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Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills

Link to ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Blog

How I wrote a book and self published

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 08:40 AM PST

I don’t have the book entirely self published but I wanted to make a post (I will update it as the process goes) to save people perhaps some of the pain that I went through.

I will tell you now that if I had to do it all over again I would have gone with a publisher.  Not for writing the book,  that part was fun and easy,  but rather just designing and formating for self publishing.

I should also disclose that if you actually can focus on one thing this would not have been that bad… but I am doing a lot so it was frustrating to constantly have this on my list to get back to.

But I am a control freak.  And Amazon’s self publish platform looks really awesome… plus there is no minimum commitment unlike other self publishing platforms.

Also I have a few marketing things planned…  and I would never be able to do them with a traditional publisher.

Ok so like I said writing the book is a no brainer and just writing.  Nothing revolutionary learned.

When you upload your book to create space you need to specify a size.  6×9 is the most common.

Hey why re-invent the wheel.  Also that seems to be the best price wise.

So first off… and I felt like a retard once I figured this out.  Every book has a color cover.  That is not a option to not have one.  Not like I wanted to have one but I never saw the option to have one or not… if that makes any sense.

Before you do any formatting download their word template and move your content into that.  This way you can properly number pages and junk like that.  Its the little things that take forever.

Speaking of numbering pages it took me a long time to figure out how to do it properly.  Sure it looks easy but you don’t want to count the first 5 pages so you have to use wordpresses formula thing to do it properly.

Here is a site that will save you a ton of time with that:

http://dev.kafol.net/2011/04/custom-page-numbering-in-ms-word.html

Now once you get that right you are going to see some horizontal lines pop up.  This will drive you mad on how to get rid of them cause you cant just hit backspace.

Here is a article that walks you through that:

http://lawyerist.com/three-microsoft-word-formatting-snafus-solved/

Next once that is all good you have to make the cover.   If you to save you a TON of time and headache you can use one of their many pre-made ones.

Course me being a control freak I wanted to design my own… from scratch.  They give you a template but when I followed that to the letter it looked totally jacked.

This is a REAL BITCH.

The reason is that you can’t tell if you calculated the spine correctly.  They give you a formula but from talking to others the only real way is to get a physical one and see for your self.

In order to even see what its going to look like you have to submit it… wait the up to 48 hour process for them to approve.  Then order one.

Standard 6-7 day shipping is $5.

Expedited 3-4 day shipping is $20 (around).

Overnight shipping is $29

This blows ass cause obviously you want to get it as soon as possible to see if its jacked up.  So they DRASTICALLY inflate  the shipping charges.

Like for me lets say I get it and its jacked and I do it again and its jacked and again.  Your looking at a months time….  which for me is an eternity.

On their proofer it does look right… but it will be here in a couple days and we will see:

So thats pretty much it,  for now.  I will update this as I learn more about their royalty, sales, and marketing proccess.

My next challenge is trying to get it in the apple book store.  Its so lame cause even though its the same system that you submit apps you can’t use the same account that you use to submit apps…

 

 

 

 

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Solve A Problem. Preferably Yours - DailyBlogTips

Solve A Problem. Preferably Yours - DailyBlogTips

Solve A Problem. Preferably Yours

Posted: 19 Dec 2012 04:16 AM PST

Most people don’t start a business (be it a brick and mortar business, an online app or even a website/blog) because they can’t find the right idea to pursue. They think about it regularly (i.e., about starting something), but no spark of inspiration comes, at least not one that will motivate them enough to wrap up the sleeves and start working on it.

One of the causes of this pattern is that people tend to associate businesses with money. When they think about starting a business, they start thinking about how they can make money. And while the money aspect is important, focusing on it right away might not be the best strategy. Why? Because no business exists solely to make money (except banks perhaps…). Businesses exist to solve problems.

In other words, if you are looking for that next idea to pursue you should think about what problem you want to solve. Only after you figure that out you can start thinking about how you can actually make money while solving that problem.

The question then becomes: whose problems should you solve? The problems of the eskimos’ kids on northern Alaska? The problems of the members of the UK Royal family?

How about your start solving your own? As they say in business circles, how about you scratch your own itch? Simple as it sounds, this strategy created some of the largest fortunes on earth.

Here’s an example: Back in 2005 Chad Hurley and Steven Chen shot many videos on a dinner party they attended in San Francisco, and they wanted to share those videos with friends over the Internet. They tried some of the solutions available, but none worked well, so they decided to create their own website where people would be able to easily upload and share videos. That website was called YouTube.

Another one: In the early 1970s, a 20-something Steve Wozniak fell in love with computers. The problem was that only large mainframe computers were available at that time, so you needed to either rent computer time from corporations (which was very expensive) or use one at a university (which had time and other constraints). The solution? He decided to build his own personal computer so that he could use it at his home. His friend Steve Jobs figured that many other people would want to have a computer at their homes as well, and they decided to found Apple Computer to start selling those.

Practically speaking, here are some exercises you can make to come up with that next idea:

  • Think about businesses/websites/apps that you would love to use but that don’t exist yet.
  • Think about services and products you already use but that make you mad because one aspect or another.
  • Think about stuff you would like to do but are not able to because there’s no product/service for that in the market.

Now go solve that problem!

Wanna make money with your website?

Original Post: Solve A Problem. Preferably Yours
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