Travel and Leisure

Getting your books published online or through Amazon is one of the greatest opportunities our generation has right now to make money fast and from the comfort of your own home.

In days gone by authors had to beg and plead with publishing houses to get their books published and marketed. Even if you were one of the lucky ones it was a fulltime job then travelling the country, doing sales talks, promo pieces and book signings. If you were not one of the lucky ones, you had to spend thousands of dollars to get your books published and printed yourself and then spend thousands of dollars to get the word out. Obviously most people do not have the spending power to afford the marketing budget required so most attempts at self publishing failed miserably.

Now however- we can self publish in a matter of minutes. Of course the quality and content still has to be first class. Never make the mistake of doing a rush job with poor spelling and weak story lines thinking that you can publish anything and become a millionaire - No this does not work and is not ethical! Probably even more so you need to produce high quality information or very entertaining and professional story lines. But provided your content is high quality, there is no reason you cannot generate substantial income fairly quickly.

Just think about how many people are online. Just think about how many people order product over the internet. Just think of the huge growth in Kindles and other e-readers. eBook readers are already achieving sales of $3 billion and are forecast to be selling $9 billion by 2016. This is massive!

Best of all, the income is passive. Once you get highly ranked and readers can find you- you will have passive income rolling in month in month out, whether you get out of bed or not! Of course there is a lot of work to do upfront but once you have started the momentum it is self-sustaining. And guess what - it hardly costs a penny to publish! The only risk to you is time!

The reason many authors fail is not because their writing is poor but because they do not market their books well.

Here are some reasons why your book might not sell well:

• Poor grammar and formatting

• Poor dull uninspiring cover

• Boring or obscure title

• No marketing done- people can't find it

How To Guarantee A Winner: Market Research

Make sure you have an audience of hungry buyers BEFORE you start writing. Many authors fall into the trap of just writing THEN trying to find someone who will buy it. Instead do the opposite - find the audience FIRST then write the book knowing with certainty it will sell. Thank fully the internet makes this really easy.

If you are writing non fiction, go to places like Click bank and see what is selling. Go to Amazon and scour the best sellers list, Go to Google keyword tool and type in your keywords and keyword phrases and see how many people are searching for this term on a monthly basis. If there is hardly anyone- change your genre, topic or subject immediately. If however 578,000 people are searching for information on your subject and the 2-3 of the current best sellers are on this subject as well- you know you are on a winner! Finish this article and start writing!

If you are writing fiction- same thing- you need to know you have an audience. Define who they are, what characters they like, check out the best sellers lists and see what books, what genres are popular right now. Some people just want to write a book-and do not care about sales. However if you are looking to write a best seller- it can be a good idea to piggy back on the success of another popular book or genre. Timing is everything! Be current and on trend!

Then settle down, set up your writing plan eg 1000 words a day or 5 chapters a day and write the best book you possibly can. Get it proof read, re edit it several times and make sure you are truly proud of it. Get it published then start the marketing process. This is the topic of another article.

Happy Writing!