I’ve been having a great conversation with one of my Facebook friends, Lisa Jeanette. She came to me with questions about the book publishing process, and I’ve answered them without hesitation. Because I’ve been open in sharing about the process with her (as I am with everyone), she came to me with a very valid question. How do I make money if I give away this information, such as the information I reveal in my book 21 Ways to Write & Publish Your Non-Fiction Book for free? I published that book to be used as a “business card” and I do give away a lot of copies, so this is a great question. And perhaps you have this question as well regarding books you give away for free.

There are several ways to make money while giving away information for free – whether that information is given in a consultation, Facebook conversation or in the form of your book. Here are some ways I make money with my books, and with other information I give away for free:

1. I believe in “give and it shall be given unto you.” I truly believe when I give, it builds a trust relationship and becomes valuable to both the person I’m giving to and to myself. Sometimes it’s given back to me in the form of a stronger relationship. Sometimes a JV partnership. Sometimes a new client. Sometimes a new friend I know I can count on. The most important thing to remember is, when you give, it can come back in many forms – not all of them will be financial. And it’s always worth it.
2. My book advertises my other offers. In the back of my book, I advertise other books in the 21 Ways series, as well as other programs and services I offer. This generates income through additional book sales, builds my list when readers opt into my free offer, and increases awareness about my publishing programs. The income generated may not be instant, but it is constant. What’s interesting is I consistently sell more of the title I give away for free than any of my other titles. In fact I sell twice as many of the one I give away! This phenomenon is not unusual. I also have a client who gives away tons of her first title, and though her other book sells, the one she gives away out-sells it every month. There seems to be a direct relationship between how much you give and how many people purchase it as a result of the gift.
3. My “bread and butter” is done-for-you Indie publishing services. Because of this, I can give away information all day long and people will still hire me to do the work for them. I know my target audience doesn’t want to mess with the time to learn the publishing industry all on their own. They want to understand the process, but they want someone else to handle all the nitty gritty details for them. If you offer done-for-you services, a book is an excellent way to advertise them! In fact, as a direct result of publishing 21 Ways to Write & Publish Your Non-Fiction Book, my business’ bottom line increased over $18,000 in less than 30 days!
4. A published book gives you credibility. This credibility gives you the opportunity to charge more for your coaching services, get paid to speak or keynote for events, show that you are the go-to expert in your niche, and that’s just the beginning. All of my clients have received these results shortly after their books were published. Some have grown their businesses so much that they haven’t had time to write additional books they initially planned! If your book is tied to your business in any way, you can expect your credibility to skyrocket upon its release. And you will see a direct result in your bottom line, even when you give copies away.
5. Sponsorship opportunities have opened up for me. This means I don’t pay for the books I give away anymore – they’re sponsored. I have an arrangement with my sponsor to give them a commission for anyone who signs up for a program through my sales funnel where I use these free books. This creates a win-win-win: I no longer have to pay for the books I give away, more potential clients have access to the information in my book for free, and my sponsor gets a nice commission check when I sign on a new client, thus increasing sponsorship for a longer term! Sponsorship takes time and effort, but the results are worth it.

These are only some of the ways to make money by giving away your book. Please let me know what results you’ve seen by giving away your books in the comments below!

Last weekend I spent three days at a life-changing event (& I really mean life-changing) called Radical Leadership. I spent the weekend with 13 other amazing people and learned how to accept and live from the core of who I am – without shame. And that was just one of the golden nuggets I came away with! Since I got home from Minnesota late Tuesday night, I’ve had the most incredible experience with Time Warner’s customer service (strange, I know), the checkout guy at Staples and so many other fun people who crossed my path. And I truly believe it came from me, not them.

One of the coaches at the event, Dr David Mackinnon, sent me a book called Orbiting the Giant Hairball. Instantly I began devouring it. I’m only on Chapter 5, but the most astonishing thing I learned, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise, is that in first grade all kids think they’re creative geniuses. Then by sixth grade it’s almost taboo to call yourself “creative” or “an artist” or frankly, to be a kid. The author Gordon MacKenzie gives several reasons for this, all of which I feel are just plain sad. Why do we have to throw out creativity with the bathwater of disciplining the child?

The answer, I’m afraid, is deeper in the book, so I’m just going to have to read it.

While pondering what I learned at the retreat, and what I’m reading in this book, I had a discussion with my awesome husband about what made me slip past the barriers society places on kids and stay the creative genius that I am. Despite people telling me, “You’re too old to play with toys” or “That area is for kids under 48 inches tall,” I still slide down the slides and I still play with toys. In fact, my office has an entire corner dedicated to toys. Yet I’m responsible enough to run my own business, and I’m there for my clients to get their books completed on time.

"CA-CHUNK!"

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the answers, but I know this one thing. All adults should own – and play with – at least one toy. My personal favorite is Mr. Potato Head. Also gracing my office are LEGOs, Slinky, beach balls, bouncy balls, stuffed animals, thinking putty, blocks shaped like castle pieces, Crayola Model Magic, and a few bears from Build-a-Bear. Here are a few photos of my favorites. Enjoy!

My beanbag chair & play corner in my office

Shelves full of toys that get played with regularly! (Note the LEGO Starship Enterprise & vintage stuffed R2D2!)

The many faces of Mr. Potato Head

"I just got back from Disney World!"

Insane Potato

Mr Potato Head makes a friend - Mr Potato Head!

Storm Trooper Pirate Fairy Potato - to be taken completely seriously!

Fun with LEGOs!

Medieval Bomb Shelter

LEGO Nessie

LEGO mansion with Olympic-sized pool in the back yard, a medieval geek tower & comfy living & dining areas inside!

The battle for my office floor has begun!

When people see my office or these pictures, they often make comments like, “You should have kids” or “You must be doing a creative exercise” when the fact is, I don’t have kids (I don’t share well with anyone under 4 feet tall) & most of the time I play for the pure enjoyment of play.

One huge thing I realized after going to the retreat last weekend was I don’t have to make excuses for my play time. Either you’re OK that I play or you’re not. And honestly, I don’t care which opinion you take. I truly believe deep in our cores, we are all still creative geniuses. That creative, powerful part of us has been tempered by society, but I feel it’s time we rise up and embrace our inner children.

I’ll leave you with a favorite quote from Steve Jobs, one of the biggest creative geniuses of my time. And remember as you call someone on your iPhone or write an article on your MacBook that you wouldn’t have those “toys” if Steve Jobs had let his creative spirit be stifled by society.

I implore you – teachers, parents, childcare workers, professors – embrace your inner creative child and encourage children and adults alike that embracing their creative genius is OK, or dare I say amazing? In my opinion, you have the power to change the world, by encouraging everyone around you to be creative – and joining in on the fun yourself!

In what ways are you already creative? Do you have a favorite toy? Can you think of a toy I should add to my collection? Comment below – I’d love to hear about it!!

You want to be published? Think it takes thousands of dollars? Read on for a simple solution!

If you feel like you have no money to publish, I’d recommend publishing as a Kindle book to start. Nowadays 95% of all fiction is read on the Kindle, so it’s especially worth it for fiction to start there, make some money, then invest in print later. Print is still cool to have, and readers will eventually ask for it, but starting with Kindle is much less costly.

Also keep in mind that you may be able to get a traditional contract as well. (If you’re serious about traditional publishing, get the book The Writer’s Market 2012 from your local library or click the title to get it on Amazon.)

Here are 5 simple steps to publish your book:

1. Edit, edit & re-edit. Your writing is probably already good, and everyone could use an editor. First, edit it yourself. Read it aloud to yourself or someone else, and note that wherever your voice stumbles is a good place to improve the writing. Second, take the advice of others who critique your work. Getting people to read your book as you write it is like getting a bunch of proof readers for free. Join a local critique group or start one on Meetup.com. Once you’ve done those things, consider a professional copy editor. Talk with your local school’s English teacher or local college to find someone in the English department (an English graduate student or major is perfect, too) who would be willing to inexpensively edit your book. You may even be able to find someone to do it for free. If your book is a professional business book and a reflection of your credibility of an expert, hire a professional copy editor. Your reputation may depend on it!

2. Format your book for Kindle. The number one complaint about Kindle books is that they’re difficult to read. This results in horrible credibility-destroying reviews that are hard to remove from one of the biggest sites on the web. So make sure you take the step to make your eBook easy to read on Kindle. I recommend the Kinstant formatter, especially for fiction or non-fiction that doesn’t include graphics or many bullet points. It’s cheap and super easy to use. You can use it again and again for all of your books, and it will make your books read clean and clear on the Kindle. I personally use it for my small Kindle books and it works great. You can get it here: KristenRecommends.com/kindle If your book includes graphics, bullets and other more complex formatting, get a professional eBook programmer to ensure it reads nice and clean. If you’re interested in eBook formatting services, check out my team’s eBook formatting done-for-you service here: eBooksThatBringYouBusiness.com. If you’d like a much more detailed tutorial than even the Kinstant developer’s tutorial, check out my program Self-Publish On Demand.

3. Design your cover. If you’re an artist, so you can probably design your own cover. Remember to keep these things in mind: make the title big enough to be clearly read when it’s a tiny thumbnail image in an Amazon search, make sure any pictures you use are clearly related to your book’s title and content, and use eye-catching colors and clean, clear fonts to engage a searcher’s eye. You want your cover image to stand out among traditionally published books, not fall into the background and get easily overlooked, and most of all you don’t want your cover to scream, “I’m self-published!”

3. Set up your eBook. Create your free Direct to Kindle account on Amazon.com and set up your eBook. This is also a fairly simple process. Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign up for an account, then follow the steps to set up your eBook, using the file you created from Step 2 above. Keep in mind if you skip Step 2, your eBook’s format may not read clean and you’ll end up with credibility damaging negative reviews on Amazon that will hurt your reputation before you’ve even begun to make progress as a published author. I can’t stress enough how important Step 2 is to do. When you set up your eBook, keep it between $2.99 to $9.99 to get the most in royalties. For most fiction I recommend around a $5 price point. For non-fiction business books, $4.99 to $9.99 depending on the size is a good price for an eBook. If your eBook is a lead-generating tool like a transcribed interview or a shorter report, sell it for 99 cents.

4. Promote! If you have an established business, you already have a good head start with promoting your book anywhere you promote your business. Make a fan page for yourself as an author on Facebook, start Tweeting on Twitter, use Facebook and LinkedIn groups to connect with your target audience, and run with it. Don’t be shy – it’s OK to toot your own horn as a published author. Even traditional publishers understand that authors are the ones who best sell books, so go for it! And check out the book 1,001 Ways to Market Your Books from my friend John Kremer for a ton of great promotional ideas. If you’d like help creating a marketing plan instead of just shooting in the dark with various tactics like these, grab my program Market My Book!

5. Write your next book! Steps 4 and 5 are simultaneous. You should never stop promoting your existing books, and the more you write, the more sales are driven to your previous book(s). I’ve noticed this with my own books. I tend to sell twice as many of my first “21 Ways” book than my second. And I steadily sell older books I’ve written as well. Every time I publish a new book, I see a slight surge in sales for the older books. And a bonus tip here – make sure you advertise your older book(s) in each new book you publish! That helps readers become aware of previous books you’ve written and increases your overall sales.

Completing Steps 1 through 5 will set you well on the path to being a published author. If you’re also interested in print format and would like to be in 100% total control of the process, including keeping all your repurposing and distribution rights, check out Self-Publish On Demand at SelfPublishOnDemand.com today!

You probably know there’s more than one way to get published – in fact, that’s probably what’s keeping you confused and keeping you from making a decision to get that book done.

All your choices can be broken down into three primary publishing options, and a variety of types within each option: traditional, vanity, and indie. Each option has its pros and cons, so here they are defined and broken down (finally!) in plain English:

Traditional, Vanity (paid-for or “free” self-publishing), Indie (starting a publishing arm to your existing business, or starting your own publishing company from scratch) & straight to Kindle/eBook. Each one has a variety of pros & cons, & I can easily talk an hour on each one. Here’s the quick basics:

Traditional Publishing

• Pros: Ego boost, advance, some marketing assistance (much more if you’re not a first-time author and have proven book sales under your name)
• Cons:  3 to 5 year timeline to get accepted, must pay for own marketing if first-time author, give up most of your rights

When to go traditional: If you already have a large platform of followers, consistent marketing for a business, or if you’re writing fiction in a rapidly-growing genre.

When not to go traditional: If your message is timely in nature, you don’t want to give up your repurposing rights or rights to write future books, or if you’re an entrepreneur who likes things your way.

Traditional publishing typically involves getting an agent and a book deal. It’s like a slow-cooked roast. It takes a while to get there, but it sure tastes good! If you’re interested in traditional publishing, start with the book The Writer’s Market,  which comes out with a new addition every year.

Vanity Publishing

• Pros: Fast, sometimes cheap, easy (sometimes too easy)
• Cons: A “middle man” takes $3-4 profit from every book sale – after you’ve already paid an upfront fee, your book won’t meet the requirements to get into bookstores, limited marketability, often looks cheap

When to go vanity: If you have to get something done fast and quality is secondary to investment and speed, if you don’t want to handle any of the details like filling orders yourself, if you simply want a promotional item for your business, or if you’re writing fiction and are sick of rejection letters.

When not to go vanity: If you care about your distribution rights, if you want to sell your book to a traditional publisher someday, if you value quality over investment and speed, if you want to maximize your marketability – especially through bookstores, or if you want to speak on the stage.

Vanity publishing comes in many forms, and not all of them are scams. Vanity publishers serve a purpose and are best used for the genres of poetry, short stories, fiction, or if you want a fast, cheap promo item for your business. It’s like a hot dog – quick and will satisfy your immediate needs.

Independent (Indie) Publishing

• Pros: Fast, no middle man to take any profits from book sales, more marketability including bookstores, total control over your project, higher credibility to speak from the stage/charge more for coaching.
• Cons: Initial investment due to higher quality product, more responsibility in choosing your team, higher learning curve if you go it alone

When to go indie: If you need something fairly quickly and care more about quality than investment, if you care about your distribution and repurposing rights, if you want to maximize your marketability through bookstores and other mainstream channels, if you want to speak on a high-dollar stage, or if you want to raise your prices for your business services.

When not to go indie: If you have a very small budget, if you’re publishing in the genres of fiction, short stories, memoir, poetry or a quick business promotional item, if you don’t want to tackle a learning curve or work with a team.

Indie publishing literally involves starting your own business. Much like filet mignon, it takes a little longer to “cook” than a hot dog, tastes better, and typically has longer-lasting results.

I can easily talk in-depth for an hour  on all these options, but this should give you an idea of what type to use for which goals you have for your book. Defining your goals is extremely important. If you opt for a hot dog expecting the results of filet mignon, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Know your goals, then choose your publishing option.

The biggest question I get from authors who want to work with my done-for-you independent publishing program is, “How can I get the money?” I’ve talked about this subject before, but thought it warranted more “out of the box” ideas.
There are several things you can do to raise money to independently publish your book:

1.    IndieGoGo.com


This is a site designed to raise money for creative projects. Everything from documentary films to illustrations for children’s books can be found on this site. You set a funding goal and they take a small percentage of any donations you get. Even if you don’t make your funding goal, you get all the money funded to you. Note that your project will have to undergo a review before they will post it for donations.

2.    Kickstarter.com


I’ve talked about this site before as well. Like IndieGoGo, Kickstarter.com is a site designed to raise money for creative projects. It differs from IndieGoGo in that you set your funding goal, and if you don’t meet that funding goal you don’t get any money. This is not a bad thing. Because people who donate aren’t guaranteed their donation will go through unless you meet your funding goal, you’re more likely to get donations. There’s less risk to the donators.

3.    Pre-sell


Another option is to set a pre-sale price on your book and sell advance copies. You collect the money before the book is published and send the buyers an autographed copy once it’s in print. Your pre-sale price can be equal or less to your targeted retail price of your book. I recommend if you do this that you include a bulk sale discount, where if people purchase five or more copies they will get free shipping. It’s not worth it to you to offer free shipping on one pre-sold book at a time, especially if your pre-sale price is lower than the actual retail price the book will be once published. Add about $2.00 shipping and if you’re in the USA, ship the book Media Mail to lower your shipping costs.

4.    Sacrifice


Sacrifice doesn’t sound fun, but it’s a surefire way to save money to publish a quality book. Give up something you currently spend money on (like cable TV or coffee) and put that income toward your book project. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can save the money for a quality self-published book. Most people I know don’t even realize how much money they spend on non-necessities until they add them up. And temporarily living without a small luxury will be worth it once you achieve the dream of being a published author – and once you’re holding a book you will be proud of!

At the end of the day, it’s about how important it is to you to get your book published, and whether you desire to publish a quality book you can be proud to show off (that others will also be proud to promote for you) or whether you’re happy with a cut-and-paste template-style piece of you know what (hey, that could be your target market!). I have yet to meet someone who said they didn’t have the money for something they really wanted, who wasn’t able to find it when they are bound and determined to.

My team has a combined 18 years’ experience designing book covers professionally. (This means they get paid to design book covers.) Suffice it to say, we’ve learned what it takes to stand out, what’s important in a cover design, and when templates may or may not be appropriate for an author.

Using Book Cover Templates
The key problem with using a template is that your book will have the same general feel as others on the market. Many templates are poorly designed to begin with, and if you don’t have an artistic eye, you won’t notice the little things that make a cover stand out on the virtual or physical bookshelf.

Templates use the same general layout, the same fonts, sometimes even the same artwork (or a limited selection of artwork) for every author who chooses that template. They do not have infinite capabilities, and depending on the length of your title, you may not even be able to read it. The other main issue with templates is that often the included graphics don’t make any sense with your book’s content. You may think a graphic looks great, but if it isn’t drawing someone in to the content inside – if it’s not related to the content – there will be a disconnect to the reader. And once you lose a reader, it’s hard to get them back.

Templates can be used well by people with an artistic and well-balanced eye who know what to do to make the templates appear more custom. But they are definitely not easy for an untrained author-turned-designer to use effectively.

Using a Professional Book Cover Designer
Professional book designers know several things. They know how to make a striking title stand out from 15 feet away, and they understand why that’s a necessity. They know what colors will make your book in your genre stand out amongst the crowd of other books similar to yours. They know how to combine graphics, pictures and other images in a way that’s pleasing to the eye and directs the viewer to the most important element on the cover. And they know what that element is. They also know what looks good in thumbnail format, how to make long titles easy to read and how to keep short titles from looking like they’re taking over the cover.

Usually a professional book designer actually took classes or went to school to know how to design (ie: they were taught by other professionals and have training). And always the designer uses a professional book design program like Adobe InDesign or Quark because the professional book designer understands you just can’t get the same results from Microsoft Publisher or Word. (Sidenote: Never ever ever ever! “design” a book cover in Microsoft Word. It’s a word processing program, not a design program! Rant over.)

And always, a professional book cover designer gets paid. For a reason. They know what it takes to make your book stand out from your competition. They know how to make you, a previously unknown author, appear more professional in search results on Amazon. They know what it takes for you to sell books, because ultimately, they know a book is judged by its cover.

The Ultimate Goal
Your ultimate goal is to sell books. Your other goals may be to generate leads and get new clients using your book as a marketing tool. If you want to maximize your results and sell more books or speak from the stage as a professional expert, thus bringing higher-end clients to you (ie: people you’d love to work with), then consider a professional book cover designer. They’re literally worth their weight in gold – and just as gold’s value keeps climbing, the more self-published “trash” thrown into the market, the more professionally-designed book covers will stand out, and the more your books will be sold instead of those of your competition.

Fact: You want to write a book.

Fact: You might want to write several books.

Fact: You’ve toyed around with the idea of writing fiction.

If you’re like most aspiring authors, or even an entrepreneur, you’re interested in writing fact and fiction. There’s just something about being thrown into another dimension in the space-time continuum where a planet is getting too close to its sun, about to explode and the 75,000 colonists have to get saved in time using only five transporter pads…

…sorry, my sci-fi geek side is showing…

As you can see, even I, a writer of primarily non-fiction, have toyed around with the idea of writing fiction. Heck, once upon a time I actually wrote 14 chapters of a sci-fi novel. And I have many ideas for other fiction books.

If you’re interested in how to write fiction, once a year during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) a challenge is issued to fiction writers around the world to complete a novel within 30 days. And many people do it.

But the question here isn’t only how to write fiction – there are plenty of books out on that subject (and Writer’s Digest magazine devotes most of their issues to the topic of fiction writing). The bigger and more expensive question is, how do you self-publish it?

Fact: It’s hard to make money off of fiction.

Yes, there have been a few – one out of every 500,000 or so – novelists get lucky and make the New York Times Best Seller list. But most fiction writers become starving artists who write because they can’t get their characters’ voices out of their heads.

Lately, I’ve had fiction writers coming out of the woodwork to work with my publishing programs,  but I made a commitment to only work on non-fiction business and self-help books in 2012. Because I’ve seen too many fiction authors invest thousands of dollars in publishing one book only to sell a handful of copies and not make up their investment. And if you know anything about me at all, you know I don’t want to rip authors off. It makes me mad when other companies do that.

But there are still fiction writers who beg to work with me, so to address that and other questions, here are the only reasons I’ll take you on if you’re writing fiction, and ways to use fiction to make more money:

1. You’re also going to write and publish non-fiction. The fiction book will build recognition for your name, but the non-fiction book will drive traffic to your business through credibility.
2. You’re going to use your fiction book to teach writing workshops. Yes, that means you’re going to run a business and make money off your fiction book – beyond simple book sales. You’ll make up your investment much faster if you tie some other form of income to your book.
3. You’re writing a fictional “teaching” book. The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and The Traveler’s Gift by Andy Andrews are examples of a fictional tale being told to drive home a point and teach a lesson. These types of “fiction” books sell like hot cakes and often go viral.
4. You want to publish your fiction book as an eBook. Ultimately, this is the best way to go. There is little upfront investment in eBook programming [link to booksthatbringyoubusiness.com] and eBook covers only need to be designed for viewing on e-readers and the web, so there is less work involved with creating the digital files. And if you’re sticking with Amazon’s Direct to Kindle program, you won’t have any fees for publishing the book. You can update your eBook’s listing at will, put a previous eBook on sale if you’re coming out with a sequel and even take a shot at being the next member of the Million Dollar Kindle Club. Fiction sells more on Kindle than anywhere else, so even if you desire to hold a printed book in your hands, test it out on an eBook audience first before you invest in hard core printing.

If you’re still interested in talking to me about publishing fiction, let’s talk. I’m committed to helping make your dream happen – in a way that’s going to help you, not make you go broke. And being a lover of fiction myself, I firmly believe there can’t be too much of it in the world.

Guest Post by Ely Delaney

As an author, you need to market your book to get your message out there. That’s why you wrote the book, right? To share your message with the world?

So why do so many authors (and other entrepreneurs) shy away from marketing?

I do a lot of speaking and I tend to ask the question “How many of you love marketing?”

Very few people raise their hands.

When I ask why, I get a laundry list of reasons like:

• It’s scary
• Don’t know where to start
• Don’t want to sound like a sleazy salesman
• I tried XYZ and it didn’t work, so I’m no good that it

And the list goes on…

Marketing is about getting your message out there. I’m going to assume you have a message and a mission to add value to the world. If not, then why would you put the hard work in to writing your book?

Marketing is not scary or sleazy. It’s about sharing your given gift with as many people as you can to add value to their lives. That’s it!

If you think about marketing from that mindset it becomes a whole different creature.

It’s not scary or bad. It’s a 180 shift from your old way of thinking and can be a lot of fun.

Think of marketing as three modes or sections…

Mindset

Your mindset is your positive attitude towards marketing.

If you think marketing is bad, guess what… You won’t sell many books.
If you think you can’t learn marketing and it’s scary stuff… again, you won’t sell many books.

You have to change your mindset first.

Remember, Marketing is just the way you share your message with the world to add value to others’ lives.

Method (AKA Strategy)
As an entrepreneur, you don’t have to push all the buttons, but you need to understand what buttons to push in what order and at what time.

You have to have a plan and a strategy to get your book out there. Who’s your target? Where do they hang out? What referral partners (Joint Ventures) can you connect with, etc.

As the saying goes, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

I love mind-mapping out the big picture of my strategies and tactics. Once you brainstorm the big picture, you can move to the next phase…

Mechanics (AKA Tactics)
These are the tactics to use to get the word out there. These are the buttons. Networking, speaking, Facebook, advertising, websites, etc. These are the tactics.

This is the part people generally get stuck on. They try to do too many tactics without mastering any one of them. Many times they get pushed to one tactic because somebody persuaded them that it’s the “next great thing.”

The great thing about this is that as long as you have the first two modes figured out, the third is actually pretty easy. It’s just pushing buttons. Some of it can be automated. Some of it can be outsourced. Some you can even skip altogether because if you have your methods planned out, you will know which mechanics won’t actually be a good choice for you anyway.

Think of the three marketing modes as your 3000-foot GPS view telling you the best path for you to get from where you are to where you want to be.

About the Author

Ely Delaney is the Co-Founder, Dean and Lead Trainer at YourMarketingUniversity.com, a marketing education company designed specifically to help teach motivated entrepreneurs and business professionals how to take control of their marketing, online and offline. Ely has been in the marketing and multimedia design world since 1996 and is dedicated to helping businesses achieve their marketing goals without the need for expensive advertising agencies. Discover the 5 steps to creating your own Marketing Roadmap at SmallBusinessMarketingRoadmap.com

As most of you know, I spend a lot of time hanging out on Facebook. I’m involved in some groups filled with amazing people who are taking the business world by storm. (Side note: Want to know what your target audience is talking about? Join some Facebook groups and start lurking!) So it was no surprise to me when on one of the groups someone posted that she has a book about 3/4 done and is unclear what to do next. She wants the “less expensive” method to self-publish for now, but upon reading her later comments she wants some pretty big results from a cheaply-published book. So here’s the ultimate question… Is it possible to DIY-publish a book cheaply and get professional results?

The honest truth… No. Unless you publish books for a living and have a professional team built-in to work on your own books, then yes. But that’s still a professional book, and it still requires time and energy to produce.

Now back to our friend on Facebook… The results she’s looking to get from her book are:

• Get on TV
• Be interviewed on radio
• Speak at workshops
• Speak at conferences

A well-produced book can (and does!) lead to these things. However, keep in mind the level of competition trying to get on TV, radio, be speakers and keynotes. Most of them are either traditionally published or have taken the time, energy and money to produce a book that competes in the traditional market. In a world of authors that are a dime-a-dozen due to the “easy buttons” available to get a book created fast and cheap, you have to compete and stand out in the crowd of junk.

Yet so many people expect huge professional results in a competitive market with little to no investment on their part. And let me be frank here – you can’t go to a hot dog stand and expect Filet Mignon. Not. Gonna. Happen.

OK so maybe you have a friend at the TV station that will get you on TV. But do you think they’re going to feature you once they see your cover looks like something your plumber’s uncle’s best friend’s cousin who’s 12 years old and knows Photoshop slapped together? We’ve all seen those books, and that is the reason why self-published books typically only sell an average of 75 copies. (How many family and close friends do you have?)

So your choices for self-publishing are to go with an “easy button” template self-publishing services company that will either create a book from templates (and don’t even ask about editing!) or you can hire a professional team that knows the publishing industry inside and out and can help make your book stand out like Filet Mignon in a hot dog world, leading to the results listed above.

The choice is up to you. Personally, I’d take Filet Mignon over a hot dog any day. And so will your potential customers.