Self Publishing

4 Factors That Go Into Writing Content That People Will Love

May 28, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Quality Content

More people focus on writing content while less people focus on writing content that visitors will love. In order for your blog to grow, you need to write content that your visitors will love. This will encourage visitors to stick around and eventually subscribe to your blog. In order to get more people to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors.

Some people love the content because of the story. There is a difference between a 38-year-old writing this blog post and a 16-year-old writing this blog post. There is also a difference between an average person writing blog posts on the Shoemoney blog versus someone who used to live on a friend’s couch writing blog posts on that blog. You need to have a story that people love, and then your content looks a little better. This is not the difference between good content and bad content. A good analogy is that the book on a $0.99 discount looks better than the book at a regular price. The blog’s content with a good story looks better than the blog’s content without a good story.
Write blog posts that are easy to read. The only way your visitors will love your content is if they read it. Your blog posts need to be easy for your visitors to read. If I smushed all of the content of this blog post into 1 big paragraph, it would be more challenging for visitors to read the blog post. By spacing your content into several paragraphs, your visitors will have an easier time reading your blog posts.
Write quality content different from other bloggers. The word quality is just as important as different. Writing a blog post with typos in every sentence is different, but that does not mean people would love to read it. Write about topics and go into detail about those topics in a way different from other bloggers.
Proofread your blog posts before you publish them. No matter how good your blog post is, one typo will hurt a lot. In order to avoid publishing blog posts with typos, you need to proofread them before you publish them. Spending 5-10 minutes reading 1 blog post will allow you to feel more confident about your blog’s content.

In order to write content that your visitors will love, you need to have these four factors on your side. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional tips? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

My KDP Free Promo Experience

May 27, 2014 by Marc Guberti 2 Comments

Amazon Kindle Logo

No matter how successful a self-published author becomes, there is one point when that self-published author struggled to make any sales. Just like any other self-published author, there was a point when I struggled to make any sales. During these times, I would be jumping up and down if one of my books made two sales in 1 week.

That is by no means something to live on. As a new self-published author, the process was hard, but there was something that helped me grow. Despite all of the hardships I faced as a self-published author, there was one glimmer of light that ultimately paved the way for my success.

That glimmer of light was the KDP Free Promo. I decided to try out the KDP Free Promo for a book I had just published. I figured I could get about 100 downloads, get some reviews, and then go from there. However, the book didn’t just get 100 downloads. In that 5 day period, the book ended up getting downloaded over 900 times.

The only things I did to promote the book was write a blog post and send out two tweets to about 70,000 followers in 5 days. Unlike my previous books, I paid a professional designer to create the cover for the new book. My book ended up becoming a #1 bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories.

In addition to having my book become a bestseller in two of Amazon’s free categories, I got more reviews for my book in 1 month than I got reviews for all of my other books combined. After the KDP Free Promo, the book made more sales than any of my other books. For the rest of the month, I averaged 1 sale every day. That’s really good for someone who used to get one sale every week. The KDP Free Promo is definitely something to consider in order to get more people to know about your Kindle books.

The Three Options Self Published Authors Have To Become Successful

April 27, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Of course, self published authors have more than three options. However, the only way a self published author will become successful is by choosing one of these three options. These options have different effects on sales and customer relations. All three work, but it is up to you to decide which one works the best for you.

Publish 1 eBook every month. If you choose this option, then there are no excuses. You must be able to publish 1 eBook every month. That means getting the cover, writing the content, and proofreading what you wrote in just one month. These eBooks can be relatively short, and most of them range from 40-60 pages. If you publish 1 eBook every month, they need to be priced between $0.99 and $2.99. Publishing 1 eBook every month will get you more returning customers and a greater volume of sales.
Publish 2 eBooks every year. If you choose this option, the launch for your books is much more important than if you publish eBooks every month. Publishing eBooks every month allows each eBook to attract returning customers. By publishing 2 eBooks every year, you will need to have at least 100 pages per eBook, and at this point, they should also be paperback books. If you choose this path, you would need to have at least 100 people eager to buy your book before it gets published. I have been using this method for my upcoming book Lead The Stampede. It has been mentioned in several blog posts and tweets. Charging for a low price ($2.99-$3.99) would result in a greater volume of sales.
Do a mix of both. It is very unlikely that you will be able to publish 1 eBook every month while writing 2 eBooks every year that are 100+ pages that at least 100 people are going to buy on the day of the launch. If you decide to do a mix of both, I recommend publishing 4-6 eBooks every year depending on your speed. Publishing eBooks at this rate will ensure many people know about your launch and that you are able to get returning customers. This is the method that I am going with.

In order to become a successful self published author, you need to decide which of these options you are going to implement into your strategy. The successful self published authors implement one of these three strategies. Which one are you going to implement?

Great, Honest, And Thoughtful Content Wins

April 23, 2014 by Marc Guberti 1 Comment

This seems obvious. However, we all need to be reminded.

There are shortcuts to writing. Sacrificing quality writing means a blog post takes less time to write. However, that kind of content never wins.

We are all focused on writing quality content, but that is not the only kind of content that wins. People are not going to like something just because it has quality. It needs to be something that is great, honest, and thoughtful.

Show your readers that you took the time to write a brilliant blog post. It is easy to stop at the first sentence. It is easy to overlook your writing and forget to fix the spelling mistake. It is easy to write a 5 paragraph blog post and then leaving out the last tip.

If you want to be an elite blogger, your content needs to be great, honest, and thoughtful.

5 Ways To Get More eBook Sales

April 23, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

eBooks and Books

Many authors who publish their eBooks have dreams of being able to get hundreds (or even thousands) of sales every day. However, the problem new authors face is putting in a lot of work and not making many sales. Some authors’ eBooks do not make a single sale until several months after the eBook gets published. However, it is possible to get more eBook sales. Not only is it possible, but it is also not as challenging as people think to get more eBook sales. These are some of the ways to get more eBook sales:

Write eBooks frequently. Some authors publish 1 eBook every month. By publishing at this frequency, customers are easily able to become returning customers. However, as you increase your frequency, you need to be sure that you are not throwing away quality. If you do not publish 1 eBook every month, you do need to make sure that you are publishing multiple eBooks every year.
Get more reviews. Contact the people who you know bought your book and ask them if they would like to write a review. If you ask a customer this way, the customer is more likely to say yes. Include your social networks in your book so you can have conversations with your customers. In addition, you can ask for a review at the end of your book. Say something like, “After you read this book, I would greatly appreciate it if you wrote an honest review for my book on Amazon.”
Build the buzz. Many people make the mistake of not building the buzz. The people who have been reading my blog for a while know that I am writing a book called Lead The Stampede that will be published in the summer. That’s because I have mentioned my upcoming book in several blog posts. In addition, people have already contacted me on Twitter saying that they cannot wait for the book to come out.
Use HARO to get pitches. After reading The Pumpkin Plan by Mike Michalowicz, one of the things I noticed is that there were a lot of examples of other people using various methods included in The Pumpkin Plan. Mike Michalowicz got many of these stories from using HARO and submitting a query. I decided to do the same thing for Lead The Stampede. Several people’s stories will be included in Lead The Stampede. The people whose stories are going to be included in Lead The Stampede have asked me when the book will come out and want updates. I get more sales and promote others. It’s a win-win for everyone!
Get the big guys and gals to review your book. If you get a review from one celebrity, that’s all you need. The people who have a deep respect for that celebrity notice the review. At the back of The Pumpkin Plan is a review from Seth Godin. It did not take me long to realize that The Pumpkin Plan needed to be on my reading list.

Those are 5 ways to get more eBook sales. What are your thoughts about the list? Do you have any additional tips you would like to recommend? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why Proofreading An eBook Is Very Important

April 19, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Proofreading an eBook will reveal spelling mistakes, bad sentences, and typos in your book.After taking several months to read, proofread, and proofread Honest Ways To Make Money Online, I decided that it was finally time to publish the eBook. As a new author who wanted to see results, I knew that by publishing more eBooks, I would get better results. As a result, I wanted to publish as many eBooks as I possibly could. I rushed through Keep The Ball Rolling, and it ended up being only 20 pages. That taught me to slow down my frequency so I could write longer, higher quality eBooks.

Looking back at Keep The Ball Rolling, I knew that I could do a better job at relaying the information to my readers and giving them the motivation they needed to finish their eBook ideas. I did proofread for bad sentences, typos, and spelling errors, but I did not proofread thinking that I could add more content and make the message clearer for my readers. That was the big mistake I made as a rookie writer. I also knew that instead of thinking about my mistakes and lamenting over them, I could make a change. It was at that moment when I decided I would proofread all of Keep The Ball Rolling and provide more content for my readers.

I decided that within a week, I would have Keep The Rolling updated on Kindle so that it would reflect the changes that I made. Within the first hour of typing, I got Keep The Ball Rolling from 8,000 words to over 10,000 words. All I did was proofread the book with the mindset that I could add extra content anywhere in the book. By adding extra content to Keep The Ball Rolling, I was able to provide more content for my readers. You can see the updated Keep The Ball Rolling here.

There are two lessons that you need to learn from my story. The first lesson is that proofreading an eBook is very important. However, when you proofread a book, don’t just check for spelling mistakes, typos, and bad sentences. Check for ways to add more content to your eBook. The second lesson is that not all mistakes are final. Publishing a ridiculously short book was a mistake. Now, Keep The Ball Rolling has a lot more content, and I am happier with where Keep The Ball Rolling is now than where it was when I published it.