Self Publishing On Kindle And Nook For Residual Online Income

Advancing yourself and your business by becoming a published author has become simpler than ever. Now you can self-publish your writing on the Kindle and the Nook almost effortlessly. You can do so without a middle man, without a publisher, and essentially free, as neither Amazon or Barnes & Noble charge for publishing on their systems. They do take a cut, of course, of your sales, but in the end, you still end up with more of your money than you would if you had published the traditional route.

I have now done this a number of times, and you can take a look at all of my books at my Amazon author page. This has given me credibility, increased my visibility, and added an additional stream of residual online income.

It will take you some time to format your books properly for each system but both make it very easy to do so. Create your book with a word-processing software, then save as an .html file then simply upload the .html file with your cover art to both Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, and you’re done. Wait for approval, and start promoting your book. Both Kindle’s Direct Publishing and the Nook’s Pubit system allow .html uploads so there is no reason to create the files in any other way than this because you can “kill two birds with one stone” by using this method.

The important part of the advent of publishing books is that once you’re on Amazon or Barnes & Noble you’re a legitimate author and can promote yourself as such. Being a published author has been a tried and true method of marketing for many types of businesses long before the arrival of eBooks or paperback books. In some circles, your published book is your calling card. Additionally, many online marketers published eBooks and promoted them on their websites, and via places like Clickbank, before the ability to publish so easily on these venues arose. Book publishing on Amazon and Barnes & Noble is now an exciting and lucrative addition to your publishing options.

It is very important not to take the ease at which you can publish, lightly. Create publications you’re proud of showing off and promoting, and you can’t go wrong. While you will have to charge less per book using these venues than when you sell and promote an eBook on your own website and sales pages, you will have a larger audience in which to promote your book and more eyes will see it. Use each system to their fullest advantage to promote your book, and use your book to promote your business. In this way, you will have the best of both worlds.

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Affiliate Marketing Tips: Build A List From The Very Beginning

Affiliate marketing can best be described as recommending what you use and love to others who would benefit from the same products and services, in return for a commission each time a sale is made. You can build an entire business using affiliate marketing as your business model, or simply add it to what you’re doing already for an additional stream of passive online revenue.

My new course on this topic is now available at Affiliate Marketing Secrets Explained, and is designed for newbies as well as intermediate Internet marketers.

I believe the best way to build a lucrative affiliate marketing business is by building a list from the very beginning. Start with a simple blog or one page website where people who are interested in your topic can go to find out more information. You will offer these visitors a free report or an audio recording where they can find out even more about you and your topic. When they enter their name and email address they will now have given you permission to include them in future mailings.

As soon as the first person joins your list, start writing to them to better connect with them and to find out more about what they want and need from you. This will be similar in any niche you choose, so jump right in and get started. Too many people make the mistake of waiting until they have a specific number of people on their list before starting to send emails. This is a huge mistake. Start the process immediately and you will build your business much more quickly.

Look for the products and services you have been willing to spend money on yourself when it comes to making affiliate offers to your list. Remember always that you are only recommending what you love, so look to see what you have purchased and benefitted from so that you can share these valuable resources with others. Write an article, post to your blog, and tell others about them on the social media sites. When others see that you are a raving fan they will be more likely to take you seriously when it comes to making an investment of their own.

As you get more experienced with this you’ll be able to be more picky when it comes to who and what you will promote. With so many great products and services now available online there will never be enough time to share them all with the people who come to you for a recommendation.

Take your job seriously and you will see that being an affiliate marketer is a worthwhile position. Be sure to check out my new affiliate marketing training course.

 

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How To Make Money As A Freelance Writer

Did you know that you can make money as a freelance writer? Tens of thousands of people from around the world are already doing it, and I have a new training available on this topic at this site – How To Be A Freelance Writer.

Making money as a freelance writer is a rewarding way to build a business that can all be done from home. There are many ways to get started with this, including article writing, business blogging, and connecting with small businesses and corporations. You will find this to be a career that can last your entire lifetime, giving you the time and financial freedom to live the life you choose on your terms.

If you are already a writer you may not realize that this is a skill envied by many. Being able to sit down and write on a topic you are knowledgeable about and have an interest in is something that most of the adult population struggles with on a daily basis. This is where freelance writing can be so important; you do the writing to help out small businesses, corporations, charitable organizations, and solopreneurs. You can also turn your writing into short reports, eBooks, books for the Kindle, and paperback books.

Writing as a freelancer can be done throughout your lifetime, giving you a profitable skill that you can do from wherever you happen to be. As long as you don’t need to be inspired by specific routines or environment, you will be able to write from home, on vacation, or from most anywhere. There is almost no other field that allows for such flexibility in time and working conditions that also is so lucrative.

Make a list of the topics you will be able to write about. Write an article about each one of these topics and submit it to the article directories to see what kind of feedback you get from the readers. This will help to guide you as to which topics are most in demand and the results you can expect to achieve over time.

Start a blog that describes what you are doing and how you wish to do business with others. You may find that writing and selling your own writing online is the best way to freelance, or that taking on a limited number of clients to work with regularly over time is most appealing to you. Whatever you decide, you will know that you are in charge of the decisions you will make. This is certainly better than working for a company that dictates what you should be writing and what will be done with the content you create. Get started right away and see what the future holds for you as a freelance writer. This has changed my life in many ways, and earning passive and residual online income is a benefit as well.

 

 

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Starting An Internet Business – Are You Simply Too Comfortable To Succeed?

Starting an Internet business can still be done, but the competition grows each and every day. If this is your goal you will want to take a proactive approach to be as productive as possible while learning as much as you can each day. Being an entrepreneur means that you do not give in to feelings of ‘just not feeling like it’. Do you know what I mean?

I work with students from a variety of backgrounds. It is quite common for someone to tell me they didn’t do any work on their business for a week or so because they just did not feel like it. This is not an attitude that will grow your business, or help you in any area of your life. Make a conscious decision to be successful and then only engage in activities that will ensure your success.

The idea is to adopt a winning attitude. You have heard the saying ‘Winners don’t quit and quitters don’t win’. It’s true. Just by making a commitment to succeed you will be part of the way there already.

I believe that being too comfortable has quite a lot to do with it. If your bills are paid up for the next month or longer you may feel like you deserve to take time off from your business. This can have
a devastating effect on your overall bottom line. Instead, challenge yourself to run your Internet business as though you had stockholders waiting to see the profit margin and the results of what you are accomplishing each month.

If you need help, seek it out from reputable and recommended resources. There are people who are ready and willing to help you with starting an Internet business and taking it to the next level in terms of bottom line results and profitability.

What about you? Are you simply too comfortable to succeed? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

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On The Road Again With My Portable Empire

My travels through the Central Coast region of California continue. Yesterday I visited both an ostrich ranch and a llama and alpaca farm. This area is also home to more than 50 wineries, and they are best known for their Pinot Noirs.

I visited the Fortino Winery today, which has been run by the same family for four generations.

When I stop along the way I always find a place to sit and read for an hour or so. I find this to be an excellent way to learn more, and to remind myself how fortunate I am to be living this ‘Laptop Lifestyle’.

On this trip I am rereading Your Portable Empire: How To Make Money Anywhere By Doing
What You Love by Pat O’Bryan. I first read this book when it came out in 2007, and it  really helped me to move forward in both my thinking and my actions.You can take a look at Pat’s author page and see what else he has written.

Your Portable Empire is the first book on that page, and if you scroll down you will see that I am a co-author on two of his more recent books. That’s right, in less than four years I went from reading Pat’s book to co-authoring books with him. Pat also wrote a foreword for my first book and is contributing a chapter to the book I am currently writing with Geoff Hoff.

It all begins with reading someone’s book, so I recommend that you take a look and then do your own search for the books you will read this month. I order two or three every month so I don’t have to pay extra foe shipping, and this ensures that I always have something new to read.

What are you reading? I’d love to hear which books and authors are changing your life.

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Membership Site Ideas

Let’s discuss some ideas for membership sites. These sites will enable you to offer your expertise and information to others on a regular basis. I’ve been using Wishlist Member, the WordPress plugin, to set up all of my membership sites since 2008. You will be able to house all of your content in one place, have a product available to give away or sell, and build your credibility and visibility by showing that you have specific knowledge on your topic. Allow me to explain in greater detail exactly what I mean by this.

Over time you will write articles, blog posts, and short reports on your topic, and by adding them to the member’s area of your site you will have them all in one place. This keeps you from duplicating what you’ve already written, and also allows you to see where the gaps are in your information. I like to make a list of the topics I have written about, and then add the content slowly over time.

Membership in your niche specific area will be a benefit to your prospects in that you can offer them a free membership where they can learn more about you and your topic. Over time you can invite these same free members to join your site as a paid member. The paid membership will have much more information, content, and privileges than the free one will have. This gives you two products right away; your free access and the paid access to your site. You may also want to offer a monthly teleseminar or other coaching as a part of this.

Increasing your credibility is much easier when you have content available on a free or paid site. This lets your prospects and clients know that you are an expert in this field. The next step would be to combine your content into a book. Your visibility will also skyrocket because people will begin to see your name everywhere as you create more articles and other content to add to your member’s area.

As you can see, setting up a membership area in your niche makes a lot of sense. This is something you can get started with right away. Take a look at your blog to see which posts could be repurposed and added to your site. Also, think about teleseminars or live trainings you have done where the content could be transcribed or added as audio or video. This will make your site even more appealing to those who come to you to learn more about the topic you are an expert in.

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Reasons To Learn From An Experienced Online Marketing Trainer And Mentor

I have been an online marketing trainer for more than four years now – since 2007 – and my students continue to make great progress and achieve success with their online businesses. I am extremely proud of this, but all the credit goes to them for choosing to learn from and work with a mentor to begin with. Attempting to do this on your own is not very easy, and the time and effort you save will more than make up for the cost and commitment required.

Learning from the experts who have been online for so many years is an excellent way to move ahead quickly with your online business. When I was new to the Internet, back in 2006, I quickly saw that there were two groups of people sharing information with the rest of us. One group had been online for ten years or more, and the other consisted of people who were not much further along than myself. There’s a place for both groups, but you don’t want to trust your financial future to those who are still figuring it all out for themselves.

Now I do realize that everyone has to start somewhere, and that we were all new at one time, but that’s a different topic. What I am talking about here refers to whom you will receive your online education from so that you can move ahead quickly.

How do you find out if the person you’re spending time and money with is experienced enough to be teaching others? Here are a few things to look for:

1 – They have a blog or portal site at their name dot com – example: ConnieGreen.com

2 – They have written a minimum of 100 articles on their topic

3 – When you Google their name you can see a variety of products and courses they have created

4 – They have authored, or at least co-authored, one or more books on their topic

5 – They have other raving fans, as evidenced by blog comments, book reviews, and social media postings

While I was a classroom teacher I went from being a student teacher to finally being a mentor teacher to student teachers. During the years in between those two roles, I learned in a variety of ways, including teaching hundreds of children, attending conferences, and reading what the experts had to say on various topics. It would not have been right for me to give other teachers advice during my first two years as a student teacher. My third year gave me more insight, but I was still in learning mode. By my fourth year I was ready to share my experiences with others, and by my fifth year I was asked to work with a first-year student teacher as a part of a team.

This is similar to what I recommend online. Study with a variety of people, and know that the ones who have been consistent in one main niche for a minimum of three years are the best people to learn and take advice from.

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Internet Marketing Training – From Big Box to Mom & Pop

Internet marketing training has changed significantly from what it was just a year or so ago, because the Internet marketing trainers have changed. Now that so many people who are relatively new to the marketplace (such as myself) are training the absolute beginners (newbies) who are coming on the scene, people have a choice in who they will spend their time and money with in order to get started with an online business. I think of this as a shift from the gurus (Big Box Stores) to the indiviual Internet marketing trainers (the Mom and Pop’s) when it comes to receiving your information.

The gurus – they even refer to themselves in this manner – tend to offer two thousand dollar courses and very little, if any, personal contact. Their webinars mute out all guests and customer service is done exclusively through a ticket system. Very impersonal, and not very effective these days.

People such as myself, and there are thousands of us, tend to focus on building relationships with our prospects and clients as we teach the fundamentals of getting started with an online business. If you think about it, I’m sure you will agree that having access to those you spend time and money with is a huge benefit.

Live events are changing as well. The events I used to attend consisted of a series of presenters throughout each day, each offering a package for sale at the end of their 90 minute presentation. At the end of three days you had heard conflicting stories as to what you should be doing to build a profitable business online. Most of these speakers did not even stay for the entire event, so they did not hear that someone else was contradicting their opinion. None of the people I met at these events enjoyed this process, but it seemed like the only way to connect with the big names in our industry.

Now the live events consist of more ‘workshop’ style training, where the speakers are expected to teach you how to do something to further your business. There may still be something for sale, but it is done in a more gentle way. Relationship building is seen as more important than just making the sale.

The bottom line is that relationship marketing works. When you choose someone to learn from, make sure you will be able to get to know them as you learn from them over time.

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Are You Developing Self Confidence In Your Online Business?

Developing self confidence is a topic that seems to be discussed primarily when we are dealing with children, but I believe it is crucial to adults, particularly those wanting to become online entrepreneurs. Those who are more confident and sure of what they can do are typically the ones who achieve the highest level of success. Being able to persevere, and feel like you are always at the top of your game, will affect everything you do.

Confidence is a trait I saw regularly in children entering Kindergarten. I taught for twenty years, so I was able to make a study of this as I spent time with children of various ages over the years. A Kindergartener enters school with a thirst for knowledge and a quest for the truth about the world around them. Within a month, that confidence can either be enhanced or shattered, depending upon the circumstances and situations they encounter, both at home and at school. By the time that same child entered the third grade, it was more likely than not that they had lost most of the self-confidence they had demonstrated just a few short years before.

I compare this to the feeling most of us have when we come online to start a business. We are wide-eyed and enthusiastic. We believe that success can be ours as soon as we figure out how to set up a few key things in our business. We have dreams of changing our life and being able to accomplish goals we had forgotten about from many years ago. Our imagination runs wild as we allow ourselves to dream.

Then we hit a stumbling block in the road. Perhaps it’s the realization that the technology is more difficult than we had imagined.  It might be the writing that will be required. The marketing may seem like it is just too much for us to understand and implement. In my case, it was all of these things.

That’s the point where we have to make a choice. Will we give up our dream and Continue reading →

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Hosting Teleseminars As Part Of Your Online Marketing Strategy

Hosting your own teleseminars will be both rewarding and profitable as you continue to build your online business. I’ve been doing this as part of my online marketing strategy since 2007, and it has been an excellent way for me to build my list, answer questions on my topics, and connect with people whom I may not ever meet in person. As you begin to incorporate hosting teleseminars into your business, you will want to think about the time of day and frequency of your calls, which topics you will focus on, and how you will monetize the calls from the very beginning.

There is no perfect day of the week or time of the day for you to host your teleseminar. Our online businesses serve people around the globe, so someone will always have a time conflict. I recommend that you choose a day and time that is convenient for you, and then have your call at this same exact time every single week. The idea is to get your audience used to when and where they can hear you each week to hear what you have to say and to get their questions answered.

Choose topics of discussion that are most comfortable for you. In the beginning, I shared information on blogging and article writing with my listeners. This was because these were the areas I was actively pursuing at that time, and I had many tips and much information that was helpful to them. I prepared a two or three page study guide for each call, and promoted two or three affiliate products and courses within each study guide. By keeping my offers in line with the topics I was discussing, people began to make purchases during that first month. Later on I began repurposing these study guides into short reports I could give to my list on a regular basis.

My recommendation is to only promote one affiliate product on each call during your first one to two months of hosting your own teleseminars. This will get you used to the idea of selling, and help to make the transition from whatever line of work you used to be in to online marketer a smooth one. You will also be less likely to forget something, or to confuse your listeners by promoting many things at the same time.

You can see that hosting your own calls can be beneficial in many ways. I use the Instant Teleseminar service, and have been with them since they began in May of 2007. Get started right away, and you will find that your online business grows very quickly once you get into the habit of doing this to reach out to your audience.

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