Showing posts with label Self-Publishing Manual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Self-Publishing Manual. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 26, 2019

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.

Tuesday, February 5, 2019

What is Print-on-Demand Printing



What is Print-on-Demand Printing?
Print-on-Demand is what makes self-publishing a print book possible. Readers buy your book on Amazon or other indie publishing sites. Using digital printing a single copy is printed, packed and shipped to the customer. Think high-quality photocopying. The process is fast and seamless. It seems like the book was pulled off a shelf, but they aren’t, the book is printed, bound and shipped. What this means for you as an author is no inventory. You do not have to do anything other than write, layout the book and upload the print files. This saves you tremendous amounts of money and effort. There are no garages full of books waiting to ship.

Resources:
KDP.Amazon.com, Lulu.com, Blurb.com and IngramSpark.com, the leading print-on-demand publishing sites. See the previous question for the web address.


Print-on-Demand Paperback Books
•  KDP.Amazon.com, paperback, print-on-demand, a division of Amazon, free,
https://kdp.amazon.com

Combination of Paperback, Hard Cover and e-books
These companies offer a variety of options including e-book, print, spiral/coil binding, saddle stitch/staples and pdf with distribution options 
•  IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/
•  Lulu.com, similar to KDP.Amazon but with more printing options, paperback, hardcover, spiral, saddle, free, https://www.lulu.com/
•  Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print, e-book and a possible relationship with their stores if you can sell 1,000 books over a year. This is also an excellent resource if you just want to print books but not necessarily publish them on Amazon. This is done for speaking engagements, or a conference or workshop.  https://press.barnesandnoble.com/
•  BookBaby.com, a variety of different pay packages, fee, https://www.bookbaby.com/
•  Books-A-Million D.I.Y. with BAM! Publishing, write, publish, print and distribute in print or e-book, http://www.bampublish.com/
•  Blurb.com, photo and art books, free, http://www.blurb.com/

Book Printer with Access to Bookstore Distribution
•  IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/

E-Book Publishers
•  KDP.Amazon.com, the main e-book site, an e-book reader, free, https://kdp.amazon.com
•  Smashwords.com distributes e-books to over 80 outlets and devices, free,
https://www.smashwords.com/
•  Draft 2 Digital.com, free, https://www.draft2digital.com/




J. Bruce Jones is an international best-selling author. He has created or authored over 40 published books. The Self-Publishing Manual shares Bruce's secrets from over 30 years of graphic design and publishing.

This post is an excerpt from my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual, available at Amazon.com in print and ebook.
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643/



Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Self-Publishing Manual Book Launch Wrap Up

Self-Publishing Manual Book Launch Wrap Up Video.


In this video and post talk about what I did and where I got with my recent book launch. Overall it all went great I couldn't be happier. I hit #1 for Kindle and #2 for paperback for the Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book. Learn about all the things I did with this launch from live videos, training, social media posting, and creating a new pdf book on the launch in the video below.



For the numbers during the launch:
28 Kindle e-Books
18 Paperback
9 Amazon Reviews

#1 Kindle Best Seller in Electronic Publishing
#2 Paperback Best Seller in Electronic Publishing

For this launch is did a number of things that were new and outside of my comfort zone. 
• I built a launch team, small but I did it and it worked.

• I used live Facebook broadcasting to pre-launch and launch my book. Including an hour and half broadcast on launch day showing how I was doing all the behind the scenes stuff. Each time I did a pre-launch or launch broadcast my book moved to #3 and then on launch day to #1 in my category on Amazon.

• I spread my launch out over four weeks, instead of all on one day. For the first three weeks, I did pre-launch Facebook Live broadcasts and blog posts. In the fourth week, I held my planned book launch. Some people waited to the launch day and some bought right away. This resulted in my book sitting in the top 10-20 for four weeks.

• I asked, using Facebook Live video, if anyone wanted to interview me about my book and me. I ended up doing 4 interviews. Two of them from the UK from people I never met before.

• I asked for Amazon book reviews or hinted at how powerful they were for book launches. I ended up with nine. Not a huge amount but a lot more than I ever had for a book launch and super helpful.

• I did not reduce the prices for my books. The typical tactic for a book launch is to drop the Kindle prices to $.99 or as low as you can. I left them where they were. I got my results with a Kindle e-book priced at $7.95 and the paperback at $29.95. Why? I think because of the Facebook Live broadcasts and having built a decent size book platform.

• As an experiment, I released a pre-edited, pre-released pdf paid version of the book on my blog. I sold about as many pre-released versions as I did final books in the launch. I just want to see what would happen.

The Self Publishing Book Launch Checklist and Swipe File
I also created a new book based on the launch. The Self Publishing Book Launch Checklist and Swipe File. This book includes all of the checklists, posts, and steps that I did for launching this book. I include the swipe files that I created to help on launch day.

Includes:
• The book launch checklist
• A case study of the launch, including blog posts, videos I created, examples of the social media posts
• The swipe files that I created for creating the blog posts and social media posts
You can pick the book up at https://gumroad.com/l/ySsKl

Thursday, January 17, 2019

We are Live, The Self-Publishing Manual Book Launch and Success to #1 on Kindle

We are Live, The Self-Publishing Manual Book Launch

Yesterday I did the official book launch for The Self-Publishing Manual. I used Belive.tv and held a live launch for 1 1/2 hours. It all went great. I took everyone on a behind the scenes look at what happens with a book launch. All the social media posts, sending out emails, doing blog posts and keeping everyone up-to-date with the results. It all worked, the book reached #1 for Electronic Documents in Kindle and #2 for Print and #13 in the UK for Kindle. This was amazing in that I didn't change the price and left them at their list price. More details to come.

Below is a replay of the launch.





#1 for the Kindle e-book in Electronic Documents


#2 for the Paperback book in Electronic Documents


Wednesday, January 16, 2019

The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book, Releases Today



I am pleased to announce the release of my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones
The Self-Publishing Manual takes you through the book publishing process from beginning to end. It answers your questions and shows you how to publish your book. The book is organized into three parts.

Part 1 covers key publishing questions such as where do I publish? How do royalties work? What is an ISBN number? How to create a KDP/Kindle Print Book or a Kindle E-Book and how does copyright work?

Part 2 is an overview of the creating and publishing process. The Self-Publishing Manual breaks it down into 12 clear and easy to understand steps. We start by creating the content, then design and layout, and finally publishing and marketing.


Self-Publishing Manual Book Trailer Video from Bruce Jones on Vimeo.

The Self-Publishing Manual includes three checklists, the Self-Publishing Checklist, the Launch and Marketing Checklist, and the Best-seller Checklist.

Part 3 is the bonus section, we learn how to launch our book as an Amazon best-seller. How to create a book using my Top Ten Technique and we wrap up with a publishing resource list. The Self-Publishing Manual contains the latest information on KDP/Kindle publishing.

J. Bruce Jones is an international best-selling author. He has created or authored over 40 published books. The Self-Publishing Manual shares Bruce's secrets from over 30 years of graphic design and book publishing.

The Self-Publishing Manual is available at Amazon in both paperback and Kindle e-book.

Print Paperback Available at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643

Kindle e-Book Available at Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book-ebook/dp/B07MC59MDZ/


Saturday, January 12, 2019

Creating a Book Trailer Video for Your Book Launch and Marketing

Creating a Book Trailer Video for Your Book Launch and Marketing


Creating a book trailer is one of the parts needed for your book marketing. You can use the book trailer for the launch, your website, and spread around social media. Anywhere you want to promote your new book. I just used it on my Amazon sales page. Just look down at the bottom and there is a section to upload one.

In this video, I take you through the steps for creating your own book trailer video. They are very easy to make using the video recorder on your smartphone.


3 Key Points You Want to Cover in Your Book Trailer Video.
1. What you have got, this is the book. Show it.
2. What it will do for the reader. Talk about the benefits. Just reading your table of contents is a great place to start.
3. What you want people to do, go buy the book. Tell them where they can get.

Upload the video to YouTube or Vimeo and start spreading it around. In the video description include the links to the Amazon sales page.

Upload your book trailer video to your Amazon Sales Page.

Saturday, January 5, 2019

What Are Some Good Books on the Art of Writing?

What Are Some Good Books on the Art of Writing?
I get some version of this question all the time. I talk about some in my new book The Self-Publishing Manual. Below is an excerpt from the book

1. Writing Your Book
The steps to writing your book can many, there are no strict rules of thumb. There are a million ways to write a book and many good books on it. The one you choose will be the one that fits your style. Questions you might consider asking yourself is. Is your book all text or all pictures or a combination of both? Are you writing a novel, creating a children’s book, a how-to book, cookbook, or poetry book? Whatever it is, begin by putting your ideas down on paper or on a computer. Create an outline or mind map of ideas. You can also dictate or record yourself speaking your ideas and then transcribe and edit. Let the creative ideas flow and build one on top of the other. You will begin to see the magic of your writing abilities take form.

This book isn’t about the mechanics of writing, it is about publishing what you have written. But I do have my technique for writing books. I call it the 
Top Ten Technique for Creating a Book. You can read more in the Self-Publishing Manual.

My advice is to write your book using a standard word processing program like MS-Word or Google Docs. Keep the layout simple. Leave the formatting to your graphic designer. Below are many resources available to help you with your writing.

Some of the book writing resources that I like:
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, this is a classic
• One of my favorite resources is Steven Pressfield’s blog and his books. He is a wonderful writer of fiction, non-fiction and the process of writing. Check out “The Series” area of his blog. http://www.stevenpressfield.com/. Pressfield has an entire series of excellent how-to books on writing. Including, The War of Art, Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative. 
The Story Grid: What Good Editors Know, Shawn Coyne
On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, Steven King
On Writing Well, William Zinsser
The Writing Life, Annie Dillard
How to Write Bestselling Fiction, Dean Koontz
The Elements of Style, Strunk and White
Write, Publish, Repeat, by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant. This book is a must on how to manage your writing and build a career and income from your books. This is one of the best I have read on how to structure your books to lead your readers from one book the next. I recommend it.
•  Joanna Penn and TheCreativePenn.com blog and books. Joanna is a British best-selling thriller author. Penn writes on writing, marketing, publishing and making a living as an author. Her book How to Market a Book is excellent. https://www.thecreativepenn.com/

J. Bruce Jones is an international best-selling author. He has created or authored over 40 published books. The Self-Publishing Manual shares Bruce's secrets from over 30 years of graphic design and publishing.

The Self-Publishing Manual is available at Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643/


Monday, December 31, 2018

How to Create Your Books Media Kit for a Book Launch






How to Create Your Book's Media Kit for a Launch.
In this Self-Publishing Manual training, I show you how to create all the graphics and swipe files you will need for launching your book.

In this video, I cover how to make a flat book cover shots, 3D book, and headshots of you and your book. These are super easy to make. We then go to your books swipe file which has your book description, author bio, Amazon book links, social media links and any other info you might need to launch your book.

J. Bruce Jones is an international best-selling author. He has created or authored over 40 published books. The Self-Publishing Manual shares Bruce's secrets from over 30 years of graphic design and publishing.

The Self-Publishing Manual is available at Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643/


Friday, December 28, 2018

The Book Launch Checklist for Launching Your Self-Published Book





Learn the Steps for Launching Your Self-Published Book

Pulling from my book, The Self-Publishing Manual, Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book, I walk you through the steps for Pre-Launching, Launching and Post-Book Launching your book.



Self-Publishing Book Launch Checklist

It is time to get your book out into the world. Use social media and all your connections (your platform) to highlight and showcase your book. Let people know your book is published. Be sure to include a live web link from any posts back to the Amazon sales page so people can buy your book. Here are some basic steps you can take.

Pre-Book Launch Day

1. Write Out Your Launch Plan, prepare a calendar
• Research some other book launches and their descriptive text for inspiration on how to write yours. Google “how to run a successful book launch”

2. Prepare a media kit with launch graphics: this is your library of elements for launching your book.
The media kit should include all the graphics assets you will need to promote your book. JPG images of your book cover, flat and 3D. Your headshot, a good book and author description, a book trailer video for YouTube and your blog. Have a physical copy of the paperback version to hold up in photos.
• Includes a good book description and author bio. All the links for your book on Amazon and anywhere else
• Have a links list of your Social Media and web properties for easy access.
• Create a book trailer video. This can be posted on Amazon and in your Amazon Author Central Account

3. Work on building an e-mailing list, increasing your platform, and getting greater exposure. Pre-release a pdf version of your book. Use several chapters as a lead magnet to attract subscribers.

4. Set up your Amazon Author Central Page. Link your book, update your bio, add images and videos once the book is published.

5. Set up some launch day interviews. Develop some articles based on your book that you can post on a blog. Develop a virtual book tour. This should be an ongoing effort while you are writing your book. Develop connections to influencers in your market, join Facebook groups, Twitter, Bloggers. Build a Dream 100 of influencers.

6. Set up a Launch Team. Team members should purchase a copy of the book and post an honest review on Amazon. Try to have some international members. This will be helpful on launch day.

7. Prepare an Event for Launch Day. Using a Facebook Group and Facebook Live you can hold a live summit with experts. Have additional training around your topic. Take questions. Host an and broadcast a party.

8. Prepare for Launch Day
• Make a launch video, “What I have (my new book), What it includes (table of contents), What I want you to do (where to get it, Amazon)”
• Prepare all your links for handy access, Twitter, Facebook groups, websites, social media sites
• Have a swipe file with a series of pre-written announcements for social media, different lengths. Be sure to have the Amazon book link in the announcements.
• Media kit ready
• Launch team ready to go, access to announcement swipe file and media kit.
• Blog announcement ready
• Record a couple of interviews that you can post, prepare for a Facebook Live broadcast
• Have a physical copy of the book that you can hold up in interviews
• Have pictures of you holding your book.
• Write a Press Release

Extra
Look for local media in your community. There are local newspapers, magazines, websites, libraries all around you. They love it when a hometown author releases a new book story.


Book Launch Day

1. Make sure your book is live on Amazon and can be purchased, buying a copy will start the ranking.

2. Announce the Release your new book, live video works well for this. Post in all your social media channels. Include your Facebook Page, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube.

3.  Post your book launch notices everywhere you can. Release your announcement video and a book trailer video, Blog the announcement, Facebook Live and posts. All social media. Send the announcement to your e-mail list. Blast out as much as you can. Ask for everyone’s support.
• Be sure all posts are linked to the book’s Amazon sales page.
• Update all of your online bios and listings.
• Use your announcement swipe file to speed up posting

4. Your Launch Team should also be posting on their social media sites. Send your swipe to file to all Team members.

5. Create an event if possible, make the launch fun. Do interviews. Show behind the scenes. Do some special training.

6. Thank your fans for buying your book, build social proof. Ask for reviews. Like and Repost any comments.

Screenshot your books Amazon Ranking

7. Record your book’s rank progress on Amazon with screenshots. This is located in the Product Details area of the Amazon book page.
• Continue to post updates about your progress during the day, post screenshots of any progress on Amazon in your social media sites.

8. In the evening do another round of launch notices. Encourage people to push you over the top if you are getting close to a #1 Category ranking. Also look at the Hot New Releases for rankings.
• Be sure to screen capture all results. Amazon updates every hour. The rankings do not last that long on Amazon, so pay attention. You can use these screenshots for marketing. Your Team can be very helpful in monitoring Amazon and grabbing screenshots.

Extra
Give your book out to current and potential customers. Your book is now your brochure or business card. People don’t throw away books. Make sure all your contact info and services are in your book.


Post-Book Launch

1. Thank your fans again for their support. Do this on social media, maybe add a thank you video. Be sure to include the book link to Amazon.

2. Follow up on international sales, sometimes they happen the next day.

3. Announce the launch again on social media.

4. Post the results of how high you got in the Amazon rankings. Did you get bestseller?

5. Update all your bio’s, profiles and listings on your social media sites that you have a new book and maybe new best-seller. Update your blog author bio.

6. Start posting sections of your book on your blog. Include a short bio and sales line with links to Amazon on everyone.

7. Drop an ad for your book around the blog postings. Use the power of Google to bring visitors to your site using your book’s content. There are free blogs and websites you can use.

8. Save your new book as a pdf file and use it as a lead magnet to continue your marketing. Give your book away in exchange for someone signing up to your email list.


Extra
On your website set up an email sign-up box to gather email names. Using a service like AWeber.com or MailChimp.com, you can set up an auto-responder series that sends out emails with some of your book’s content and links to the book sales page on Amazon.

Resources
• AWeber.com, https://www.aweber.com/
• MailChimp.com, https://mailchimp.com/
There are many companies you can use to manage your email list.

J. Bruce Jones is an international best-selling author. He has created or authored over 40 published books. The Self-Publishing Manual shares Bruce's secrets from over 30 years of graphic design and publishing.

Click below to check out the book on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643

Launching The Self-Publishing Manual, Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book



Launching The Self-Publishing Manual, Create and Publish Your Own Print and e-Book

Bruce introduces his new book and the upcoming book launch in the How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group. Over the next several weeks I will be conducting a series of training broadcasts on all aspect of launching my new book.


The Self-Publishing Manual Ranked at #3 in Electronic Documents

What is amazing is that this video pushed my book from #225 to # 3 on Amazon in Electronic Documents and #12 in Book Design. What is unusual is that most people do book launches with Kindle e-books and price them at $.99. I did this with a $30 paperback book. A huge thank you to all. I think it is partly the power of having an engaged platform and active fans. And having a much better book title that tells you exactly what the book is about. Having a platform to launch your book into is essential. I recommend using video to promote your books in any way that you can

You can check out the book on Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Self-Publishing-Manual-Create-Publish-Book/dp/1791870643

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

Where Do I Self-Publish My Book?



Where Do I Publish My Book?
The main self-publishing path leads to Amazon and Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Kindle publishes both e-books and paperback–print-on-demand books. You create your book using programs like MS-Word, Adobe InDesign and PowerPoint. Once that is complete you create a cover. The two files are upload to kdp.amazon.com. Files get reviewed for any technical issues but not editorial. Once approved, you hit publish and you are a published author. Now starts the hard part, marketing and selling your book. With self-publishing, everything is under your control. You keep all the rights to your content.

There are also many other outlets for publishing your book.  Sites such as Lulu.com, Blurb.com, Barns & Noble Press, Bookbaby.com, Direct2Print.com, Smashwords.com, and IngramSpark.com and more. The message here is that you can publish your book when and how you want and under your own control.

Resources, Self-Publishing:

E-Book Publishers
KDP.Amazon.com, the main e-book site, an e-book reader, free, https://kdp.amazon.com
Smashwords.com distributes e-books to over 80 outlets and devices, free,
https://www.smashwords.com/
Draft 2 Digital.com, free, https://www.draft2digital.com/

Print-on-Demand Paperback Books
• KDP.Amazon.com, paperback, print-on-demand, a division of Amazon, free, 
https://kdp.amazon.com

Combination of Paperback, Hard Cover and e-books
These companies offer a variety of options including e-book, print, spiral/coil binding, saddle stitch/staples and pdf with distribution options 
IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/
Lulu.com, similar to KDP.Amazon but with more printing options, paperback, hardcover, spiral, saddle, free, https://www.lulu.com/
•  Barnes & Noble Press, formally Nook Press, a new, revised publishing platform from Barnes & Noble, now offering print, e-book and a possible relationship with their stores if you can sell 1,000 books over a year. https://press.barnesandnoble.com/
BookBaby.com, a variety of different pay packages, fee, https://www.bookbaby.com/
Books-A-Million D.I.Y. with BAM! Publishing, write, publish, print and distribute in print or e-book, http://www.bampublish.com/
• Blurb.com, photo and art books, free, http://www.blurb.com/

Book Printer with Access to Bookstore Distribution
IngramSpark.com, print-on-demand, world’s largest book distributor to book and gift stores, some fees, http://www.ingramspark.com/

Excerpt from my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print or e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones. To get a PDF version Click Here

The Self-Publishing Manual is Now Available on Amazon.com, Please click here to buy the book 

Sunday, December 9, 2018

The Self Publishing Manual Create and Publish Your Print and eBook Updates


The Self Publishing Manual Create and Publish Your Print and eBook Updates

News on my progress for my Publishing Manual. The book has been update, and edits complete. I have now printed out and bound a color copy to do a final review of the book before I upload to KDP.Amazon. You can still pick up a pre-published edition by clicking on the cover over on the right.



The new edition covers the changes that have been going on this year with KDP.Amazon and CreateSpace. Exciting stuff is coming in the self publishing world.

To pick up a pdf pre-publication copy, Click Here

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

Interview with The Good Life Coach Podcast and Michele Lamoureux on Self-Publishing





Interview with The Good Life Coach Podcast and Michele Lamoureux on Self-Publishing

Big thanks to Michele Lamoureux for asking me to appear on The Good Life Podcast recentlyu. We talk about self publishing and how to get started with your book.

Key Takeaways:
• The difference between traditional publishing and self-publishing
• The main companies where you can self-publish your book
• Which types of books are best suited for self-publishing vs a traditional route
• Bruce explains how and why he got started with his writing at 53 years old
• How to build your authority using a book you created
• The people who tend to choose self-publishing or traditional and why
• Where you can find an illustrator if you need one
• The first step you need to take to begin
• How to begin writing and outline your book to make the process simpler
• The cost range to self-publish a book
• Where to find editors, designers, etc, to help you with all of the pieces of the puzzle

You can listen to the podcast here





To listen to on iTunes Click Here

Monday, December 3, 2018

Equipment I Use for Creating My Online Training and Marketing Videos


Equipment I Use for Creating My Online Training and Marketing Videos

I had an excellent question come in today on what were the tools and products that I use for creating my training and marketing videos. I have made a lot of videos over the years and have tried to keep my equipment to a minimum and as affordable as possible. Ok here we go.

Computer: I use an iMac, 27" Apple computer. I love the big screen, but you can easily do this with any Apple laptop or smaller iMacs. The Mac computers just work great. If you were upgrading just get a computer with a lot of storage. Video takes up a lot of space. I think I have a terabyte of memory.
Apple.com

Camera: Most of my videos are shot with the iSight Camera that comes with my computer. It works just fine for creating most of my videos. I will occasionally use a Logitech C920 camera. They are excellent. They also have a mic in them but I tend to use the Blue Yeti instead.
Logitech HD Pro Webcam C920 Camera. USB plug in, $49-$100

Use the camera in your pocket. Your iPhone or Android phone works just great. The camera and the mic are more than fine. I recommend getting a little tripod to hold the camera and keep it steady. Find a quiet spot, record your video and move it over to your computer for editing.
Tripod, I have one of these Paladinz Phone tripods. It is lightweight, holds your phone, expands to 42". Pick it up at Amazon for about $15.00


Microphone: My go to mic is a Blue Yeti. It is a pretty standard USB microphone. It plugs right into the computer. I also use the mic that comes with the iMac, it is also excellent. The Blue Yeti gives a little deeper, richer sound.
Blue Yeti USB Microphone, $119


Lighting. I use a simple clamp on painters light with an LED bulb from Home Depot or Amazon. Super cheap and easy. Clamp it to a shelf, bounce the light off the wall and you are ready to go. There are lots of great lighting kits that are also very cheap. There is the Cowboy Lighting and Video Studio for under $80. Just swap out the bulbs and replace with LED lights. Keeps the temperatures a lot cooler.
Cowboy Lighting Kits keep your lighting simple.

Screenflow for video editing

Editing Software: Hands down the best video recording and editing program is Screenflow on a Mac. It only comes on a Mac. What is great about it. Super easy to use for recording and exporting the final mp4 files. None of the complicated stuff of Adobe Premier. It is a linear editing application, affordable and has plenty of features. It also records two tracks of video, that is why you can see my face on the screen. Everything can move around, easy to change. Easy to add additional images and more video. On the PC people use Camtasia, it is fine and will a good job. But if you are making a bunch of training videos then Screenflow is the best. Worth buying an iMac just to use this program.
ScreenFlow is available from Telestream, Mac only, $129
Camtasia, available from TechSmith, $249, PC or Mac


Video Hosting: I use Vimeo.com to host video if it is not hosted in my course site. You can also use YouTube and it works great. Why Vimeo? Because I have control over it. A year ago I got suspended from YouTube for some mystery community violation. What I have figured out is that is was for putting web links in my training videos. I like to give people the resources for what I teach. But that seems to be against YouTube these days. In fact you won't see any web links at all in any video from YouTubers these days. Ok to put them in the description area, but not on the video. I still use YouTube, but not so much anymore. I host everything on Vimeo where I pay to have control. Vimeo is not a place to host videos if you want people to find you through video, that is YouTube. Vimeo is a hosting site for video, I will host here and then use the embed code to put them on my blogs. They are excellent at hosting.
Vimeo.com $240/year
YouTube.com free


Video Conference, Webinar, Training: I use Zoom.us for online video training with a group of people or for a 1 on 1 session. It is a fantastic program that just works. Has great screen share and chat if you are doing training or a group video hosting. If you buy the bigger package you can also stream through Facebook live. Another cool thing about Zoom is that it records both a video recording and an audio recording. A lot of people use it for recording podcasts with a video backup.

For Facebook Lives I use Belive.TV. It is a great little product for broadcasting through Facebook. Facebook Live is pretty good but with Belive.TV you can screen share for training. You can do interviews. It has lower thirds and the ability to add graphics to your screen. You can so solo interviews, interviews or talk shows-which is really screen share. You can download the video for hosting somewhere else.
Zoom.us,  $14.99/month
Belive.tv $20/month


Training and Course Hosting: I use Teachable.com. It works pretty well. I understand it now. You can host as many courses as you want there. I have the middle package. If I want to do something quick with just a couple of videos or pdfs, I will also use Gumroad.com. It is a great little site for selling products and videos on line.
Teachable.com $38/month
Gumroad.com free or $10/month

Come over and join the How to Publish Your Book Facebook Group, a community of 4,000 authors all publishing books.


Thursday, November 29, 2018

What Do I Do? Self-Publish 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 anyway 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 loose 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
  • 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 my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print or e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones. To get a PDF version Click Here

The Self-Publishing Manual is Now Available on Amazon.com, Please click here to buy the book 

Sunday, November 25, 2018

Is Your Book Going to be Paperback, Hardcover, e-Book or 
All the Above?

Is Your Book Going to be Paperback, Hardcover, e-Book or 
All the Above?

Not something you think about when you start writing the book. But this question comes into play as you start to think about the publishing. Depending on where you want to take your book, the design and layout will change. E-books, you will stay in MS-Word or Google Docs for writing and Kindle for publishing, images will be 72 dpi. Paperback you will be looking at the print side of Kindle and using Adobe InDesign for layout. Hardcover books, IngramSpark.com for publishing, along with InDesign for layout and production. We start out writing but as we progress we will take different paths. We will cover more of this as we work through this book.

Excerpt from my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print or e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones. To get a PDF version Click Here

The Self-Publishing Manual is Now Available on Amazon.com, Please click here to buy the book 

What Kind of Book are You Creating? A Novel, How to Book, Children’s Book, Picture Book, Coloring Book, Poetry Book, Business Book or Cook Book?

What Kind of Book are You Creating? A Novel, How to Book, Children’s Book, Picture Book, Coloring Book, Poetry Book, Business Book or Cook Book?

This question can open up all kinds of questions. It is usually a question I ask when I have my graphic designer hat on. It tells me what software to recommend and how to start preparing your artwork for the project. If you are going all text, then you are using MS-Word or Google Docs. If you are creating a book with a lot of design and images. We would talk about InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Or freelance illustrators or designers. This question is very much of a ‘how to’ type of question.

Excerpt from my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print or e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones. To get a PDF version Click Here

The Self-Publishing Manual is Now Available on Amazon.com, Please click here to buy the book 

Saturday, November 24, 2018

Where Are You in the Process? Are You Starting Out 
or Is the Book Complete?

Where Are You in the Process? Are You Starting Out 
or Is the Book Complete? 

The process of writing of each book is unique. But they all begin with sitting down and doing the hard work of getting your thoughts and ideas down. Along with words, we will also need pictures, illustrations or charts for our books.

There are many different ways to write a book. You can sit at a computer, or legal pad, you can also dictate or record it using audio or video and then transcribe. There is no correct way; there is only your way. I am not an expert on writing; I am an expert on creating the book. I didn’t learn how to write until I was 53 and I have now created over 40 of my own books and many more for others. All I know is keep going, do not stop, keep trying and you will get there. Write a little bit every day.

The goal is, you have to finish. But you do not have to be perfect, that is why we have editors. This is one of the biggest lessons I have learned from being a graphic designer. Our job is to create the ideas and story. The editor and graphic designers are to clean the story up and create the book's aesthetics.

One of the hardest, but most important things I have learned in writing my books, push the publish button. Release my ideas to the world. When you do, it can be a transformative experience. I find that writing and publishing can be the fulfillment of a dream that you might not know you even had.

Many people come to me and say, I am done with the writing. I don’t know where to start the creating and publishing the book? Let’s see if I can answer a few of those questions and get you through the process.

Excerpt from my new book, The Self-Publishing Manual: Create and Publish Your Own Print or e-Book, by J. Bruce Jones. To get a PDF version Click Here

The Self-Publishing Manual is Now Available on Amazon.com, Please click here to buy the book