Small Press Blog

Book Review: ePublish by Steve Weber

ePublish: Self-Publish fast and profitably for Kindle, CreateSpace, iPhone and Print on Demand is the latest book by Steve Weber. While I don't do full-blown books reviews anymore, I should tell you that this is the one book to buy if you are at all interested in learning how to publish your books digitally and/or as print-on-demand.

Why? Because it it provides all the information that you need in order to be successful, but the author didn't feel the need to drag on for 200 pages to tell you how to accomplish that feat. At only 110 pages, it tells you exactly what you need to know.

As it happens, after reading it, I have a couple of ideas for how I am going to implement what Weber proposes. Always the mark of a good book.

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss discuss Publishing

Ramit Sethi and Tim Ferriss discuss the benefits/drawbacks of publishers and self-publishing.It is an interesting discussion of the pros and the cons.

New Degree Press Website

And, of course, as soon as I told folks that I wouldn't be posting here very much, I need to post here. I have just created a new website for Degree Press. Folks who know such things will realize that it is a Wordpress blog.

Why use that format? Simple. It's easy to use and, in my case, it's free because I have an account that offers unlimited blogs. It's functional and that is enough. The goal in my case is not to spend money unnecessarily. That seems to be a winning proposition in this (or any) economy.

The Future of Small Press Blog

It has become clear to me that the more time and success I have in other areas, the less time that I have for here. While the Small Press Blog will continue to exist, it is clear that I will not be able to provide much original content. I will, however, continue to mention books that I like, showcase the work of others, and provide links to the best information on the topic.

Perhaps I will get back to the point where I can post more regularly. I would like to do so, but time is the enemy.

Why do you need to respect your customers?

United Airlines broke the guitar of this musician and then would not pay for the destruction. Here's a clue, United: Musicians write songs. This particular musician wrote a song about his poor treatment by United and the ensuing video has now been viewed by 2.5 million people.

Book Launch 2.0

Increasing sales by driving traffic

This summer I am working on a second edition of my Complete Guide to Online High Schools. I hope to be finished by the middle of August, but it will have about twice as many schools, so this is a much bigger project than the first time around. The hope with this book has always been that I publish a new edition no further apart than two years. And, yes, that means I need to publish it this year!

In anticipation of that publishing, I have begun to ponder how to have greater sales with the second edition than I did with the first.

One of the things that I have learned about book sales, at least my book sales, is that I need to drive traffic toward the book. In this case, I have a website that is the largest website in its niche. I sell many books using that website. Truth be told, near as I can tell, it is my top "store."

While being the largest in that niche, I readily admit that this week it is not a large niche (although it is growing by leaps and bounds). I decided this week that others will soon decide to stake out part of my niche, so I need to pursue a preemptive strike. I purchased nine domain names that I will be populating with WordPress blog software. Why WordPress? Because I thought it was something that I was capable of learning in a reasonable enough fashion not to embarrass myself and my book.

You can see the first two here:

California Online High Schools

Wisconsin Online High Schools

Not great and I will be adding more as I go, but I put up both those sites today. You will note that there are three ways that I can earn money from the site now. They are:

• Google Adsense. I will adjust the ads somewhat, but there are some up now.
• Amazon ad for my book.
• Many links to Best Online High Schools website that also has Google Adsense and my book.

As I have said time and again, small publishers are successful who have multiple revenue streams (and, yes, that could be multiple books). One book does not get you there.