What is an ISBN?

ISBN” stands for “International Standard Book Number”.

The ISBN identifies a book or other book-like product (such as an audiobook) in a specific format and edition, but also the publisher. If an ISBN is obtained from a company other than the official ISBN Agency, or one of its channel partners, that ISBN might not identify the publisher of the title accurately. This can have implications for doing business in the publishing industry supply chain.

What is the purpose of an ISBN?

The purpose of the ISBN is to establish and identify one title or edition of a title from one specific publisher and is unique to that edition, allowing for more efficient marketing of products by booksellers, libraries, universities, wholesalers and distributors.…

Many authors like to include testimonials and quotes from other authors, credible sources and people of influence in their book. Some of these come directly from the source, such as a personal testimonial for the book. Others come from famous quotes by another person that did not give you specific permission to include in your book. How do you handle both situations?

Testimonials

A testimonial is a short quote from someone that has personally reviewed your manuscript and wrote a positive statement about the book. These comments are excellent tools to use either in your book, on your cover, website or marketing materials to encourage other people to read your book.…

Building your online presence is essential to creating an audience for your book as well as selling your book. Here are five essential elements for an author’s platform, regardless of genre.

Author Website

 Your website is the center for your book and all the marketing materials you will need. Your website doesn’t’ have to be big, just 4 or 5 pages (pages for your book, about the author, marketing materials, order form/buy now link, and maybe contact the author).

Online Syndicated Articles

 Nothing creates buzz like online syndicated articles. Share your knowledge with your target audience. Get exposure where you can.…

When you become an author, you become more credible in the eyes of your clients, prospects, family and friends. Ironically, this credibility typically occurs in their eyes before they read your book. The fact that you wrote a book puts you on a different level and makes you the authority on that topic. So it’s essential that you leverage author status in your business and differentiate yourself from the competition.

We all want to work with the expert, the authority. When a prospect is considering doing business with you or your competitor they are looking for “the best.” They want to know that they can trust doing business with you so credibility plays a crucial role in building your business.…

I get a lot of questions about self-publishing vs. traditional publishing. There is no right or wrong way to publish a book, however I elected to self-publish. Here is an overview of both methods.

Traditional publishing 

If your manuscript is accepted by a traditional publisher, then the publisher will take on all the responsibility to produce and print your book. The publisher will purchase the rights to your story and in some cases pay you an advance on future royalties. The benefit of having a traditional publisher is that they do all the work and pay to get your book complete and distributed.…

Hiring a professional editor is a necessity when publishing your book to ensure the book sounds and reads the way you intended. But, what kind of editor do you need? It depends on your writing style and the genre of your book.

Here are a few examples of the different levels of editing:

• Manuscript assessment or critique. A broad overall assessment of your manuscript, pinpointing strengths and weaknesses. Specific problem areas may be flagged, and general suggestions for improvement may be made, but a critique won’t usually provide scene-by-scene advice on revision.

• Content editing (also known as developmental or substantive editing) focuses on structure, style, and content.

If you think about it, an editor is a “mediator”. Someone who sits between the writer and the reader and helps them to understand each other.  An editor provides the author with the perspective of the reader and helps the author to hone and polish their manuscript in such a way that the reader can easily understand the author’s perspective.

What Does An Editor Do?

An independent editor is actually an independent contractor paid by the author or publisher. The kind of editing that is done, how extensive it is will differ with each manuscript.

The final cost for editing is closely tied to the length of the manuscript, i.e.,…

You’ve started your book. It’s been a few days or weeks, even months since you’ve written anything more. There are have been too many interruptions and now you have some free time to get “back on track”. You find that you’ve lost your sense of “flow” with your thought process. You begin to re-read what you’ve written and still you don’t know where to begin.

So how do you get “back on track” with your writing? Here are four tips that will you started:

1. Establish a consistent schedule. This is a schedule that you will only fail to keep in the case of an emergency.…

Writing a book has basically two components, one, a subject, two the process.  Most everyone has an idea rolling around in their head for a book, that’s the easy part! It’s in the implementation or the writing process where they are lost.

Pick Your Subject

 If you don’t already have a great idea for your book then you might want to make a list of at least ten subjects you are knowledgeable about. Next, narrow your list by selecting a few of the simpler subjects you could write about. The choice you make will be a key factor as to whether or not you will complete your book or not.…

Have you ever thought about writing a book but that little voice in your head says, “But, I’m Not a Good Writer!” Well, youre not alone. Nobody thinks they are good at writing, unless of course you are an English professor, but the truth is we all struggle with articulating our story at some level or another.

I certainly wasn’t a writer, and I can guarantee my High School and College teachers would agree, but that didn’t stop me from writing a best-selling book.

You writing ability will not sabotage your attempts at becoming an author so don’t let it stop you.…