Write with a passion to communicate, not for money

Today is Sunday. After what was a warm and beautiful day yesterday, the weather has turned cold and grey. It seems that winter is not yet ready to let go of her grip on this part of Eastern Europe. How I long for the warmth and color of spring’s awakening. I guess I will have to wait a little longer for winter to be banished to the season to which she belongs.

Although there is much to appreciate about winter, I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed being forced back into the house with this sudden and unexpected cold snap. However, not all has been lost as I was able to catch up on a documentary about horse whisperer Gary Prince.

I checked out Gary on the Internet, but there was only a limited amount of information about him and his work. Nonetheless, what Gary had to say about horses and his connection with them got me thinking about my writing.

I’ve always loved animals, especially horses. As sophisticated as our society has become, there is still much that we can learn from the animal kingdom, not least how to connect with each other in a positive and meaningful way. And this was the point that Gary was trying to make during the documentary.

Gary’s unique connection with horses was born out of passion, a desire to connect with an animal of beauty and grace. Encouraged by his father, Gary learned how to ride at the age of three. Eventually, Gary’s natural riding ability took him into the competitive arena of horse dressage. It was here that he began to truly understand his gift of being able to communicate with horses. It came from within, a burning desire to be at one with a creature he had grown to love from a very early age. And herein is a lesson for all of us who are moved to become writers.

Passion, desire, connecting and understanding are words that all newbie writers should learn and comprehend before they set out on their writing career. All too often I come across newbie writers who enter the profession on the assumption that writing is a path to making money. It is not. Few, if any of us, ever reach the privileged position of earning a living from the articles or books we publish. At best, most of us can only hope to generate a little pocket change from the things we write about. So why do we write?

The reason why many of us write is that we have a passion and desire to connect with others. Just in the same way that Gary has a passion for connecting with horses, successful writers have a love for connecting with their audience.

If you are writing only to make money, then your audience will recognize that you are not in love with your chosen profession. They will quickly abandon you once they discover your writing lacks passion, much in the same way as a horse will throw its rider if the rider kicked it too hard with a set of sharp spurs!

Your success as a writer can never be measured in dollars or cents. It can only be measured by the number of people who actually read your material. It doesn’t matter whether you sell or you give away what you have written, the most essential part of writing must be your desire to connect with your readership.

Something magical occurs when you connect with others through your writing. That magic comes in the shape of an invisible bridge to your audience, a bridge that transcends space, time and place.

Ask yourself this question: Who are my favorite authors? The chances are that at least one of your favorite authors has long since passed on, leaving only their indelible thoughts to trickle down the passage way of time and into your hands. As a consequence, your favorite dead author’s success can never be measured by the sound of a cash register. They are simply no longer around to collect royalties or payment from their work.

The only way to measure a dead author’s success is by counting the number of people that their work has influenced since their demise. Many of the classic writers of the past knew this. However, their passion to communicate with others kept them at their desk long after their contemporaries had abandoned the writing profession from want of success through monetary gain. George Orwell’s ‘1984’ is a case in point.

When George Orwell wrote ‘1984’ he was dying, and he knew it. His motive for writing ‘1984’ had nothing to do with monetary gain but everything to do with communicating a message, a warning to audiences of the future about the perils of a totalitarian government . It is a message that continues to resonate with all freedom loving audiences of today. George Orwell was a writer with a passion to connect with others – a whisperer from the past still communicating with audiences long after his passing. Now that is what I call success!

Facebook and Your E-book

With a market reach of over 500 million users, it is not difficult to understand why many e-book authors look upon Facebook as an opportunity to market their e-book products. However, marketing your e-book on Facebook is not as easy as it looks.

Unlike other forms of advertising, social media marketing is built around the concept of social interaction, a two way dialogue where information is shared between individuals or peer groups. The thing to remember about social networks like Facebook is that they empower users to question, challenge and offer opinions on a diverse range of topics, including your e-book.

While Facebook may offer e-book authors the opportunity to promote their e-book to a wider audience, the issue of how to manage social discourse should never be far away from the author’s mind. If managed badly, authors could quickly find their e-book generating negative press which could adversely affect sales. And herein lays the conundrum for authors looking to market their material on social networking sites.

The key to successful social media marketing is to think ‘relationship’ rather than ‘promotion’. When it comes to planning your e-book’s SMM strategy, try to establish a set of goals that take into consideration the following:

· Know your audience – where do they hang out and why? Get to know them

· Connect – how do you plan to connect with your audience? What channels and tools will you use and why?

· Opportunities – what opportunities can you create for dialogue? What topics, other than your e-book, are likely to engage your audience?

· Position – how do you plan on finding common ground with your audience? Don’t burden them with the ‘I’ syndrome. The constant use of ‘I’ will simply drive your audience away. Empathy is the secret to finding common ground with your audience.

· Time – How do you plan to manage the social interaction balance?

Once you’ve established your SMM goals, try to be an ‘ambassador’ in your market niche. Respond to criticism positively and not defensively. Remember, your audience will have an opinion on what you have to offer, good or bad. Whatever their opinion, take the opportunity to thank your audience for their input. This will create a positive twist on any negative criticism you may receive by turning it into an open appreciation of your audience’s time and energy in reading your material.

Social networking sites are about interaction, not promotion. So interact in a way that builds your credibility as an e-book author who listens rather than promotes. Sales will come after you’ve built up enough credibility with your audience.

Seeing is believing: the importance of referencing photos in your e-book

We’ve all heard or used the cliché ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’. This is because of all the five senses we use, sight plays the biggest role in how we make sense of the world around us. What we see, we tend to believe.

The interesting point about sight is the fact that no two people see and read a given image in the same way. For example, two people might see a red London bus but each of the individuals concerned will describe it differently. The reason for this apparent anomaly has a lot to do with the way our cognitive abilities have been shaped by our immediate environment and the surroundings in which we were brought up in.

If I saw a red London bus, I would quickly recognize it as an iconic symbol of the city in which I’ve lived and worked. I would therefore describe the image of a red London bus in those terms. However, if a native of Papua New Guinea saw the same image, they might describe it in quite a different way. They might describe what they saw as: ‘a noisy beast that carries people inside its belly’. This is because their description is dictated by the language of the forest and not by that of an urban setting.

So what does all this have to do with the power of imagery and your e-book? Well, a lot when it comes to using photos and images as part of your e-book’s content.

Imagine for a moment, if you will, you are browsing an e-book about the City of London. The author of the e-book has used un-referenced photos and images taken from the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew in Wakehurst to highlight the parks and walk ways of London city centre. But, because there is no reference the Royal Botanical Gardens, you, as the browser of the e-book, might be forgiven for thinking that the City of London is a tropical paradise, especially if you had never been there.

Though the above example is a slight exaggeration, the point I’m trying to make here is this: Using un-referenced photos or images in your e-book can leave your readers with the wrong impression. You need to give your readers some direction when it comes to photos and images so that they can interpret them in a way that aligns with how they perceive the world. Don’t assume that all your readers will follow the same cognitive process when it comes to understanding what they see and read, because they won’t.

Any images you use in your e-book must be clearly referenced and underpinned by text so that your readers do not misinterpret what you are trying to tell them.

Remember, although a picture may convey a thousand words, those words still need to make sense in order to have any value.

Forums and Your E-book

When it comes to promoting your e-book on forums you should be mindful not to push the hard sell. Pushing the hard sell on Internet forums will not attract more readers for your e-book. In fact, pushing the hard sell will actually drive readers away.

Forums are places for topical debate, not for selling items. With this in mind you should develop a low key strategy that does not involve promoting your e-book directly to forum members. Instead, go with a strategy that will build your credibility as an authority in your chosen niche.

One way to do this is to engage in a topic of debate that is closely related to the content of your e-book. Thereafter, your participation in the forum should focus on demonstrating your expertise on the topic of your choice. The key here is to engage those participating in the discussion process with your knowledge rather than with the idea of selling them something.

At the end of every post you can leave a signature file directing readers to your e-book’s landing page. But make this as subtle as possible.

Although controversial posts can make for an interesting and lively debate, you should try to avoid posting opinions that will alienate others. Remember, the idea is to engage potential customers with knowledgeable and informed discussion, not make enemies.

The great thing about participating in forums is the fact that they invariably save all the information posted to them, effectively acting as a repository for your opinions on a given topic. Posting to forums will not only help build your credibility as an expert, it will also help you to create and maintain a relationship with potential customers. Done correctly, posting to forums can increase the flow of quality traffic to your e-book’s landing page.

Social Bookmarking and Your E-book

Although social bookmarking sites have been around for awhile, it is only just recently that webmasters have begun to see the real value of using them to promote their websites.

Social bookmarking is a system for organizing and managing your favorite online resources. You simply save the links of websites that you might want to visit at a later date, adding a descriptive tag to reference them. Social bookmarking sites encourage you to share your bookmarks with other users.

The interesting thing about social bookmarking sites is that they enable users to rank the popularity of bookmarks so that other users can ascertain the value of a website without having to delve through reams of information. Moreover, social bookmarking sites use web feeders to keep their subscribers informed about the latest saved bookmarks. Herein rests the real value of registering your website or e-book’s URL on a social bookmarking site.

If subscribers to a bookmarking site enjoy reading your e-book’s landing page, to the point they download a copy of what you have on offer, then the chances are they will rank your URL’s popularity accordingly.

Because social bookmarking web feeders disseminate information about their subscribers saved bookmarks, your e-book’s URL is effectively being promoted for you, free gratis. This in turn will drive quality traffic towards your landing page, and we all know what that means in terms of search engine rankings. In short, registering with a social bookmarking site will increase the visibility of your e-book’s landing page.

So if you haven’t thought about subscribing to a social bookmarking site, you might want to think about it. You have nothing lose and a lot of good quality traffic to gain.

Quality over Quantity: The secret to a good article marketing campaign

Article Marketing is one of the most cost effective ways of launching your e-book promotion. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about an article marketing campaign.

Before you launch your article marketing campaign you will need to plan what you are going to write about and decide upon which directories will host your material.

When it comes to writing articles you need to think about content, style and the word length of your piece.

Article length should be no more than 500 words long, as online users tend to have a short attention span. Your article should be descriptive, almost journalistic in style. Moreover, your article should impart useful and actionable information, pointing to your expertise on the subject you are writing about.

Write a series of articles rather than just one off pieces. This will help to build your authority as a steady source of quality information on a particular topic.

Once you’ve written your articles, you will need to think about how you are going to distribute them.

Writers new to article marketing tend to submit the same article to a multitude of article directories. This is a mistake, as search engines use filters to prevent duplicate content from showing up during searches. Posting the same article to different directories is just a waste of time.

Each article you submit to a directory must be unique. By submitting unique articles to individual directories you’ll reduce the chances of your material being filtered out by search engines.

Submitting articles to too many directories is another common mistake made by newbie article writers. While quantity may seem appealing, it will not help your cause or lift your status as a renowned writer.

Instead of using a scatter gun approach to distributing your material, you should select four or five top directories as your main distribution channels. The emphasis is on quality rather than quantity. (Here’s a list of the top 50 article directories from which you can choose your distribution channels: http://www.vretoolbar.com/articles/directories.php)

After you've posted your articles you should monitor their progress. This will give you a picture of how many people are reading your material, of what works and what doesn’t work. You can then use this feedback to develop new ideas for any future articles you intend to write.

Although article marketing can be time consuming, it can also help you to build a loyal following for your written material, effectively making it easier to promote your next e-book.

Stop the planet! I want to get off!

Well, that’s how I feel every time I listen to the news or read some Internet article about the problems facing people today.

Only this week, while researching material for a new e-book, I came across 137,000,000 publications or articles related to problems facing humanity. These problems ranged from economic crisis to the implosion of the universe.

No matter where I turned, according to the overwhelming torrent of negativity pouring out of each and every one of these articles or publications, I was screwed.

Accordingly, given the overwhelming data pointing to my imminent destruction, is it small wonder that I was ready to give up the ghost? I know I certainly felt like that when I started to read some of the 137,000,000 web pages heralding the arrival of Armageddon.

After reading about thirty of these doom and gloom web pages, I couldn’t read any more for fear of swinging from the rafters, I began to notice a common thread that ran through each of the narratives on my impending demise. The thread goes something like this:

This is your problem, and this is the solution to fix it. Now buy the solution, and with it, your problems will evaporate. Oh! And the solution comes with a money back guarantee.

Basically, I was being sold a bill of goods by these harbingers of doom. The authors of the articles and publications that I read weren’t addressing my problem. They were trying to sell me their product. This got me thinking about how I write my articles and e-books.

While it true that most e-books follow the pattern of identifying a problem then offering a solution, not all authors seek to magnify the problem his or her e-book is trying to address.

The key to becoming a successful e-book author is not to dwell on the problems facing your readers. People don’t need to have their problems reinforced. There are enough doom peddlers around to do that for them. What your readers need is a compassionate ear and voice that understands the complexities of their issues. A sympathetic ear and soft voice is one that empowers people to overcome their problems, not push them further into despair.

So next time you come to write an article or e-book about a specific issue, try to write to empowering your reader, not from the standpoint of selling them a bill of sale.