Can't get published? I have found a clever way to jump over the publishing and marketing hurdles. What do I mean by clever? How about immensely more effective, efficient, and gratifying, for starters?
A Shocking Situation
You love to write. Over the years, you have acquired a fair amount of knowledge and know-how.
One day, you get this uncontrollable urge to write a book about the subject of your passion. You want to get published. You want the world to know. And, of course, you want to get paid for the privilege, right?
Boy! Are you in for a shock!
The Publishing Wall
Writing a book is only a matter of time, discipline and, above all, passion. Oh! Of course, you do have to love to write! No problem, or so you thought!
Your problems begin when you submit your manuscript to publishers. That's when you hit a solid brick wall!
Publishers typically receive hundreds, if not thousands of manuscript every year. Most are unsolicited. Most are from unknown, never published writers.
All publishers have very good reasons for turning down your "offer". Some do not even acknowledge receipt, let alone give any explanation.
You are an unknown writer. When publishers are confronted with an unknown risk, they typically do not take it ... unless your manuscript is of such compelling quality that they are forced to accept to publish it ... because, you see, they do not consider a " sure winner" to be a commercial risk anymore! They like safe bets ... most of the time.
A known and successful writer gets published. How does one become a known and successful writer ... without getting published? How in the world are you expected to get out of this vicious circle?
The Self-Publishing Siren
You set out to search for an alternate way of publishing your book. Self-publishing suddenly looks like a way out ... or, rather, a way in.
Instead of the book publisher taking all the risks, you discover that you can take charge of them! Ah, Ha! That's it! Now you can bypass the editor. You won't have to wait (beg) for his stamp of approval.
You decide to put up the money to publish your book. Upon further research, you find that some self-publishing firms will ask for several thousand dollars, up front, and impose a first printing run of two to five hundred books.
Others will ask you to fork over $700 to over $2000, depending on the "package deal" you chose. They will supply you with a dozen books or so, and publish the rest on demand, as orders come in.
Either way, that's where you get into trouble ... again.
You are still an unknown writer, remember!
How do you get the orders to come in? How do you generate the necessary interest? How do you get people to know about the very existence, if not the value of your book? How do you prove your competence to the world? How do you acquire a reputation as a writer?
The best self-publishing firms will offer to market your book ... for an extra fee, of course. But, even then, you will only get a "burst" of marketing (press releases, magazine reviews, international catalogs, book fairs, etc.).
What happens after the few weeks that the average marketing campaign lasts? Yup! You guessed it again. You can either wait for these efforts (over which you have no control) to bear fruit. Or you can cough up some more money for yet another marketing campaign!
Some self publishing firms will be "honest" enough to (strongly) hint that you will have to devote a fair amount of your time to self-promoting activities, such as organizing signature sessions at local libraries and book stores, participating in book publishing events and shows, etc. All at your own expense, of course.
Not exactly what you had in mind, is it? You shudder at the thought of all that time you could put to better use ... such as writing. Besides you could not afford to take the time away from your day job, anyway.
Fortunately, you are a determined person. You keep searching for a solution. You are saying to yourself: "There must be a way out of this marketing dead end!"
So, you decide to put off self-publishing your book until you find a suitable solution. You resume your search.
Trouble On Marketing Hill
You have the firm intention of promoting your book yourself. You have heard that it is "possible" to do it with a Web site.
So, you forge ahead and thoroughly research this solution. You eventually find that having a Web site does not necessarily mean that it will be found by roaming Web surfers! It takes a lot of Web marketing savvy to achieve that.
Here we go again! Another dead end! You discover that you cannot count on an automatic flow of visitors just because you put up a Web site.
As it happens, you know nothing about how to build a Web site to be an effective marketing vehicle. You do not feel "comfortable" with the idea of learning all the technicalities either. And you do not have the thousands of dollars to hire specialized Webmasters to do it for you.
You are back to square one. There is more to Web site building and Web marketing than you thought. Much more.
You know next to nothing about marketing in general. Now you also know that, even if you did know a lot about traditional offline marketing, you would still be no further ahead.
Marketing within the Web environment is a different beast.
Just what you needed!
One Page At A Time
You can't believe that it can't be done. As you surf the Web, it becomes obvious to you that quite a number of people have a successful Web site. But, is it possible to do it on your own, without lots of expensive help? So, you keep roaming the Web for the solution to your Web marketing problem.
One day, you get lucky.
You stumble upon an article. It talks about writing on the "Net". In it, the author mentions that you can build a Web site for effective marketing purposes ... without any technical knowledge! Ooooh!
According to this article, there is a Web hosting firm out there that "holds your hand" throughout the Web site building process. They supply the templates, the user friendly tools, and the comprehensive user guides to go with it. They even have a large community of users that are very active and always eager to help "newbies"!
Could this be it?
The article goes on to explain that you get help in choosing a suitable theme for your site, one that has a fighting chance of attracting visitors, taking the competition into account. Then you are led through a step by step process. The Web site you build is automatically optimized for Web marketing efficiency!
Finally! You have hit pay dirt!
As you read on, you discover how you can market your knowledge and know-how without ever publishing a book ... at least not in the traditional way, yet. The author suggests that you are better off publishing ... one page at a time!
The author of the article goes on to outline how publishing on a Web site works.
1. Each article you write on a given topic becomes a page on your Web site.
2. Each page of your Web site attracts it's own visitors, because they are found through the use of keywords. Marketing is indeed different on the Web!
3. Each page becomes a revenue generator on it's own. For example, you can become a member of the Google Adsense program, and display context relevant adds on your Web site pages. You can also offer links to (topic related) suppliers, as an affiliate. You can even promote and sell your own books ... that's, if you ever feel the need to!
4. And because your Web site is automatically built to be "visible" on the Net, it attracts an increasing number of visitors every day.
Published At Last!
You finally decide to subscribe to this Web site building service. They seem to offer the just the kind of "hand holding" help you needed to pierce the marketing wall that is standing in your way.
After a few months of writing and learning, you are on your way, at last!
You are getting published, "Web style", right the on your own Web site! As a bonus, you are starting to get feedback from your Web site visitors, even as you write interesting content. You discover the intense pleasure of having people express their gratefulness for the helpful information you give them through your Web pages.
You are instructed not sell the information that you publish on each page of your Web site. You are told to give it away, most of it anyway!
Yes, you have read correctly. You learn that publishing yourself on the "Net" is a business, and that helping people solve their problems is part of the friendly give and take behind successful businesses. When you are being helpful to your visitors, they eventually reward you with their patronage (through adds placed on your pages by Google, affiliations with suppliers, your own ebooks, etc.).
You learn to publish in marketable installments ... one Web page at a time!
The author of the article goes on to tell that this works extremely well for most genres, even novels, short stories! Why not poetry? Who is going to stop you?
As a novelist, just give your readers a taste of what you have to offer. You can publish a representative chapter, or a part of it, as a teaser. If you write short stories, you can publish one or two on your Web site, as a sample of what your readers can expect if they buy your books.
You soon find that you can market yourself better than anyone else ever could!
But Is It Worth It?
With the income from your Web site, you can even afford to self-publish your books in hardcopy. You now have the marketing power your Web site is giving you. You do not need a traditional book publisher to "market" your books anymore. You do not have to settle for a meager few percent in royalties!
As your Web site gets increasingly known and traveled, a number of your visitors become customers, one way or the other. You have the physical means to diversify your offer, and, by the same token, your sources of revenue, which serves to stabilize your income.
That is a very enviable situation many writers do not generally enjoy!
Your Web site has turned the situation around in your favor. Notoriety, income, and the immense satisfaction of having beaten the system ... are your rewards.
All that, because you believed in yourself and decided to get out of a paralyzing anonymity.
You can now write to your hearts content on your Web site ... and grab your fair share of "Net profits"!
Claude Jollet is a former planning advisor to major industrial and commercial clients. He specialized in weather related operational planning issues. He holds a bachelor?s degree in applied computer science, specializing in business process analysis and automation. Mr. Jollet now devotes all his free time to the promotion of entrepreneurship on the Web. He reaches his following with his Web site http://www.top-web-entrepreneurs-plan-it.com
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