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Amazing innovator Seth Godin has come up with yet another amazing twist on selling books: Get people to join your “tribe.”

A tribe, according to Godin, is “a group of people aligned around an idea, connected to a leader and to each other.”

Creating tribes is a natural for an author. It’s about more than selling books. It’s about creating community. What you want is for people to “come into your world,” to connect to you and each other around the ideas in your book.

Michael Masterson, of Early to Rise, is doing something a bit different but similar with (more…)

Thinking of self-publishing your book? There are some good reasons to self-publish (see my article on “Why You Should Consider Self-Publishing Your First Book“).

However, you can easily get gouged by choosing the wrong self-publishing company. I’ve had people come to me saying they invested $5,000 to $40,000 in a self-publishing company, with little to show but a garage full of poorly produced books and a contract that precludes them ever making any money from their book.

I’m very passionate about helping authors to avoid getting ripped off. I hate when companies or individuals prey on the desire to become an author and share your wisdom with the world.

That’s why I was overjoyed when I discovered Mark Levine and his book, The Fine Print of Self-Publishing: The Contracts & Services of 45 Self-Publishing Companies–Analyzed, Ranked and Exposed!, now in its Third Edition.

I invite you to listen to an interview I did with Mark Levine recently on how to choose the right self-publishing company. Find out the most common mistakes authors make when choosing a self-publishing company, and how to avoid them–among other things.

You can also ask Mark Levine your question about self-publishing, and sign up for my upcoming Virtual Book Tour in which Mark Levine will answer your questions about self-publishing.

Please–don’t even consider self-publishing a book until you’ve listened to this interview and checked out Mark’s book and the resources he offers along with it

Here’s a question from this blog I’d like to answer. (Ask your question in the box to the right.)

Helen asks:

“I am a teacher working with kindergarten children for 50 years. I would like to publish books relating to children and others. I have no knowledge how to start. Can XSite Pro help me who knows nothing about website or the internet? Please advise, Helen”

My answer:

One of the great things about XSite Pro is that

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What do you do when you don’t want to do a project you have to do but don’t want to do?

If you’re like me, you procrastinate.

Today I found myself getting to a project I’d been wanting to do for a long time. One of those “important but not urgent” things you never seem to get around to doing, because “urgent” always takes precedence.

Why did I finally find the energy and focus to do this one project?

Because there was another project that was important, urgent–that I didn’t want to do!

So I procrastinated. But by turning to something “important” but not urgent.

Next time you find yourself putting off something, use “creative procrastination” and turn to something you’ve wanted to do but somehow couldn’t find the time to. It’s amazing the energy you can find when you’re avoiding an unpleasant task!

(I’d love to hear ways you “creatiely procrastinate.” Please post your comment.)

I have a brand-new article for you AND Recommended Resource of the Week.

Both are marketing tips, and the resource is time-sensitive.

First, read the article, please. It’s called “Building Relationships of Gold with Readers” and it’s about “How to Market Your Book through
Articles and Relationships.”

The resource is related: Jeff Herring’s “List-Building Gold” course. I give 5 reasons why I recommend Jeff and this course, here.

Jeff is doing a preview teleseminar tomorrow night, so if this interests you, sign up here:

I think you’ll learn something from tomorrow night’s call, even if you don’t sign up for the course.

A friend of mine, a successful author, told me her blogger.com blog was suddenly taken down because they thought she was somehow spamming.

Suddenly, her web presence is yanked away. She has to jump through hoops she barely understands, and MAYBE Google (who owns blogger.com) will decide in her favor. Maybe not.

All her old posts are gone, maybe forever.

This is not uncommon at all. What happens is that if Google’s robot (not a human) detects just ONE complaint, it will shut your blog down. (Get this: Google shut down it’s OWN blog a few months ago! Not for long, you can be sure, but it happened!)

It’s a shame to have a blog shut down, because it’s so damaging, yet so easy to prevent.

Prevent it simply by

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You’ve heard me quote often from publishing industry expert Michael Cader: “The Internet was designed for us [publishers and authors]. We couldn’t have made something any better, and I think precious few publishers have taken aggressive advantage of all the ways in which a good Internet strategy can spread the world about their products, bring them closer to their customers, and help them drive sales. Every publisher [I would add, author] should be thinking of their digital strategy as really beginning with the Internet, and branching out from there.”

Okay, so we know that we authors could probably be doing better with this amazing tool called the Internet. But where does an author or would-be author start? (more…)

“Write a book in 28 days!”

“Get published in 6 weeks!”

“Become an Amazon best seller and rake in the publishing deals!”

“We’ll publish your book and get you in all the book store chains.”

“We think your book sounds promising. Forward your manuscript with a $25 (or $50 or $100 or …) reading fee.”

Perhaps you’ve seen these and other promises made to people whose dream has always been to write and publish a book, and even, perhaps, get on the bestseller list.

Promises like these make me angry. I hate it when people prey on other people’s dreams, just to make a buck.

If you are unsure of whether a company or resource you’re considering is credible, I invite you (more…)

If you’re interested in creating easy web sites, read on.

Otherwise, move on. I know your time is precious.

Sunday at 3.p.m ET is the last webinar to explain how XSite Pro can help you build great-looking, search-engine optimized sites fast.
I was thinking about how much money XSite Pro has saved me.

I spent $110 to get the basic web site for Words to Profit designed (via someone at elance.com that a friend recommended).

And … that’s it!

With the basic design for www.wordstoprofit.com, I could create the variation you see as the header to this blog.

Then, I decided it made more sense to change the header for two of my sites, from Words to Profit design to Your Book Publishing Coach:
http://www.writingsecretsrevealed.com
http://www.writeyourbookrightnow.com

It took four clicks to change, save, and publish each site; 1 minute 22 seconds for the whole process.

And I did not need any web master to do it.

If you like the templates you’ll get with V2 (full sites, sales letters, product pages), you won’t even need a designer. Attend the webinar or just watch the video to see all the things you get “out of the box.”

If you already have a header or logo, you can just use that.

What I did NOT have to spend anything on:

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Here’s a question submitted by Mylow. I thought my answer might be useful for other people, as well, so I thought I’d share it. (Ask your own question here.)

Mylow wrote:

“I submitted my book to a family member for editing. She was an English professor who does a lot of reading. She sent it back to me saying it wasn’t in book form but more like a screenplay because, she said, it had too much dialogue and character interacting. One of the points of my book is to get something out of the interacting (as far as real life is concerned) and the dialogue, I feel, is essential. Funny thing is, I don’t do a lot of reading myself but I write a lot, mostly poetry (this is my first novel). After browsing through a couple of other authors (one is a best seller) I found that there are novels that do have a lot of dialogue. My question is, can a novel be successful if it’s made up primarily of dialogue? Is it just the readers preference?”

My answer:

Yes, the amount of dialogue compared to description, etc., is somewhat a matter of style.

Having said that, however, you do have to (more…)