Discover How You Can Profitably Self-Publish a Book

Get all your publishing questions answered – self-publishing that is – at the 4th annual Self-Publisher’s Online Conference (SPOC) May 8-10, 2012 

Expert speakers include: Dan Poynter, Chris Garrett, Peter Bowerman, Joel Friedlander, Dan Janal, Sandra Beckwith, Susan Daffron, James Byrd, Dana Lynn Smith, Penny Sansevieri, Joshua Tallent, Carolyn McCray, Roger C. Parker, Andrea Vahl, Gary Barnes and Kathy Goughenhour.
Read about these speakers (they are the ”who is who” in publishing advice) at 
http://www.selfpublishersonlineconference.com/Agenda.aspx

Each day has a “theme” that is designed to help you reach your publishing goals.  Note: ALL Times are PACIFIC time.  SPOC is a virtual conference, so you can attend in your pyjamas if you like.

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Day 1 – WRITING / PUBLISHING May 8

9-10 am (PDT)
James Byrd & Susan Daffron
The Big Picture: How to Bring Your Book into the World

11am -12 noon (PDT)
Chris Garrett
Be More Productive and Build Your Authority

1-2 pm (PDT)
Writing & Publishing
Q&A Roundtable

3-4 pm (PDT)
Peter Bowerman
The “Write Way” to Publish and Promote

5-6 pm (PDT)
Joel Friedlander
Publishing Strategies for Self-Publishers

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Day 2 – PROMOTING YOUR BOOK May 9

9-10 am (PDT)
Dan Janal
Build Your Brand and Get More Prospects with Publicity

11am -12 noon (PDT)
Sandra Beckwith
What’s Your Hook?

1-2 pm (PDT)
Book Promotion
Q&A Roundtable

3-4 pm (PDT)
Dana Lynn Smith
Top 10 Book Promotion Strategies for Authors

5-6 pm (PDT)
Penny Sansevieri
Fans, Followers and Friends: Maximize Social Media to Sell More Books

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Day 3 – E-BOOKS, INFOPRODUCTS & BEYOND May 10

9-10 am (PDT)
Joshua Tallent
Ebook Design, Formats and Workflow

11am -12 noon (PDT)
Carolyn McCray
Maximize Your Book Sales on Amazon.com

1-2 pm (PDT)
Ebooks & Beyond
Q&A Roundtable

3-4 pm (PDT)
Roger C. Parker
Leveraging Your Book into Prospects, Products, & Profits

5-6 pm (PDT)
Andrea Vahl
Build Your Expert Status with a Powerful Social Media and Publishing Combination.

All passes give you access to the virtual SPOC Exhibit Hall and seminar recordings. They will give you access to the SPOC Exhibit Hall and seminar recordings.

$147.00 – SPOC 2012 Standard Pass.
Enter the coupon code FFW12 at checkout and you will save 10%!

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Hyper Smash

 

Google+

 

Do Writers Need Another Social Media Site?
You have Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest accounts, you are in Goodreads and other reader-author sites. You spent already too much time in all these social networks.  Why join Google+ on top of that?

Joel Friedlander explains in his superb blog
http://www.thebookdesigner.com
why it makes sense for writers to join the 170+ million users.  He explains the features that distinguish Google+ from the other networks and why it is a great location for authors:

-  decide which circles will receive your message (segmentation)
-  follow circles published by leaders that are of interest for you
-  instantly have a real-time video conference right inside Google+
-  there is almost no limit of characters compared with Twitter or Facebook
-  your profile will be always top ranked on Google search
-  If you share a post on G+ it instantly gets into the Google ranking machine – as in you don’t have to wait for the crawlers to get to your site.

Read his full article on Google+

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/12/google-do-writers-need-it/

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Hyper Smash

 

The UGLY Duckling

 

 

Book Store

 

I just read a marvelous book on self-publishing and I would have given it a 5-star review for its content, but it was – against the own advice of the authors – not copy-edited, not even spell-checked – and the layout was not done professionally. While reading these errors were so disturbing, that I will give it not more than a 3 or 4-star review.

“It doesn’t cost any more to produce a good-looking book than it does to produce a bad-looking one” Joel Friedlander wrote in his great blog about sloppy, self-published books:

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/10/theres-something-odd-about-self-publishing-books/

This is true for both, paper books and e-books that are often shambles from a book design point of view.

But not only that, these self-published books often lack the basics, such as putting them through word spelling, copy editing, beta-reading and having done a professional layout (and converting, if it is an e-book), rather than just smash-word it on the cheap.

Another blogger
http://conversationalreading.com
 wrote:
“Needless to say, poor quality e-books are becoming something of an embarrassment for publishers trying to convince readers to pay a premium for downloads (as Kassia Kroszer recently pointed out in Publishing Perspectives: it is hard to justify higher e-book prices when the product simply isn’t up to scratch), and clearly it’s an issue publishers need to address sooner rather than later if they want win this argument.

The problem of substandard e-books partially stems from the fact that many publishers currently lack the means and expertise (and, to some extent, the will) to produce high quality e-book editions themselves. Their workflow and production process are set up for print, so the quickest way to create e-book files has been to outsource the job to third parties, inevitably with very little quality control.”

If self-published authors want to be taken seriously, and compete with paper books (both, hard and soft cover) from commercial publishers, they need to offer seriously edited book content and also a professional book layout.