Category Archives: Publishing

April 8, 2013 · 4:00 am

When It’s Time to Get Selfish with Your Writing Dream

As I watched sales trickle in during Launch Week for A Writer’s Bucket List, I felt like I was livin’ The Dream — I made enough that week to pay rent for three months (my rent is really low, not a huge brag). What a rush it was to create something purely of my imagination and reap rewards large enough to live on, rather than scrape together client work and add on hours to make extra money!

Yet, I realized something as I counted sales and  fantasized about telling my clients to shove their work up — y’know. I don’t want to use my book money to pay rent. Or buy groceries. Or pay bills. I wanna buy something nice for myself.

I wanna buy myself a business.

Bucket List is written. While a lot of promotional work still lies ahead, book sales are largely passive income now, meaning I don’t have to trade my time for that money. That means I can continue to put time into client work to pay rent and bills — and make extra money from the book sales.

I could use that extra book money to pay for a lot of things.

There’s a growing hole over the left-pinky toe of my favorite pair of shoes. My hair needs to be cut. I’d like to fly to the Midwest next month and rent a car, rather than drive three days across the Great Plains. We scavenge to pay rent, the cell phone bill, internet, and car insurance every month; paying those a few months ahead would lift a lot of weight from our shoulders.

But then that money would be gone, and I’d be back to begging for client work after few months, in the same place I started.

Instead, Stefan and I can continue to work our magic, trade our fabulous time for un-fabulous money that covers living expenses, and I can finally make the investments necessary to start executing my bigger vision for DIY Writing.

I feel selfish hanging onto the book money in its own special pot, when it could be released into our shared account to cover other expenses. It’s all a gamble, waiting to see whether it pays off or not. Maybe I’m just a silly dreamer, investing in a business that will never pay me back.

But at least now I’ve got a place to start. I can finally take a step forward and find out if I’ve got what it takes to succeed and grow.

Time for a big leap for DIY Writing.

I won’t divulge all the details too soon, but DIY Writing is getting ready to move. We’ve finally outgrown this WordPress-hosted site with my vanity domain, and I’m ready to take the reins at a self-hosted site with a more custom theme and design, a business with a more ambitious mission for writers, and a blog with an editorial plan that accommodates the growing community focus of the brand.

What does that mean for you?

The best place to stay connected and up-to-date while we’re in transition will be through our email list. The blog will be going on hiatus in a few weeks, but I’ll keep sharing resources and articles for free via email. That’s also where you’ll be the first to learn about the new opportunities for DIY Writers, and to know when we’re back up and running in our new home.

Here are a few things to look forward to in the coming weeks:

  • April 15 is the Kindle launch of A Writer’s Bucket List! You’ll still be able to download the PDF edition of the book free, but if you want something easier to read on the Kindle (and a lot of readers have said they do), you can buy that at Amazon. Plus, we’ll have some fun for Launch Week, including a stellar bonus package for everyone who buys the Kindle book between April 15-19!
  • A Writer’s Bucket List Action Team on Facebook is in full swing starting this week. I decided to wait until we reached 50 members to start our weekly activities, and it came way faster than I expected! The group is growing quickly, and I’m excited to work with all of you to take real action toward knocking items off those Bucket Lists.
  • Our monthly #DIYwriteCHAT will continue as scheduled. The next one is Tuesday, May 7 at 7 p.m. ET. Even if you can’t make it, you can join the conversation! Keep your eyes peeled on Twitter for the #DIYwriteCHAT hashtag to answer questions daily and see what other DIY Writers are saying.
  • Important: If you follow DIY Writing via WordPress.com, you’ll lose those updates soon! Subscribe via email to keep reading without interruption.

PS – Yeah, we went out to a sorta-nice dinner after Launch Week. You can treat yourself a little with a big pay-day :) Just don’t go crazy.  Save it up, and invest in a bigger future for your dream.

What do you do when your writing or business gives you an extra nice pay-day?

If you’re new to DIY Writing, here’s a great place to start. You can also subscribe to updates to download your FREE ebook!

Photo in the featured image by Greg Westfall (Creative Commons)

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March 29, 2013 · 4:00 am

Do It Yourselves — Or, “Never Write a Book Alone Again”

From Dana: This is a guest post by Jennie Mustafa-Julock (aka Coach Jennie) and Annie Passanisi, the Founding Members of Hungry Entrepreneurs. Hungry Entrepreneurs is a support tribe for small business owners, freelancers, and artists teetering somewhere between launch and bankruptcy. This week, they (with oodles of help) unleashed eBooks Suck (but they don’t have to) on the world. They adore quality content from diverse voices, matchmaking genius minds, and meeting new minds.

Coach Jennie

Coach Jennie

Readers, we beg you, beseech you, implore you – do not Do It Yourself.

[Dana: Ahem -- 'scuse me, ladies?!]

So you want to write an ebook, printed book, or other info-product? Swell!

But before you get started, we have a tough question for you to consider: Are you really prepared to do all this yourself? Can you fill an entire book with value then turn around and edit, market, and sell the sucker?

For many people, the answer to that is No. And guess what? That’s okay.

You can still DIY without being a company of one. All you have to do is find your people.

Annie Passanisi

Annie Passanisi

[Dana: Isn't that a great idea? Click here to tweet it!]

Now, lest you think we’re pestering or belittling you, we offer up full disclosure: Our company, Hungry Entrepreneurs, is all about collaboration. We only claim to be experts in the entrepreneurial struggle and new ways to get out of soul-sucking business ruts. We operate raw — out from behind the veil of perfection.

So here goes, This week we launched an Amazon bestseller, eBooks Suck (but they don’t have to). We took the internet by storm, almost broke Twitter with our giddy promotional glee, and pushed something of crazy-value into the world. How did we do it? We asked other people to write it for us. 41 of them, in fact. (Hi, Dana!)

[Dana: *waves* "Hi!" Thanks for letting me be part of this!]

We knew two voices were not enough to cover every aspect of ebook production, so we got out there and yelled for help. “Hey! You! Did you write an ebook and succeed or fail wildly? What do other people need to know? Wanna write a book with us?”

And the answers came flooding in. And they were goooood. And we just cheer-led, compiled, and polished the sucker. Jennie wrote the intro, Annie wrote the outro. That’s it. Less than 1,000 words of a 250-page book. Everything else was written by our 41 authors, and the book is 41 times better because of it.

So, you, sitting there. You want to launch your brilliance into the world.

Our advice to you? Grab a pal.

Hell, grab a gang.

Have a best biz-friend who could use some promo love?

Have a “just out of your league” idol with a message you’re dying to amplify?

Have an internet brain-crush on someone you only know through Twitter?

Have a competitor you’re tired of trying to out-do?

Write a book with them. Be clear about the value you want to provide and what you want to reap. Be crystal-clear about your expectations, roles, and tasks. Offer as much as you ask.

Just jump in. Get yourself a shared Google doc folder and you’re halfway there.

Trust us, we did it. And we don’t ever intend to stop.

(Speaking of which, you wanna write a book with us? Have your people Skype our people.)

You can still, and should, Do It Yourself — just bring in more than one “you”, and watch what you can accomplish!

You can grab eBooks Suck! (but they don’t have to) for just $4.99 for Kindle. And, if you’re a small biz owner, freelancer, or artist, and you’re too good to be broke, Annie and Jennie welcome you with open arms to hungryentrepreneurs.com!

If you’re new to DIY Writing, here’s a great place to start. You can also subscribe to updates to download your FREE ebook!

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March 25, 2013 · 4:00 am

Ebooks vs. Print: Why Ebooks Rock Your Socks Off

Note: This is an excerpt from the piece I contributed to Ebooks Suck! (But They Don’t Have To): The Most Comprehensive Guide to eBook Conception, Creation, and Promotion Quite Possibly Ever. I’m so excited to be one of 41 contributing authors to this awesome guide created by Hungry Entrepreneurs. This team includes some incredible writers, bloggers, and entrepreneurs, including HE leaders: the audacious Coach Jennie, the whimsical Annie Passanisi, and every creative’s best friend, Megan Atkinson. Ebooks Suck! is available at Amazon for Kindle.

Make Your eBooks Rock by Breaking All the Rules of Creating a Book

e readerYeah, it’s nice to hold a solid, print book in your hands. But look at all the cool things you can do with eBooks that just a few years ago, you couldn’t even imagine as part of your publishing process:

F*rg@t Expectations. You decide what works best.

You can use your eBook to present exactly the message you want for your brand/business because you’re not restricted by the kinds of expectations that print and traditionally-published books are.

Traditional books, especially print books, are pretty limited. Costs and buyer expectations restrict books to a typical shape, size, and color (or non-color) palette, and page count. To stand out on the shelf, you may have to break the bank, and you have to strike the perfect balance between what will catch a buyer’s eye and what will be too unconventional and turn them off.

Go nuts with the design of your eBook.

For an eBook, the sky’s the limit with your format. No printing cost means you can make the cover and interior as visual and colorful as you want. You can make the book square without looking like an expensive photo collection. You can publish at fifteen pages without leaving the reader feeling ripped off. You get to sell your product using the whole face of the cover, not rely on creating an eye-catching spine.

Don’t worry about word count.

After the cover, potential readers are sure to judge the value of a print book by its size. The more it costs, the longer (and, visually, bigger and thicker) they’ll want it.

Word/page count is almost a non-issue with eBooks. While some readers will still get a little uppity about word count in fiction, in non-fiction the value of your words is far more important than the quantity. I’ve seen what would amount to about thirty pages in print sell for $97 as a PDF eBook because the content was (truly, not fraudulently) guaranteed to help the reader improve her business and make back that investment hundreds of times over. Imagine trying to pull off that sale in a Barnes & Noble!

Create content that reflects your brand and spreads your message.

You also get some versatility with the content of your eBook versus a print book, especially compared to traditional publishing. You can be wholly inspirational, completely informational, blatantly promotional — whatever message best serves your business and the audience you’re reaching out to.

You can share an inspirational manifesto with five to ten words per beautifully-designed page.

You can publish a report that fills the page with black and white information.

You can scatter the book with worksheets and encourage readers to print them out — or finagle your PDF settings to make them fillable on the computer!

Include hyperlinks for an interactive experience

My personal favorite about eBooks is they don’t have to be cluttered with footnotes or citations. Just add a hyperlink, and get rid of that pesky asterisk!

You can also utilize hyperlinked text to take readers on a far more interesting journey:

  • Link to additional information at your blog to drive traffic.
  • Include a list of helpful resources around the web to spread the love.
  • Include affiliate links to spread the wealth.
  • Link to interactive material like videos or fillable spreadsheets to diversify your reader’s experience.

Tablet apps are even offering the opportunity to make your book interactive within the reader with multimedia content that can’t exist in a print book.

With options like these and more…

eBooks don’t suck.

They are a unique and ever-changing tool for your business, marketing strategy or writing career.

ebooks suck coverJoin us today to meet the authors through the Ebooks Suck Junket!

From 10-6 p.m. CT, Jennie, Annie, and Megan will be hosting live talk-show style interviews via Google Hangout On Air with Ebooks Suck contributors. Catch me at 4:30 p.m. CT!

More about Ebooks Suck! (But They Don’t Have To):

Inspired by the massive amount of brilliance in the Hungry Entrepreneurs tribe, we’ve created a collaborative eBook that provides a gargantuan amount of mouth-watering value to all entrepreneurs hoping to shorten the learning curves of all those pesky, sucky things.

With over 40 different contributing authors, Ebooks Suck puts to rest the worries, the fears, and the inevitable feeling of overwhelm for ebook creators everywhere. From the first inkling of your big idea through post-launch revamps, this ebook is a comprehensive guide to making your ebook a smashing success.

If you’re new to DIY Writing, here’s a great place to start. You can also subscribe to updates to download your FREE ebook!

Photo in the featured image by Per Palmkvist Knudsen (Creative Commons)

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March 11, 2013 · 4:00 am

How I Published and Launched My Latest Ebook for Under $150

The Book Designer

Around the time I set forth on my journey to publishing A Writer’s Bucket List, I came across this comprehensive post on the cost of self-publishing by Duolit — a great overview!

But it scared me

The list is long. Was I doomed to an inferior product because I had nothing to invest upfront? DIY Writers on my email list know that my first financial investment in Bucket List stemmed from a generous gift of just $100 from a supportive loved one. It’s a teeny place to start, but it gave me the boost I needed to reach out to my community and make this the best book it could be.

Below is the sorta-lengthy cost break-down for A Writer’s Bucket List, based on the Duolit cost list, explaining how I published this book — to surprising success and plenty of praise — for under $150. First, here are the key lessons:

1. Nothing is out of your reach, even if it seems too costly.

Don’t lose hope, thinking you’ll never be able to publish your book because you can’t fork over hundreds or thousands of dollars in production costs. You’re a creative person — you wrote that whole book! Now that you’ve created a product or work of art (or both!), flip the switch and use that creativity on the business side of things. How can you use your talents in parts of the process besides writing? How can you use your creativity, motivation, and innovation to achieve this dream, even if you don’t have the money you think you need?

2. Nothing should be ignored because it seems too costly.

While you shouldn’t be barred from self-publishing by cost, you also don’t have a right to use a tight budget as an excuse for producing a crappy product. Don’t skip steps because people tell you they cost money. If you’ve decided to delve into self-publishing, understand that it comes with a wealth of responsibility. You have to wear several hats and display a variety of talents. Successful self-publishers are ambitious entrepreneurs who learn to do this, often out of necessity. When you simply don’t have the skills or the money necessary for any part of the process, dig into the deepest recesses of your network, and find people to help you.

The Cost of Self-Publishing A Writer’s Bucket List

Writing

Books and Courses: FREE

Investment in your career — i.e. education — is vital, but the costs seem unjustifiable sometimes. Free ebooks, webinars, newsletters, and online courses abound, so take advantage of them while you’re scraping by. Check out my Resources for Writers section to see some of the free resources I’ve taken advantage of to boost my writing, publishing, and business knowledge. And don’t forget to utilize your local library for educational books!

Software: FREE

I wrote, designed, and formatted A Writer’s Bucket List on the free programs from OpenOffice.org and with Google Docs. I now work with Adobe Photoshop, which is pricey, but came free to me because the person who gifted me their old Mac Mini had already purchased the program.

Beta Readers: FREE

I offered a free copy of the book to beta readers from the blog, Facebook, and my email list, and was surprised by the enthusiastic response — thanks!

Proofreaders/ Professional editors: $60

I had to stay thrifty, but I know that editing is the number-one service everyone demands you spend money on. Rather than wait years before I have hundreds to pay an editor, I decided to source editing from DIY Writers — I put out the call to my email list and hired three great editors who were willing to do the work for a small fee and the credit and experience, plus had a couple of writer friends insist they could look over the manuscript for free.

Before you scoff at this, remember: There was a time when I worked for free, and you probably have, too. I trusted my skills at the time, but knew I needed some experience before I could get better paid work. I put that same faith into the DIY Writers who helped with Bucket List, and I received invaluable feedback that helped the manuscript shine.

Publication

Cover design: FREE

Oops. The other number-one service you’re supposed to shell out money for. Instead, I did it myself. The cover went through several (three or four) “final” iterations before I was happy with it — I had to learn throughout the process. But in the end, I am happy with it; it represents the book wonderfully and didn’t cost me a dime to create.

Layout design: FREE

The first edition of A Writer’s Bucket List is PDF; I formatted it entirely in OpenOffice, which also did the conversion to PDF. I’ve got a Kindle edition coming soon (details soon!), which I’m formatting myself free through Pressbooks (thank you-thank you to Chris Brogan for tipping me off to that!), and the paperback I’ll very painstakingly format in OpenOffice.

If you want to format an ebook for multiple e-readers yourself, Smashwords founder Mark Coker wrote the free Smashwords Style Guide with detailed instructions to do it through Microsoft Word (and they translate pretty well to OpenOffice).

Images: $40

I was lucky to have a very kind and very talented friend  to do illustrations for the book for this nominal up-front fee. She’s also receiving royalties from book sales, because the illustrations add so much value to the book. Any additional images (for blog posts or other promotion) are licensed through Creative Commons, so I can use those for free.

Fonts: FREE

I’m glad this is included in the list, because many self-publishers overlook the weight a font carries in your book and cover design. For a more professional and unique look, you might consider buying fonts or downloading them for free (or a small donation) from sites like Dafont. My first-edition fonts were included in OpenOffice. An updated edition will include free fonts from Dafont.

ISBN: FREE

The PDF edition has no ISBN, so no cost there. When I publish the Kindle and print editions, I’ll probably choose the free or the $10 ISBN options through Amazon, though I have to fully review the restrictions of those options first.

Distribution: $5/mo = $15 total for 3 months of ARC distribution and launch

I’m distributing the PDF through e-junkie, which is an incredibly affordable service utilized by many bloggers with information products. The setup is simple, as well, and overall, the service is very user-friendly. I’ve had just a few glitches figuring out coupon codes, and no issues that were e-junkie’s fault :)

Review Copies: FREE

Yay, ebooks! Even for the launch of the paperback edition, I plan to stick with electronic ARCs — they’re easy for me to distribute, and I don’t have to worry about any production  or shipping cost.

Marketing/Promotion

Website

- Design: $30/year

For danasitar.com I use the free Inuit Types theme and have purchased the $30/year CSS and font customization. For writersbucketlist.com, I use the standard free Pilcrow theme.

-Domain name: $12/year to WordPress + $10 /year to GoDaddy X 2 sites

For both sites, I’ve purchased a custom domain name, and WordPress charges $12/year for domain mapping.

-Hosting: FREE for now

Both are hosted on WordPress.com, which is free, though my move to a self-hosted blog with WordPress.org is in the works!

-Mailing List: FREE

The DIY Writing mailing list is managed through MailChimp’s “Forever Free” plan, which is free up to 2,000 subscribers.

-Book trailer: FREE

This one risks being costly, but thankfully, I was able to create the book trailer myself, with the help of Stefan and his iMovie skills.

Have you encountered any costs in self-publishing that I didn’t cover? What is the biggest barrier you face in self-publishing?

If you’re new to DIY Writing, here’s a great place to start. You can also subscribe to updates to download your FREE ebook!

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