The REAL TRUTH on How to Write an eBook

The hardest part of writing is the first sentence. When you look at the whole project, it seems like an impossible task. That's why you have to break it down into manageable tasks. Think of climbing a mountain.

You are standing at the foot of it and looking up at its summit vanishing into the clouds. How can you possibly scale such an immense and dangerous mountain? There is only one way to climb a mountain ? step by step.

Now think of writing your ebook in the same light. You must create it step by step, and one day, you will take that last step and find yourself standing on the summit with your head in the clouds.

The first thing you have to do, as if you actually were a mountain climber, is to get organized. Instead of climbing gear, however, you must organize your thoughts. There are some steps you should take before you begin. Once you've gone through the following list, you will be ready to actually begin writing your ebook.

Beginning Steps to Writing an ebook:

First, figure out your ebook's working title. Jot down a few different titles, and eventually, you'll find that one that will grow on you. Titles help you to focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in anticipating and answering your reader's queries. Many non-fiction books also have subtitles. Aim for clarity in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell books? as long as it's not too cute. For example, Remedies for Insomnia: twenty different ways to count sheep. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans to whip you into shape.

Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are addressing and how your book will solve that problem. All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement. Once you've got your thesis statement fine-tuned, you've built your foundation. From that foundation, your book will grow, chapter by chapter.

Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis statement. If they don't, they don't belong in your book. For example, your thesis statement could read: We've all experienced insomnia at times in our lives, but there are twenty proven techniques and methods to give you back a good night's sleep.

Once you have your thesis, before you start to write, make sure there is a good reason to write your book. Ask yourself some questions:

* Does your book present useful information and is that information currently relevant?

* Will you book positively affect the lives of your readers?

Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader's attention?

* Does you book answer questions that are meaningful and significant?

If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel confident about the potential of your ebook.

Another important step is to figure out who your target audience is. It is this group of people you will be writing to, and this group will dictate many elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction, and even length.

Figure out the age range of your readers, their general gender, what they are most interested in, and even the socio-economic group they primarily come from. Are they people who read fashion magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you can pin down your target audience, the easier it will be to write your book for them.

Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you want to bring quality traffic to your website? Do you want to enhance your reputation?

Then write down your goals in terms of publishing.Do you want to sell it as a product on your website, or do you want to offer it as a free gift for filling out a survey or for ordering a product? Do you want to use the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook to attract affiliates around the world? The more you know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.

Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction, keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to your chapter topic, and then divide it into four subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.

How to make your ebook "user friendly".

You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging. Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photos, graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible information and they break up the density of the page.

Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a formal tone such as textbook diction. Reader's respond to the feeling that you are having a conversation with them. Break up the length and structure of your sentences so you don?t hypnotize your readers into sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!

Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a day. Read books and magazines about the process of writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you write (and read), the better your writing will become.The better your writing becomes, the bigger your sales figures.

In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that you must give your reader's eye a break. You can do this by utilizing white space. In art classes, white space is usually referred to as "negative space." Reader's eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises you create on your page. If your page is too dense, your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes begin to tear.

Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs one after the other.

Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font that's easy on the eyes, and stick to that font family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your readers out before they've gotten past your introduction. Use at least one and a half line spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on the screen, but small enough so that the whole page can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to experiment with this to find the right combination.

Of course, don't forget to run a spell and grammar check. You are judged by something as minor as correct punctuation, so don?t mess up a great book by tossing out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences together with commas. (By the way, that's called a "comma splice".)

Last of all, create an index and a bibliography. That's it! You've written a book! Now all you have to do is publish your ebook online, and wait for download request from your website visitors.

This article is part of a 6 part series on ebook writing, compiling and pricing structure. You can find all articles here over the next couple of days or see them all, along ith other great and informative articles on "The TRUTH" about Internet and affiliate marketing on my website listed below.

Maintain Focus to achieve real success

I think maintaining “focus" is probably one of the most important and the most difficult "challenges" we face when running an online business and trying to establish what will make us successful. Especially when you consider how many different opportunities we are bombarded with each and every day that can so easily distract us from what we are trying to achieve.

One of the tactics that I have found works is to be very clear about what I am doing and ensuring that what I am doing right now is contributing to the achievement of my vision/goals. So each time we do some work on our business we need to ask ourselves “What is it contributing to the achievement of my goals?” If my goal for this week is to make let's say £1,000 then is what I am doing right now helping me to achieve that or am I doing things because I enjoy them and they are actually adding nothing? Do you have a list of tasks which will lead to the achievement of your goal for today/this week/this month etc? If you don’t then what are you actually going to achieve this during this period? Will you succeed or will you end the period feeling frustrated because despite keeping busy you have not achieved?

So, just by way of example, if you spend hours and hours posting to forums are you absolutely certain that is contributing to the achievement of your goals? Do you do it to increase your profile and drive potential buyers/partners etc to your website; is it to help you learn, is it because you like to help others or is it a way of avoiding doing something i.e. the age old enemy of invention (action) called procrastination? If someone asked you to "justify" what you are doing (assuming you are doing something related to your business!) right now in terms of the achievement of your goal for today/this week/this month would you be able to?

A friend of mine has a framed set of his goals on his desk (which is a desk he uses purely for his online business)with the picture of the boat he wants to buy when he is successful! Every time he feels that he is starting to get distracted he looks at that framed set of goals and the boat and asks himself - is what I am doing right now going to get me on that boat?

Now that's what I call focus.

Home Cleaning Business Plan

Until about 10 years ago, business advice guru’s used to say that the best business to be in was the one you knew most about!

That statement is disputable. And, even if it were true then, it certainly is not true today! Here’s why:

No matter what skills you have or what trade or profession you are in, the amount of money you can earn is severely limited by the number of hours in the day you can work. Aha!

So now we can say:

A better business is one in which you can recruit and train others to do what you can do. This leaves you free to manage and grow the business,

Even so, we still can’t say that it is best business to be in. We can’t say it because some trades and professions have much higher billable hourly rates than others.

Copywriting, and especially direct-response copywriting, is undoubtedly one of the highest paid professions in the world!

Copywriters tend to be pretty smart. A copywriter and an attorney are discussing fees:

Lawyer: “My fees start at $150 an hour.”
Copywriter: “I charge from $1 a word.”
Lawyer: “Wow! I can't think of any word worth a $1.Gimme an example?”
Copywriter: “Gimme a $1.”
Lawyer: “Okay. Here's your $1.”
Copywriter: “THANKS!”

So, is copywriting the world’s best business to be in?

I say NO!

I say Info-Marketing on the Internet is undoubtedly the world’s best business to be in!

It doesn’t necessarily have to be an e-book that reveals copywriting
secrets and a list of words that sell. Although that would sell well to a
business-2-business market. But it does have to be an info-product that’s designed to satisfy the needs and wants of a specific niche market.

Simple, huh?

Well, not exactly. If it were that simple, everybody with a how-to info-book and a direct-response website would be rich.

As I see it, only about 5% of Internet sites make millions. The remaining bunch of hopefuls is still struggling.

Jeff Walker, Product Launch a leading Internet marketing expert, says:

“Everyone has heard the story of the Internet being paved with gold... but only a precious few are bringing home that gold. There are thousands of websites that won't even break even. Most of those sites are moribund... sitting there with products that don't sell. They will wither away, and then get blown off the Internet like some dried-up piece of tumbleweed.”

Internet marketing expert, Cody Maya, Private Label Books, says,

“The average cost of a copywriting project is $5,000--and that’s just for one sales letter. You need three things to succeed on the Internet:

#1. You need a great product.
#2. You need to be able to get traffic to your site.
#3. You need to be able to convert those prospects into customers.”

Internet marketing is great. It is not cheap. It is not easy and the learning curve for the average Joe Schmoe is mind-boggling.

It takes a high degree of sophistication, and a lot of money to buy the kind of tools that will enable you to put your business on Auto-Pilot, “while you lie on the beach in Hawaii with your laptop and make a ton of money even while you sleep.”

Yanik Silver, one of the top guns in Internet Marketing told me he spent nearly $50,000 (a ton of money) on new products and doing research last year!

So, I need to qualify what I said earlier about selling an info-product on the Internet. Here’s my revised statement:

“Selling an info-product on the Internet to a well-defined niche market is the world’s best business to be in--for those who know what they are doing and have the money to do it.”

So, you can’t just fly into flying.
You think big but you start small!
You have to learn to walk before you can learn to run!

Some 30 years ago, self-made multi-millionaire Joe Karbo stated a very simple truth:

“Most people are too busy working to make
a living to ever make more than just a living.”

In his book, “How to Be Rich,” the late billionaire J. Paul Getty said that the only way to get rich is to start your own business and work at making yourself rich, rather than your employer!

For over 20 years I have been searching to find an “idiot proof” business that could be launched by the average Jack or Jill--and with no previous business experience and little or no capital to invest.

I managed to identify seven businesses that fit that bill.
Here’s my list--not necessarily in order of merit or profitability:

1. Home and Office Cleaning
2. Handy Person Service
3. Window Washing Service
4. Publishing a Local Ad Magazine
5. Computer Instruction and Repairs
6. Painting and Decorating
7. Leaflet Distribution
8. Mobile Haircutting and Beauty Service
9. Lawn Cutting and Yard Maintenance
10. Taking Care of Snowbird Vacation Homes

I have written a how-to business instruction plan for each of the above.
Here’s what I have to say about the Home and Office Cleaning Biz:

You could be your own boss--starting today!

"10 Powerful Reasons Why Home and Office Cleaning
is One of the World's Best Businesses to Be In”

1. Low start-up cost.

2. You can work part-time or full time.
Keep your day job if you have one. Work evenings and weekends. Don’t quit your day job until you are sure you can make more working for yourself than your employer.

3. No Hard Selling Involved
The service virtually sells itself because 98% of housewives hate housework so much they jump at the chance of having a “maid” come in to the do all the dirty work.

4. Unlimited Demand For the Service
Today, as more and more women go out to work, they have less and less time to do housework and look after a husband and a family. If they can afford it, they jump at the chance of hiring a trustworthy and reliable home cleaner.

5. High Hourly Rates
The standard minimum age is a miserly $5.15 an hour. The average hourly rate for cleaners is $25 an hour. That’s more than four times the minimum wage. Average means that some cleaners charge a low of $20 an hour and others charge a high of $30 an hour.

6. No Special Skills or Training Required
Either you know what to do or the house owner tells you what she wants done.

7. The Target Market is Local and Very Easy to Contact

8. Hot Prospects are Easy to Identify
People who can afford to hire a cleaning maid live busy lives. They own large homes with two or more garages. They reside in up-market suburban areas.

9. Very Simple and Inexpensive Marketing Plan
The three best ways to get new customers as regulars are:

One: Referrals from existing customers.
Two: Leaflet Distribution.
Three: Using a tested and proven telephone script designed not to sell the service, but to make an appointment to call and give a free estimate. Done right, the level of acceptance is a high 86%.

10. Unlimited Growth Potential
While you can make $1,000 a week doing two, four-hour jobs a day for
five days a week, the way to make really big money is not to do any of
the work yourself!

The trick is to hire others to do all the cleaning work.
This leaves you free to concentrate on managing and growing the business.

As the Holly Noble, owner of a San Diego based cleaning business, says,
“You can’t be soliciting new customers when you are cleaning a toilet.”

John‘s “Home Cleaning Business Plan” is a fact-packed, step-by-step,
do-it-by-the-numbers guide that tells you all you need to know about starting up and succeeding in a home-based business of your own.

While it includes a lot of his own advice on how to promote and manage
the business, the real value of the Plan is that it contains in-depth interviews with nine successful cleaning business owners who revealed their most closely guarded trade secrets.

Avoiding Home Business Failures

It’s been said that 80% of all small business dies within the first 3 years. And the rest are somehow struggling along with meager revenues. Only a handful is successful. Home based business has an even shorter lifespan. Every enthusiastic home based venture starts out with a big promise, a lot of excitement and enthusiasm.

However at the first signs of trouble or a slow take off the people become panicky. Having been accustomed to regular pay check, when the money does not roll in week after week and the bank balance hits the low digits, there is a sense of panic and the exciting home business gets trashed.

My own experience tells me this happens just when you are through with organizing, setting up and the difficult transition period of reaching out to the customers, you decide to wind up the business in favor of a job.

Now here are a few tips to persevere and make a success of your home business.

Plan in advance your finances for running your family for a minimum period of 6 months.

Plan every aspect of your business – right from creating the product to final shipments - on paper. Don’t leave out anything. This is what is called a business plan. Make it elaborate and group each aspect under a heading and subheading.

Home workers need to set a disciplined work schedule. Having no bosses around or compulsions of commuting may make you take things easy and relaxed. At least for the first 6 month work as if you are in employment and put in the required hours. You can relax and cut down on working hours when you start earning enough.

Don’t procrastinate or put things off for tomorrow. Action is one major ingredient for success. If you need to do something do it today. Do it now.

It is essential to keep your motivation high. Read about the success of other small business and home business owners and learn what they did right. Duplicating someone else who has succeeded makes it easy to succeed yourself.

You may suddenly find yourself alone without the social support of colleagues and friends. Even persons you considered your best friends may avoid you if they feel you are in trouble. That is OK. You get to know who’s who in times of adversity. Learn to depend on yourself than outside support.

Be prepared to take the temporary pain and denials. Robert Kiyosaki of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ fame and his wife slept in their car for a few months and lived in a basement of a friends house for many more months to achieve what they set out - their financial freedom.

Believe in yourself and keep going even if the going gets tough. The rewards far outweigh the pains and temporary sufferings. Remember the darkest hour is just before the dawn breaks out and sun rises.

Using SWOT Analysis To Improve Your Business

Analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of a business is a well-established tool that is widely used by academics, consultants, and advisors. Although it is a simple concept, business owners often struggle when trying to use it because it is so broad. It is difficult to determine where to start, what questions to ask, and where to focus. The obvious problems get attention while many other important issues get overlooked. SWOT analysis is a great tool, but its effective use requires additional structure.

Strengths and weaknesses relate to internal factors, while opportunities and threats cover external ones. The internal factors can be divided into five categories: management, workforce, sales and marketing, operations, and financial. The external factors are also divided into five categories: threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of customers, threat of rivalry from competitors, and threat of substitution.

To approach the analysis in a structured way, prepare a checklist using the categories mentioned above. Identify factors within each category that are important to your business. Under management for example, a major weakness for virtually every small business is relying too heavily on the owner. What would happen to the business if something happened to the owner? In the workforce category a factor could be employee turnover and the availability of new hires. The threat of new entrants might include the possibility of a big box retailer opening near your business. The bargaining power of suppliers and customers categories should consider the possibility of losing a major supplier or customer. Come up with several factors for each category to complete the checklist. It is important that you do not try to rate or solve each issue as you identify them. If you do, you will get bogged down on each factor and never complete the analysis.

Once the checklist is complete, you should rate each factor based on its importance to your business. Use an alphabetical scale from A to E, where A = very important, B = important, C = some importance, D = little importance, and E = not important. Next rate each factor based on proficiency (internal) or vulnerability (external). Use a numerical scale from 1 to 5, where 1 = very proficient or not vulnerable, 2 = proficient or little vulnerability, 3 = average proficiency or some vulnerability, 4 = poor proficiency or vulnerable, and 5 = deficient or very vulnerable.

The factors with the lowest letter and highest number (A5) are the biggest weaknesses or threats. The ones with the lowest letter and lowest number (A1) are the biggest strengths or opportunities.

Using this structured approach makes a SWOT analysis possible and practical for any small business. To make this process worthwhile you must use this information to take action. Work to fix the worst problems first, prepare for the biggest risks, take advantage of the best opportunities, and build your secondary strengths.

Rental Property Investment - Finding The Properties

Rental property investment starts with finding the best deals. To do this, you can increase your odds by finding more deals. Who's more likely to get a cheap apartment building, an investor that looks through the MLS listings and calls it a day, or the one that uses ten resources? Here are those ten:

1. Look in old papers to find "For Rent" ads. Call if they are a few weeks old. The landlord may be ready to sell, especially if he hasn't yet rented the units out.

2. Look up old FSBO ads. Call on two-month-old "For sale By Owner" ads, and if they haven't sold, they may be ready to deal. Owners often give up the effort, but still would love to sell. Help them out!

3. Drive around looking for "For Sale By Owner" signs. Owners often don't want to pay to keep the ad in the paper every week, so you won't see all properties there.

4. Find abandoned properties. That's a pretty clear sign that the owner doesn't want to deal with the property. He might sell cheap.

5. Talk. Let people know you are looking and sometimes the properties will come to you. There are a lot of owners out there who want to sell, but haven't yet listed their property.

6. Talk to bankers. You might get a foreclosed rental property cheaper if you buy it before they list it with a real estate agent.

7. Offer someone a finder's fee. There are people that always seem to hear about the good deals. Have such people coming to you.

8. Eviction notices. If your local papers publish eviction notices, or if you can get the information at the courthouse, it can be useful. A landlord who just went through the process of evicting tenants is a likely seller.

9. Use the INTERNET. Go to a search engine and enter the type of real estate you are looking for, along with the city you want to invest in. You never know what you might find.

10. Put an ad in the paper. "Looking for rental properties to buy," might be sufficient to generate a few calls.

There is a lot more to learn to do it right, but finding good properties is a good place to start for rental property investment.