Wednesday, 28 May 2014

The Parrots Secrets Way to Make Money Online

image courtesy of stuart miles FreeDigitalPhotos.net
There's a website online that has made millions of dollars in the last few years.

It's a website about parrots (can you believe what a simple subject that is?)

The owner is a young guy who lives in India (although he pretends he is called Nathalie and he's from the US) and his website is bringing in over $400 thousand a year.

It's not even an incredibly well designed website. It's just lots of pages of information about parrots.

So how is the owner making so much money?

Tuesday, 27 May 2014

50+ Sites Where You Can Promote Your Ebook For Free

One of the "must do" things about publishing ebooks is that you must promote them.

It's no good writing books if no one knows they are there.

You need to get the word out in as many places as possible that you have a new book to offer to the world.

But who has the time for all that research?

Well you don't have to because not only is there a website where that lists over 50 different sites where you can promote all your books, for a small fee they'll also do it for you.

The website is called Ebook Booster.
http://www.ebookbooster.com

On their website they have a list of over 50 websites where they will, for a small fee ($40 at time of writing) submit your ebook.  You can also include your free KDP Select free promotional dates too.

Or if you want, you can use the list to do it yourself, but it will take time.

And if  you have an ebook selling for 99 cents, they'll promote it to 25 sites for $25 (at time of writing) to sites that accept promotions of 99 cent bargain ebook.

Either way, it's a good website to use for your ebooks promotions.

Monday, 26 May 2014

Perpetual Writing Student

image courtesy of quotesnsmiles.com
I’ve been a writer now for almost 20 years (boy that makes me feel old) and a lot has changed in that time.

I used to make money from my writing by typing articles and short stories (on a typewriter) and mailing them to magazines.

If I needed to do research I had to go to the library and write my notes by hand. Sometimes, if I needed a few pages of info, I’d pay to photocopy it and take it home.

Now I email most of my work, write and publish my own books online and Google nearly all my research.

And to keep up with it all I’ve had to be a perpetual student of writing.

Thursday, 22 May 2014

Writing Thousands of Words a Day

This week has been a bit slow for me as far as writing goes because I've had so many other things to do as well.

I have been determined to get more writing done every week from now on, but it's amazing how many things creep in to try and stop me (or so it seems).

But my mind has been made up and I am going to write for at least a couple of hours every day. And by that I mean sit down and do nothing but write, no matter what distractions raise their ugly head. AND I want to write at least 1,500 words an hour.

So how have I been doing?

Not so great but pretty good too.

I say that because although I set my sights at a minimum of 2 hours straight writing every day, I was hoping to exceed it.

Yesterday was a good example of an interrupted day.

I had a lot of electrical work done at my house. Most of it was downstairs (the house is built on stilts so downstairs is open) and some upstairs.

The electricians turned up just after 7am and didn't leave till nearly 3pm.

So I was interrupted a lot with questions of exactly where did I want sockets, what sort of fitting did I prefer, where is the dust pan and brush, etc.

For the most part I was left alone but some questions had to be answered. Also just having people in the house going through different rooms, drilling, hammering and calling to each other as they passed cables through walls was distracting.

Despite that, I soldiered on and still managed to get over 4 hours of writing done. I had to plan a day off the internet because the electrics had to be turned off from time to time. Thankfully my Mac Book Pro has a 7 hour battery so I could keep working.

Anyway, I'm not sure how many words I wrote but it was quite a few thousand. I was working on some articles and also my new ebook for writers which has a working title of Become a Freelance Writing Success, Barringham Style. I may change that in the end, but for now that's what I'm calling it.

Although when I shorten the title to a file name on my computer, I've called it success-BS which is giving me a nagging problem, as you can imagine. :)

Nevertheless, I'm carrying on and will be working on the ebook today as well. It was originally going to be a much shorter ebook, but as I keep writing and taking notes, it's growing into a huge ebook. But that's no a bad things because it means it will be better value for money when it's finished.

My goal is to write an ebook a month. Not all of them will be in the writing niche, but many will. In the not-too-distant-future I also plan to bring my books out in print as well.

I've been using all the information in 1,500 Words an Hour. This is a very inspirational book and the suggestions about how to write faster and better is invaluable to me. I'm also enjoying reading Dean Wesley Smith's amazing ebook, Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing which is a real eye-opener.

So I've been applying a lot of bum to chair (and I mean a lot of time, not a large bum) and making great progress in my writing.

And today is a bit of a drizzly, rainy day with a bit of low cloud cover here on the mountain so it's a good day to bring in more firewood, light the fire and sit and write all day.

So I think I'll make myself a pot of coffee and do just that. And at 3pm I'll stop work for the day and have my usual half hour fix of Judge Judy.

I'll keep you posted on  my writing progress.

One Whole Year of Writing. 
The 12 Month Writing Challenge. 
Are you serious enough about your writing to try it?