eBook Marketing
As you can see, I have not posted a blog entry for quite a while!
I won't bore you with why.
Please suffice it to say that I've been EXTREMELY busy with another project.
But I found time to write a new article on a topic and a program that I feel has tremendous potential to solve the major problems most ebook authors and info publishers face: ebook marketing.
Please click over to my latest article here on ebook marketing.
You will learn a lot and discover a new program that puts in laymen's terms, methods, processes and issues in a way that a 12 year old can understand.
If you are considering writing an ebook, or already have written one and don't yet have a clue as to how to market it, be sure to take 3 minutes to read my latest article.
God bless!
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Obligations
It's funny (odd) how things in life get in the way of goals.
I wrote on several days last month in this blog how for the prior two months, my goal was to write an article or entry, of value, in this blog every day.
I missed a couple of days of blogging in March and April, but was honestly really pleased with what I did write and the near daily frequency.
Not only was I pushing myself, in spite of other obligations, but I chided you, my readers, to set aggressive goals and pursue them.
I started out May with the same goal. Write an article or entry of value in the blog every day.
Wow....have I totally blown that.
For the last two weeks, I've been extremely busy and simply unable to write.
This space is where I write and practice my writing.
It has, by and large, replaced my ezine.
And now I feel guilty. I've let myself down. Hopefully you don't hold it against me!
I have many things going on right now, including several new projects looming and a speaking engagement on a Ziff Davis webinar.
I have also been working on some of my other web sites in the last several weeks. Whew....
I don't have advice or tips for you today. Just that 'confession'.
What I do have is a question for any of you who may know Search Engine Optimization. If you are experienced with SEO work and are willing to help me with a few questions, please Contact me.
If you can help me (realizing that I'm fairly experienced with SEO also), I'll give you some free publicity here and in other website venues.
Off Topic
One of the most tragic things going on in the Internet world is spam, viruses and spyware.
One of the most comprehensive and free testing services that I've ever used is Steve Gibson's Shield's Up site.
I won't bore you with the tremendous admiration for Steve and his body of programming work over nearly 2 decades. I loved his column when he wrote for InfoWorld.
Steve is an assembler programming language expert. Probably tops in the world. He writes software that is compact, small, lightweight and potent.
Since the dawn of the Internet, Steve has remade himself into an Internet security guru. His free tools and tests will probe your computer for holes, flaws and openings that make you vulnerable to bad folks.
Try and test every tool at that site. Bookmark that site.
Then take the time to read every word after each test is run. You'll learn a lot and find some awesome tools and methods to plug your holes so you won't be a victim nor a unwilling accomplice to evil Internet programmers.
Link Anchor Text
One of the single largest mistakes that authors make when starting to seek "other" websites to link to their ebook website is an ignorance of the use of what is called "anchor text".
I have written about the importance of using proper anchor text in links from others sites back to your site.
In this article on how Anchor Text Can Rocket Your Rankings, Garrett French outlines an excellent series of tips and advice on how to setup your site as well as having outside websites to link to your site.
No matter what your view of how the search engines do or do not use anchor text in their algorithms, having proper anchor text links inside your site and point to it from other sites is considered a "best practice" by every experienced webmaster.
You can find more info on this topic by clicking the Search Engine Optimization link to the left of this article.
Cookies
It's not too often that I get into real technical stuff here.
However, in your marketing of ebooks and print books via your website, as you get progressively more experienced, you begin to monitor your site visitor stats. Depending on the software you use, you will get varying levels of detail.
One of the most valuable stats a website has to track is "unique visitors". This statistic is supposed to tell us how many unique and different visitors came to our site. The stat "total visits" is meant to tell us just that; how many times those unique visitors came to the site.
However, for the first time in my experience, a company, Belden & Associates has done a survey on computer "cookies".
You won't find the survey data at their site. I'll get to that in a minutes.
For the relative newbie, a "cookie" is a small text file dropped on your computer by websites when you browse. Most websites use cookies to track your movements through the website. Advertising networks and advertisers use cookies to help verify click costs and payments, incentive payouts and more.
So cookies are a very important piece of technology.
This Editor & Publisher article on the Belden stufy is quite insightful. Click that to learn more about their cookie study.
About halfway down the article, Greg Harmon, director of interactive services for Belden says:
"The surprising result at one site: 45% said they clear cookies at least once a month. The average was once a week. "For work and home, this behavior was consistent," Harmon explains. Many may not be using browser tools to remove cookies, but rather "spyware" and "computer hygiene" tools that have become more popular as the public worries about unauthorized snooping on their online activities."
This really hit home for me. I clear my cookies every day with WinPatrol, which has a free version (the one I use).
Cookies are often integral for server-side virus distribution these days. I delete my cookies, every time I reboot or turn on my PC, as I have WinPatrol in the boot up sequence.
This is significant because as web content publishers, and perhaps for those of you using Pay Per Click advertising, our server logs are truly wrong.
WOW!
If more and more people are using tools like Adaware, WinPatrol, PestPatrol and others to try to keep scumware, virus, spyware and other undesired crap off our computers, we are in fact, every time we delete our cookies, appearing to every website as a "new" or "unique" visitor.
This news (news to me too!) will cause me to rethink my search engine optimization, marketing, blog and email marketing strategies. Clearly I'm not getting as many unique visitors every day / month than I thought I was.
Time to go back to the drawing board!
Self-Publishing
Something always seems to come along to toss me off my goal of blogging an entry or article every day.
This time is was my darned lower back with some unfriendly spasms. Oh well. They're gone now.
Today, I received B.L. Ochman's latest ezine.
You simply have to go to Expertizing -- How To Become Known As An Expert – On Anything.
If I'm to believe B.L. and her guest expert, Fern Reiss, you simply have to have a print book if you're going to build your brand, a consulting and speaking business.
And I do believe them.
Since starting Knowledge Download, and especially the last year, I too have seen the need to have a print book (as compared to only an ebook) in order to be taken seriously by the press. And since the press can influence prospects to call you or seek you out as an expert, it's worthwhile.
From a strategy standpoint, you can and should still write your text and create your ebook. You can get it up for sale with a live website. Meanwhile, once your text is done, you can start shopping for Print on Demand printers without worrying about having SOMETHING to offer your prospects that will demonstrate your expertise.
Enjoy the B.L. interview!
Discover eBook Topic Demand
One of the regular requests I receive at Knowledge Download is this:
"I am an expert in XX and I wonder if you think there is a market for an ebook in that field".
My usual first response is: You are the expert in XX, not me. Is there demand for info on your topic?
Finding out potential market size is a very wise task to do prior to writing your ebook. A wide and deep market may be good or bad, as may be too narrow of a market.
A good tool to use, and one which I use to do market research is Good Keywords. Find it here:
http://www.goodkeywords.com/
It's a free tool. You can enter various keyword combinations and check various search engines to get a sense of how many searches for any particular keyword combo.
I mainly use the Overture US section.
The number of searches will tell you, in rough terms, potential demand for your topic. Also, the tool will give you a lot of secondary word combos that you may not have considered.
If there are several thousand total searches for all keyword combinations or phrases, you may reasonably assume there is demand for your topic.
Remember, you are only checking one search engine. You can probably multiply the total searches for your phrase by a factor of 2 or 3 to account for Yahoo, Google, MSN, AOL and others.
One other major benefit of Good Keywords is that all of the keyword phrase alternatives are great for putting in your website page titles, meta description and meta keywords.
Populating your web site and pages with multiple sets of keyword phrases will give you a higher liklihood of being found by one or most of the top search engines.
THAT is one key way to help grow sales of your self-published ebook!
Good luck!
May Showers....
bring May flowers....
May is a lovely month in many places around the world. When I lived in Japan, it was the marking of the end of spring and the last vestiges of cherry tree blossoms dropped to the ground.
In Washington State, it is a time of lots of flowers and growth of all types native trees, shrubs, flowers and yes, tulip bulbs.
In Alaska, the snow has melted in most of the state, temps warm up and mother nature starts to turn everything green. It is the most beautiful state I've ever lived in.
Here in Arizona, May usually marks our first 100 degree days, which happened last week (April). *sigh*
None of this has anything to do with self-publishing ebooks. I was in a bit of a reflective mood.
And frankly, my tip of the day doesn't have much to do with our main topic either.
However, if you are like most authors, you also do consulting, speaking or writing for fees. So in that vein, I present a topic and resource that is rarely thought about for those of us who do consulting or speaking work for hire.
If and when you bring on a new client, how do you know they will honor your contract, pay you on time and that an authorized officer of the company has signed the contract?
In other words, do you just trust the, be grateful for the work and hope the business details work as planned?
Who Are You Dealing With? Client Background Check Essentials by Dave Hecker is an excellent article that give you reason to pause and approach your new client business dealings with wide open eyes.
I can tell you that generally, I've never done that amount of diligence. But I should have. I've been burned in more than one case.
I came across that article and just felt it was worth sharing with you.
Have a great weekend!
Self Publishing Success
I have received a rash of inquiries from subscribers, readers and visitors to Knowledge Download asking for tips and advice on ebook self-publishing.
Many have their texts written and often send them to me. Some even send them with press releases. But then they ask me how and what to do next.
It's a bit frustrating to me.
That is what the entire Knowledge Download website, free articles and this blog are about.
I can assure you that at $14 per month for our ebook website builder & hosting service, and the time cost of supporting our authors using the system, there isn't a lot of extra time to personally instruct people in what to do.
More or less, what order or steps to do them in.
That's what all the free info is for.
It has come to me that probably they are just finding our website and not taking time to review the offerings. It is a rather large site these days.
However, perhaps people need a single, simple source to turn to for a specific roadmap of what and how to go about getting their ebook or print book self-published.
I have never held myself out as an expert on the topic. I'm learning and improving and been freely sharing my experiences with readers in this blog.
Your expert is Dan Poynter. He offers books and book coaching at his website.
parapublishing.com
Another expert and coach is Judy Cullins. You've probably seen her articles all over the Internet. You'll also find them in the Writing section of Knowledge Download.
bookcoaching.com
So buy one of their books or some of their coaching time. Then when you are ready to build and promote your works on the Internet with a ebook website, be sure to come back to us!
Closing note: As I am not a professional writer (I've written on that ad nauseum), I am proud to point out that I wrote an article or blog piece every day of April except for 2 days.
I wanted to do so on every day. Oh well. Missing only 2 days, for me, is great progress. What this rather grueling process has done is give me great practice and confidence. It has helped me understand my limits, find my "voice" and feel that I am helping people.
For my own selfish reasons, it's been a great journey so far!
Google IPO
It's off topic and yet on almost everyone's tongue.
Google filed for their US Initial Public Offering.
The Financial Times of the UK has done a very nice piece discussing some of the language/text in the Google SEC Filing docs.
It seems Google is going to do a "Dutch Auction" and try to give us little guys a swing at their IPO stock.
However, as the article says, there are hints that the Google founders want and hope to conduct their public company, post-IPO, differently than other companies.
This is just one humble man's opinion - but I don't think so.
The Securities & Exchange Commission has extensive rules and regulations that, post dot-com bust, are tighter and more stringent than ever. Add in Sarbanes-Oxley regs and once public, your hands are pretty much tied.
Good luck to Google. They are already in the sights of Bill Gates and company and others.
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