You are who I do all this work for.
Really.
So this blog post and podcast is a thank you note.
What did you do to deserve this?
It all started long ago - or maybe a few minutes for some of you. You decided to click on a link with led you here, or bought one of my books, or otherwise set yourself up to hear from me.My story started over 50 years ago, when I started wanting to figure things out around me.
Those two paths converged at some point. And I've been working to deserve you ever since.
OK, let's break that down a bit further.
There's this thing called a Golden Rule. You know: "treat others like you'd like to be treated." All those variations. Every religion and philosophy mentions that as a truth somewhere in it's texts or scriptures.
The funny thing is that this works as "As you give, so you get." or as Napoleon Hill had it: "You can't get without giving."
My bottom line is that to the degree I'd like to be successful, rich, and all that - I have to help you achieve these too.
What does all that have to do with book publishing?
Good question - I'm getting there. (Sometimes I can get long-winded.)You know, if you've looked up my back trail, that I've been talking to you about how to make a success of it with book publishing. Nice passive income, financial freedom, take the day off to go fishing and still earn income while you've sat in the shade all day and drank your tea (or equivalent beverage.)
That type of lifestyle. Great, huh?
I did it with an assortment of books, but saw that if I wanted to take it to the next level, I was going to have to ask for your help.
So, thanks.
You're here, you're listening to this, you're aboard.
Where are we going, then?
Boy, are you right on the money with your questions today...If you want to make a really decent income (like into the "getting rich" category) you have to open up and help others get rich on their own.
Looking around found that the best tool to do this was to form a membership where you could help people more directly than just anonymously selling them a book. I mean to really help them.
Actually, that research found the model for all online passive income. It's true for spammers, it's true for their brothers, the Internet Marketers. It's even true for pure rip-off schemes like the Government and their cronies.
Advertisers use this plan, as does Facebook and any social media. Even our book distributors use this. They are all memberships after a fashion. Anyone who gets your email and sends you stuff uses this.
My approach is to find out why this works and tell everyone I can how to do this for themselves.
Of course, what I researched before this tells a great deal about how the universe works beyond this - and the tools which help you earn income online are the same which help you improve your health, lose weight, enjoy your life every day, live with no cares and a calm, cheerful expectancy that everything you want to be and have is coming your way.
That's a bit thick, you might be saying.
And you're right. Let's just stick to book publishing.This new site I'm building is taking a bit of time. And while I have some other blog posts describing what I'm going through - this one is a filler for now just to keep you posted in general.
That's because the sawdust is still flying and you can still hear the distant noise of hammering and screwguns as all that construction happens.
We're standing over here to avoid all the trucks delivering material and the concrete being poured.
Go visit livesensical.com and you'll get a preview. No big deal. Your choice.
What I'm still going to give you - no strings attached.
Yes, we were right in the middle of a Case Study. And we'll get back to it - promise.That case study led us to the brick-wall-solid fact that an author or publisher of any type needs to build their audience from square one - even before they create their first book.
And that's why I had to stop everything and get my own membership built.
You can count on me to eat the dog food I make - just to ensure it tastes good enough for your pets.
I'm into Rainmaker as the platform of choice (and that link should wind you up with a free trial, if you want it.) What I'm finding is that this really does have all the tools you need for publishing and a lot more.
Most of these, we've already covered. One example is putting all your links inside the book into Bitly links so you can track them better. In Rainmaker, they have this built in so that you can track where people come from and go to. In Bitly, you can't have several links going back to the same spot - but if you have several book versions pointing to one page (like the PDF, the Kindle, and the epub version) you want to know which one is bringing you the most traffic. That way you can promote that version more.
Can't we just do this for free?
Sure. I'll always tell you how to do the same thing for nothing but sweat-equity. If you want to do a membership with on-page sales, use Gumroad on a Blogger blog. Lulu will still sell my hardcopy books and port my original works to all the main distributors. But I'll be selling books directly, where I can make 100% royalties.The point is that you need to get independent from having to depend on distributors. You need to sell directly to the audience you serve.
And while you can create bundles on Gumroad (and BitTorrent, plus Sellfy, Ganxy, and Distribly, among others) - you can also do this directly from Rainmaker.
One last pitch for Rainmaker - and you don't have to use all sorts of different sites and logins to do the same thing. (OK, there - I'm done.)
What the future holds...
We're going to spend a few podcasts describing how to start up a membership as a complete unknown. You could set this up under an existing domain you already have, but we also need to take the idea of where someone starts from scratch.At that point, I'll do a series on just how you start up from nothing - as these podcasts started in the middle of a project I was already on. So we'll just fill in the foundations as we go.
Meanwhile, I'll be busy in the background setting everything up on that beautiful new membership so you can find everything you need. (You're always moving furniture around in a new house as you unpack and put everything on shelves - and wondering how you ever collected so many knick-knacks...)
Once we restart that case study, then we'll open that up as a section of the membership all on it's own - and you'll be invited to try it out first and let me know what you think. Lots of wheels to kick and test rides to take.
That will pretty much wrap up that last book in this series about self-publishing. Of course, you'll be able to have access to the complete set, plus all my notes and everything.
Because you're worth it - aren't you?
After that, I'll test out that plan on a new book series and podcast that as I go. But don't be concerned. That next series has everything to do with how you promote your books and yourself and your business.
I can't see how I'll run out of stuff to share with you, as I'll be re-marketing all my books, series by series - and there is something to learn with each one. Things also change all the time - like right now, it's easier to have Lulu create your ebook than do it yourself. That throws out quite a few other datum's, and puts wrenches into some other works.
All you need to know is to sit back and enjoy the ride. I'll be doing the hard work of testing everything and you get to try out the streamlined, polished version for yourself - and let me know how it worked for you.
Which brings up - Let me know what you need.
The question is: What is the biggest problem facing you?Just answer that for me, and I'll see what I can do to help you with it. I'm sitting on a half-century of research and I probably have something around here somewhere that gives a clue on how someone else made it through that particular problem already.
Very little of what we are doing currently is really new. Most of humankind hasn't changed in 10,000 years - so the answer to any particular problem was probably known in ancient Greek times, as well as in Victorian England, or maybe the Roaring 20's.
If it's something to do with publishing books, I'll probably have covered it somewhere.
Oh - and that brings up: Look for some Q-and-A podcasts coming up. They might be longish, like webinars, but I'd like to cover what people have as questions in this area.
Of course, you don't have to wait, you can just go ahead and email them to me (of course, you're subscribed - aren't you?)
When I get a big enough stack to make it interesting, then I'll throw one of those into the mix.
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Hope that brings you up to date. And that you're life is half as interesting as what is going on around here.
See you next time.
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Make sure you're signed up for updates through your email - so you don't miss an issue!
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