write our stories

The 365 Day Broadcast Challenge

New assignment from Russell Brunson and the One Funnel Away Challenge. We have to do either a blog post, a video-Facebook Live or a podcast every day for 365 days. Ok, well that will keep me busy.

I think I will start with Facebook lives and answer the questions that come in every day. It is what people want to hear and it is pretty easy to create. Turn on the camera and talk. Here is todays on Ways to promote your book while you are writing it.


QUESTION: What are some of the ways you can promote a book while it is being written?

I would tell the story of the story. Bring people alone with your writing. Set up a blog. I recommend Google Blogger, it is free and super easy to get going. You don’t need any web person. This is a great way to build your platform of followers
• Post the progress of the writing.
• Post what you have written, sections from the actual book. Don’t worry that it isn’t perfect, it is the rough stage.
• Repost the post on a Facebook page
• Tweet the post, and any other social media
• Take people on a journey of the writing, if you visit someplace for research for the book, talk about.
• If a children’s book, show the sketches, the rough drawings, the finish drawings
• Show people your writing space, people love that
• Release a chapter as a downloadable pdf, very easy to do.
• It is being public about the book and the process way before you ever release it.
• As you build posts you can look at the stats and see what people are interested in.

J. Bruce Jones is the best selling author of over 40 books. Bruce writes and teaches authors how to create, publish and launch their books.

Learn more about publishing your own book at
http://brucethebookguy.blogspot.com/

Come and join the FaceBook Group, How to Publish Your Book
https://www.facebook.com/groups/HowToPublishYourBook/


For this assignment, we are to use one of these platforms to release our content, Facebook Live, the blogging platform-Medium, a short podcast using Anchor on your phone, or Instagram. This video gives us the ins and outs of this assignment.

#selfpublishsecrets

Week One of the Clickfunnel's One Funnel Away Challenge

My week of learning the One Funnel Away

Wow, what a week so far of the Clickfunnel, One Funnel Challenge. We are into the training, pay attention or be left behind.

Funnel Hacking Your Competitors
We started with Funnel Hacking. Funnel Hacking is when you look at the sales funnels of competitors and others and try to figure out what they are doing, what is their process. Facebook is a great place to look at the ads and products that your competitors use. Go to the company's FB page and scroll down the page, you will many of their ads. Recently they had a tab on the left called Info and Ads which grouped them all in one search. But the ads are still on the page. What you are looking for in an ad for their product is the Hook, Story, and Offer from the company. You want to see what they are selling, what story they are telling and what product. You are looking for the pricing, the bonuses, all the different parts. Set up a spreadsheet or chart and compile all of this data. You want to know about the universe you are marketing to. This exercise will give you a pretty good idea of what is working.

Hook > Story > Offer

Analyzing Your Products
Once this information has been compiled you then want to write down all the elements of your product. You want to break the elements down into four categories, Written, Audio/Video, Physical and Other. This should be a listing of everything you can think of, not just the stuff you have made. But also any products that you haven't made but could someday. Even adding in items like t-shirts, hats, and mugs. Customers love getting a t-shirt.

Written > Audio/Video > Physical > Other

Breaking down my World of Maps Clip-Art map products to all the possible things I could sell.

One of the tasks we also had to do was put together a test product pitch. Basically, create a product on paper with all the parts and features and pitch it to someone. I got to do this on Tuesday to a buddy of mine. For my test product to pitch, I broke down my Self-Publishing courses. It was pretty good. Keith Spiro of Keith Spiro Media recorded my efforts. You can learn more about Keith at http://bit.ly/keithspiro




Every Problem Has a Solution with New Products. 
One of the cool things I have learned so far is that products are a solution to a problem. Every problem has a solution. You are selling a solution to a problem. But, and here is the cool thing, the solution opens up a series of new problems. Your job will be to fill all those problems with your own solutions. The solutions are your products. I never thought about products like this. In fact, Russell Brunson has really opened my eyes to a lot of new stuff.

An example might be, a dog is a solution for someone living alone and wanting some comfort and security. But a dog needs to be fed, bathed, where does it sleep, who walks it when you have to go away, where do you find a good vet. If you are selling dogs you might also offer dog training, a ready supply of food, maybe dog sitting services when the new owner goes away. You can greatly expand your product if you offer a solution. This process is called a Funnel Sequence.

So this is what I did next, I took my World of Maps clip art product and broke it down into a lot of little and different products. See the picture above.

Funnel Sequence
After you have figured out all the elements, you then need to build a Funnel Sequence. A sequence is the stream of actions that happen when someone comes to buy your product. We start with an ad on maybe Facebook for some free thing. The person clicks on the ad and it takes to a landing or squeeze page when they can get the free item in exchange for an email address. Next, the person is taken to a Sales Page for something related and usually the next thing someone might need. Buy a Dog, then purchase Dog Training. After that order, the person is taken to what is called an Upsell page. This might be Dog Insurance. That is as far as we are going, but you get the idea. And it is only Thursday.

Ad > Squeeze Page > Sales Page > Upsell

My Funnel Sequence for my World of Maps Products

Test link World Regional PDF Map Set

Day 3 The Who Not the How, One Funnel Away Challenge

In Day 3, The Who and Not the How we learned about figuring out what you are good at, do that and hire someone else to do all the rest.

We also learned to build slowly, take notes and build a system. One of the most important ideas we learned about building a funnel to sell stuff is, a funnel is a revenue stream, but not a business. A business is a series of systems that support the funnels and the revenue.

We get stuck thinking we need to create a business, when in reality, create a funnel that sells, then build a business. No selling no business. And don't create the business until you are hurting from the funnels. You can't handle the revenue anymore, then build systems to manage it.

And the last thing we learned was about organizing your time. Divide your tasks into things that support your revenue and things that don't. Do the things that support your revenue and outsource or maybe just don't even do the things that don't. Match this up with the list of things you are good at and the things you are not.

Steven also mentioned using the site Freelancer.com to find people to help and about the power of running a contest to identify the people

Day 2 Failure & What It Teaches Us, One Funnel Away Challenge

In today's training, we had to write down one thing we learned from Russell's presentation that stuck.

What I learned is to never stop, don't worry about perfect, just keep trying. We see people like Russell Brunson being very successful. Able to make a choice and pull in huge amounts of money. What we don't realize is they got this way by trying a million ideas. We only see success. We don't see all the effort to get there.

I learned that we get stuck trying to make the perfect solution, the perfect product. What I learned is that most of his success comes from trying everything. Russell doesn't worry about the perfect. Something doesn't work, make another, and another and another. Remember Thomas Edison, he tested 10,000 ideas before he figured out the right filament for the lightbulb.

#MISSIONCOMPLETE

My Philosophy On What the Web Really Is, A Product Delivery System

I recently made some comments to a question on Facebook in a group that I am in, on how to find products to sell online. How do you expand your website into a business?

My comments centered around some people who have built web-based distribution channels that they use for selling products and services. Success online is about using your web properties to create distribution channels that you can sell your content through. We were discussing podcasts, but these are just the latest version of web distribution channels because they are so popular. But really any website or blog or video channel or podcast that starts to get you traffic becomes a channel for you to sell your own content on.

One of the hardest things to figure out with the web is why people come to your site or listen to what you say. But once you do you can capitalize on it and sell stuff.

I have a friend who I helped publish her book. It goes along with her blog and podcast on women empowerment issues. The main question she gets asked is how to make a podcast. People listen to the podcast but want to know how they can create their own podcast. This happens a lot. If you create a lot of videos, you will get asked what camera and microphone you use. The questions won't be on your content but will be on the tools. I have been encouraging her to create a quickie How to Make a Podcast PDF and post it on her blog. Then mention it in her podcasts to see if people will download it. Test the questions. She is stuck because she wants to talk about empowerment issues when in reality her audience wants to create podcasts.

My point here from the original question is to look at your content and your website stats and see what people might want to know. What are they asking about? One of the ways to figure out what people are interested in is to look at your website's Google Analytics or stats. Google has a free website called Google Analytics that tells you pretty much everything you need to know about your site. If you have a Google account you and a free Analytics account. Every web site records all kinds of stats about their visitors. What page people visit on your site is what you want to know about. For me, the most important Google Analytics stat is the landing page stats. What page did Google send people to? Now that you know that, create a product that sits on that page or posts that goes deeper. These are the pages you can sell related products from.

I have found that how you see yourself or your website is completely different from how the world sees you or your website. What you think you are doing is often wrong to what the world thinks you are doing. If you can match how the world sees you with your message and content you have a powerful channel. A channel that can sell stuff.

Don't have a site like that, then create one. A blog is perfect for this. It does not have to be fancy, Google Blogger is perfect and free. You have a Google account, you have a free Blogger blog account. If you have written a book, take it and post every section of it as individual posts or pages with the goal of Google Analytics telling you what people want to learn from you. Then feed it back to them. Once your site starts getting web visitors or traffic you now have a distribution channel. Wrap ads for your products around your posts or pages. Take all your content and put it online and see what happens. Once you know what people like, you then repackage it and sell it to them. You can not believe what you think you are doing, you have to believe what Google tells you your doing. You have to listen to the stats and act accordingly.

Posting, publishing, and releasing your content online matched up with your Google Analytics or iTunes or YouTube or whatever stats gives you answers. I have done this with many different products on many different websites. I sell, books, posters, courses, clothing, software, all kinds of different products.

Remember magazines, newspapers and TV shows have been doing this for years. They are not about the content that you watch or read, they are about the ads and products they sell. Different content brings different readers and viewers but it is still about the ads.

This is my point. Build web-based distribution channels, learn why people visit and sell them stuff.

Resources:
Google Analytics
Google Blogger

Gumroad

Day 1 of One Funnel Away Challenge, Mission 1 You Must Believe

Day 1 of One Funnel Away Challenge, Mission 1, You Must Believe

I am taking a pause from publishing for the next month and learning some new stuff. I will be posting about it as much as I can to help keep me motivated and accountable. I have started the Russel Brunson Clickfunnel One Funnel Away Challenge. Today and this week are Pre-Stuff in getting ready to learn how to build funnels and sell products online. I have been selling products for years but never by using funnels. I have always stayed shy of it. Today I start learning new stuff and a new way.

Task
Fear 1. Overcoming that I don't understand the concept and the struggle with the tech. Also fearing that it won't work and suck up a lot of money

How I Will Crush It: Do what Russell says, others do it, so can I

Fear 2, What will customers think about the products and this method of selling, will they think it is a scam?

How I Will Crush It: Do what Russell says, others do it, so can I

Fear 3. I have built and sold well over $1,000,000 of products online. I push other people to create and sell products online. I have created well over 50 different products and I still feel I don't know what I am doing. Part of my problem is picking which of my products to try this with. Publishing, Maps, Books, training, and courses. With my map products fearing, why would someone buy sales territory maps this way?

How I Will Crush It: Do what Russell says, just trust in the program and try.

I really like a philosophy that Stephen the trainer guy said, "The obstacle is the way"

Join The One funnel Away Challenge With Me? Starts Next Week

HI all, getting ready for the Russel Brunson One Funnel Away Challenge that starts next week. super excited. I have followed Russel for years. I own just about every book he has written but have never jumped in to the full Clickfunnels program. This year I decided to give it a shot. The OFA Challenge is a month-long challenge/training to building funnels and learning about internet marketing. Why not learn from the master. Come join me if you want. The link is below. I will be posting my progress here on my blog.



I even just created a video of all the cool stuff that you get for joining the Challenge. #OneFunnelAwayContest

As Russel Says...

You’ve probably heard all the buzz about the One Funnel Away Challenge by now…

(...you know, the crazy, intense challenge where you have 30 days to build and launch your online funnel, while having Russell Brunson, Julie Stoian, and Stephen Larsen as your coaches?)  

Word is spreading about how awesome this Challenge is, and thousands of entrepreneurs have been a waiting list for it to open back up, so they can join the next one.

Well, after months of waiting, it’s finally back!

(And YES - I’m joining!)

You can check out the One Funnel Away Challenge details, and join the Challenge here One Funnel Away Challenge

The Challenge officially kicks off April 29th, but you can join right now!  

Crazy part is, for a huge 30-day Challenge with 3 top-notch marketing trainers, it’s just $100 for the WHOLE Challenge!

  

Sooooo, it’s pretty much a no-brainer deal…

If you’re the type of person who wants an online business, but you struggle to get it off the ground…

Or you hate the business you’ve built...or want to build a new business.

Or you struggle with the actual implementation part…

Then this Challenge FORCES you to bite the bullet and get your first (or next) funnel built.  

They go through everything in detail, so even if you’re a newbie and have never built a funnel before, this would be an appropriate Challenge for you to do...

I’ve already signed up for it…and I hope that you’ll come join me, and we can go through it together!  

You can check out the details of the Challenge here → One Funnel Away Challenge  

Thanks,  

Bruce

Updating your Book and Second Editions on KDP.Amazon

Hi, Bruce Jones here and welcome. Just a quick broadcast. I'm working on some projects and I thought I would just sort of step in and just sort of tell you a little bit what I'm doing, uh, over the last few days or weeks as I'm trying to doing things. So as you can see the crawl, we're going along here at the bottom. I'm updating some books in the second edition. So I just wanted to share some stuff that I learned so we can take this out of the way here and just share some stuff that I've learned. I just want to make sure this is up on this, how to publish your book. This is from Bruce Jones at the how to publish your book Facebook group. Yep. There I am. All right, so if you have any questions while I'm on, you can, you can weigh in and I'm the author of the newly released book and Self Publishing Manual.

So always everywhere that's new. Um, you can pick up everything you need to know about publishing. Your book is in my new manual, so make sure you pick that up. And I just put this up, I've been selling a pdf version of this book and let's put this up here. You can get this up and get a pdf version of this at BruceJonesBook.com It's also available on Amazon and kindle print, just like this and a digital version at BruceJones, book.com. And if you do that, you get a copy of the self-publishing book launch medial. All right, so let me go into what we're doing here. We'll come back to tech. All right. Um, so this is the book. Let me just put up here. So I have a whole line. I was like a lot of books and she's our, my map coloring books.

If you can see here, there's a whole bunch of them and uh, one of them, this one became seriously out of dates. I'm just going to put this, show you where this is here to get this out of the way. Put this on the broadcast, you know, put me down. He was at work, so did that. So, um, with the stuff. So, here it is, it's sells on Amazon. Um, we can get these out of the way. I look at that. You're not studying Frank Kern. You should be. Um, so this is I one of my sites and a common question that people ask me all the time is about how I market my books. And this is one of the main ways I market my books is I built a website and put them up and to make a bookstore.

So here they all are as a lot of my coloring books. You can see in, if you click on the cover, it goes to a page that looks like this. I kind of modeled it on Amazon. I have rural regional books or the related books. I have directories of the books, I have samples at the video that needs to be updated. As you can see, it's not clicking there. Um, but so that's been the goal is, um, I had some comments and if you click on this right here, you'll take it to Amazon. You can see the book. I had comments, and you should always do this with your books, is check out the reviews. And this book has been a long time. It's a pretty popular, been a bestselling book for years. Um, I think I published this back in 2011 and it's still ranked at number 40, 43 and 44 but a good thing to do is to go through and read your reviews occasionally cause people point out things and you'll see that sometimes you have bad reviews and then right next to it you'll have really good reviews.

So like this great, perfect, great for kids. And then you'll get ones that are, this is terrible. Anyways, part of the reason that they did that in this book is I had some seriously out of date maps. So one of my goals for this is a book of, you can see it's a book of, let me get myself up here so you can see it better. Um, this is a book of maps coloring book. We all been, a lot of us have been doing coloring books. And so this is a book of maps and you'll see all the little pink notes here, the post it notes, um, that this book had gotten way out of date and I'm nice. So let's see who's commenting. Nice. Um, oh Debbie. Hi Debbie. Yup. So thank you for thank you for joining and um, this book you're getting seriously out of date on some of the maps I have to, they go back to the Commonwealth of Independent States, which was before Russia and I just hadn't been paying attention to it and just not dealing with it.

So that's part of my goal for 2019 is updating all of these books. Most of them being this one, we haven't added any state slightly, so we're pretty cool with that. Um, so that's what I've been doing and just show you what that looks like just so you can see it. I just want to see if anybody makes any comments here. When was it published? So it was published in 2011 this book. And um, based on maps that I drew in probably 1990. I've been working with these maps since 1990. It was a long time. Let me show you the file. Um, tried to share, think says is bad. Don't know what that means. But here, let me just put a, just put yours in here. Yeah, it was a published 2011 is when this was published. And just put this one up here too.

Nice. So let me just show you a what the book looked like. Let me get this down here. Switch this over here and we'll bring up this. So this is the book. This is the insight file of this book. And uh, this is Adobe illustrator and you'll see all the pages in here. So what I ended to do was just go in and re look at the maps are primarily, it was maps that dealt with the Middle East. We're the ones that were out of date. So I came in, uh, down here and then had to fill in, um, let me find where they were for their, um, right in here. There's one. So I had to come in here and fill in. You can see, here's my maps. I had to fill in all of these little countries. So I had just, they just didn't exist at that time when I drew the maps.

Now they do. So I had to go and get some more maps and figuring out how to fill those in. So I did some of those. The same thing happened on some of Middle East maps. Some of these countries just um, we're a part of, uh, the Soviet Union at that time and not part of independent countries. So I didn't put them in a lot of my maps. We're guided by what the CIA did cause he's our CIO. He's originally CIA maps. So I did that, updated that, updated the cupboard. And one of the things that I'm doing is I allow people to make copies of this book. And so I put a big notice in the front okay. For photocopying and just sort of updated all of that stuff. Right. So that's been uploaded now to Amazon. And what I wanted to show you, the reason I'm showing you this is let's bring up this and let's get out a lot of screens up here.

Uh, this opens up this. So what idea is these books? Are they loaded up? These were all CreateSpace books and they've now been brought back up. And so one of the questions that popped up in some of the groups and men was about additions. 

How do you make this a second edition? 
Can you make it a second edition isn't a second edition or do you just update the file? So what I've learned is if your book has significantly changed, I use, used to use the names of 30 to 40% that would say that the second edition. So when you go to your KDP upload area paperback details, there's a little box right here. That reality, I guess we're supposed to fill in. I've never really done it says you can provide an addition number if this title is a new addition of an existing book.

So ideally you're supposed to put in right here, if you read this little popup thing, a one on your first edition of your book. And then when you come to the next one, if you think you're going to be updating at some point do two or three. What you can't do is once the book has been published and you can go in here and learn more, there were a lot of stuff. What, what things I like about the new KTP is a lot more help information in here. If you just click this, you'll get all kinds of top clicking show you. Um, you'll see all kinds of information about books, videos, updating, all that kind of stuff. So, so you can't skip back into my page, you can't update, you can't make a existing an existing book and new edition. You would have to be a new book self.

So what, that's okay. I don't want to change it cause I want to keep all the comments. We want to keep all that stuff. So I just uploaded the book to the next, um, it just re uploaded the file. So I just made a new file up there, the book. And once you do that, um, you will review the book and I kind of liked this new way of doing this is the review the previewer print free viewer window for print books. And I'll tell you over here on the left and anything is wrong with your book. And so in this book and picked up a couple things and I think I'll just show you here and just show you this. We were Oh, keeps changing. Yeah, no, that's right. Um, you let me just show you. So that's a little weird. Um, so I just had stuff to close.

Let me just show you here to close and it picked it up and so I just had to go back. But, so that often happens where you have to um, sort of upload several files. So on one of these versions, I've uploaded three files to get the book cause they just keep just off a little bit. And I'm here with Canada, Canada. I had Vancouver island too close to the gutter, right, right. To close with the size book. He needed at least 0.3, seven, five space and a couple of boys in here. So, um, so that was that. So now once you get this, you can then you just go through it, right? So you just kind of go through your books. Let's just pop through it, right? So you just kind of go through and making sure everything's right. If there's a problem, it'll highlight it over here on the left and I'll tell you what page it's on.

So now it looks like everything is good, didn't find any issues. And um, so that's pretty cool. I love it. All right, so it's looking good. You just kind of go through this whole thing. They want you to go through it. You just kind of go through it, make sure everything is good the way you want it. And so some of the changes I did were updating the maps. So the added in fixing like this area of the Balkan area, eastern Europe, um, Balkan region. I also added in the countries that were missing. I also added in, um, I'm a big believer in, let me show you here, I'm a big believer in marketing your existing books in your new book. So you'll notice on some of the latter ones, once in a puddle of later, I would put it, the back cross promote, which are the books.

And in here, this is one of the first ones I did and I did not do that. So there's nothing in the batch to promote the other books. This is a whole series of books and the Amazon both promote a series. And um, so let me show you what I did. So this gave me an opportunity to update that. So let's just go to the act. So this has been changed at fixed the names of these maps. All of that's now good. Um, and now I will very carefully go back into some of those reviews and thank the people for pointing out the mistakes you don't want to use in your author central account. You don't want to get in a, you know, to get in a pissing contest with anybody or sort of doing things. But I will go back at it, acknowledged, says, Hey, thank you so much for pointing out the areas and now updated it.

So hopefully that will stay with that people will see it, um, that the book has been updated. And if you go to the back, so these are about a 90 page book. I like coloring books in this 80, 90 a hundred page range somewhere in there. It makes a decent book. I was also able to update the copyright, so I did a 2011, 2019 such as a couple to do that in the back here, my new books. So all my books are here and I also am getting ready to sell other things. My pdf map sets, which are pdf versions of these books in individual files. They're now in the back of the book. So your book is an opportunity to cross promote and sell other products. Really encourage you to take a look at that and figure out what can you do because people have the book they might want more.

So. Alright, so after that's done, so that all looks super cool. And Go back to the first page and this is my cover and I put this on here and I was able to update an address and just generally go through and just, it hasn't been touched since 2011 so he used to be done, I hit approve right here, approved, we'll get this moving. And then it comes to this page, which is the last page. So you have the paperback details, the pivot, that content. So that's all been checked. Boom, boom, this new manuscript and you cover, save and continue. If three pages you have to fill out. And then we'll come to the pricing page right here. I've been happy with this price because out my royalties to you can see the royalty rates. So for regular Amazon, it's 60% expanded distribution. It's 40%. I'm sure that's all still going. Yep. And uh, it gives me the royalties and once you hit publish this, so that's all cool. And it's in a territory's. All right. So could sell everywhere.

They will hit publish that and you are not allowed to put a coloring books on. Ebooks has kindle books. So, um, but you'll see this little window here, save successfully, and then you get this window, everything's been submitted and you just don't do that because you can't do it, but so close and you wait for an email if they found anything else. Take a take up to 72 hours, uh, air actually quicker than that. Get close. That's it. So these are the three books I've updated so far. I have two more to go. And um, let me just come over here and we'll do this. There we go. I have two more to go. I, Susan, how are you? Rich, thank you for joining in. So just a quick end, Jim. Oh yeah, let's see here. What did Jim say, Jim? You get more published in values and anyone that did that and I appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you Jim. Jim House is a great resource if you are trying to create just the book around your business or anything around that. He's a cool guy to go seek to do that. So, so that's it. That's just the short broadcast. Um, there's my agenda come up here to just sort of talk about updating your book, something you look at. Occasionally look at the reviews in your book because people will find things that are wrong. I have found things in did I didn't know were wrong in my books that I've seen. And how do you keep track of my publication? So, all right, well let me, let me show you what to do. I'll show you want to do. That's good. Great question. Um, so let me finish. My thought here is to keep track of your reviews and sort of look at them, see what's going on, look at the comments on them.

Occasionally though, definitely lacks, cause I've been doing other things. I'm trying to get this book updated. Um, you know, so you weren't gonna do that. So let me show you kind of what I do, what I do to keep now keep track of. So let's go to operate here in Kendall. So let me get this screen back up to the broadcast and okay, so did that bring me down? Right? So let's just go back. I'm in my Katie pounds. So basically what I do is this is the new, this isn't many of you have this, you see this already? 

KDP Reports Page

Understanding KTP reports area. 
Now they've been doing this new thing. Let's see if it's still here. It wasn't the other day or it was, it's back. Okay. So let me come. We'll come back and forth. All right, so this is the, basically when you sign into your Kindle account, you'll come to your bookshelf. So here are all my books. All right. And they kind of go on and on. I have over 40 of them, so there's a lot of them, kindle and print. And I do take and watch the reports area because now all of this has been brought together. So you can see here this is the right report for March 27th to February 26 and just make sure this is showing, so every scene. Yup. Okay.

All right. And um, so you can change this date, right? Two different date ranges. So we today, last two weeks, you'll notice right here somebody bought a hundred a hundred copies of one of my books. Isn't that cool? I was like, Whoa, I know, I know who it is, but clearly, I've never had an order like that. Somebody can just buy a hundred of them, but you can sort of see who this is. You can also look at things, right title, which I find is um, confusing because there's so many of them. So I wish they had it a little bit different way of doing it. But let's just look at the book that I've been working on, the world regional book and you can see here. All right. And this is an all formats ebook, paperback. So this is just a paperback book, but you can look at your ebooks, you can break those down.

Um, if you're guessing, if you're under, these are all other authors that I books I have managed or deal with her in my account, um, and my marketplaces. You can look at how it breaks down so you can look at through this to kind of get a sense of what's going on. Um, so that's kind of cool. You can look down here. Let's go back to the month. Now, if you remember, um, last 30 days as to last 30 days, um, when CreateSpace got merged into KTP, they change one that CreateSpace paid on 30 days KTP charged and paid in 60 days. So there was a lag time. All that's come back together so you can come down here and see the royalties that you have. And this usually is a little higher because it's, um, actually I think they just might have paid, but you can see what the world fees are in each of your markets.

You can kind of just review this stuff, right? You can also go into here. Historical is kind of fun. So there's a bunch of stuff up here and you can see this is my historical, so I've been on here since August of 2011. They merged all this data together. So you can see, you'd have to kind of go through, and I've done this, if you want to sort of see where you're at, uh, uh, like to date, year to date, last 12 months, let's look at the last 12 months, right? So there are the numbers for the last 12 months. They don't give you as a total load, which they gave you, like how many you've sold. You have to kind of add up to the, to tell you when there's a little popup windows, but they don't tell you like total, which I don't, I didn't do that.

Um, I don't really what those are. Um, here's the royalties earned $10,000,  for last year. It was a great year. I'm a print paperback book person. So $10,000 a year. That's not how everybody does it. Everybody is different. Um, you can do month to date, you can see the current book, ebooks. So you just kind of go through this here, the book totals of how the books sold over the, over the past month, over the previous month or marketplaces. Um, mostly we just spent here on the.com, um, payments preorders can see all the payments, how that's gone, but it all kind of goes through there. The other thing that I like is this new report. Somehow at these two things I believe in, it'd be merged together and um, it's just more visual shows you the books that are going, this is the gist of the book that sold a hundred, 100.

So that's what countries you're in brings the books down. Um, so I can break this open second, see word countries are going to, so that's sort of what I do. Um, I kind of look at all of this stuff and just sort of in my head, keep an idea of what's going on. So you'll notice that the Christmas time it goes down and it comes back up. Um, in fact, let's go back to historical and let's go like to date and you'll notice December's a high here. The Decembers and there's also sometimes a school seasons are in there to go up and down. So December tie, December, it's high separate. Sy, uh, this April was 2016 was a huge one with that 598 books all that month. So, so, so that's sort of how I keep track of all that kind of stuff. And I hope that helps.

Just spend some time searching around in your, um, let's just get this out of the way. Put this here. All right. Um, spent some time searching around in your KDP account. Is that looking through all those different areas and then you kind of have a feel as the books kind of move along of what's selling when they're selling what they're doing. And that's how I keep track of it. So great question. Thank you Debbie. And um, yeah, basically what to do and then you can kind of see what's happening and then maybe you can kind of use that information to, to go for when you're publishing. Would you publish for the beginning of the school year? Yeah. Well, you can certainly do a promotion. So here, let me put this question up. Um, when would you publish with the beginning of the school year? Well, what I have found with my books, um, is I tend to get a rush and August in September you'll see the notice that, so I spelled my map books, sell to a lot of homeschool people.

Um, and to grandparents who I get the reviews. You look at the reviews of my books, you'll see that as grandparents and your buy this book, these books for their kids to do geography because a lot of the public schools, geography has been taken out of curriculums. But in the home school market, this is an important subject. And so you get people commenting to me writing to me about that or grant people making reviews about that. So for me, it's August, September, um, there aren't any school systems buying this. This is basically people, people buying. Um, Christmas is also a big season. So you want to have everything ready going at the beginning of Christmas for any books that you think going to be Christmas books. Like, my music works for books like this, which are usually made geared towards the students. Um, August and September is usually a big junk and it looks like sometimes April is.

Um, and also remember the day a few days after Christmas is often just as big for a lot of retailers as the days just before Christmas, so people catching up. Um, so that's, uh, yeah, so when we do publish at the beginning is good. Yeah. So I would just look at your August and get your promotions going and doing things that are geared around getting people aware that your books are open for that. So, um, cool. All right. So that's it. That's the book. That's the thing. And um, if you, yeah. All right, so this is the first John's from Bruce, the book [inaudible] Dot Com and the how to publish your book Facebook group. And remember, if you want to get a copy of this, you can pick this up at Bruce Jones Book and get a digital copy of this and you can get a bonus. My checklist, this is what I use to launch this book to number one. Um, at the, uh, uh, in January when I launched this book, I put everything down and I took, I kept recording everything I did and I put the checklists and swipe files and everything is in this, on this. You can get that. All right, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.