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The Lifewriting� approach to your writing career demands a relatively high creative output. It isn’t designed to coddle people who nurse a single story for years before sending it out.

But students often protest that they simply don’t come up with many good ideas, and that the ideas they do generate are appropriate for novels.

In my opinion, basic ideas have no intrinsic length. The TREATMENT of an idea has an intrinsic length. The Civil War can be treated in a one-page story, on in a library of books. It all depends on the skill and intent of the writer.

Let me tell you a story:

When I was in college, I knew a woman who wanted to be a writer. She told me that she was working on a short story, and I said “great.” A few weeks later, I asked her how the story was going. She said “It’s getting a little long-I think it’s a novella.”

“Great!” I said.

A couple of months later, I asked her how the novella was going. “Well, it’s getting a little long, I think it’s a novel!”

“Wow!” I said, although a warning bell was tinkling at the back of my mind. A couple of years later, I asked her how the novel was going.

“Well, it seems to be turning into a trilogy,” she said.

Hmm. I made optimistic sounds, and left it at that.

A decade later, I was traveling on the East Coast, and knew I’d be passing the town where this lady lived. My wife and I stopped in to visit. Just because I have a masochistic streak, I asked how the trilogy was going.

There was a pause. Then, sheepishly she said, “I got tired of it, and put it away. But just a couple of months ago I started working on a new story. It’s good! But” she said, as I knew she would, “it seems to be getting a little long…”

That is so sad. My friend had encountered one of the stealthiest forms of writer’s block: to be able to write, but not be able to finish and submit. It serves the same purpose to an insecure subconscious: it prevents you from suffering rejection.

After all, the idea is so bright and appealing when it enters your mind! The process of actually slogging your way through multiple drafts can be a joy-killer.

Short stories are a perfect means to combat this. A short piece employs all the same basic tools that will be used in a novel, with a crucial difference. In the time it takes you to write a hundred thousand word novel, you can write twenty to forty short stories, and you’ll learn vastly more about your craft in the process.

Also, because you are going through the complete arc of generating story, planning, researching, writing rough draft, polishing, and submitting, you find out where your technical and psychological weaknesses lie.

And yet another advantage: if you write a story a week, or every other week, you don’t need to cling desperately to an idea, thinking it is the only good idea you’ll ever have.

But how to generate ideas? Here are some suggestions:

1) Keep a dream diary. A little digital or tape recorder at the bedside works great for this. Just tell yourself before sleep that you will briefly awaken after a dream and dictate the essence. In the morning, transcribe.

2) Search the newspaper. Make an exercise of looking through the various sections of the paper, looking for odd or interesting stories. Imagine how it would be to be the people caught up in these situations. What story would capture the essence of their lives?

3) Read books and watch movies. Imagine grafting the end of one film to the beginning of another. When a book falls apart, come up with a better ending-and write it.

4) Create modern versions of favorite old fairy tales. Have fun with this-remember, it’s just practice!

5) At the next family reunion or gathering, get the old folks to talk about their youthful days.

6) Go to a playground and watch children playing. Really notice the power games, the sharing, the crying, the laughter, the struggles and triumphs. Every single child, every day, has a story to tell.

7) Mine your own life. Learning to walk, to talk, to drive, to win, to lose. Your first fight, your first kiss, your first job, the first time you got fired.

There is really no end to the possibility. All you need is a belief in your goals, and the recognition that any individual story is just a step along the way-not some soul-searing win-or-lose proposition.

Have fun!

About the Author
NY Times Bestselling author Steven Barnes has published over three million words of fiction. The creator of the Lifewriting body-mind performance system for writers and readers, he can be reached at www.lifewriting.biz, and www.lifewrite.com

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Seven Secrets Of Highly Creative Writers

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You have been longing to have your own information product in your own name. However, you learn that you are just plain hopeless when it comes to writing that you are ready to resign to accept the fact that you just don’t have the flair for writing!

Maybe writing is not your forte. Or maybe English is not your first language. Perhaps, you’ve been living the life of a jack of all trades; you have almost every skill but for once, you wish you were a master of something.

Whatever the reason is, creating your own information product is a plain mission impossible. Or is it? What if I tell you that you can still create your own information product even if you are NOT an expert of any kind and above all, you DON’T have to write?

No, I’m not talking about being an affiliate or reseller here. We are going to get you an information product with YOUR name on it. Comforting to know there is a door to possibility all wide open now?

Great! And I’m just about to tell you how you can do just that! Here are three fantastic ways you can have your own quality information product WITHOUT having to write and in some cases, not even a single word!

The first two ways cost money. The last way can be done free.

1 Hire a ghostwriter.

Quite simply, you hire a ghostwriter to create the information product on a subject or topic of your choice (or more accurately, on demand!) but it the product would appear under your name. Normally, ghostwriters don’t take any credit at all and hence the term “ghostwriting”.

Hiring a ghostwriter to write for you can be costly. However, if you have the money to compensate your inability to write a good report, this is for you.

You can go to http://www.elance.com/ and search for a writer who can help with creating your own information product.

2 Buy Private Label Rights to a collection of articles or product.

Quite simply, you buy raw contents (which can come in the form of articles or .doc files which you can edit in Word program) from the original authors or authorized resellers. You can then edit them anyway you like and most importantly, put your name on them and claim authorship!

Private Label Rights seem to be the “in-thing” in Internet Marketing now, though Private Label Rights, in nature, has been on Earth for a very long time, which I suspect dates way back to very long time ago.

This method costs money, too, but it does not cost near as much as hiring your own ghostwriter to get the task done in most cases.

The drawback however, is that if the Private Label Rights to the products or articles are being sold in large numbers, it can dilute the value and quality of the same products or articles as there would literally be many purchasers using the same content at the same time.

If you have limited writing skills, you can still make substantial changes to the raw contents. You will do well to also choose Private Label Right to articles or products on sale with limited copies on sale.

3 Get someone else to write for you… through an interview!

The above two methods cost money on your part. Now, here’s the third and free method. You get someone else to create the product for you.

Sounds hard? No, it sounds impossible! Not only are you going to get other people to write for you, you are also not going to pay them! How? Easy. Conduct an interview. It’s free, and it puts your interviewees in the limelight. More often than not, people are glad to be interviewed, even if it’s free.

If you are planning to create an information product on copywriting, you can approach practicing copywriters for an interview. You can remind them that it won’t take much of their time and you may name some benefits from working with you on this project.

If you know of any experts offline, you can arrange for a verbal interview in person or by phone and sell your information product in BOTH text and audio format!

In return, you can thank your interview candidates for participating by giving them some free valuable gifts. Maybe you can get your interview candidates to strike up a Joint Venture with you in selling the complete information product created by everyone with you being the compiler and facilitator. Perhaps you can convey special Resell Rights to the information product just for your candidates if they are marketers.

At least and above all, you’d better be successful with marketing your product!

With three powerful methods to choose from, creating your own information product without having to write on your part is now possible, even for a hopeless writer like you!

When you make your first bucks from your Internet Business, you may want to take me out for a meal if we happen to be nearby.

About the Author
Jinger Jarrett is a certified Web CEO search engine optimization professional living in Alpharetta, GA. She will show you how to market your business online for free. You’ll find dozens of free ebooks, software, ezines, and tools at her site: http://www.jingerjarrett.com.

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How to Create Your Own Information Product Even If You Are a Hopeless Writer

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Advertising had long since been a major determinant of a business’ success. This would include the presentation of the product / service to the consumers. What really matters is how it is presented to the target market to be able to capture it.

Whatever the package, the ad media also plays a great role in determining the success of the product or service awareness.

What may be its advantages over other proven medium like the best-selling TV ads?

Advantages

1. Low Cost

Eventhough the Internet ad might be viewed as “classy” or far-reaching, as compared to other medium, this is far cheaper than most. Internet Ad Packages are offered for as low as $29.99 for a one-month run-time period.

2. Capture market

Should your product / service aim to cater to the younger generation or the corporate-oriented ones, Internet ad would be best since they would always be “hooked-up” into the net surfing sites that might have a link to your very own. Result, a great number of “hits” on your site!

2. Hassle free

All you would ever really need is a PC (and some knowledge and bright ideas in forming your site) wherein you could open your site, search for the best Internet Ad package, and check / update the status of your ad. You may actually never have to leave your home to advertise!

3. Updated ads

Unlike the TV ads that need to be updated on a regular basis, Internet ads may run for quite some time without the need for change. If so, change in the site is very minimal and may be done easily at home.

Disadvantages

1. Scope

Limited market may be captured if one would solely use the Internet Ad for advertising. Although most people now are into the use of technology, i.e. surfing the Internet, still, majority of the average consumers still relies on the old form of advertising as a means of gathering information about certain products / service.

2. Additional cost

If one would enlist the help of another professional or establishment to produce the site for their product or service, this would entail additional costs on the part of the entrepreneur.

Given the stated list of advantages and disadvantages about low-coast Internet Ad, an entrepreneur may now weigh in its applicability to his / her product or service.

The aim of Internet ad is to offer the widest range or “Maximum Exposure” of the brand at the least possible cost. Now, does that not sound good or what?

About the Author
More information about online marketing is available at marketing online

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Make The Most of a Low Cost Internet Advertising Method

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Writing is a product. A basic marketing truism is that you can’t sell a product if no one wants to buy it. Whether or not your writing is wonderful doesn’t matter if you are writing about a subject no one wants to publish. The moral of the story? Never create your writing in a vacuum.

It’s extremely easy to find out what topics are in demand by doing a little Internet surfing. In fact, the Internet is actually the best place to research hot topics. It’s far better than the library, chain bookstores, print media, or television. Today’s publishing trends will appear online first, long before they hit the bookstores.

Before you write anything, try to think like a publisher. Ask yourself, what do they want to buy?

Above all else, publishers want to print what is going to sell. For example, if you want to submit a book proposal to a publisher, go to the Web and find out what the hot topics are in your chosen field. As a writer, you are, by nature, a researcher. The Internet is a researcher’s dream come true.

For example, if you are a computer nerd and want to write about technology topics, what is the latest “buzz” on the propeller-head discussion boards? What are people complaining about? What new techie toy is your average 14 year old dying to get his hands on?

Or let’s say you want to break into a magazine. Every single magazine editor on the planet, without exception, will tell you to “read the magazine first” before you get in touch.
Many, many magazines put their writer’s guidelines online. If they don’t, you can usually read a few issues online to get a feel for the magazine’s tone. You no longer have to waste postage begging for a copy of the magazine before you contact the editor or publisher. All you need to do is get online, go to your favorite search engine, and start digging.

If you’re interested in a particular magazine or trade journal, simply to go your favorite search engine such as Google. Then type:

the magazine name +guidelines OR
the magazine name +”writer information”

For more general searches, try these phrases:
“editorial calendar”
“writer’s guidelines”
“author’s guidelines”
“contributor’s guidelines”
“write for us”
“freelance writing markets”
“freelance markets”
“writing markets”

Yes, the quotation marks are important. They tell the search engine to find the entire phrase, as opposed to the individual words. You also might try derivatives of these searches, such as “writer guidelines” and “writers guidelines”. Sometimes web sites or search engines aren’t good at handling punctuation, such as apostrophes.

Armed with a little information, you can give publishers what they want. And in turn, they’ll give you what you want: a byline!

About the Author
Susan Daffron is the President of Logical Expressions, Inc. (http://www.logicalexpressions.com) and has written more than 300 newspaper and national magazine articles. She regularly publishes ezines on computers (http://www.LogicalTips.com), pet care (http://www.Pet-Tails.com), and other topics.

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Attention Struggling Freelance Writers To Get Published, Do Your Homework

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“A picture is worth a thousand words.” That saying may be ages old but its message is just as vital today as when it was first uttered. Simply put, a single image can often communicate what might take you one thousand words (more or less) to say or write.

You have already spent the time putting together an ebook or software package that you want to market on the Internet. You have chosen the right words for your title and any other text you might use on the book cover.

Now you have to carefully design your cover to best represent your book or software. You have to find the right graphic(s) that will support the title and enhance the perceived value of your ebook.

There are two common forms of graphics: clip art and stock photos. Take some time exploring sites providing stock photos and clip art. It can be a lot of fun.

First of all, what is clip art? There are many differing opinions out there. Some call it “ready-made art” because sometimes clip art can include photos, pictures, or complete illustrations. But, for the sake of this article, we are defining clip art to mean: All ready-made pieces of digital art, such as illustrations, borders and line drawings that are used as graphic elements in a document. They can be either raster images (jpeg, tiff, bmp, gif) or vector images (eps, wmf, ai). They can be black and white, or color.

Regardless of what you call it, clip art should be used sparingly in quality ebook covers or software boxes. The fact is, clip art can range in quality from rough drawings to refined images. But, clip art is never mistaken for high quality paintings or photos. It is not intended to be the only or the primary image in a larger work (like an ebook cover).

Perhaps the best rule of thumb is: If you are not sure if you should use a piece of clip art in your document (ebook cover, box cover), don’t use it. If you are not careful, the wrong choice of clip art can imply a lack of quality.

The above statements notwithstanding, clip art can, if used properly, be an effective element in a quality ebook cover.

Where do you find graphics? Without a doubt, there are many sites where you can get images and photos you can use. There are literally hundreds of Web sites where you can find clip art of all types and quality. Just search online for “free clip art”, “free images”, or “free graphics.” Some may require that you sign up for a free membership.

Just be sure that you are allowed to use any clip art you find, and that it is of high quality. It is very important that you carefully read the “Terms of Use” before using any image. Some sites may only allow use of their images for personal use. Others allow commercial use. Still other sites let each contributor of the images determine what kinds of usage will be allowed. When paying a fee for an image, the fee usually grants you permission to use the image freely in any way that you wish.

When using an image for your ebook cover, make sure it is okay to use in a commercial situation, and check to see if you have to pay for that use, or if there are other requirements like giving the author/photographer credit for the image. You can also purchase large collections of clip art on CD sets in computer stores or on the Internet.

Good luck in your search for the right images. Finding the right picture will make your efforts worthwhile. It will increase sales of your ebook or software. If you find yourself a little lost trying to find the right images and design of your cover, then perhaps you should consider hiring an experienced graphic designer to produce the cover for you.

About the Author
Boost your ebook sales with quality 3D ebook covers!FREE 34+ clipart and photo resources.Quality custom design of Web graphicshttp://www.QualityEbookCovers.com.

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Using the Right Images and Photos for Your Ebook Cover

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When you have color printing needs, your first choice is probably a professional printer. Nowadays, the advancements in technology have made it possible for you to create print jobs in color that rival those of professional printers. Depending on the type of color printing you need, there are essentially two paths you can take to create your own color masterpieces.

The first option for printing in color from home is to use a color printer that connects to your desktop or laptop computer. You first need a computer or access to one. The computer needs to have printer software. There are numerous applications on the market that provide templates to help you with printing in color. These applications are generally inexpensive. You will also need paper that is designed for printing in color. If you will be doing a variety of printing in color, a good choice is a pack of paper that includes various sizes and styles. For example, paper that works best for color photographs is generally glossy. On the other hand, if you are planning to create a brochure, invitations, or business cards, paper that has a matte finish is probably a better choice.

Finally, you will of course need a printer. The type of printer you need depends on the type of printing in color you will be performing. Color laser printers offer the best quality, but this type of printer is only an absolute necessity when you need the best quality such as when printing full-color catalogs. For basic color needs an inkjet printer will do the trick. Be careful, not all ink jet printers that offer printing in color are the same. Your best bet is an inkjet printer with 4800 x 1200-dpi. This will enable you to print the best quality. Even if you don’t think you will need such high-quality color printing, you may need to do so later in the future.

Your second option for doing your own printing in color is to purchase a commercial printing press. A printing press is the best option when you want to print large quantities of a project in color. You may not have considered buying your own printing press because they are generally very expensive. Brand new printing presses can be very expensive. The inexpensive option is to purchase a used printing press. There are a number of ways that you can find used printing presses. The Internet is a popular choice because you can conveniently and quickly search for what you want. You may want to search Ebay, one of the top shopping resources on the Internet. Other options such as your local newspaper or auctions are great resources, but you will need to do a little legwork.

Like using a home printer, you will need a computer to produce the layout of the document that you want to print in color. When you are ready to print the document you just need to create your plates that will act as your printing template. Once you create your plate you can print as many copies as you need. The only disadvantage of buying a printing press is that if the machine malfunctions it may cost you some money to have it repaired.

Regardless of the option you choose, you can accomplish your personal color printing needs and do so without spending a lot of money.

About the Author
PrintingGraphicDesign.com helps to home and business users with their printing needs, from photographs and business cards to tee-shirts and posters PrintingGraphicDesign.com can help you find the best printing solution.

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Alternatives for Doing Your Own Printing in Color

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If you have always thought about writing for a living or have written things that you think people would like, why wait for publishers to notice your queries and your submissions? You can make money by turning to self publishing as a business and reap the rewards of your work being sold to and read by your customers.

You can simply set up a web site that advertises all of the books and publications that you are selling. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated, but it should present your publications in a clear and enticing manner. You want to grab your potential reader’s attention with snippets of the books so that they want to buy them. And by buying them, you can make money without any work.

What you need

To begin a self publishing business to make money, you need to have title to sell. And there are two ways to go about creating your stock of books. You can either write the books yourself, researching popular titles and themes to write about, or you can have a freelance writer do this for you.

You can go to several different writing sites to search for a freelance writer that will write a book that will make money for your business. And true, you will have to pay the writer for their efforts; it can save you time down the road because you aren’t spending your days writing. Leave the work to someone else. Or ask for submission for your site, giving a small profit to the original author, but keeping a percentage for your self.

Next, you will need to set up a web site that is crafted to make money for your books. This will include the titles as well as summaries of the books that you are offering. You will also want to include ways for customers to purchase your books from this web site. You may want to hire a web page designer at this stage in order to be sure that your customers will enjoy the presentation as well as be able to make purchases safely. Again, this step too may cost money, but in the end, a well-designed web site pays for itself.

Because your web site will be able to take orders without your input, you can make money while you’re sleeping or when you’re away. Some business owners also like to create fax machine orders for customers that aren’t comfortable with Internet ordering.

Growing over time

The best way to continue to make money with a self publishing business is to continuously add titles to your web site. This means that as you learn what your customers are buying, you want to put more of the same kinds of books on your site. You may even want to create a suggestion feature so that you can learn what kinds of books people are shopping for so that you can meet that demand.

Another way to increase profits and make money is to offer a downloadable version of each of the books that are for sale. This allows your customers to print out or save the books if they choose, rather than having the need to print and ship them to the customers. And it’s faster for the customer as well because they can get their book as soon as their payment clears.

With self publishing, you can see your words in print and make money for your hard work. And with the low start up cost and wide market, self publishing is becoming one of the most popular ways to make money with your computer.

About the Author
Hunter Crowell is a researcher, marketer, and an entrepreneur. He is also the creator of Ways To Make Money, a web site setup to help ordinary people learn about the various ways to make money. http://www.make-money-explained.info

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How To Make Money With Self Publishing

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Five years ago I was a professional speaker desperately in need of my own book. After each presentation members of my audience would approach me and ask if had a book or a tape for sale. The need was obvious. The market existed. All I needed to do was write a book and bring it to my audiences. This is how my first book was born.

I wrote nonstop for two months and finally had it written and illustrated with my own original cartoons. The question facing me now was who would be chosen from among thousands of publishers to bring my masterpiece to the waiting, eager multitudes. After many submissions to numerous publishing houses and many rejection slips, I finally found one who agreed to publish my book. The problem was that they couldn’t get around to it for about a year and a half. I would receive 20% of the retail cost of each copy sold and would have to do most of the promotion myself.

This arrangement just wasn’t satisfactory. I needed the book as soon as possible and I wanted to receive more than 20% of each copy sold. It was then that I decided to enter the world of self publishing and started Lifeline Publications.

Five hundred copies of were printed as a test run and I sold them all within the year as ” back of the room” items at my speeches and seminars. Since I wasn’t on the road speaking 365 days of the year I wanted to have my book available for purchase seven days a week whether I was speaking or not. I had my webmaster create a store for me and connect it to my speaking website. I was in business.

With well chosen and well directed advertising online and off I began to receive orders in my mailbox and by email. As sales increased so did the number of published items in my store. At present I have a total of nine information products, manuals, books, tapes, and special reports available for purchase.

In my first year as a publishing tycoon I sold 300 copies of my products online alone and another 100 offline. Add these sales to those at my talks and you can see that I was off and running as a self publisher. The orders seem to increase in number each month.

Writers are no longer dependent on the acceptance and approval of editors and publishers. Using the internet as well as offline classified ads in popular magazines you can bring your writing directly to a wide and eager market. People are always seeking ” how to” information. In fact the most sought after items on the internet are information products. So if you research peoples’ needs, wants and interests then write to satisfy them you are going to sell effectively..

Self publishing is simple and cost effective especially if you print on demand. You don’t print a copy of your product until you get an order for that product. By doing this you avoid the cost of having 500 copies printed plus having to find storage space in your already cluttered basement.

If you have the writing bug and have received enough rejection slips to wallpaper a bedroom, try self publishing. When that first order comes in you will feel great satisfaction and a surge of self confidence which will, inevitably, result in more sales. You will be on your way to conquering the world of self publishing. GOOD LUCK!

About the Author
Mike Moore is an international speaker and writer on humor and human potential. You can take a look at Mike’s books, manuals, tapes and reports at http://motivationalplus.com/cgi/a/t.cgi?mpstore

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The Profitable World of Self Publishing

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Once your book is written and you’ve determined that you will be self-publishing, there are a few serious errors you are going to want to steer clear of.

THINKING YOU DON’T NEED AN EDITOR

Even the best writer needs a second pair of impartial, well-trained eyes to look over their work before sending it out into the wide, wide world. The reason being that as the author, we are too close to our work to see it objectively. Are there any holes in your points or arguments? Are the introduction and conclusion as strong as they could be?

Editors provide feedback, sharpen the focus, and turn an already strong piece of writing into a stellar piece of writing. While you might have a great story to tell or have incredible information to share with the world, you also might struggle with getting the words out of your head. Or, perhaps you’re talented at outlining your overall concepts, but you need some help fleshing out the ideas, or finessing the language to make it as clear and compelling as possible. These issues are nothing to be ashamed of – but they are signs that you will definitely benefit from working with a qualified editor.

Think about it. Michael Jordan once was asked how he became the best basketball player in the world. Did he chalk it all up to raw talent? His answer might surprise some folks: “I had great coaches.” Likewise, great writers have good editors behind them. A good editor can make all the difference between a book that should be used as fireplace kindling and the next viral marketing success like “Unleashing the Ideavirus.” (No disrespect to Seth Godin – I’m sure he’s a brilliant writer whose work needs very little editing.)

DESIGNING YOUR OWN COVER – OR HAVING A FRIEND DESIGN IT FOR YOU

A lot of first-time self-published authors, in an attempt to conserve money, forego the investment in a graphic designer with book cover expertise. This is a HUGE mistake.

According to selfpublishingresources website, three-fourths of 300 booksellers surveyed (half from independent bookstores and half from chains) identified the look and design of the book cover as the most important component of the entire book. All agreed that the jacket is the prime real estate for promoting a book.

Although not all books are sold in bookstores, at least 50 percent still are. But before your book even makes it onto the bookstore shelf, retailers and reviewers will see it, and make their determinations about your magnum opus based on just a few seconds’ glance at the cover. And in the bookstore, a shopper will spend an average of just 8 seconds looking at the front cover and 14 seconds on the back cover. This is a total of less than a half-minute to decide if your book is even worth flipping through! If you do not have a professional image that is congruent with your contents, you will very often miss the sale.

A professionally designed cover will:

* ENHANCE the salability of your book. Does your cover make a person want to pick up the book and buy it? Will booksellers be proud to display it in their stores?

* INCORPORATE the book’s theme. Does the cover design effectively convey your voice and style? Does it entice and appeal to your target audience?

* EMPLOY creativity and originality. Is the design a unique expression of you, your theme, and your contents? Is it aesthetically pleasing and tasteful?

There are no two ways around it. If you want your book to sell, you must spend the money on a professional designer for the cover and interior layout of your book.

BELIEVING THE BOOK WILL SELL ITSELF

Many writers finish their books. For most, though, that is the end of the line. Few ever actually see their work in print. One of the main reasons for this has to do with marketing. Of all the mistaken beliefs held by new nonfiction authors, the most difficult one for most writers to grasp is an understanding of the time/money/energy commitment involved in marketing, a book.

Many writers envision themselves as creative geniuses who believe they should be left alone to write while someone else handles the marketing and promotion. In the sphere of traditional publishing, some publishers may provide significant marketing support, but that is mostly a thing of yesteryear. Today, most publishers offer very little in the way of marketing assistance; virtually every publishing house – from the smaller, little-known shops to the behemoths of great repute – leaves it to the author to promote his or her own book.

If an author is unable to provide any marketing support and cannot clearly define the market for their book, publishers are unlikely to be interested at all. This should be a red flag to those pursuing the self-publishing option. Know your audience and shatter that ubiquitous box, in terms of your creative marketing concepts. Who will read your book and where can you find them? These are the questions you need to keep at the forefront of your mind, even as you write the book, print it, and design your Web site.

There are hundreds of humor writers, columnists, and experts in myriad fields who could write books. What differentiates them is not their writing talents, as much as their ability – or inability – to sell their books. As we have by now determined, publishing is a business, and publishers will always go with the books they anticipate to be the biggest sellers. You must keep this same attitude and vision, even if you decide to self-publish. If you lose sight of creating a book that will actually sell, you may find yourself in an uphill battle once it’s done. The last thing you want is to take out a business loan to get your books produced, only to have 30 cases of them stacked in your garage for the next 10 years.

Be ready and willing to market yourself and your book. Become a media darling. Look for opportunities to appear on local, regional, and national radio and TV. Yes, this means you, even if you are shy! Take an acting class or join Toastmasters if you have a fear of speaking in public. You are going to sell this book – no one else is. That means you must be as available and open as possible. If someone from the media calls to invite you for an interview, drop everything else and get to that interview. Spread the word about your new title on the Web. Send preview copies to select reviewers and/or celebrities or personalities with long reach. You went through all the other steps to get here. Believe in yourself, your book, and your market – and be fearless in promoting it to the world.

About the Author
Scott White has designed the best SEO Book to rank your website. Personal Trainer.Freelance Editor.

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Self-Publishing Book Production Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

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A Good Grammarian Doth Not a Good Writer Make

I once watched Andrea Mitchell interview Stephen King. Her whole attitude is the problem I‘m going to be outlining in this article. She regarded him with a look of cringing pity, as if he was some lowly creature whose presence she was forced to endure. She made some idiotic remark about how critics were “universal” in their disregard for his work. I’d like to know where these critics are. I’d like to know because I want to steer clear of anything they ever recommend. I’ll bet they’ll explain “why” they don’t like him, and it’ll all be based on somebody else’s opinions and not on theirs. They recite the given dictums of a literary fundamentalism as if there can be no room for doubt when there is always room for doubt.

Stephen King is one of the best narrative stylists working in the English language. So far as I’m concerned, most science fiction and horror writers can write circles around the buckets of pretentious, ponderous prose that gets chummed around in “serious literary” circles these days. Many of these people don’t seem to be writing for readers but for their critics. They’re trying to impress the snobs, not express an internal feeling or vision to their readers. They want people to tell them they are brilliant.

I don’t know what a good story is for anyone else but me — it’s like obscenity, I only know what it is when I encounter it. It doesn’t have a specific form. There is no aesthetic dialectic that follows a certain pattern and arrives at a perfect chair. I’ll warrant all the people who feel they know what a good story is for everyone, are basing it on some shared delusion of people who agree with them. And this is wholly based on ego. It’s almost always tied up in technique. Technique is where we can base our opinions on easily traceable data.

When this topic comes up, I’m reminded of the film Amadeus. In it Mozart is portrayed as so brilliant that he’s more than a bit insane. He also socially handicapped. His antagonist counterpart is Salieri, the composer chained up with his own lack of subjectivity. He didn’t know what made Mozart’s music good because he didn’t know how to write good music himself. He had lost his own ideas of “good” and “bad” in his subjugation of his own opinions to his teachers’. He lost the connection to that inventive wellspring of creativity we all have. As such, he was unable to find his own music. All he could do is ape the drab, heartless trill of his teachers’ work — which was probably merely the mimicked head sounds of their teachers, and so on.

Some of the most boring stories/books I’ve read have been perfectly edited. You can have all your ducks in a row in terms of grammar and still be a godawful storyteller. Storytellers, whether their stories are fiction or non-fiction, have a very different, less physical set of tools at their disposal. Some of it is “talent” (whatever that is) but most of it is experience. It’s simply sitting down and learning to craft a good story.

If the spelling and grammar are there, that’s great. If not, they can be edited. But all the English skills in the world will not turn a fair writer into a great storyteller.

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