“Successful entrepreneurship begins and ends with customer wants and needs, not what you want and need.”
Thank you very much to the University of Maryland’s Master of Technology Entrepreneurship Program (MTech) for using my quote about successful entrepreneurship.
I believe that most of us that write and publish books are after two main things:
1. Some amount of financial return for the hard work we put into creating and publishing our books; and,
2. Critical acclaim for ourselves and for our books, from our peers, co-workers, readers, family, etc.
This graphic shows you some of the most common mistakes, missteps, and errors that can slow you down from achieving these two goals.
But with hard work and research, some honest assessment of your own writing and book, and forcing yourself to make some hard decisions about your book, you can fix any of these problems.
And by doing so, you will be well on your way to creating a successful book that can help you achieve your personal and financial goals.
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How I Gathered This Information
These survey results are based on my discussions with 47 authors who have written and published at least two non-fiction books. Their answers were based on their own personal experiences, their knowledge of the book publishing industry, and their own discussions with other non-fiction authors.
For many of us, the overall definition of success means achieving “financial success” and “critical-acclaim” at the same time. And in order to build long-term sustainable success and happiness, these two usually need to go hand-in-hand. Each one by itself is typically not enough to help us achieve all of our personal goals.
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Synopsis Do we write books for profit alone, or to gain favorable approval from others? Or is it a combination of both? Is money more important than fame? Does fame guarantee a stream of income? These questions are a good place to start to understand why we do what we do, and how we can, or should, be defining our own success as self-publishers.
What You Will Learn In This Post
1. You will learn to look at how you define what success means to you as a self-publisher.
2. You will learn what the difference is between “financial success” and “critical acclaim”.
3. You will learn how and why you can have both at the same time. Continue reading →
This is a very short screencast video of me creating the book cover for my new book titled “The Sell Sheet”. I have received some positive feedback about the design of this cover. So, I made this video as a fun way to give a little insight into how I created it.
I use Adobe Illustrator to create the cover, and then at the end I covert it into a pdf using Adobe Acrobat. Please give it a thumbs-up if you liked it. Thx.
Synopsis In order for a book foreword to give a book a substantial strategic advantage over all the other books competing for the same audience, it must be written by someone with a high level of believable credibility. And this credibility must be backed-up by a combination of objective and subjective characteristics at the same time.
What You Will Learn In This Post
1. You will learn how and why objective and subjective characteristics help a person’s credibility.
2. You will learn about some of these characteristics.
3. You will learn some of the most important traits of a good foreword author. Continue reading →
Synopsis Here is an explanation of the differences between the two main types of paperback books: mass-market paperbacks and trade paperbacks. As a self-publisher, these are the two formats that you’ll be typically dealing with most often. Therefore, you need to be familiar with and understand the similarities and differences. So, here is a quick discussion and explanation of mass-market paperbacks and trade paperbacks.
What You Will Learn In This Post
1. You will learn the significant characteristics of mass-market paperback books and trade paperback books.
2. You will learn how each type of these paperbacks are similar and different.
3. You will learn how British paperback books compare to America’s paperbacks. Continue reading →