***How To Publish A Book And Use It As The Cornerstone for Your Online Business

Almost anyone can tell you how to publish a book but practically no one can tell you how to market it. How can that be true? The internet is glutted with marketing experts begging to show you how you can easily $ell everything from kitchen $inks to $ink cleaners. Almost daily one or more of these Amazing Guru sales pages with its long tail of testimonials slips through your spam filters to deliver six figure success stories. So… why can’t one of these wizards wave their magic wand over your book and make it into a best seller? They can try, if you’re willing to gamble on a 50-50 chance of success and if you have the megabucks to show them how. Aye, there’s the rub. Almost every marketing expert will tell you right off that authors are the best promoters of their works. Some authors will jump at the chance to take charge of their own marketing. They just need some tools—and here’s where a reputable online marketing company really can help.nn"I'm a writer... marketing isn't my thing"n Other authors will candidly admit that for them, marketing and promotion is grunt work... a waste of their valuable time. And after all, isn’t marketing supposed to be part of the publisher’s job? Twenty or so years ago, maybe yes. Compare that statistic to today’s glut of over 300,000 titles published annually! Publishing a book is a large investment. Today, often a traditional publisher will request new authors to finance their own marketing and promotion to defray some of the initial costs. Before signing the contract, authors will be required to place a tidy sum of money in escrow. Without serving up sour grapes, this may be one of the reasons why politicians, celebrities and other writers with well-padded budgets may get red carpet treatment while a budding novelist with an extraordinary new fiction work gets a pink rejection slip. Now that we’ve cleared up the mystery about who’s going to market your book, are you ready for the next question? nnWhy did you write this book? As a publisher I ask this question to every author who submits a manuscript. If it’s a novel, the answer to that question is easy. You’re an artist and you love to entertain, inspire and enlighten those who love to read the type of fiction you write. If it’s non-fiction, somewhere in the backyard of your mind a business opportunity is being born. You may not know this yet because the idea that's been germinating hasn't been consciously acknowledged. So let’s do that, right now. Let’s get it all down on paper and start to build the foundation for an online business enterprise with your newly published book as the cornerstone. Somehow that feels right, doesn’t it? You put all that time and effort into writing your book. You know it’s a good work and you want millions of people to buy it. This book is original because it represents you and what you stand for. You also want your business enterprise to be original. People will come to your website because they know they’ll find something there that they won’t find anywhere else. Let’s say your book is about current events. It’s highly controversial and loaded with need-to-know information. You decide you want to create a news reportage website that will deliver a wakeup call. nnDo you sense a mission statement being born? Now that you know how to publish a book, you will be writing and selling many more works on this highly controversial wakeup call website. You'll also be selling your colleagues' books. You could sign a distribution agreement with your colleagues so you can earn a commission on your sales. Web visitors could join your affiliate program, sell your books and also earn a commission. It’s time to build your online business. In the next article in this series I will develop a blueprint or game plan that is do-able for almost anyone.