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.
 

Hooray for the internet and all of the tools and resources that come along with it.  Writing and publishing a book has never been simpler.  Here are 10 great tools and resources that make writing and publishing easier than ever.

5 Top Writing and Publishing Tools:

Free Writing Software.
Did you know that you don’t need to purchase expensive word processing software to write a book?  It’s true.  There are now an abundance of really well developed open source software products, that means they’re free, available to writers.  My favorite two are Google Documents, available for free with any Google or gmail account.  It works very similarly to MS Word and you can save your document in any variety of forms including word doc. 

The other product that I really like is Open Office.  Like MS Office it offers spreadsheet, word processing, database software and much more.  So there you go, not having the right software is no longer an excuse to not write a book.

Meta Search Engines.
Each search engine has its strengths and benefits.  However there are now search engines available that combine the power of the big four, Google, Alta Vista, Yahoo, and MSN.  Now, with a quick keyword or two, you can have four times the results when you’re researching and your results will be more accurate.  Research time will be cut in half, assuming that you don’t get sidetracked with all of the cool information available online. 

My research trick, make notes when you write about what needs to be researched and research only the specific information that you need.  That way if you need to know how many minutes it takes the average stoplight to turn green, you can look up that specific information and not spend hours researching stoplights.

One Stop Shopping Sites.
Due to the number of people that have realized how lucrative information marketing can be, a wonderful number of services have popped up that make owning and operating an information marketing website easy.  These sites generally offer the following feature:
 Shopping cart software solutions
 Merchant accounts
 Website hosting
 Website design templates
 Autoresponders
 Newsletter subscription tools
 Affiliate marketing management tools
 Search Engine Optimization tools
 Fulfillment and distribution options.

Online Bookstores!
While it’s great to sell your book on your own website, the advantage of online bookstores like Amazon is that they’re commonly acceptable purchasing places for the general public.  Joe from down the street may not feel comfortable giving you his credit card number but he’ll gladly give it to the folks at Amazon.  You make a sale and cautious Joe gets his book.  Online bookstores are also a great tool to build a community of followers.  Amazon enables authors to create a community by posting information about the author, reviews, and even forums and chat rooms.

Expert Knowledge.
Information marketing is not without its experts and many of these experts have made themselves available to people that are interested in marketing and publishing their own books.  This means that expert knowledge is available to you in just about any form you prefer.  If you like one on one coaching, it’s out there.  If you prefer online classes, well those are available too.  Prefer an ebook or video tutorial on writing or publishing, it’s all available online.  The internet has opened up a whole new kind of classroom where you can learn about anything including how to write and publish a book.

Interested in self-publishing?  Take a moment to answer the following questions:

• Are you an expert in your field and want to use your published book as a marketing tool to enhance your career?

• Are you an author that is passionate about the content in your book and need 100% creative control?

• Do you want to make more money per book sold than you would working with a major publisher?

• Do you own the rights to republish public domain content?

• Do you, or your company, need to develop publications specifically for your current customers?  For example, manuals, training guides, etc…

If your answer to any of the above questions is yes, then you need to consider self-publishing.

Self-publishing is a viable, profitable, and respected means of getting your book into the hands of your customers. 

Here are three powerful reasons to becoming a self-published author, and why you should consider it for your book:

1. Self publishing enables you to publish any type of content. 

Whether you want to write an autobiography, a training manual, or your favorite vegetarian recipes the sky is the limit.  Traditional publishers will only accept books that have a very wide and mass market appeal, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t thousands of people looking for material just like yours.  Self-publishing can make it happen. 

2. Self-publishing gives you 100% creative control over your book. 

Often, traditional publishers don’t give authors final say on the cover, title, or even final edits of the copy.  For many authors, this simply isn’t acceptable and traditional publishing becomes an endless process of frustration.  Conversely, it is this complete control over the content that makes some authors nervous.  Not to worry, there are many experts that can guide a new author to how to create a bestselling cover, book layout, and even editing.  The important thing to remember is that as a self-published author, you have the final say.

3. Self-publishing is also a highly lucrative means of publishing. 

Not only do you make significantly more money per book than you will with a traditional publisher, you don’t have to pay your literary agent 15% of your earnings.  AND because you can get your book out to market much faster than traditional publishing, it can take up to two years to see your book on bookstore shelves, self-publishing means you can start making your millions much sooner.

Publishing and profiting from your own book is only limited by your imagination. Create a dream life from writing, self publishing and promoting your own book. It is easier than most people think.

Writing a book, regardless of the topic, genre, or content, will change your life. Following are three very important reasons you must write and publish you own book 

1. Writing a book will open up doors of opportunity that you never imagined.
 
I have a friend, who is a well-known brain and quantum physics expert with a PhD.  Only after she self-published her first book, did she say that her career really started to take off.   Not to mention that she made significantly more money simply due to the opportunities that opened up for her as an author.  She was amazed at what a difference publishing made in her life and that:  her title as an author trumped her PhD status.
It’s crazy, I know. She went to school for a total of 21 years at a cost of thousands of dollars and ended up achieving her financial goals only after she wrote and self-published her first book.

2. Your Self-Published book makes you the expert and gives you a substantial edge over your competition. 

Imagine that you just bought a new, and very rowdy, puppy and you need help training him.  Searching the local dog trainers, you find one who has written a book on how to train difficult dogs and you find another trainer with a similar resume but no book under his belt. 

Who do you turn to? 

Most people will hire the dog trainer that has written the book. 

This is the way that the world works.  Those professionals with the title of “Author” are perceived as the experts.  Your book will sell your knowledge, services or products, for you.  You’ll never have to make a cold call again.  Imagine saying to a client that is inquiring about your product or services, “Let me send you my book.” 

3. Your Self-Published book enables you, as an expert, to share your knowledge to the world. 

When you write and self publish your book, you have full control over the contents.  You are the creator and you can express your points in any way you like. This allows you the freedom to convey your thoughts through words and/or illustrations. 

As a writer, you have the ability to create words that paint a picture or spark the imagination of your readers in a way that no other tool can.  Words are powerful, as is knowledge, and you can use your book to express both.

Additionally, if your book is written with the purpose of offering a benefit or helping people solve a problem, then your self-published book and your knowledge are helping others.  It doesn’t get better than being able to make a great living helping others live better lives.