If You Knew How to Make a Million - Would You?

I've spent the last two weeks writing tutorials to help people make fast money from the stock exchange. It isn't like this is any secret, or that it is a rare occurrence. You only need to mention words such as shorting, short trading, swing trades, to make many long time investor's mouth drool.

However, as I was writing these, a small voice kept niggling in the back of my head "Money on the stock exchanged is not won or lost - just moved."

Can I make $100 000 in a year. Yea, but could I live with myself? I could ride fake bull markets until I hit 10 points and bail, leaving poor schmucks who are only investing because their pension isn't covering their bills to take the loss.... ie - I could scam innocent bystanders and pick their pockets.

I wouldn't rob a little old lady 'face to face' - but he money I win has been lost by someone else.

As the recession/depression approaches in 2008/2009 - and the stock networks are already preparing to turn swing trading into millions of dollars (and probably expediting the crash) it makes me wonder -

"If you know how to get rich - at any cost - would you?"

There are Four Methods of Book Publishing.

This is an excerpt from my novel writing course at www.writersonlinecourses.com

Plots are difficult. All writers should take some time to learn what themes are, and moral lessons, before they start picking plots. Each genre has plots that are considered genre-staples. These plots fit the story lines readers want. When all is said and done, novel writing is about writing a book that people want to read.

If people do not want to read your book, then it is unlikely that publishers will want to accept it. Many writers write books that are never to be published. Some of them write healing books.' They spend years expressing their feeling and hurts. In the end, the book is finished and they realize that they never really wanted to be published.

Other writers are looking for a venue to express their artistic creativity. These writers do not want to be confined by rules or formulas. They want to write their story, their way.
Until recently these writers never had a chance of being published. Now, e-publishing is expanding the genres, and self-publishing is opening up opportunities. While these venues were considered not really published' five years ago, they are gaining respectability in the publishing world.

Traditional Publishers

The most difficult method of becoming a published author is the traditional route. These publishers receive the most manuscripts and reject the largest number of authors. It can take more than five years to see your book hit the bookshelves.

These publishers never put any money into promoting new authors. New authors are always started on the B list. If the author can sell enough copies of their book, then they are in a better position to negotiate with their next book.

The most important thing to remember is that an advance is only a loan, it is not a pre-payment for the book. Publishers often expect any un earned' portion of the advance to be repaid. This can be in the form of another book, or cash. This is why it is imperative that writers hire a lawyer to go over all contracts before signing.

Traditional publishers also short change' writers is by including a discount clause. This clause means that any book sold below a certain percentage does not earn the author royalties. However, new writers do not know that most books are printed, distributed, and returned to the publisher within six weeks. That means that 99% of all books are out of print within six weeks of release.

The author receives royalties for any books sold by bookstores, but the rest, sold at discount, earn the author no royalties even if the publisher continues to make a profit.
This is not the venue for writers who are not 100% devoted to getting published. The publisher's deadlines are not optional.' If the book is set to be printed in March, and the author is not ready, the publisher looses hundreds of dollars. They will either cancel the writer's contract, or they will remove the cost from royalties.

Traditional publishers are not the place for artistic, freedom lovers to submit. I know many writers who had their books torn to shreds, characters rewritten, and the book completely redesigned to fit the publisher's imprint.' Once the writer signs a contract, they have no right to complain or reject the editor's comments. They must comply or face breach of contract charges.

The last thing writers should be aware of is the rights they sign away. No publisher should ask for rights longer than three years. They should also stipulate whether they want print or digital rights. Also, never sign away the movie rights. The writer should receive at least 50% for any movie deals.

The writer should also know how long the book will be in print. Many publishers have a six week shelf life for the book, and B list books that sell out are not sent back to print. This means that the book writer cannot resell the book rights for another 2 5 years.
The writer should never sign away foreign book rights. They can often be more lucrative than American rights.

The fact is, many big publishers only earn $3 000 - $10 000 for writers. This is very poor compensation for the five years the publisher demands in return.

Small Publishers

Small publishers are easier to sign with. They receive fewer manuscripts and because they use POD printing, can often release more books in a year. The problem for writers is that many kitchen table' publishers are too small to distribute the book.

Never sign with a publisher whose print books are not available at Amazon.com and Barns & Noble. This is a dead give away that the publisher is too small to give their writers good distribution.
They also have creative' contracts. Writers should be wary of any publisher who asks for all rights, including undiscovered' rights. One recent example is MobiFormat ebooks. If an author had sold away all their rights, then they would not receive any royalties for ebooks that are read on cell phones. The publisher would receive all rights for cell phone, audio, digital, PDF, and print versions of the book.

They must also only ask for first rights.' Never sell anything but first rights, and never sign away serial rights.' Serial rights means that the publisher can resell the book over and over, without paying the author any royalties.

It usually takes one to two years to see a book in print.

E-Publishing

The e-publishing association asked 14 ebook publishers how much they made in the last three months of 2005. These publishers, only a small sample of the ebook publishers, made a combined 25 million dollars in those three months. While some authors feel that holding a book' in their hand is the only real publishing venue, it is obvious that many people want to read books from their computer screens and Palmpilots.

Self publishing was once for web sites with cheap ebooks, or professionals who wanted to write a book to sell at speaking engagements. Now, hundreds of self published authors are making more money than many published authors.

The main advantage of ebooks is that the book can be sold around the world, it several formats, and is in print' for the life of the contract. Many print publishers also have deals with book distributors and POD printing companies. They can help the author release their book in print for a nominal fee. Some publishers do this as a courtesy, others do it as a secondary publishing option.

When the publisher offers this option, it is important to determine whether the publisher or the writer owns the rights to the print version of the book.

Epublishers contracts must be read as carefully as other publishers. It is customary that books sold from the publisher's website earns the author 50% of the book's price.
It is possible to contract the digital version of a book to one publisher and the print version to another although this is rare.

It normally takes 18 months to see a book in print.

Self Publishing

There are two methods of becoming self published. The most common is to go to a vanity press who offers to put the book out for a fee, usually more than $1000. - $5000.00. This is usually the worst way to go.

If a writer needs help, they can go to a place like www.guru.com or www.ifreelance.com. These places can put writers in touch with editors, layout, and cover artists. A good editor, with book experience, can edit an entire book in less than 50 hours. If an editor claims they need more time, then they are not true professionals.

A book editor will cost about $200 - $500. This varies. If a writer has a good writing style, and a well structured novel, editing is not a big expense.

Book cover artists charge $200 - $1500 for a good cover. I don't see any advantage to paying more than $300.

Layout is usually $0.50 - $1.00 a page. Do not pay more for a book, especially a fiction book.

Distribution is usually easy. Submitting to Booksurge, Lulu, or going right to the source, lightiningsource POD printers, costs about $100. Ingram's book distributors will charge $50 a month to keep the book listed.

In the USA, ISBN numbers cost money, so does copyright. This can add another $100 to the cost of self publishing a book.

In total, an author can have their book ready for bookstores for $800 - $1500.00 and distributed into bookstores. This makes the Vanity Press route not only expensive, but a disservice to their clients because they rarely sell more than a couple hundred copies.
There are two free methods of getting a book into print. Lulu.com and Cafepress.com will print one copy at a time, and do not charge. Cafepress.com only charges the printing fee. Lulu.com adds 20% to the cost + profit (royalties) of the book.

However, the author retains all rights. This means that they can have the book published around the world, sold through international distributors, and promoted in niche markets, earning more money than they would ever see from a traditional publisher, and keeping their books in print forever.

It normally takes two to six months to see a book in print.

Royalties

This is really where the choice of a publisher matters. While traditional publishers offer writers the least freedom and self publishing the most, royalties are where the real difference lies.

A writer can be published with a traditional publisher and sell 20 000 copies of their book, earning $1000.00. That book then remains out of print until the end of the contract. That same writer can earn $500 - $1000 from an ebook publisher every year for the term of the contract. The same book can earn $50 1000 in five years from a small press. Or, the book can only sell 2000 copies and earn the author $10 000.00.

Royalties are calculated in two ways. They calculate a percentage of the net or retail price. Beware publishers who calculate on net. This can mean that they take the retail price of the book and subtract editing, cover, layout, distributor's listing fee, shipping, bookstore returns, and promotion. Or, it can mean they calculate the total cost of the office expense, book conventions (that have nothing to do with the sale of a particular book), travel expenses, association fees, office supplies, insurance, all the way down to the cost of hiring a cleaning company and the office coffee pot.

Some authors who sign contracts that pay on the net' find they are making less than .05% of the retail price of the book. The publisher usually says they offer 10% of the book's net price, but it is really a price gouge. If the publisher has this type of contract, make sure that it clearly lists the expenses the publisher will deduct.

Most publishers offer about .05% of retail cost of the book. This is much less, but the author knows how much they will receive. If the book is sold at a discount, the author earns less.

Almost all contracts have a clause that states a book will earn no royalties if the book is sold at an extreme discount, usually less than wholesale, or 55%. The publisher still makes money, but they can clear out' old copies without loosing money. This causes a problem when the author only sells a few hundred copies from the initial six weeks, and the rest of the books go to a clearance warehouse. The publisher never looses money, only the author does.
This also explains why publishers do not promote books. It doesn't matter to them whether a book is successful. They will earn back their investment.

Ebooks are slightly different. If they are distributed through a book distributor like Ingrams, then there is a short discount' and the author earns a small royalty. Books sold from the publisher's website earn 50% royalty. Even though the book is an ebook, the author is not permitted to freely distribute copies.

Bookstore Returns

This is the hardest part of the publishing world for most authors to understand. In the last world war the government wanted to protect the publishing industry. To protect the nations intellectual and social wealth they created a system where bookstores could return books to the publisher at the publisher's cost. This system was suppose to stop after the war, but never did.

Now, publishers expect an average of 20% bookstore returns.

To compensate they hold back 20 50% of author royalties for up to one year. Some small publishers hold this back long after the contract expires, so writers should make sure the contract outlines how and when held back' royalties should be paid.

Most bookstore returns are trashed. Many stores are indiscriminant about ordering books. They may order 100 copies of a book for a window display, knowing they will only sell ten.

Writers need to prepare for this, especially self published writers, because if they use Ingrams, they will be subject to bookstore returns. This means that their books will be available in bookstores, but they will need to cover the cost of printing and shipping books that will be returned.

However, Ingrams does allow self publishers to refuse to enter into a bookstore return arrangement. This drastically reduces the book's exposure, but protects the writer from loosing money.

How To Pick a Publisher

One of the biggest tragities in the writing world is the number of writers who play 'roulette' with their manuscript. Most new writers receive dozens of rejection letters, not because the novel is not well written, but because the author sent their manuscript to the wrong publisher.

The trick to reducing rejection letters is to understand how publishers pick novels. Not all romance publishers handle every type of romance genre written. Most publishers will advertise that they handle romance, or fantasy novels, but they are only interested in three to five different sub-genres.

Here is a short list of tips for finding the right publisher for your novel, and to reduce the number of rejection letters you will receive. I used this list for five years, before I became CEO of Enspiren Press www.enspirenpress.com

How to Pick a Publisher

1.Surf the web and use Writer's Digest to find 10 publishers in your genre
2.Visit their website to see if they handle books like yours
3.Read excerpts to see if the books sound' similar, and have plot lines, problems, and characters that are similar to your book.
4.Keep working until you find 10 publishers who sell books that are similar to yours. This could take several months, so start now.
5.Buy at least one recent release and map it.
6.Join the publisher's fan group and/or author group. Sign up for their newsletter.
7.Narrow the list to five publishers.
8.Get to know the authors. Try and become familiar with them. Learn what you can about the publishers, how they want submissions, and even see if you can get a sample synopsis.
9.Learn their guidelines and how they want manuscripts formatted - and follow their rules to the letter.
10.Learn the aquesition editor's name

This will not guarantee that you will never receive a rejection letter, but it will reduce the number of rejection letters, and the time it takes to get published.

How to Finish a Novel

I personally know dozens of writers who had their first novels published. Most of these novels had one of the following:

A strong premise that clearly challenged an aspect of society or the human condition in a way that was easy for most readers to understand.
Forced readers to ask questions about their own lives
Allowed readers to explore some part of humanity from the safety of their own home example how would I act in a divorce, can you change my mind on the death penalty are the worship of the divine and religion polar or synonyms is the cost of power and wealth really worth it etc.

These are not hard to include in a novel. There is no secret to getting published. All you need to do is finish your novel. Statistics show that 93% of everyone who starts a novel will never finish it. Only 5% of the finished novels will only be submitted once. This means that you have very little competition.

Outlines Help You Finish a Novel

Outlines are just guides. They are blueprints that will help you measure the quality of a novel idea. One of the best reasons for writing outlines, and keeping a journal, is to see if you get bored with the idea before finished.

I've heard writers say they don't outline because they loose interest in the idea before they finish. This is a dead give away that the idea is not good enough for a full length novel. A novel takes a lot of work. In most cases, it takes at least six rewrites and edits before it is ready to be published.

I know several authors who have written novels that sold well. They never lost interest in their ideas. I know for writers who sold every novel they ever wrote. All of these outline to some extent.

I like to outline because it lets me find and fix my mistakes before I start writing the novel.

An outline can be written on index cards. You writer your ideas onto the cards and then you can re-arrange them, improve them, fix problems, and make the story stronger - then I can write the whole story in about 2 weeks.

I can write a whole novel in a month, or about 200 hours, when I use an outline

Avoiding Mistakes

One of the biggest mistakes is believing that every idea is worthy of a full size novel. That is why many new writes have a filing cabinet full of unpublished manuscripts.

Avoiding Rejection Letters

One of the main reasons why writers outline and preplan is to avoid rejection letters. Professional writers often write a novel every three months. They don't have time to write a novel that won't sell.

Are You a Real Writer?

The publishing industry has a voracious appetite. More than 26 billion dollars worth of books are sold every year. And, most authors only write one book then quit. However, publishers are desperately seeking writers who want to create full time careers.

This means that you can get your novel published. All you need to do is spend a few hours and develop your story idea into a full length novel size - and finish it.

Hiring Book Editors

We are hiring book editors this week, a frustrating task. It isn't that we lack applications. It is just that there are people out there who think they are qualified, who have no idea what they are doing.

We had one applicant say that they average about 300 hours per manuscript? If each session was five hours of their work, and then the ms went back to the author, it would take about 2 years to finish the project.

We had another applicant who charged $2000 - but all they did was a line edit. So, their poor clients were paying $2000 for a proofreader, or they were paying about $6 a page for what should only cost them $1.50 - $2.50 a page.

Then there are the dozens of applicants who listed that they could edit more than 10 genres - but when asked what genres they read, the answer was 0 - 2. How in the world can you edit a genre if you do not read it?

I don't think we found a single editor who swore they were qualified to edit thrillers who actually took the time to map a thriller and create a story arc. So, if you do not have a story arc, how in the world do you know if the climax is in the right place, there are the right number of breathers, the conflicts work together. Not to mention training yourself to find plot holes, pacing problems, or loose ends.

And - don't get me started on character development.

It explains why so many writers languish in the slush pile. If the editors do not have a clue of what they are doing - who is teaching the writers how to create a good novel.

So, the quest for editors continues. We have about five people willing to train, who we will turn into great editors.

Coffee Time Romance Gave Me 3 Cup Rating

I am so pleased. Coffee Time Romance gave me 3 cups (out of five) GREAT for a 'sweet' historical with only a little romance in it. Read The First 2 Chapters Here:
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Thepledge.html

THE PLEDGE
KATHERINE HUNTER
ISBN# 978-0-9784865-0-1
November 2007
Enspiren Press
2060 Victoria Street, Box 193, Gorrie, Ontario, N0G 1X0, Canada
Trade Paperback / E-Book
$12.99 / $4.99 E-book
245 Pages
Historical Romance
Rating: 3 Cups

Gillian Winston, secluded daughter of an English Baron, was raised by nuns away from her childhood home. When she receives notice that her family has been murdered by reivers, she immediately heads for home to assess the damage and help in any way.

Laird Calum MacKenna, known as The Wolf, was also a reiver. When he discovered that his enemy, Baron Winston, had been defeated, he heads south to Winston Holdings.

Gillian encounters nothing but death and destruction at her family’s estate. When Laird Mackenna arrives, she has no choice but to marry him to protect her serfs and she also needs his wealth to rebuild her lands. Calum is a hard-nosed fighting Scot. He did not expect to be brought to his knees by a small English lady. When she is in danger, he will stop at nothing to find and protect her, not from a Baron determined to marry her and not even from the Queen of England.

The Pledge is a fun and exciting novel. Sweeping descriptions of scenery add to the authentic historical feeling of the story. The hero and heroine are traditional. Gillian is spunky yet stubborn as she ends up making some poor decisions. Ms. Hunter’s Scottish romance is sweet and classic.

Bonnie-Lass
Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance
Reviewer for Karen Find Out About New Books

Does Your Book Have a Website?

One of the newest trends at sites like myspace.com, and facebook.com, and gather.com, is to create a website for your blog. The website www.bebo.com has a 'book' feature built in that lets writers build a website for their book, feature it, and then link it to their bebo websites.

Not all free site hosts are equal. I have checked all sites mentioned above, and they all are searchable by google.

This is the URL of my book's website: http://www.bebo.com/The-Pledge

This is the URL of my profile: http://www.bebo.com/KatherineH75

You'll notice that the urls are not that good, so you might want to link them. To make the most of these sites you need to do a lot of promoting. Building links is a good way to promote, also, use the links in your signature line.

I created the site so I can write more about my characters. However, I am also creating a blog that is similar to my friend's. http://bloodstonecastle.blogspot.com/ If you want to see an amazing book website -then go to my friend's site.




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Should You Put Google Ads On Your Ecommerce Site

NOTE: I notice that most author websites have google ads. There are better alternatives, like commission junction, so I thought I would post some 'facts' about Google Ads.

One of the biggest debates in the ecommerce world is whether to post PayPerClick advertisements on a website, or not. Many sites are using video advertisements to improve the look and feel of their sites. Others are hoping that PayPerClick will offer a passive source of income, but this short-term thinking may cost the company serious profits.

The purpose of a PayPerClick ad is to take a visitor from your website and put them on another website. This person leaves before they ever see the host company’s squeeze page, buy-now page, or Social Networking tools. This means that a potential customer is gone for good. The problem is - the ads on the host company’s website represent the competition.

PayPerClick Passive Income

On one side of the debate is the idea that PayPerClick lets ecommerce businesses generate some revenue from people who were going to leave the website anyway. The problem arises when the website looks at the actual numbers.

It takes several months before Google starts registering clicks, even if thousands of people have already clicked the link. Even when Google does start registering links, they rarely register more than one half of the actual links. In many cases, Google counts less than half.

Then, there is the Page Rank Trap. Google only pays a percentage of the money promised, based on the site’s page rank. A site can build more than 10 000 inbound links and 1000 pages of content and still have only Page Rank 3, earning about .05% of Google’s promised payout. Many sites (non MFA - Made For Adsense) work for 2 - 3 years before they earn $100 a month.

A website can make hundreds of dollars a month from Adsense, as long as the primary purpose of the site is to generate PayPerClick traffic.

PayPerClick Traffic

Many ecommerce businesses sign up for a PayPerClick program through Yahoo or Google to generate traffic. While the search engine advertising companies promise that they do not favor their advertisers, it is foolish not to. They are only cutting their throats letting sites which do not use their ads to rank higher than the sites who do use their ads.

From this side of the fence, PayPerClick is a good deal, because you are the company stealing customers from the competition. However, very few PayPerClick programs give the advertiser control over sites they appear on.

Google does, to a certain extent. It is possible to visit a major competitor’s site, which generates millions more hits than your site does, and place an ad on their pages. However, this does not guarantee that these same people will not click off your website.

Rule #1 of Sales
The first rule of sales is to hook a potential customer. This means keeping them on the host ecommerce site, and encouraging them to click through the links until they reach the buy now page.

There are some crafty ways to do this. For example, make the link bar to squeeze pages and buy-now pages look like PayPerClick ads. Another trick is to lead people from one website owned by the host company to another of their sites, in effect, creating a big circle.

However, make sure that the main pages are optimized with no=follow code in the links. Search engines penalize this type of ‘black hat’ SEO trick. The no=follow code in the ads will prevent the search engines from penalizing the site.

Both of these tricks will keep potential visitors inside the company’s ecommerce sites.

Another trick is to use a ‘default’ internal search tool. Instead of Google’s search, use one that defaults inside the ecommerce network’s sites, instead of on the world wide web.

Keeping customers is the only way to increase profits, and retain customers.