FTB

Excerpts

Please note. This program contains the primary binder AND a companion workbook.
Together, the binder and workbook make this system foolproof.

Precursor

This manual is written for other “not English majors.”
And, really, even if English was your best subject in school, odds are you still were never taught how to write a book. Stupid things such as where does someone get an ISBN without getting ripped-off, or how and where to get the cover artwork completed, prevent many people from ever completing their life’s dream of writing a book.

Section One  Why Do You Want To Write A Book

I’ve always treated writing books as something that anybody could do, but excluding the people I’ve met since I took up writing, my social and business circles NEVER contained a single person who was either published or self-published. So even though it may be possible for anyone to do, I refer to an earlier quote, “…but not just anyone can write a book.”

Let’s take a quick look at some various reasons you may have for taking on this new project in your life.

Section Two  Getting Started  And  Choosing Your Topic

In writing, you want to be thinking piece-meal. You aren’t sitting down to write some huge book, you’re merely sitting down to jot down some information you know about a specific topic, and more specifically, a chapter heading. I offer a 1-Day Book Writing Intensive that permits people to walk in and walk out with a book almost completely finished.
YES, ONE DAY! Later in this book, you’ll see how I accomplish this.
BUT – you don’t need to sign up for my course to complete your book. Just follow the training I’m presenting here.

Section Three  Title Creation

The title of your book is very important. At this juncture, it’s not an urgency matter that you reach a final determination as to what your title should be, but I address it early in this training so that you’ll be thinking about it during the process of developing your book. Bad titles can prevent good books from selling and they will absolutely cost you money when you decide to change them. I’m sorry to say I learned this lesson the hard way!

Section Four  Content

Very few people realize that the toughest part of putting a book together is the development of a QUALITY Table of Contents. Since there are so many books available on literally millions of topics, even this obstacle is easily overcome. In my 1-Day Book Writing Intensive, we do create a Table of Contents “on the fly.” However, in a one day training, there’s not enough time to do it any other way. This being said, the system I’m about to show you is unique, effective and preferable.

The Table of Contents is your book’s roadmap. Not only does it need to cover simple things such as the Introduction and Biography, but it details the heart of your book. I always read the Table of Contents prior to purchasing any non-fiction book. My purpose for doing this is to ensure there are enough chapters covering what I call, primary information. The Table of Contents lets me know what I’ll be getting out of a book. The Table of Contents is so important that Amazon now has a feature that permits prospective purchasers to view books’ Tables before buying.

Section Five  “Writing” Your Book

Okay, are you ready for the good news?
Just because you’ve decided to write a book, does not mean you have to write your book. For many people, actual writing, is the choice of last resort.

There are 3 options available to any person who wants to write a book. I’m starting with the easiest, and therefore, the most expensive.
If you’re trying to complete your book in a weekend, go straight to Option 2.

Section Six  Editing – – never EVER skip this step

Hopefully the mistakes I made in editing will save you a lot of time, grief and most importantly – money. I’m not going to waste your time with the gory details of how I learned these lessons, but trust me, if you follow the information found in this section, you’ll be MILES ahead of the game.

One of my most costly lessons was learned when I found out that there is more than one type of editing. Clearly, I learned this the hard way. Also, just because a person is good at one type of editing, does not mean he or she can cross over and be effective at another. I’ve had books that have been worked over by 5 different people and have stillfound mistakes during my final reviews.

Section Seven  Assembling Your Book

NOTE: Professional book formatting looks good and has an air of professionalism, but it can also run you 500 or more dollars. It will also take time because you’ll have to locate someone and wait for him or her to complete the job. The books I produce are clean and easy to read. If you want your book professionally formatted, go back to pages 25 and 26 of Section 5 and review the information on hiring providers from Elance or Craigslist.

Section Eight  ISBN And Bar Code

ISBN is the abbreviation for International Standard Book Number. This is your book’s identifier. Each title has a different ISBN. ISBNs are assigned to publishers; an  individual can also be considered a publisher. The ISBN can be found on the publisher page of most books and is also located just above or below the bar code found in the lower right corner of the back covers of books.

There’s no law that says you have to obtain an ISBN, but if you plan on putting your book into Amazon, or are attempting to sell your book through any commercial outlet, it will need an ISBN. The only time an ISBN is not necessary is if you’re just handing your book out to people. But even in these cases, I would still suggest having an ISBN, if for no other reason than to legitimize the book.

Section Nine  Cover Design

You want the cover of your book to be visually pleasing, while permitting a potential purchaser to view the book as a professional product. (Note: this section covers artwork for hardcover books – – NOT Kindle. Kindle covers are different and instructions for these can be found in SECTION 13 of this manual.)

In the process of working on your cover, it’s important that you know who your reader and/or customer will be.

Section Ten  Copyrighting

The second I get my document back from my content editor, I file it with the U.S. Copyright Office. There’s no problem with filing a work that contains typographical errors and/or punctuation issues; it’s the overall content you’re looking to protect. I had one project that was so confidential, that I filed for copyright protection before any person, including a content editor had seen it, just to ensure the work was not copied prior to my final release of that information to the public.

The process of obtaining a copyright is much easier today than even a few short years ago. The last book I Copyrighted took me 2 minutes and only cost $35.

Section Eleven  Printing Your Book & Creating An Ebook

The ebook will contain the front cover of your book. I include the back cover of my books as the 2nd page of my ebooks. Then the remainder will be the body of your book. Readers can open your ebook as they would any other attachment to an email and read it, save it to their computer for reading at a later date, print it, or forward it to other people.

Making ebooks is extremely simple. To do so, you need a few things. You need a text   file of your book and you need the cover, which is considered a graphics file. Remember in Section 9 where I discussed obtaining a jpg and PDF of your book’s cover from your graphics person? Well, we’re about to put those to use.

Section Twelve  Getting A Publishing Company Versus Self-Publishing

The second issue with publishers, big and small, is that they expect the writer (you) to have what is known as a platform. A platform in the writing business is, either a huge foundation of ready, willing and able fans (aka: buyers), or a plan of how you’ll be generating enough buzz to get your books sold. We’ve all read a book at one time or another thinking, “Did a 2nd grader write this??!” The answer may very well be, yes. Many publishing houses would rather have a mediocre book on the street supported by a great platform, than a great book with no platform. Good platforms    result in good sales, even for poorly written books.

Section Thirteen  Getting Your Book On Amazon (and Kindle)

In this section, I’ll cover the basics of getting your book on Amazon and a few advanced strategies for increasing the likelihood of potential buyers finding your book when they’re searching through Amazon. I dedicate this topic to its own section due to the overwhelming number of requests I’ve received asking about how to maximize a book’s potential inside of Amazon’s system. Be sure to read the section which follows.   In that section I discuss methods of getting potential readers to your book – whether it’s located on Amazon, Kindle, or a private website. However, while I touch on    Amazon in Marketing, it’s only to reference back to this section. This section contains methods specific to Amazon’s structure.

Section Fourteen  Marketing Your Book

4)  Social Networks. Social Networks are online communities where people with   similar interests congregate. As of the date of this writing, Facebook is currently the biggest with approximately 1 billion worldwide users. I’m not a giant social network guy, but these sites are fantastic ways to connect with people who have interests similar to yours or that may be relevant to your title.

Here’s a quick example of how to utilize a social network. Your book is titled Frisbee Golf. Jump into Facebook and type in “frisbee golf.” (If you don’t already have an account, establishing one will take about 60 seconds.) “Frisbee golf,” on the first results page alone, produces the following: the first 2 of 19 pages dedicated to Frisbee golf    exist as links. The 1st page link has 3491 fans and the 2nd link contains 272 fans. Further down this primary results page are the first 3 of 1300 groups. The first group contains 1107 members, the second – 346, and the third – 123.

End

Well, that’s it. I truly hope you’ll get your book written and out into the world.

I just finished reading a book by some guy who has made millions of dollars selling his book. The book contained over 250 pages – – most of which were junk. The entire book could have been written in less than 40 pages, maybe less than 30.

I tell you this story for 2 reasons:
1) If that guy who has little knowledge and ZERO ability to write, can make millions… so can you.

2)  If you create a quality book, you get the opportunity to change the world one reader at a time.

Index

Ebook  66-68
Editing  33-37
Editing – – content  34-35
Editing – – final review/cleanup  36
Editing – – grammatical  35
Editing – – punctuation and spelling  36
Elance  23-24
Embedded Fonts  64-65  ALSO see Resources CD
Equipment – – digital recorder  26-27
Equipment – – microphone  26
Equipment – – audio software  26
Equipment – – adobe acrobat  67