I want to talk about how you must not confuse motion with action because one will keep you broke and the other will make you rich.

One of the biggest challenges I have is to keep my clients or students moving in the directions of their dreams. It is always nice when they email me or phone me to let me know they have finished their books and are very excited about the future.

It is a great feeling to know that I have helped in some way. But not all that start their books finish their books and I am constantly trying to increase the percentage of successful authors that take my courses.

One of the things I tell all my students is to check to make sure what they’re doing is not just motion but is actually action.

Motion is usually anything that you do from day to day. For example: If you make coffee every morning before you start to write that is motion. The motion of making coffee. If you turn on your computer and check you email that is usually a motion as well. Organizing your desk and on and on it goes until at the end of the day you have still not taken any action because you are too busy being in motion.
 
So what is action?

Action is a task that you do each day that moves you closer to your goal. In this case we are talking about writing, publishing and marketing your book.

So action would be finding a company to print your book. Then maybe after that it would be to contact a webmaster to make your website. Do you see the difference? Action puts another brick into your overall book business and gets you closer to your goal each day.

Motion is doing things that you do day after day that don’t bring you any closer to your goal. If you don’t take action you will never reach your goal as a successful published author. If you do the same things everyday and expect different results is that not the definition of insanity?

Take action and put at least one more new brick into your business each day and you will be amazed at how fast your life will change.

So many people lead lives of quiet desperation needlessly. If they only knew how very close they are to a miraculous life they would probably take more inspired action.

I remember many years ago when a business associate commented to me after I was telling him the great business idea I had discovered. His response to me was “I have been telling you that for a long time”. I don’t know why but a switch went on in my brain that particular day saying he had in fact been telling me about that very business idea for many years.

Why had I heard him that day but had obviously not heard him the many times before? It is because we can only see what we know and I finally knew what he had been talking to me about for all those years.

You see the universe or higher power which ever you prefer to call it is always supporting us for our higher purpose if we would just be open to it. The universe sends us messages many ways. It may be a friend, business associate, event, book or an article just like this one. We’re getting our lives queued constantly if we would just open up to the new and let go of the old.

I teach a course, How To Write & Publish a Book In 40 Days, many times per year in the Vancouver BC area. It is obvious to me that everyone in the classes I am teaching has been given a nudge by the universe to write a book or else they wouldn’t be there.

That being said why do many of the students get all pumped up at the class but then run out of gas on their book project a short time later? It is because they can’t see themselves as published authors yet. This is a tragedy because finishing their books would make a miraculous difference in their lives.

I truly believe we are put here on this earth to help each other and writing your book is a great way to help many people and in fact in most cases it is our obligation to do so.

I know my life purpose is to help as many people as possible to expand their lives through the process of writing their book. Many of my students do finish their books within a few months of the course and I am grateful for that.

Others it may be years later when someone says to them after they are beaming at the miraculous life changes that have come to them after writing their books. I said to you years ago that you should write a book.

Hear me now this very day that you can write and publish your own book and you will leave your life of mediocrity for a life of change and miracles. Can you hear me?

Making money from royalties for most authors is not a very financially rewarding career.
If you don’t start to make money with your book it can get pretty lonely. This is where too many authors go wrong.

Don’t let that last statement depress you because your chance of making money with your book if you package and sell the information from your book in different ways brings up your odds of financial success exponentially. If you break your book into CD’s Seminars, DVD’s Consulting and a number of other ways that many of us like to consume information then you can turn a not so profitable book into a cash generating machine.

I always take a poll in the classes that I teach to see how many read books. Obviously in my classes most are book readers. Then I ask how many buy Audio CD’s? Still quit a number put up their hands. Next it is seminars and a number of hands go up as well. Then of course I ask how many take classes and everyone has to put up their hand for that.

I then use the example that we have 25 people in this class who all paid $59.00 for a 3 hour class. This quickly calculates out to $1,475.00 for 3 hours work which doesn’t even count other moneys that may come from coaching, consulting and other information I could sell the students.

I remind them at this point that this is mostly the information in my book sold to them in different ways of consumption. It would take quit a few books at even a $2.00 per book royalty to bring in the same amount of money from the class and other back end products I may sell.

They quickly see what I am talking about. My students are always a good example of how insatiable we can be for getting more and more good information. Many of them, myself included spend thousands of dollars per year and will continue doing so.

Even after you give your readers or clients every bit of information you have they will still want more and that is why you will always be in demand. As Martha Stewart says “It’s a beautiful thing”

One of the best things I like about coaching my students is how pumped up I get teaching the exciting opportunities we can all have by writing and publishing our own books.

Why do I get so pumped? Because every time I teach a call like the one we had this past Tuesday on continuity programs I get more excited hearing myself talk about all the great  opportunities we all have with our books.

Now I know many of you reading this article are no where near ready to retire yet and in fact one of the reasons I wrote my book with my coauthor Jeff McCallum is the fact that I never want to retire. So why the retirement talk?

Because in my last coaching call I gave many examples of how you can monetize your books information into having your customers paying you a monthly fee without having to do monthly work. So if you are getting money monthly for work you have done in the past isn’t that just like having a retirement income? You bet it is.

One student saw how easy it would be to get 100 people from her list to pay a monthly fee of $47.00 per month by setting up three, one hour support group tele calls for the information she has written about in her soon to be released book. Do the math! That’s $4,700.00 per month for three hours work.

What if she decides to set up four groups like this and maybe one is a little more expensive at $97.00 per month? Three groups bringing in $4,700.00 per month and the last one bringing in $9,700.00 per month makes a total of $23,800.00 per month and she would still only be working by telephone a total of 4 hours per week.

We talked about many of the possible ways of  having your customers opt in to a monthly continuity plan all relating to the information in your book including:

Newsletters
Membership sites
Coaching programs
Consulting
Certifications sites
Interview website

Actually when we started brainstorming the issue they realized it was endless and could be done with pretty well any niche or topic.

Does it take a little bit of set up work? Yes but with the right help even that is not a big issue. There is no better return on investment in anything else on this planet as writing & publishing your own book and that continues to make me jump out of bed each and every morning.
 

I know you are reading this blog title and thinking about most of the authors you know of are starving and I am way off base with this one.

In my second life I am in the fire and flood restoration business which is considered to be  part of the construction industry. Our industry in North America has an average net profit of 4.5%. To me that is a tragedy and even borders on pathetic and is probably not worth waking up for each morning.

Luckily my companies are not in the 4.5% profit margin group. In fact I learned a long time ago how to run a profitable fire and flood restoration business. I educated myself and we run net profits anywhere from 30 to 50 % each month. Now that is worth waking up for.

Why am I telling you all this? Because now that I am also an author and sell my information in a variety of different formats such as books, CD’s, DVD’s, Seminars, coaching and a number of other ways I am still in awe of how truly profitable being an author and information marketer is. In fact if you market your information properly you can very often make 90% and more net profit margins.

I am grateful and amazed every day about what an exciting opportunity it is to be an author and information marketer in today’s business world. If you are in this exciting business it is only going to get better over the next several decades.

I get more jazzed and excited each day when a customer buys a DVD set that I made once and now sell over and over again for profit margins that are not made by any other industry on earth. How cool is that?

Your wealth or money can come and go but if you have valuable information to sell you will inevitably be rich in very short order. It is specialized knowledge and information that is and will be the most valuable asset to have for a long time to come.
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Whether you are an employee, business owner or want to make your book your main business being and author and information marketer is the best gig on earth. Don’t wait make it happen now!
 

When you consider the cost of advertising and how many competitors you’re competing against in any niche you soon realize that writing your own book and positioning yourself as the expert is an absolute no brainer. It is the best way to totally set you apart from the competition and stand out in an ever increasingly noisy advertising market.

Want instant credibility, celebrity and expert status? Write a book and you will never have to cold call or waste your hard earned money on fruitless ads again. Our society in North America gives published authors a certain prestige not enjoyed by others. Use this prestige to explode your income and make your life easier.

People buy from people they know and trust and there is no quicker way of building trust and being the known go to expert as writing a book. Your book works for you 24 hours per day, 7 days per week 365 days per year building your good name all on autopilot.

You do the work once and the book keeps working for you day in and day out. Never taking time off for illness and never asking for more money like all the advertising sales people.

Is it hard to write a book? If you can have a conversation you can write a book. From do it yourself, to ghost writers to many of the outsourcing that is available to us all today there is no reason why anyone can’t write and publish a book and fast.

You never know what is on the other side of that door until you just go through it. Writing a book is a go through door that will change your life forever.

In business terms the internet is still a baby but in internet terms it is a lifetime old. Much has changed on the internet over its short life but I must say that without a doubt it is still one on the greatest opportunities for anyone to stake out a claim on the internet.

The internet is still the Wild, Wild West and you must get your virtual real estate plot now. The internet is still growing and evolving by leaps and bounds each day and will continue for decades to come.

Where else can you reach so many targeted customers, still extremely cost effective and get all this with the click of a mouse? The sooner you get on board with a website the better.

You must have a website for your book and you must have both your book and website pages titled with words that will make it easy for your targeted customers to find you. If you make it easy for your customers to find you; you also make it easier for yourself to sell books and make money.

One of my students a few weeks ago told me in class that he was looking for some information on how to write a screen play. He went to the search engines and quickly found a book entitled ‘How to Write a Screen Play’ He said it was exactly what he was looking for and bought the book.

It doesn’t get much easier than that and I’m sure that author will make money for years to come.

You will be taking a very big gamble as an author by not taking your spot on the net. Don’t risk not being able to be found. Set up your website today!

With 81% of the population in North America saying at one time or
another that they would like to write a book why are so few doing it?

Anyone that has taken my course ‘How to Write & Publish Your Own Book
in 40 Days’ knows I talk a lot about mindset at the beginning of the
class. I talk about mindset because it is the key to whether you
realize your goal to writing and publishing your own book.

I cover this all important topic of mindset because the fact of the
matter is anyone I teach my strategies to can become a published
author and even a best selling one. The only thing that can stop
them is their own mindset.

You see we all have the same 24 hours per day and we all have the
same information available to us for success but it is only
ourselves who can stop us. We are stopped by our ‘ANTs’ Automatic
Negative Thoughts.

You know the ones:

Where will I get the time?
I can’t write a book!
I don’t have any money to publish a book!!!
My spouse will not support me!

and on and on go the army of ANTs

So how come some of us succeed and some of us get stopped in the
starting gate? Some students leave my classes and have their books
finished in a very short time and some never take the first step.
Of course it is my passion that they all finish their books because
I know what a difference it can make in their lives.

You see when we ask questions of ourselves like; Where will I find
the time to write my book? That question is not intended to stop
us, but rather it is a good question that needs an answer so we can
move on with our book projects.

The answer might be to wake up a half an hour earlier or go to
sleep a half an hour later. There are many answers to that
question, the students who find the answer to that question and
many others are the ones that have Focus, Persistence and Passion.

You must have the Focus to stay on task and also to see the final
result of your completed and published book.

You must have the Persistence to keep moving forward on your book
each and every day to know you are heading toward completion.

Lastly you must have the Passion that will keep you motivated no
matter how many obstacles real or imagined try to take you off
course from you realizing your dream of becoming a published author.

It may help to know that with writing and publishing your own book
you will put in the work once but it is a process that can pay dividends
for the rest of your life.

I am just beginning to teach my course ‘How to Write And Publish Your Book In 40 Days’ for the winter semester in many schools throughout the lower mainland in and around Vancouver BC.

One of the points I always stress to my students is to use a simple template to write their books. I teach them to write 10 to 25 chapter topics for their book depending on the size of the book they wish to write. Then for each chapter topic I have them come up with 10 points they will cover about that topic.
 
They now have only to write a page or two about each point and they will soon magically have their book written. This way when they have mapped out their book from front to back they know what is going to be written on each page.

A little bit of up front time spent mapping out your book will save you a ton of time in the long run. This technique keeps my students from drifting and getting lost in a sea of words and ideas. You would not drive to a new distant destination without a map so why would you write a book with out a template?

Once you get used to this technique you will find it to be a very valuable tool. You can literally start writing your book on any page you wish. You can start on the last chapter then go to the middle chapter and then the first and it will still fit perfectly together.

Don’t get lost on a dark deserted road to nowhere with your book and then think you are suffering from writers block. Take this simple template idea and make your writing career that much easier.

It’s that time of year again when you will soon be pondering a new year’s resolution. What is it going to be? Will it be to loose some weight, quit smoking or maybe to just treat your fellow man with more kindness and respect.

What about being a published author by writing your own book in 2008? Almost 81% of our North American population say they would like to write a book. That means that over 4 out of every 5 people who will read this blog post have expressed an interest in writing their own book.

So with so many people wanting to write their own book how come only a small percentage of people actually achieve published author status? Well it is no secret that the mighty excuse is the reason for stopping so many would be authors in their tracks.

The two biggest excuses I hear are I don’t know how to write and the second one is that they suffer from perfectionism. Their book is just never quite good enough to put it out into the world of readers.

Well here’s my professional opinion on these two excuses.

# 1 I don’t know how to write.

If you can hold a conversation you can write a book. Write your book in a simple conversational style and you will do just fine. It is a myth that you need to be a literary giant to make it as an author. If you need proof just read my book. It is doing just fine and I am making a very substantial secondary income from being an author.

#2 The book isn’t quite good enough yet to be published.

There are a lot of people that suffer from perfectionism and I was in its spell for too many years as well. First of all there is no such thing as a perfect book so thinking that your book has to be perfect before being published is an illusion. The bottom line is a mediocre published book will always do better than an author waiting for their book to be perfect.

Use a simple template to help you write your book and spend about an hour per day writing. Within one month you will have a book that will be about 200 pages in length and you will be ready to publish a book that will completely change your life for the better.

Think about it this way! For about 20 or 30 hours of writing you can start attracting all sorts of life changing opportunities by becoming the author of a book. I know of no other opportunity that is available to so many people like you and I. Take advantage of it and make 2008 the start of the best year ever.