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Are you an author who has been bullied? Write to me in confidence about your experience, via email at peggy@wizardofebooks.com.

I was thrilled when I recently found out that a friend’s daughter had found time to write a long trilogy of fantasy novels. In between raising her four young children, she has written a beautiful series, with all the high drama and symbolism that I think will make her work stand the test of time.

But only yesterday, I received a request from my friend, the author’s mom, to please go like her Facebook page “to make her feel better”. Apparently, she had recently encountered some people who were giving her a really hard time about a variety of things related to her book: her choice to self-publish, criticizing the covers (for which she hired a professional book cover designer), and various other aspects of the book business she has decided to start. We’re not talking about critique of her writing, the sort of constructive help that authors need to improve, but just hard-core bashing.

“Why are you wasting time on this?” *

“Nobody is ever going to buy it.” *

“You’re so full of yourself.” *

It took me many years to distinguish between proper criticism, which builds an author’s skills and confidence, and just plain bullying, which does nothing but tear down the fragile hope of any small business owner. Constructive criticism should leave the artist with a feeling of direction: they now know what to do to make it better. Bullying is just the opposite. You’ll know it by its familiar feeling: the childish playground jabs that come from a place of fear and lack of personal confidence on the part of the deliverer. It turns out that all the grownups that tell you to just ignore that were right – but because that’s almost impossible to do, we all let it get to us on some level or another.

Several times, I’ve witnessed author bullying take place in person, for example, at a recent coffee shop meeting with a client. Our server came by our table to ask if we needed anything else. When we responded with a “No, thank you.” He could be heard sniping to the other server at the counter, “Oh god – another fake author.”

Incidents on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are more common, possibly because the sniper is somewhat  distanced from the artist. Some recent tweets I found included language like this “… more stinking advice from a self-publishing expert…”, “The proliferation of self-publishing has meant a bumper crop of terrible book covers…”, “… yet another writer who couldn’t get an agent and decides to make a bad book at home.”

The worst one I witnessed myself was at a dinner a year or so ago, where the guest speaker was a self-published author of several mystery novels. He had been making the tour of the country for months, promoting the books by doing talks at writer’s groups and libraries, forming relationships with small bookstores across the country, and selling his way through the trip of a lifetime. The talk that night was widely advertised as “mystery author” etc. etc., and even though I knew he was self-pubbed, he was not mentioning that in the marketing. I quickly found out why. After his lovely talk, and the gift of three books for those who could answer his trivia questions, he offered to take questions from the audience. One woman stood up and asked him, “Is it true that you self-published these books yourself, including the cover artwork?” “Why yes, it is!” he proudly answered. The woman stood up, grabbed her sweater off the chair, and as she left the room, could be heard to be grouching, “I came here tonight to hear from a REAL author, not some guy making books in his basement.”

Wow. I looked at her as she passed me on the way to the door, and I lightly asked her, “Where’s YOUR book?” To which some of those around me chuckled. She gave me a nasty look and bolted for the parking lot, without paying for her drinks – at least, as far as I could tell.

I think many authors hear this sort of story regularly, but don’t talk about it, perhaps to avoid giving it any more energy than they have to. However, I believe that bullies need to be confronted with their actions to stop. They need to be told that just like kicking kids on the playground isn’t tolerated, this type of behavior is unprofessional and will not be tolerated in the literary community. You will be branded.

Local Author Joan Burge, (of OfficeDynamics.com) who has self-published over a dozen books, recommends surrounding yourself only with positive people who will help you achieve your goals – not lose faith in them.

She suggests…

“Involve Others. Get others involved in your goal. Share your dream with a friend, family member, peer, or professional associate. Caution: if they are not supportive but instead share their fears and doubts, then limit your conversations with them regarding your goals.

Seek Guidance. Ask others who know about your plan to recommend resources or people contacts. Solicit feedback about your ideas and plans.

Use Mentors. Find people who have done what you want to do, or have what you want to have. Tell them you admire their accomplishments and ask for ideas. Ask them how they overcame barriers. Mentors can help you think out solutions to problems.”

Are you an author who has been bullied? Write to me in confidence about your experience, via email at peggy@wizardofebooks.com.

* These are direct quotes told to me by authors who have personally experienced author bashing.

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Is this what you hear yourself saying when you tell people about your eBook?

“I know this stuff inside and out, and it’s really important that others know this, too!”

“I learned this the hard way, and nobody else should have to work as hard as I did – I’m saving my readers plenty of struggle.”

“I have been so moved and changed by this amazing experience, and I want to share it with others.”

I hate to tell you this, but all of those statements are wrong reasons to write an eBook. Are they giving and selfless? Certainly. Are they full of empathy for your reader? Absolutely. But none of those sentences demonstrate that you’ve performed any hard-core market research. Those great books, written with heart and soul, may not sell.

eBook writers often have amazing things to share: personal spiritual revelations, amazing new technologies, and so much more. However, if you’re writing without a soundly-researched and proven need in the market, no matter how great the message is, it might be bound to fail.

“I’ve written this incredible eBook, but it’s just not selling. I’m doing everything they told me to do, but nobody seems to want to read it.”

Have you heard the marketing expression, “What’s the pain?” While all of the statements at the top of this post reveal true care for your reader, they are all “I” statements. None of them is phrased like a question, to ask the reader what they might need to solve. Asking these questions is a great way to start your market research, yet still preserves the purity of your message and a true desire to help people.

“Are you sick of trying to get your kids to eat their vegetables? Find out how I learned to solve this problem, once and for all!”

“Are you exhausted trying to figure out how to profit from real-estate in this market? Let me save you the struggle!”

“Are you struggling to find your heart’s true purpose? Learn my 6-part method for discovering yours.”

NOW, you’re empathizing with your readers! You’ve also got an excellent starting point for some keyword research. Each of these clear verticals has it’s own set of numbers: who’s buying, how often they’re buying, and where they’re buying. THAT is the eBook you need to write - the one they already want to buy.

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I’ve read a number of articles lately about how eBooks are “still a bunch of hype”. Seriously? What year is this?

I work with both eBooks and print books every day, typesetting print books and doing layout for eBooks (mostly Kindle), and designing covers for both. I know this is going to get me some virtual kicks for saying this, but I have to say, these articles read like they were written by someone who doesn’t really understand digital book platforms. Of course eBooks are not going to be just like paper books. They can’t, because they serve different markets. It’s like comparing Texas BBQ to foie gras. Both are delicious. But they come from opposite sides of the world. Neither is perfect. We consume them for totally different reasons.

Libraries have issues, definitely, due to the immaturity and polarity of the eBook industry. We’re not yet good at making it easy for eBooks to support public and open-source community. Do people read differently on paper than they do on a device? Of course – I do, too. But is the eBook killing paper books? Hurting Authors and readers? Absolutely not. That’s a rather fearful and immature thing to think. (Yeah, another kick.) Many might argue that the reason eBooks are becoming such a hot debate is because it’s one of the relatively few intimate ways that technology touches more people than ever before. Banking electronically is a huge part of our lives, but it’s not emotionally-based, ie, intimate, like our reading choices.

The other main thing that these commenters seem to have forgotten is that eBooks really are still in their infancy. Think about it this way: we have multiple influencers, all with their competing idea of what might be the perfect format and platform. Nobody can agree on anything, even the uber-simple stuff like how to align text or handle fonts. The devices are still, for the most part, single-purpose, which has no place in our future. We will look back years from now and realize how ridiculous this argument is.

I must say this, no matter how cruel it sounds: to debate the whether-or-not of eBooks as having a place in our reading world is very behind the times. I mean, of course we’re going to continue to distribute and archive content digitally. (Duh.) Whether or not is the question – it never was. What is worth debating is the how. We’re in the toughest phase of any new industry, which is deciding on standards. In all likelihood, nobody will be happy for a while, because we’re still not working together for common platforms, and all of us still (wrongly) think we’re in competition with each other. It’s silly.

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All the smart self-publishers these days are using techniques like speed-implemented print on demand, which is low-risk and high-yield. However, be sure you’re still thinking like a big-business publisher and using some classic business-building techniques.

I totally advocate the use of Print-On-Demand (POD) services like Lulu.com. The low-risk approach, the profit comparisons to major publishers, and the speed-implementation mindset are all things I really admire. However, be sure you’re not missing something that I make sure all of my clients are aware of from the get-go: publishing is a go-big or go-home business. I’m not saying increase your risk, but there are a number of small things that will make a big-thinking approach pay off. You can be all-in emotionally, without losing your wallet.

Let’s assume you’re a great writer. Your topic is timely, you’re credible, you know who your customers are, and you are very logical in your overall strategic business approach. Many authors do this, sell a fair amount of books, and have every right to be proud of themselves, especially if they sell the equivalent amount that a publisher asked them to commit to for the book project – a major accomplishment, to be sure.

But, what I don’t see many doing is hitting the pavement to simultaneously push your book through multiple outlets, including an affiliate marketing program, small retail outlets, and a wider non-business (or parallel-niche) audience. I would love to see more indie authors practicing good online marketing activities, like building a list of interested customers. You don’t have to sign up for anything to get many author’s free stuff, which is nice for us, but very bad for the author’s business. I would also like to see more authors move their RSS feed signup (the way people get the blog posts delivered to them in their inbox) to someplace more visible on your site. I want more podcasts. I want online training. And I want more interactivity.

Many author’s blogs get buried within their current site, meaning you have to click around the find the blog, which could be their biggest mistake. Make it the first page! The first thing people see! Even if you’re freelancing other writing, and selling a decent number of books anyway, think bigger! You could be building a wider following, and enhancing your personal profile, in minutes a day by making the blog the forefront of your website. If your existing website is a little flat, pump it up, and correct any lingering usability issues like buttons that don’t quite work the way you want, etc. Polish it up to a nice shine.

Why don’t all writers set their sights higher? A good book is hard to come by, and I know many writers that have several, each worth bragging about – yet they don’t. When one book is not wonderfully profitable, the next one is harder to write. Even if your self-publishing business doesn’t seem to be suffering, waiting until that is happening is the wrong time to start additional marketing activities.

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Think about it: how do we get into trouble every year? We over-commit: 1000 Words a day for every day of the year! 6 new books! 16 blog posts each month! And it’s all supposed to be brilliant.

NOT.

Writing less means that each time you sit down to write, you’re not doing it because you’re compelled to do so. You write when you’re inspired, and only then. And, if you stop before you have exhausted yourself, there’s something left for next time. There’s still water in the well.

I don’t know about you, but I’d guess that 90% of what I write is crap. This year, I’m trying to leave more of that in my head, and just get the 10% out that actually matters.

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Whether you’re creating your own eBook cover, or hiring someone else to design it for you, that’s a great time to create additional graphics that will help build your eBook business.

It’s often cheaper to order these items at the same time as your cover design, and easier if you are designing it yourself, because all the source materials are already at hand. Graphic unity is very important in a virtual business, to build credibility and trust, and increase discoverability of your product.

Below are four key areas that you should get done ASAP.

1) Social media icons and headers.

Recently, iTunes changed their image requirements for things like podcasting and personal icons. You know, that square icon that identifies Atlanta Rhythm Section from Peter Frampton? (I’m old. Get over it.) Your image that fits that space can also be used on things like Skype, Twitter, and many, many others. One graphic of 1400×1400, in .jpg format, is all you need across all those platforms, and it should include a professional headshot of yourself. Check out mine here.

2) Banners for affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing should be a core part of your long-term marketing plan for your eBook. Even if that only means inviting others to use Amazon Associates links back to your eBook on Kindle. If you plan to use your own in-house affiliate program, so much the better. Having graphical ads that hilight the use of your key graphic elements should be an essential part of that. Here’s your chance to use your book cover design and really put it all out there. Here are some recommended sizes for those banners, below. (Click the image to open it at actual size, so you can see how big the banners will actually be.)

3) WordPress header or banner for your landing page.

It’s important to have a clear image at the top of any web (WordPress-based) pages that you plan to use for your book’s blog or sales page. In WordPress, the standard 2011 theme uses an image of 1000 x 288 pixels. This should ideally include an image of you, and your eBook. The clearer the better.

4) Images for use on social media, especially Pinterest.

This is different from ad banners – you’ll want some other fun and playful images to use as you promote the eBook, such as a 3-D cover, samples of the cover in several small sizes to avoid pixelation on the web, etc. Pinterest, the photo sharing site, has changed this to be an entirely new ballgame. Here’s a great place to share fun and unusual iamges that others will feel compelled to share in return – with a trail of breadcrumbs that lead back to you. For example, do you have a series of great headshots that were not all used in the eBook or on the cover? Here’s the place to use them. Is yours a cookbook? Be sure to get some images of you interacting with food, or shots of the recipes themselves. What about action shots? You, out and about in the community? Near landmarks? Even better, what about video? At the very least, be sure to have a library of images that you build on an ongoing basis. Your designer can help you crop and modify them for use almost anywhere, including your Facebook page or Twitter, but especially Pinterest.

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As a followup to my blog post for VivMag.com, about why women over 30 write better eBooks, here’s a list of the top female indie Authors worth following on Twitter, and definitely worth reading.

I was fascinated with how each of these women market themselves. Some have many books, others have very few. Some are wild about Twitter, and some are not. They use tools like video and podcasting to help get their eBooks out there. Their pricing is all over the map. And if you follow each of them carefully, you’ll learn more about their writing style, their attitudes about their business, and how that plays into their success.

In no particular order…

EL James

( https://twitter.com/E_L_James/)

- Fifty Shades of Grey

- Fifty Shades Darker

- Fifty Shades Freed

Karen McQuestion

(https://twitter.com/KarenMcQuestion)

- The Long Way Home

- A Scattered Life

- Easily Amused

Click here to see all of Karen McQuestion’s Kindle eBooks

Ruth Cardello

 (https://twitter.com/ruthiecardello)

- Maid for the Billionaire

- For Love or Legacy

- Bedding the Billionaire

Jamie McGuire

(https://twitter.com/jamiemcguire_)

- Beautiful Disaster

- Providence

- Requiem

Click here to see all of Jamie McGuire’s Kindle eBooks.

Tammara Webber

(https://twitter.com/TammaraWebber)

- Easy

- Where You Are

- Good For You

Colleen Hoover

 (https://twitter.com/colleenhoover)

- Slammed

- Point of Retreat

Zoe Winters

 (https://twitter.com/zoewinters)

- Blood Lust

- Save My Soul

- The Catalyst

Erin Kern

 (https://twitter.com/erinkern04)

- Here Comes Trouble

- Looking For Trouble

CJ Lyons

 (https://twitter.com/cjlyonswriter)

- Nerves of Steel

- Sleight of Hand

- Face to Face

Click here to see all of CJ Lyons’ Kindle eBooks.

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My number one question of all time is, “How do I start writing an eBook?” Here are my top 10 recommendations.

1. Don’t buy any software or services.

Part of the reason I do what I do is to demonstrate to Authors that they really, really can do this all by themselves. As you’ll see as you get to know me, the approach I recommend is actually very simple. Besides, one of the biggest concerns you should have as you build your eBook business is to avoid creating dependencies. In the eBook business, those who build on a foundation of frugality are the ones that win in the long run. The only exceptions are an editor (non-negotiable, in my view), possibly a tech like me, and possibly a graphic designer for your cover. Otherwise, any halfway tech-savvy marketer really can do this from their kitchen table.

2. Start writing in a basic word-processor.

This is not the time to try to learn anything new. Your focus needs to be creating spectacular content. Avoid the distraction of fancy software by using something with which you’re already familiar. For most writers, that’s still MS Word. My fave happens to be OpenOffice, which is – you guessed it – FREE. It looks a lot like MS Word, and in fact, can open, edit, and save files right back to the MS Word .doc format. Just don’t go out and buy a new computer or think that you need to upgrade. Ironically, I actually spend more time for my eBook clients stripping out the hidden codes and back-end gunk from fancy software, than designing the actual eBook itself. I really do. And it’s a pain. Use what you already have and things will turn out much better in the end.

3. Don’t forget to do your research.

Before you move much farther past the beginning of your outline, be sure that you do some basic keyword research. This is how you find out if the book is even worth writing, because if there isn’t a market for it, why write it? Or, can it be tweaked into something that is marketable? Can you discover an opportunity that you didn’t know existed? Is the idea ahead of it’s time? Behind the times? Right at exactly the right time? I find that in about two hours of some basic – and fun – research, I can learn more than I could ten years ago in 6 weeks of work.

4. Don’t lose momentum.

When that muse appears, RIDE HER, ride her HARD, into the sunset. Your family’s opinion of your late-night writing sessions shouldn’t be allowed to phase you. So what if you drink a little more coffee or eat a few popsicles: just get ‘er done. If you’re in the mood to write, drop everything else. Don’t ignore inspriation, or you’ll bore of it quickly, and then it will never get written. (That boredom is the number ONE stumbling block I see in clients.)

5. Involve yourself in the book’s community.

By this I mean that if you’re writing a steampunk novel, by all means, join a steampunk society and go to the meetings. Business books mean getting out to networking meetings, and setting yourself up for speaking gigs. Poker books mean you should be playing daily, as part of some sort of group. Think of yourself as sitting in the center of a massive web. Look for opportunities to expand beyond your local geographic area, such as joining organizations that have expansion chapters, like Rotary clubs. And that’s just the (so-called) “real world”. Be certain that everyone in the online community related to your topic knows who you are. This is where social media comes in, as a way to easily integrate yourself and let people know about you. Very importantly, you should buy an eBook that is grounded in your community, perhaps the most well-known, and read it in the format in which you think you will publish. (Ie., if you’re aiming for a Kindle eBook, buy a Kindle version and read it that way, to familiarize yourself with the format. It’s surprising how many Authors come to me for help, yet they’ve never bought or read an eBook themselves.)

6. Buy the domain name, and secure social media ID’s in the name of your eBook.

If you haven’t hear me say this before, you need to buy the exact domain name of your eBook’s title. If the .com isn’t available, re-title the book. Setup a basic WordPress blog at that location and start making regular entries as you write, to build traffic to your site. Even if you never plan to write a single blog post or post a single tweet, at least buy or reserve the title, and your Author name, so that nobody else gets them, as yes, people will look for you by your Author name, the title of the eBook, and under any pseudonyms you have.

7. Start building an eMail list.

Please do NOT simply add people to your email program’s personal address book. Besides the fact that this doesn’t work, it happens to be illegal. (I’ll shortly have a revised version of my Cheat Sheet about this topic, which will explain all of this in detail.) Instead, use a free or low-cost account at MailChimp, aWeber, 1ShoppingCart, or even ConstantContact.com to manage this. It not only allows you to build a legal double-opt-in list, but also to offer things like free stuff when people sign up, and have really attractive-looking templates for your content. List-building will become a permanent, ongoing activity in your business. The sooner you start, the better.

8. Design the cover.

This might sound premature, but actually, it’s quite important. The sooner you can start talking about your upcoming eBook, the better. You’ll need to put an image of the cover on an information page on your blog, perhaps on your business cards, and of course, on social media. I have also printed out poster-size versions of it and put it on my vision board to inspire me to get it done more quickly. Or to brag.

9. Start looking for an editor.

You may need one of any of a variety of types of editing, from style and content editing, to simple copy editing, which is really mostly grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc. The earlier you can form a relationship with this person, the better. As I said above, it’s a non-negotiable. The book must be edited at some point, and it’s probably a lot less expensive than you think. Objectivity is key – do NOT hire a friend or a family member. Besides ensuring basic writing ability, ignore any degrees on the wall. The most important thing about this editor is that you trust them. If you don’t, find someone else.

10. Write a proper marketing plan.

I don’t mean a series of unrealized ideas, but an actual written plan. I don’t mean a business plan, either, but a very specific marketing plan. And no, this doesn’t need to be more than a page. It must simply be concrete. (Concrete does not mean inflexible, by the way.) I use MindMeister.com, which is actually a mind-mapping tool, to create what ends up looking more like an infographic than a marketing plan. This allows me to change it when needed, and I can block out specific tasks that I need to complete in a certain order to make things move along. It also looks pretty darn sexy when printed out and posted on the wall.

While this is obviously not an exhaustive list, I think it covers the most important points. You’ll note that most of this is about setting up marketing tools for down the road, not actually about the writing. This surprises most of my clients that I don’t tell them how to write, or that I don’t start talking about how to use formatting for the manuscript. This is because all of that is secondary to your ability to sell it. Anything in the formatting can be fixed, modified, or more likely, is inconsequential anyway. What I want most for you is to realize the benefit of making these strategic choices up-front.

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Are you designing your own eBook cover? Great! Here’s how to choose a font for the title and other text on your cover.

(And BTW< this is not something that’s worth obsessing over. You have a lot going on right now – and obviously, your first concern needs to be writing a great eBook.)

The difference between a screen font and a print typeface deals with the intricacies of readability and the science of typography. A screen font is one that’s designed to work and read well from a screen, versus a typeface that is designed for print, and not to be read on a screen at all. It’s a common mistake to not realize the difference, and use a screen font on an eBook cover, and I’m not sure that’s a good idea.

I should mention that the very word “font” is actually only used to describe the set of files that compose a screen font – not the typeface that is meant for print. Typography geeks might get on your back about that.

Screen (or web) fonts are meant to be readable in reflowable text situations, and represent well in what are generally lower resolutions on a screen. These fonts have different spacing attributes, meaning the spacing between letters, between the “legs” of each letter, and any enclosed areas, such as the gap in the middle of an “A”. Screen fonts are also meant to scale well and look good at both large and small sizes without any sacrifice to structure and readability. Font files will contain different sets of the letterforms than a print typeface. You’ll typically find a bold version, an enlarged bold, etc. Italics are found less often, due to their typically poor visibility on a screen. There’s a great article about this subject here: http://www.sitepoint.com/anatomy-web-fonts/

Print typefaces are typified by greater complexity and customizability, so that a designer in full control of the printed object can manipulate a typeface to an amazing extent. Designers can treat type like a graphic object, even though that’s usually something that’s tough to pull off.

A big part of this entire debate – and yes, it’s still an open debate – is what’s known as kerning. Kerning refers to adjusting the spaces between letters and words. A typesetter can adjust the kerning in a word or sentence so that parts of the letter overlap into the space of the letter immediately preceding or following it. For a great illustration of this concept, have a look at this Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning.

Because we don’t typically adjust kerning for screen text, each letter in a screen font has a pre-set amount of space that surrounds each letter. This is what’s known as “monospaced” type. In other words, a screen font is meant to be standardized so that no matter what letter falls after which, the font will remain readable and properly spaced. Some screen fonts have evolved to be able to be kerned, but it’s highly automated, and like anything that’s fully automated, there will be some areas that just don’t work precisely the way that we’d always like it to. Sort of like factory cheesecake. Still good, but perhaps not worth blowing your diet over.

It’s not true that all serif typefaces are really for print, and non-serif fonts are for the screen, because in the years since modern monitors first came out, fonts and typefaces have evolved both artistically and in terms of usability. We now see both types of type in both print and on-screen. But there can be dramatic results by manipulating little things like the extension on the cross of a “t”, for example, which helps letters fit in a way that makes good use of the space on the screen, and still looks natural. Some typefaces, like Times Roman, were designed for specific things, like newspaper columns, and there are sooo many much better choices for serif typefaces in books, documents and papers, that I’m amazed that people still use that font at all. Times Roman is like the Scottish Play – you just can’t say the name of it at certain parties.

It’s considered a major no-no to use a screen font in print. The end result is a font that is not kerned properly, meaning that there are uneven gaps between the letters, which if they are used for the title, is going to glare at you from smack in the center of the cover of the book. There’s also something called aliasing, which very simply means that the angled edges of a screen font can be artificially smoothed to appear softer on the eye. Again, this is one of those areas that can get thoroughly messed up if you don’t understand the finer settings of stuff like Photoshop. Simply taking a high-resolution typeface and shrinking it down will not adjust the resolution properly, making it look “jagged” and blurry. See here for another article with an excellent technical explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_anti-aliasing

Screen fonts also have different effects when justified, due to automatic kerning. If you align a paragraph to be justified using a screen font, the letters across the line will be aligned with even gaps from the outermost point of each letter, which means that if an “A” and a “V” happen to follow each other, there will be too much space between them. A print typeface will typically automatically compensate for this, making the line appear more naturally-spaced, and therefore lend itself to a more natural reading experience. You cannot always correct this with hand-kerning. And even if you can, it’s time-consuming.

No matter what, if I were you, I would not geek out too much about this issue. There is an argument to be made that using screen fonts for the design of eBook covers is totally appropriate, considering that they are not meant to be printed out – the covers, too, are seen only on-screen. But I must say that I’ve seen a lot of oddly-spaced type out there: it floats, strangely, like a ship that isn’t anchored properly.

I think it’s a style choice. Is it readable? Does it look professional? Does it clearly make readers understand what they’re going to get in this book? If you answer yes to all of those, then great. Trust your eyes and your instinct.

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I’m about to complete my part in eBook number 170. Here’s what I wish I’d known before I started this journey.

1. You will need to write much more than you thought.

Alice might be in Wonderland - but she's not in over her head.

I knew that I’d probably want to write more than just one eBook, in fact, I could imagine dozens that I wanted to create, but deep in my heart, I didn’t really think I’d get to be part of this many. While I’ve certainly not created all 170 alone (about 1/3 of them I did alone – the rest were collaborative efforts with some incredible people) from that first one, I gave myself permission to not do it if I didn’t feel like it. That was not realistic. It was also not professional. I recently said to someone who had just gotten through number 1, “That’s great – now do 7-10 more by the end of the summer.” She was not enthused.

The reality is that eBook success is exponential. This is a volume business. While each item that you create might be a wonderful success, it might also be a horrible failure. Long-term success depends on producing timeless content with a long life span, and creating enough content that you’re known for a body of work rather than one or two products. Besides, a pattern is easy to replicate – only the first eBook is a learning experience.

2. You must be committed to your niche.

Over and freakingover again, I say, know your keywords.

The most expensive part of any business is customer acquisition. (Aka, sales.) Once you get a client under your wing, it’s much cheaper to sell more of the same sort of stuff to the same person, than it is to get new customers. That means that you really need to know your audience, and their needs, from day 1. This is most easily discovered through keyword research. Then your job becomes very simple: just create more of that which your niche desires. Otherwise, you find yourself constantly in a state of experimentation and newness. Your niche is your reader family. Take them unto your bosom. They are actually pretty easy to feed – if they want spaghetti every night, then for heaven’s sake, give it to them.

It took me a few years to get really good at doing keyword research. In the meantime, I did a lot of guessing, and wrote a lot of lovely content that didn’t sell. Spare thyself this agony. I’ve shared the basics here in this free eBook: Keyword Cheat Sheet, now in version 4.2. Costs you nothing to both download and use.

Don’t forget you can also serve multiple niches. I write under 11 different pseudonyms (some for clients, and confidential) and each of those serves a completely different niche. I’m sure there’s crossover, but a pseudonym is like a sign that says to readers, “Hey, remember that stuff you liked? There more of it right here.”

3. The money is in affiliate marketing.

While it’s true that things like SEO and social media are extremely important, affiliate marketing allows me to leverage the networks of others. (I had heard that expression for years before I knew what they were talking about.) By making small payouts for each referral, and making it easily trackable, it means that if I just focus on creating really great stuff, I can make other people confident in recommending it.

Affiliate marketing is a fairly broad term that has a number of different meanings, but essentially, eBookers can use it to track payouts to others who help them sell more books. There is no limit to the number of affiliates you can have, or how creative you can get with it. Watch for more help with this topic from me in coming months, in things like classes and eBooks.

4. It can be extremely boring.

I admit there have been days when I feel like if I spend one more minute looking at a monitor, I’ll claw my own eyes out. To top it off, for a little over 5 years, I worked from home in a beautiful but isolated area, a small gulf island off the west coast of Canada. This meant that if it weren’t for the dog, there were days when I wouldn’t open my front door. If I were to do it again, I’d make sure that I worked in a shared office space of some kind, like I do now, and networked in the real world more, like I do now, and lived in a city or more populated area, like I do now, in Las Vegas.

Besides the lifestyle issues, I now know it wasn’t good for my writing. Isolation is often seen as a requirement of Authors, and while I’ve seen the benefits of that sometimes, I can now see that I lacked objectivity about my business in general, and certainly about writing. It definitely makes for better non-fiction writing to be part of a team, where I’m not working exclusively on my own agenda. Being able to think like a reader, instead of like a writer, is an important skill for writers of all types.

5. The ramp-up time took a lot longer than I thought it would.

Partly because I was a noob, and partly because I was unfocused, it took me a long time to learn what I really needed to get done in what period of time. The original audience that I assumed existed, it turned out, didn’t exist at all. At first, I ignored the ghost writing market. (Stupid.) I didn’t write any fiction because I assumed it wouldn’t have a market. (Also, incredibly stupid.) I chose prices that were both too high and too low. (Stupid, and unresearched.) I agonized over the little things, which it turned out was a waste of my time. I took forever to figure out that I needed to partner with others to create cool products and services.

While I still struggle with typical self-employment issues, like setting aside time for my own projects versus that of clients, I now realize that the instant success that I thought was coming was a joke. I ignored the concept of critical mass, and it took until my own product number four before many people noticed my product number one. This took over 2 years, and in the meantime, instead of recognizing that this was all part of a normal development cycle, I called myself a failure.

The lifespan of eBooks can be just as long, if not longer than printed books. They are subject to update and regular revision, as they’re not burdened by the overhead of a stock of books. This means that you can spend a lot longer ramping up an audience, building your list, your reader base, and your discoverability. It’s worth it, and it’s normal. Savour it as part of the journey.

So when I take my daughter into my lap, and explain to her what it takes to be a good eBook creator, (and those of you who know me know that I do this often…) I talk to her about technology, commitment, and taking the dog for a twice-daily walk. At six years old, she already has a plan to write a series of books about cats and Barbie. Next week, we’re doing the keyword research about that.

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